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MONOLOGUES
BY
RICHARD MIDDLETON
NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
1914
of.^'^
^^%^
77
{All rights reserved.)
CONTENTS
I
PAGE
THE DECAY OF THE ESSAY
.9
II
THE TTKANNY OF THE UGLY
.19
III
THE TRUE BOHEMIA
.25
IV
DREAMING AS AN ART
ON FACTS
.33
.41
VI
ON KNOWING LONDON
.49
VII
THE POET AND THE PEOPLE
56
CONTENTS
VIII
PAGE
PENSIONS FOR POETS
HOW TO BE
.65
.74
.82
.91
IX
A POET
X
TBAITORS OF ART
XI
SUICIDE AND THE STATE
XII
THE AGE OF DISENCHANTMENT
.99
......
XIII
ON DREAMS
107
XIV
NEW
year's eve
.116
....
....
XV
WHY WOMEN
FAIL IN ART
124
XVI
AN ELECTION-TIDE DREAM
133
CONTENTS
XVII
PAGE
THE NEW SEX
......
142
XVIII
ON EDITOKS
152
XIX
THE BEVOLT OF THE PHILISTINES
161
170
XX
THE VIRTUES OF GETTING DRUNK
....
XXI
THE VERDICT OP POSTERITY
179
XXII
IS
ENGLAND DECADENT
....
188
XXIII
UNCOMFORTABLE SPRING
198
XXIV
THE PHILOSOPHY OF GAMBLING
.....
207
XXV
THE POET WHO WAS
216
CONTENTS
....
XXVI
THE GIFT OF APPRECIATION
.....
......
.....
FAGB
224
XXVII
POETS AND CEITICS
232
XXVIII
MONTJOIE
241
XXIX
SUMMER HOLIDAY
....
251
XXX
COMMEKCIAL LITERATURE
261
XXXI
A MONOLOGUE ON LOVE SONGS
....
269
XXXII
CONVERSATIONAL MISERS
279
Thanks are due to tlie Editors of " The Academy " and " Vanity
Fair'* for permission to reprint most of the essays in this volume.
MONOLOGUES
I

Owing
and
to the general laxity
women
with which
men
use the language they inherit,
words are apt
in the course of years
to
be
broadened and coarsened in their meaning.

Striving against this tendency, every scrupulous writer is in danger of robbing
of a part of their birthright
of
letting
them mean too much he makes
them mean too little.

the popular meaning
Ultimately, of course,
prevails,
our fountain-pens in vain
who
and we suck
seek to pre-
serve a kind of verbal aristocracy

is
a pleasant
game while
no one any harm.

For instance, there
It is
words
through fear
is
used to-day loosely
it
lasts,
and
but
it
it
does
word " essay."

mean almost any
this
to
10
MONOLOGUES
kind of prose
article,
articles
ture
when such
especially
are rescued from periodical litera-
and
reprinted
Chesterton's
book
in
twisted
Mr.
form.
are
allegories
essays,
and so are Mr. Lucas's pleasant pilferings

from queer books, and Mr. Shaw's dramatic
So,
criticisms.
too,
for
matter,
that
are
Earle's characters, and the Roger de Coverley
and Swinburne's laudations of the

Elizabethan dramatists.
Confronted with
this embarrassing promiscuity, the critic who
papers,
really
" essay "
wishes the word
something
is
forced
give
to
arbitrary meaning, and this

to
do in choosing a
for
title
say that the art of writing
it
mean
to
purely
have ventured
my
little
lament.
To
articles for
the newspapers and republishing them in

modest volumes is decaying would be absurd
but to say that at the present time very few
;
people are trying to write like Charles

is
patently true.
Lamb
To me, essays are such

humane and agreeas we find in the works of
leisurely expressions of a
able personality
Elia.
They may
of
and rhapsodize and
criticize
narrate, but the reader

the individuality
is
that
always conscious
controls the
pen.

A
medium
fit
of
expression
11
tranquil
for
minds, tiiey reveal with a careless generosity
mind emotions and placid processes of

thought that give them birth. The delicatelythe
reader
flattered
no
guarding
essayist
chamber of
Bluebeard's
is
the
far as the hospitable writer has
As
mind.
the
that
feels
himself explored
so far are
it,
its
dim
corri-
dors open to his inquiring eyes.
is
For of all forms of artistic expression, this

It
the most personal and self -revealing.
might be described as the art of expression

A bad
in dressing-gown and carpet-slippers.
man, if there be any bad men, might endeavour to express a moment of his criminal
life
highly
reflect
is
the
sonnet
in
romance
of
it
humanity
in his
work
in
own
spirit,
weaknesses,
hand,
short
have,
my
seek to
person.
Yet this
are
vices
general to
lost
"
or
story
hope, think too
"
of the essayist.
he says with
my
or
but he would,
These
fear,"
my
meannesses,
but,
on the other
think, these trivial virtues.
Perhaps there are other men
bad man could write
like
like that
me
"
!
No
he would
rather believe himself unique in his villainy.
MONOLOGUES
12
And
men
this brings
me
quaUty that leads
to the
Being
to write essays.
men
of leisurely
might naturally be presumed that

they would be satisfied with dreaming, and
that they would leave the drudgery of writmind,
it
men
ing to
to
me
But
of action.
that the true essayist is a
He
with a great loneliness.

being
number
generous
of acquaintances
surpass his
own
not discover in
those rarer beings
own
who
troubled
fellows,
share and even
personal
who
man
his
special virtues
his
apparent
finds, doubtless,
of
lover
is
it
but he can-
environment
should also disclose
and these are the

men above all others with whom he wishes
So he takes pen and
to come in contact.
paper, and, setting down his faults and his
his
delicate vices
merits with a high fairness, stretches, as
it
were, a pair of appealing hands to his comrades in the world. This habit of analysing
his own weakness gives him an introspective
turn of mind.
He
is
always lying in wait
to catch himself tripping
but he would not
have you ignore the other side of his charhe wishes to be fair to himself and
acter
;
honourable
to
you.
He
prepares a kind of
13
balance-sheet for Judgment Day, and he
above
anxious that
things
all
is
should be
it
His heart, to use a worthily hack-
correct.
neyed phrase,
in
is
his
work, and he ap-
points humanity his auditor.
men
Essays are written by leisurely

as
for
You cannot read Lamb

romance passionately tearThe words flow smoothly
readers.
leisurely
you read a
ing the
pages.
across the printed pages, and you drift comfortably with the current, pausing here and
there, as doubtless
Lamb
paused in the writ-
dream in some twilit backwater of

The nominal purpose of the
thought.
to
ing,
may
voyage
pose
be
trifling
but
as splendid as all high
is
deavour.
adventure
true pur-
its
human
en-
We
do not really dare the great
in
order
to
Lamb
Charles
see
dreaming over the crackling of roast pork,

or Mr.
Max Beerbohm
of his hat-box.
and we,
out,
too,
like
ourselves,
that
of
we
our
all
in rapt contemplation
Our autumn has
its
great
and our
explorers,
common
in
pork,
We
have our hat-boxes.
set
search of
sense
tells
us
are most likely to get authentic news

destination
from
the
intellectual
MONOLOGUES
14
the
of
honest^^
Theirs
essayists.
is
the
seasoned wisdom and ripe authority of old
and we realize
that our road
travellers,
log-books
greatly
from
the journey
shall
know
reading their
does
Perhaps
theirs.
we
in
not
at the
differ
end of
that all roads are
one.
I
the
suppose
that,
using the
sense
restricted
word
" essay " in
have suggested, the
numbered on
one of them still
great essayists might easily be

a
baby's
and,
toes,
flourishes, the
as
decay that has overtaken this
form of expression may not be immediately

But in the past there has always
obvious.
been a host of minor essayists, writers who
might
not
achieve
great
partnership
between their hearts and their pens, but who
work
nevertheless, and it is
minor writers of essays
from the number of our modern authors that
did agreeable
the absence of these
alarms me.
It
is
Charles Lamb, but
true
I
that
we have our
look in vain for our
Nor can we let ourselves be

with some of the very able work
Leigh Hunt.
put
off
and has the

outward apand
general
shape and length
that
appears
in
periodicals,

pearance
real
of
15
Journalism
essaj^s.
is
growing more impersonal, though by no

means less egoistic, and you may search the
writings even of our individual journalists,
such as Mr. Chesterton and Mr. Lucas, Mr.

Benson and Mr. Belloc, in vain for a decent
confession
of
true they set
personal
down
weaknesses.
It
is
their pettj^ private vices
no one who even pretends

can help doing that
but
write essays
to
they
make them
appear either humorously criminal, or like

so many virtues in disguise, and we have
seen
your true essayist
that
sinner nor a saint, but just a

like
his
ashamed
pockets
readers.
So
while
is
neither
common man
we who are
of the skeletons in our waistcoat-
may
read
the
writings
of
these
gentlemen for their wit and cleverness, we

will continue to turn to Lamb and Montaigne
sympathy and advice. They will bring

us to the place where dreams blend with
realities, and action puts on the gentle gown
for
of thought.
The
in
the
fact
is,
literal
bad journalism
sense of that elastic word,
that essays are
because they take no count of time, while
it

MONOLOGUES
16
i.s
function
the
journalism
of
A good
heart out of to-day.
and
start
eternity
end
it
lessness of
the
essay should
moment
in
tear
to
long
as
as
should have the apparent aim-
life,
and, like
should have
life, it
secret purpose. Perhaps the perfect essay

would take exactly a lifetime to write and'
exactly a lifetime to comprehend
hut, in
its
cling to my restricted
word ignore time and even
their essence, essays
sense
the
of
negate
trains
The3^ cannot be read in railway
it.
by
travellers
who
intend to get out at
mere thought
a certain station, for the
destination
settled
prevent the reader
will
from achieving the proper
Nor can they be
mind.
hood, for a
man who
of a
leisurely
frame of
written for a
sits
down
essay should be careless as
to
liveli-
write an
to
whether his
task shall ever be finished or not.

It
may
be said confidently that few persons
write like this to-day

jected
by
sticklers for
it
may
few persons ha ever written

I
am
whom
that
willing
I
to
agree.
have described
ideal
which
less
even be ob-
accuracy in
is
titles
that
like this,
and
But the essayist

the perfect type
gifted
men can
only

pursue
the brink of their graves
to
while in some measure

ideal
of
17
periodical
this
writers
and
was always the

the
in
past,
it
no wise the ideal of the

They do not wish to
journalists of to-day.
certainly
in
is
write sympathetically
of
themselves
they
cannot linger with leisurely trains of thought.

Breathless
dogmatic knowledge,
assurance,
and a profusion of capital
"
we
" s
help them
to sing their realization of the glories of to-
day,
their
their
passionate belief in the future,
indifferent
contempt
These are, they tell us, days of

dreamers can have but short
common -sense world. Probably
but
not
make
and
the
for
past.
action,
shrift
and
in
this is true,
notice that the literature of action does

its
women
readers very comfortable.
Men
are growing weary-eyed these
days,
and their
feet
tired
runners.
Their
stumble
voices
like
those of
are
growing
hoarse from shouting energetic prophecies
and their
unending task of
into the deaf ears of the future,
hands are sore from their

holding the round earth in
its
place.
They
cannot dream because they will not allow

themselves to sleep.
2
MONOLOGUES
18
may be
It
that
morbid, but
sometimes think
can detect a note of wistfulness in the
eyes of
my
neighbours in
life,
when they
them stray from their newspapers to rest

for a moment on the leaves of my book.
Once I discovered a tear on the cheek of
a clerk in the city, and I taxed him with this
let
mark
of treachery to the
me
life
of action
but
sorrow was due to

the low price of Consols. It may have been
I do not know.
But one of these days our
journalists will have to stop to take breath,
and in the universal holiday perhaps some
of their readers will have time to write
he assured
that his
essays.
II
THE TYRANNY OF THE UGLY

When
of
beauty and value of
tlie
young man
that he should be
ness
of
that
He
have forced upon him.
it
is
his
sense
natural
ugli-
ancestors
finds in the civi-
he has had no place in devising,
a tyranny against which
impossible
life,
to a
overwhelmed by the
inheritance
the
lization that
awakens
first
to
make any
it
appears almost
resistance, a
dogma
which he is told every one except a young

fool must accept as a truth, a law the breaking of which will number him beyond
redemption among the criminal or the insane.
It
may be
that in the first joy of his appre-
ciation of the beautiful, he will think that

his life
and the
life
of
any
man may
best
be passed in the cultivation of a keener sense

of beauty, that, to put
19
it
in a concrete form,
MONOLOGUES
20
it
better
is
to
grow and
roses in
love
cottage garden than to reign in an umbrella
factory
but this briefest of the allusions
of youth will be shattered forthwith by
appears
to
be the
man
that a
first
law of
what
civilized life,
can only earn his living by the
manufacture of ugliness.
It
is
probable that in his bitterness the
young man
will
turn for comfort to those
latter-day prophets and philosophers whose

wisdom perhaps may have solved a problem
which seems to him beyond hope, but he will
certainly be disappointed. On the one hand
men
of the day devising
proper
management and
he will find the wise
schemes
control
for
of
the
umbrella factories with a view
on the other
them sighing for the roses of
mediaevalism, or proving by ingenious paradox that clear vision can find the Middle
to
the greatest public good
he
will
Ages
find
even
now
in
the
lesser
streets
of
Balham. For our prophets and our philosophers have forgotten that they were ever
young, and with the passing years their ideal
world has become a sort of placid alms-house,
free from draughts and disturbances, a place
21
where the aged and infirm can sit at ease

and scheme little revolutions on a sound
conservative basis, without any jarring note
of laughter or discord of the hot blood of
young man must

turn to the poets, and find what comfort
he may in the knowledge that there are
others who have felt and feel even as he,
that there are others who have wondered
whether the best of a man's life should be
And
the young.
the
so
spent in paying for the blotting out of nature
with unsightly lumps of brick and
steel,
in
aiding in the manufacture of necessaries that
are not necessary, in repeating stupidly the
ugly crimes of yesterday in order to crush

the spirit of his children and his children's
children.
Of course it may be said that this love

on the part of a young man is
morbid and unnatural, and the just consequence of an unwise or defiant education,
of beauty
for
civilization,
cunning,
has
with
somewhat ignoble
guarded
against
possible
treachery on the part of her children, by

causing them to be taught only such things
as
may
lead
them
to
her willing service.
MONOLOGUES
22
It
is
unnecessary
is
that
the
which wornot encouraged in our
dangerous revolutionary
ships lovely things
out
point
to
spirit
national schools.
The children
are taught to cut
up flowers and
of the State
to call the
fragments by cunning names, but they are

not invited to love them for their beauty.
They can draw you

line from Fishguard
glibly
map
of the railway
London, and prattle

of imports and exports, and the poputo
lations of distant countries, but they
know
nothing of the natural beauties of the places

they name, nor even of such claims as there
are in the city in which they
lips lisp dates
live.
Their
and the dry husks of history,
but they have no knowledge of the splendid

pageant of bygone kingdoms and dead races.
Nor in our public life, which might better

be named our public death, is there shown
any greater regard for the
the
that
of the
Heedless of the advice of
artists,
parents than there
children.
spiritual side of
for
is
the ignorant and uncultured

bition
alone
has
placed
men whom am-
in
responsible
position, will ruin the design of a street for
the sake of a few pieces of silver, and for

the fear that the spending of public
23
money
on making London beautiful may endanger

their seats at the next election with honest
who have
learnt their lesson of ugli-
ness only too well.
The cheaper newspapers,
electors
which alone are read by the people as a

whole, seek out and dilate on ugliness with
passionate ingenuity, and even those papers
which appear to be read by the more
leisured classes, find no disgrace in filling
five columns with the account of a bestial
murder, and in compressing the speech
of a great man of letters into a meagre
five lines.
man
Where, then, can a young

beauty in the
of to-day?
life
have said above, in
literature,
seek for
Only,
ture
if it
make
be not
it
and only there
because the mere writing of a book

sufficient to
as
is
not
a contribution to litera-
at the
sion of that beauty of

of our rulers, eternal.
same time an expreslife which is, in spite

For there are ugly
books enough, and there are a multitude of

ugly writers to swell their numbers, but our
critics,
when
they
their labours vain
are
;
honest,
can render
and though there
is
an
24
MONOLOGUES
when such a
daring word, the word
outcry in the camps of the

critic
has spoken his
ugly,
has been spoken, and the book

to the shelves of the folk
trash.
But our
critics
who
is
dismissed
care for such
must be honest.
Ill
THE TRUE BOHEMIA

It
not too
is
much
say that in the view
to
Bohemianism
of ordinary persons
and,
moreover,
They
see that as a class
a pose,
troublesome
very
is
pose.
Bohemians are care-
less in their dress, eccentric in their
morals,
and fonder of literature than seems proper

;
and, not content with
thej^
conclude with a natural
reasonable folk
to
being annoyed,
but hardly intelligent egoism that this neglect

of the conventions
of
Bohemia
is
on the part
adopted solely for the purpose
of annoying aliens.
not
prevail
alone,
of the natives
This error, which does
among
unintellectual
were pardonable
if
immediately conclude that
people
the sedate did not

this "
pose
" is it-
Bohemianism, and that therefore if you

could make a Bohemian put on a clean collar,
discard his library of poets, and attend a
self
2S
MONOLOGUES
26
series of Salvationist meetings,
once change him
to
you would
at
a respectable ratepayer
with a sitting in a chapel and a decent villa

a
in
decent back-street of Philistia.
In a
word, they confuse the external manifestations of the
Bohemian
spirit
with that spirit
itself.
It must be a matter of regret to every
one who has the Bohemian interests at heart
on the
that Stevenson never wrote an essay
His sympathy and admiration for
subject.
youth
as
exactlj^ qualified
is
it
believe
it
him
for the task,
and
be possible to state
to
Bohemian position very well by quoting

from his books. Always self-conscious, he
the
never wrote about vouth without casting a

forgiving eye on his own, which was, in spite
weak
of his
chism, essentially
it
in
was, therefore,
my
"
and the Shorter Catethat of a Bohemian.

And
health
to his
writings that
turned
search for a definition.
Youth,"
he writes somewhere,
"
taking
fortune by the beard, demands joy like a

right "
and the essay
Age and Youth,"

is
in "
entitled
"
Crabbed
Virginibus Puerisque,"
a spirited defence of those illogical enthu-
THE TRUE BOHEMIA
Bohemians, and
siasms that are so dear
to
much condemned
any
so
in
27
man
"
Youth is the time to go flashing from

one end of the world to the other both in
mind and body to try the manners of different nations
to hear the chimes at midnight
to see sunrise in town and country
;
be converted
to
navigate
day long
at
feel
metaphysics,
run a mile
verses,
all
the
to
to
circum-
write
halting
revival
and wait
see a girl,
Hernani."
at the theatre to see
that
these two
quotations
the root of the matter, and

to suggest that the
would venture
Bohemian
contain
is
the
demands joy most
passionately^
thusiasms are least
logical,
man who
whose en-
in fact that the
Bohemian
spirit is the quintessence of
fulness.
Thence
follows
as
matter
course the acceptance of the motto

Life's sake," that effort to obtain
moment
life,
of
" Life for
from every
of existence a perfect expression of
which
stirs the
sense of his
most
youth
trivial
own
Bohemian
vitality,
to a
constant
and lends
to
his
actions an air of consciousness
must needs be interpreted by the sleepers and the half-dead as

so manifest that they
MONOLOGUES
28
fragments of an indecently scornful

Full of a sense that he
is
for his old age, he tastes
life
pose.
making history
man
as a
wine, and he mixes his drinks
tastes
so that
if
you see him roystering in a tavern to-day

you may depend upon it he will be reading
fairy-stories
to
a nurseryful
of babies
to-
morrow.
Of course, the charge of selfishness may
be brought against this ideal of Bohemia,
has been brought against every
man's heart has ever coveted. But
it must be allowed that the Bohemian has
certain very definite and admirable human
as
just
it
ideal that
qualities in a
make
marked
sacrifices,
He
degree.
though, as
may
loves to
be said of
others besides Bohemians, he had, perhaps,

rather do good to his neighbour than that
his
neighbour should be done good
to.
He
has a passionate fondness for beauty, and
an aptitude for discovering

places.
Finding
likes himself are
how
often
in
it
the
unlikely
things
he
condemned, he achieves a
youthful tolerance only lacking in discrimination.

ance,
And, having regard

every
honest
to
intelligent
this
toler-
young man
THE TRUE BOHEMIA

ought
to
be thus far a Bohemian, for he can
condemn nothing
impulse, and of
intellectual
all
knowledge but only of

things he should
priggishness most.
of
the
spurs, and the
hood
of
The
hate
experi-
come and he must drop out of the
ence will
number
29
will
elect,
but he has
glamour of
won
his
his genial knight-
be with him for ever.
were wise if, as our promising youths were once wont to make the
Grand Tour before settling down to the business of life, they were now, one and all,
to visit this bitter-sweet country of Bohemia sweet because it is the ultimate expression of youth, bitter because, like youth itself, it is evanescent.
For, as a reformed
spendthrift makes the best of misers, so a
man who once upon a time has lived ten
years of his life in one eager year may be
And, indeed,
it
trusted to exercise a just discretion in the

difficult
further,
man
matter of living ever after.
Bohemia
can
supply
is
those
And
school
in
which a
parts
of
learning
which his more formal education will not

have touched. He may learn here the merits
and defects of excess, the critical value of
MONOLOGUES
30
laughter,
country
we
and
breadth
the
call
life,
glory
of
the
the cheerful habit of
open speech, the joys of comradeship and

the necessity of examining a convention
before accepting
it,
even
his great-grand-
if
and found it good before

him. He will become wise in drink, careless in tobacco, and tolerant of bad food if
father has tried
only
it
be cheap.
it
poets recite their
From hearing unknown

own verses he will learn
that there is a wealth of unpublished poetry

in the land, that there are other
himself and the handful
Who,"
even
for
it
if
whom
life
men
besides
of poets in "
Who's
beautiful
story
is
have no moral.
And perhaps,
come to believe
most necessary of all, he will

that knowledge itself is of small account, but
that in the power to learn lies the strength
of a man's mind.
Perhaps not all the Bohemians with whom
he
may come
For
in contact will be to his liking.
here, as elsewhere,
latans, since the
Bohemia
fall
is
you
will find char-
one vice undreamed of in
shrewdness, and the inhabitants
an easy prey for a time.
which
demands
constant
But a State
sacrifices
of
its
THE TRUE BOHEMIA
31
children cannot content knaves long, and they
soon scuttle back to their kin with pocketbooks stuffed with lies and an air of happy
Then,
escape.
too, the saddest thing in all
Bohemia, the old Bohemians, the Peter Pans
who
of
grow
will not
mind
for
may
up,
while
and their
wantonly missed.
jollity
air
with
quite
reckless
their
of great opportunities
But so benign a
does Bohemia inspire in

is
disturb his peace
its
spirit
patriots that
probable that they will
it
him
lead
and warn him against permitting his

adventures to become habits, with pointed
And on the
references to their own lives.
whole he will spend the happiest time in
his life.
He may be in London, or Paris,
aside
or
Belfast
Bohemia
does not matter where, for
it
exists
where Bohemians
cafes or suburbs have as
the true
Bohemian
spirit
and neglected barbers.

is
one
vision
are,
do with
to
little
as untidy clothes
Of course, unless he
man
out of a hundred, the splendid
will
pass
and he
will
find
himself
But by
facing civilization itself in the end.
then
and
he will
be
equipped
with
all
those
weapons of wisdom and tolerance
that
Bohe-
MONOLOGUES
32
mia provides for its knights, nor shall he

lose the old faith and the old wonder, though
time has proved that the
eagerly
was
Yes, for
itself
all
life
he sought so
a dream.
save the unfortunate
it
must
and yet as I sit in my castle in

Bohemia and write these lines I hear the
songs of the citizens rising from the street
and their laughter echoing among the housetops, and I dread the day when my palaces
shall change to factories and my domes to
pass
chimneys and
truth
no more.
shall
be
able
to
see
the
IV
DREAMING AS AN ART
It
is
sometimes pleasant, when the
facts of
annoy us, to remember that

we are only dreamers in a world of dreams.
Our dreams are no less real to our minds
than our waking adventures, and it is only
life
begin to
chance that has led us
to exaggerate the
im-
portance of the one at the expense of the

other.
If
poets had been of any importance
in the earlier
easily
days of the world,
have come
to
we might
consider our waking
life
as a pleasant period of rest for the emotions,
while
cultivating
their roses
our dream
became
like
pastures,
till
crimson domes and
their lilies like silver towers
under the
stars.
But the hard-headed men who could throw,

brick-bats farther than their neighbours had,
I
presume, the ordering of events in those
far
dim days, and therefore to-day we

3
all
33
MONOLOGUES
34
and scoff at ghosts

we
enjoy smoking-room stories and yawn at
dreams. I might almost have added that we
knight the throwers of brick-bats and starve
the majority of the poets, but I would be the
last to deny the justice of this arrangement,
for if the former class has taken the day-
believe in
light
tables
earth
to
itself,
their treasuries the
title
the
hold
poets
deeds of the
fertile
pastures and purple mountains of sleep.
know who is the richer.

And if our dreams pass with
in
the morning,
no less true that our realities pass with

We see a man fall
the coming of sleep.
asleep in a railway carriage, and our illusory
it
is
faculties tell us that
who
he himself,
too well
he
is
still
should surely know,
aware that he
is
he
will
return
is
only
being chased by
a mad, white bull across the
Probably
there, while
Bay
to
of Biscay,
the
railway
carriage presently, but meanwhile the bull
and the blue waters are as true for him as

his stertorous body is for us who lament
his snoring.
impressions
The
point
And why should we

to
is
prefer our
his?
important, because in sup-
DREAMING AS AN ART
porting
claims
the
against those of our
of
"
should soon come
throws some
cessful in
to
neces-
man who
says
grief
if
both worlds.
We
took to
of
histories
be suc-
to
all
(and this
fact
on the life
seems impossible
light
it
world
life it is
As a matter of
dreaming."
our poets)
dream
the
waking
sary to meet the case of the
35
know
the
earthly troubles that overtake dreamers, and
am
wager that your Jew millionaire goes bankrupt half a dozen times a night
in his sleep, where all his yellow money
cannot save him. Probably, if you cultivate
the art of dreaming, you will pay for it
under the sun, but whereas our chances on
the earth are limited by our opportunities,
the lands of sleep are boundless and our
holding is only limited by our capacity for
dreaming. There are no trusts in dreams.
Next it is necessary to consider how far
it is
possible to command our dreams at
will, and this, I think, is very largely a
I
willing to
matter of practice.
At
people would think a
he
could
first
hearing, most
man who
dream when and,
to
said that
certain
degree, whatever he wanted, untruthful.
But
MONOLOGUES
36
opium on
the effects of
are
known
the practised eater
every one, and cucumber and
to
lobster salads have been calculated in terms

of nightmares to a nicety,
cating these
more
and while depre-
violent stimulants,
am
sure that by choosing a judicious daylight
environment, the will can be brought
to
bear
almost directly on our midnight adventures.

I
may
refer,
in
support
of
this,
to
the
number of instances quoted in Mr. Lang's

" Book of Dreams and Ghosts," of persons
which had
them when they were awake.
To any one who wishes to dream pleasant,
solving problems in their sleep

baffled
if
unoriginal, dreams,
life
of intellectual
idleness.
The
should recommend
rather than emotional
theatre,
music,
flowers
and
novels of a badly-written, exciting character

are
all
serviceable for this kind of dreamer,
and he or she should cultivate a habit of

wandering and incoherent thought. The rest,
as I have suggested, is a matter of will, but
I
to
warn
the
unwary
that the results are apt
be surprising.
For, after
all,
except possibly in certain
cases of insanity, the two worlds overlap but
DREAMING AS AN ART
37
we can recall a small

chapter of the dream we have dreamed, and
in our sleep we retain a little of our waking
wisdom, and that is all. From the splendid
slightly.
Usually
garden in which you wandered
night
last
you brought away nothing perhaps but a

flower or two, broken in waking. To-night
you may be flying about the house-tops as
if you had never accepted the law of gravity
And as you may not now recall
as a fact.
the laws which govern your kingdom of
sleep, you can only suggest a course for your
movements
of
finding
yourself engaged in a series of very
uncom-
therein,
at
risk
the
fortable adventures.
Owing
dream short
after
stories
Robert Louis Stevenson,
commit
two
lent details.
learnt that for

I
effort to
manner
of
to
brutal
murders,
lifelike
but repel-
know
better
me
is
it
an
was compelled
singularly
touched with a number of
to
the
now, for
have
a rule of sleep that
should take the leading part myself, even
though, oddly enough, the dream
work
of art so
far as to
back and
alter incidents
with the
latter
part
allow
is
still
me
to
which do not
of the
story.
fit
go
in
may
MONOLOGUES
38
add
that,
owing
which binds
to
the extraordinary logic
my movements when
asleep, the
stories are hardly ever any good from a

waking point of view, but the dreams are
agreeable because I have a subconscious glow
of self-congratulation on the vast quantity
of
work
that
am
doing.
think
possible
it
glow
that all very lazy people have this

their dreams, for this
would account
in
for the
quite
immoral happiness of the habitually
idle.
Moreover,
constitutes a quite reason-
it
one can
be expected to work all round the clock, and
if
a prince has been opening imaginary
bazaars all night, you cannot ask him to
able
for no
defence for laziness,
lay real foundation-stones
and
do,
men
punish
all
day.
We
preferring
for
can,
their
labours in the other world to their labours

in this
we have no
but
right to call
foolish as well as criminal.
them
Rebels against
the conventional must be corrected to satisfy

the
majority
that
narrow-minded
to
it
is
right
but
it
is
They may
where dreams
despise them.
be tyrants in the dim places

are born.
And
this
brings
me
to
the
whole moral
DREAMING AS AN ART
39
aspect of dreams and dreaming, a point on
which
article.
would
It
gladly
write
complete
has often been noticed that in
dreams we have no sense of right or wrong

but as we have also no control over our
actions, it would seem that it would not
make much difference if we had that sense.
Our movements appear to be guided by a
will outside our own bodies, and to a certain
;
extent, at all events, this will is the will of
normal daylight man. It is quite possible

to regard our dreams as a kind of dramatic
commentary on our waking life, or as an
expression of the emotions which the intelthe
lect
has forced us
If this
be so,
we
to
suppress in that
ourselves are
more
life.
real in
dreams than we are when awake, however

fantastic or ridiculous those dreams may
appear
to
our conventional minds. And
last art of living is to
if
the
express ourselves as
we
would seem that the whole duty of

man is to dream. Perhaps when we have
at last come to understand ourselves well
enough to complete a Utopia, our unconare,
it
ventional lives will be devoted to a
number
of simple daily preparations for the full en-
40
MONOLOGUES
joyment of the dim world which I believe

we can make as we will, and perhaps our
true reward for the pains and uncertainties
of our little lives is the place where beauty
and joy follow desire as the night follows
the day.
ON FACTS
Once upon
to the
a time a small
boy was appointed
honourable position of lift-boy in one
of those amazing blocks of flats
which
insult
the blue sky from the northern heights of
One
London.
of his duties
was the
calling
and he was entrusted with a whistle

" You blow once for a
for that purpose.
four-wheeler, twice for a hansom, and three
of cabs,
"
times for a taxi," said his instructor.

if I
blow four times?
"
queried the boy,
was
of an adventurous turn.
the
man,
hearse
fell
to
"
"
Ah
" replied
"
you blow four times

Time passed, and, while
the boy's lot to
fill
And
who
for
it
often
the street with
yearning appeals for cabs, Death must have

spared the mansions, for the boy was never
asked to call a hearse.
Sometimes, in fun,
he would place his whistle

41
to
his lips
and
MONOLOGUES
42
endeavour
to
sound
four
blasts,
but
his
him after the third,

courage always
and these adventures would end merely in
failed
war-like dialogues with jobbing chauffeurs.
At length, as the boy stood in the street one

whistling
night
for
vainly
taxi-cab,
motor-car struck him from behind, and as

he
fell
street
the
with
fatal
its
fourth
blast
And
pain.
startled
later there
the
came
a hearse.
In the crinoline days, this story, with a
amendment, would have

judicious
little
become a truculent tract on the perils that
await the disobedient
so
much
sense,
it
only
motorists do not sound
over adventurous
now, when we have
little
suggests
that
their horns, they
if
run
lift-boys.
But perhaps I may be forgiven if I derive

from it the moral that the danger of being
dogmatic
lies
in the fact that other people
much more importance

to our dogmatisms than we do ourselves.
A man with a fondness for alliteration may
will
probably attach
pause in a nursery to remark that the fairies

of the future will be very fat, and then forget
all
about
it.
But
it
is
quite likely that he
ON FACTS
has
left
43
a nightmare of supernatural fat in
minds of the children, and that their

dreams will be disturbed with visions of
loathsome fairies with pantomime paunches
and financial chins. So various abhorrent
the
make
bogles used to
in
the darkness
our knickerbocker days, while the inge-
Olympians who had invented them
nious
went
about their pleasures.
blithely
we grow up we
true that as
ready with very
It
is
cease to accept
these purely sesthetic torments

is
hideous
but science
efficient substitutes.
Many
unhappy people drag out their wretched lives

on wholemeal bread and sterilized milk,
breathing but
little
for fear of microbes,
and
wearing garments of loathsome texture and

appearance, while their doctors carouse on
lobsters
amber
and radishes
silk.
in dressing-gowns of
philosopher
may
be a
hum-
bug, and even a Justice of the Peace
be immoral
but their oratorical
wisdom
may
will
pass for truth with many, and our publicists
can pay for their private vices by condemning

society for
its
sins.
Of course, men and women accept rules

because they appear to make life easier. The
MONOLOGUES
44
doctors tell us that if we get our feet wet

we catch a cold, and we believe them, because
we hope that by keeping our feet dry we
may be spared this calamity. But, in the
interests of their profession, the medical men
have chosen a cause which no ingenuity can
The
uncommon.
render
therefore,
would dishonour
this
believe that he only caught colds
was
Greenwich.
to the learned
but
sician,
of
eclipse
total
in
am
when
and
there
at
to listen patiently
arguments of
heart
rule,
sun visible
the
prepared
my
wise man,
really
my
family phy-
know
that the
and that it
is only after that fortunate event that Nature
moves herself to invent the disease. And,
if the doctors have afflicted me with neuralgia
and hereditary gout, I am well aware that
Samuel Smiles has made me lazy, and that
doctors discover the cure
certain
I
first,
dim moralists have made me
vicious.
bear these worthies no grudge for assail-
ing
my mind
in
its
experienced days, and
slaying the bold, bad rebel before he could

stretch
his
wings.
To-day
wear
clothes
bacon and eggs for my breakfast,

and perhaps one day I shall have a villa
and
eat
ON FACTS
45
my own
on the sunny side of the

Brixton Road. If they had not told me so
many comfortable things, I might who
knows? have eaten honeycomb on the
of
all
lower slopes of Parnassus.
my
bear
Yet
say that
kindly instructors no grudge.
There
a policeman in uniform before my door,

and no man may smite me with death before
that grim figure and escape punishment.
is
And
know
must not kill

those whose politics differ from mine
and
it is always a comfort in these complex days
to know exactly what we may not do.
therefore
that
have in
law-abiding
my mind
fellow
the picture of a poor,
who dropped dead
in
Regent's Park because he found that he had
innocently disobeyed a notice which forbade
him
walk on the newly -sown grass. For

years and years, I suppose, he had seen those
curt prohibitions, and never dreamed of
to
questioning their authority.
like to think
was sweetened with the

sweet wine which tints the lips of
rebels.
And perhaps there is a little envy
that his last breath
wild,
in the thought,
for
own
that
dare not
walk on the grass, even by accident.
In
MONOLOGUES
46
no paradox, for
truth, this is
my
flesh is so
overwhelmed by the vaUie of authority, that,

even though my brain wandered in moonlit
gardens, my legs would not disobey the
London County Council. It is so easy to
do what we are told, so hard to forget and
complex,
matter
there
make the
generally some
And,
begin the business afresh.

is
to
measure of reason in these artificial limitations.

Once on a wall at Hampstead I saw
written the
loveless
spirit
think,
sank
at
greyness, and
"
Alcohol limits
powers of the worker."
the productive
was,
truth,
fair
summer
mood
once in a
Omar
my
day, but
of
It
my
November
himself could not stay
sorrow that all our merry nights of wine

should end in this. The soul of the man who
first indited that bitter truth might rise no
more from the dregs, and even we who came
after were influenced by his penitent morbidity. Yet, on examination, the thing proves
Alcohol is but one of
to be but half true.
the thousand emotional stimulants that interfere with our work.
Love, flowers, the
spring winds everything that glows under
the skies is in the conspiracy against our
ON FACTS
absurd
could
labours
see
but the
47
fool,
nothing but the
suppose,
alcohol
in
the
avoiding of which lay his poor hope of salvation.
Yet he vâs as reasonable as most
dealers in dogma, and
see his
words
in
every joyous bottle.

Facts are rules to which the great
common
sense of the majority will allow no excep-
and the chief end of man would appear

be to impart facts to his neighbour. We
tions,
to
are even asked to believe that the accumulation of these tiresome limitations is a virtue
and their distribution a duty, and so there

are always anxious persons at our elbow to
tell us things which we do not wish to know.
There is a charming Scotch ballad, of which
the
first
line
runs,
"
waly, waly up the
bank," and Palgrave informs us gravely that

the root and pronunciation of the
word waly
are preserved in caterwaul
less crimi-
nally selfish
way
is
the
Only
man who
me the
robs me of
tells
to Camden Town, and thus

walk through an enchanted city.
Sometimes, looking at the sky on a fine
night, and remembering how Coleridge was
able to see a star within the horns of the
MONOLOGUES
48
moon, a feat no longer possible to well-informed persons, I wonder whether the next
intellectual
against
revolution
facts.
only be bad
easily be
to
blow
choked.
not be directed
Their influence on art can

their influence
measured
my
may
on man may
I want
in terms of fear.
whistle four times before
am
VI
ON KNOWING LONDON
There
are a great
London, and there

in favour of
of
London
little
is
knew
be said
the
way
mediaeval
own, and found it

There is the way of Mr.
who knows
and
who
Hueffer,
London on
of
to
There
better than his
E. V. Lucas,
is
of knowiriig
something
who
Besant,
again in Rouen.
houses,
is
of them.
all
Walter
many ways
has
about people's
and that of Mr. F. M.
threaded
the
a string like beads.
the useful
'buses
big,
all
man who knows
thrills
Then
of
there
the colours
and the characteristic smells of
and the botanist who can discover

window-boxes and roof-gardens where even
tubes,
the birds
may
frequent
the
is
hardly suspect them.
man
More
wise in taverns and those
queer cellars where dim persons play dominoes and drink
The
coffee.
specialized topo48
MONOLOGUES
50
graphical knowledge of policemen, cabmen,
and postmen is of a professional character,

and so is that of the flower-girls and the
gentlemen who pick up the tips of cigars
and cigarettes. I suppose the acrobats who
mend telephone -wires and the man on the
Monument who lets out

know more about the
pavements.
telescopes on hire,
than the
roof-tops
Theirs must be a London of
hazardous precipices and
little,
still
lakes,
of sooty solitudes and noisy craters.
But when the learning of these and a

hundred other classes of students has been
examined, there remains the interesting problem of the manner in which the normal,
unmethodical Londoner is acquainted with
his city.
He has been often blamed because
he does not rush round and see the sights,
It has been
like the rapt American tourist.
with a great deal of truth, that he does
said,
Tower
not
visit
ster
Abbey or the
the
a cab -horse
lies
London or WestminBritish Museum

yet when
of
down
in the Strand, a thing
happens every day, the police must work

to prevent a crowd of eager spectators
that
hard
from blocking the
street.
At
first sight this
ON KNOWING LONDON
51
seems blameworthy, and yet in truth a cabhorse reposing in the Strand is more repreof
sentative
public
modern London than

and
buildings,
sub -consciously realize
possibly
all
Londoners
Strangers are
this.
naturally anxious to see the things that
our
a fine
city
city
but
her
we who
make
call
it
home, are hungry for the things that make

our city London. We have seen cathedrals
and museums and picture-galleries in other
places, but our crowds, and our policemen,
and our cab -horses, are ours alone.
It is this familiarity with what may be
called
the
essential
details
of
London
life
knowledge of nine
and
the guide-book
Londoners out of
wisdom of a foreigner can hardly hope to
that constitutes the civic
ten,
rival
our
subtleties.
mies of the British

the pigeons at
not
his.
its
He may know
Museum very
the
mum-
well, but
gates are our brothers,
He may speak
and
learnedly of the
Great Fire and Christopher Wren, but he
has not dropped orange-pips from the top
Monument as a child. He may regard

the Embankment monolith with a mind
attuned to hieroglyphs, but he cannot know
of the
MONOLOGUES
52
children
the
that
Clara Patrick's Needle.

or their
like, that
we
Yet
it is
call
it
these things,
mind when we
and again, it would
call to
Now
think of London.
pavement
the
of
seem, London takes her infants by the hand,
and
it
moments
these rare
in
is
we
that
arrive at our finer knowledge of her ways.
something
It is
rama
is
have seen the great pano-
Hampstead Hill it
have steamed from Putney
unroll itself from
something
to
to
to
Southend on a straining tug

but for
the lights of the Euston Road in fog,
;
some
for
others
perhaps
uneasy
the
flicker
of
dawn on the flowers at Covent Garden,

hold more of London than it all.
And so this intimate knowledge of their
winter
city,
common
individual in
to all true
its
Londoners, becomes
direct expression.
remem-
ber a London shopkeeper, miserably convalescent at Hastings,
who showed me an
old
County Council tram-car that was used by

the fishermen for storing their nets on the
beach, and there were tears in his eyes
because
it still
southern
was
bore the
suburbs
in the north,
soft
and,
names
though
of beloved
my
with Euston and
heart
Hamp-
ON KNOWING LONDON
53
stead and Camden Town, I gave him my

sympathy freely. He told me that he liked
the smell of orange-peel, and was sorry that
the custom of eating the golden fruit in the
Though
galleries of theatres was dying out.
his tram-car had failed to appeal to me,
there was something in that to make me
I, too, had loved the smell of
home-sick.
oranges,
and,
answering his recollection,
saw Farringdon Market
drift out
along the
beach, and the light of the naphtha flares

pass in
smoke
to
the sea.
But
why had
no school books?
It
to
takes
give
more than oranges and tram-cars
definition
drawn on our
the
to
picture
we have
These things might
slates.
conceivably represent Manchester to an in-
and we are citizens

of London. It is rather from certain ecstatic
moments that we derive our impressions than
from any continuous emotional process.
Thus I have seen an escaped monkey sitting on the head of Robert Burns in the
habitant of that
city,
Embankment Gardens
have heard a tipsy
West End cafe

the women broke down and cried
boy sing so sweetly

that all
in a large
MONOLOGUES
54
I
my
have been roused from
policeman
seen
a neighbouring fire
that
find
to
my bedroom windows
had cracked
child
by a
sleep
have
blowing soap-bubbles in the
Strand and Olympic Americans showing
Bloomsbury
outside a
hotel
have seen
off
Mr. Bernard Shaw going westward with his

beard of
and
flax,
have heard Mr. G. K.
Chesterton laugh in a quiet street

a wild surmise on
at the
have
London gazing with
seen the merchants of
Mr. Brangwyn's fresco
From
Royal Exchange.
these and a
I have won
knowledge of London,
thousand other similar moments

in
my
some dim way
and though
not
may know
know her
better.
her longer
not the
It is
shall
number
of such spiritual adventures that counts, there

is
boy
a small
has had twice as
earl}^
age
I
Were
is
affect
it is
us
live in
rather the
and
at
astonish
to
to believe
We who
an
me
her capable
London know
the City of Infinite Possibilities.
a dragon to
we might
as
London ceased
had learnt
of anything.
that she
many
which they
extent to
because
Drury Lane Theatre who
at
regard
ramp
the
at
Westminster,
Abbey with a new
ON KNOWING LONDON
55
would not affect the Bank

and, knowing this, we go about our
rate
business with a calmness that moves lovers
but
interest,
it
of
patriotism to
local
patriotic,
when we
Yet
tears.
are not in London.
her kindly on the front
talk about
we
at
are
We
Brighton
on windy nights, and the man who said that

the Niagara Falls reminded him of the fountains in Trafalgar Square was not untypical
of her children.
To
the alien,
things,
not very well arranged.
at all events,
newly
London must remain

museum, full of interesting
suppose,
a kind of scattered
fallen
Yet once,
seemed to me that, to a man

from Scotland, there had been
it
granted a glimpse of the only London that

really
is
echoes
ours.
of
the
found him startling the
Adelphi
arches
laughter, and as he was alone
greatly mirthful,
his
"
with
his
in a place not
asked him a reason for
merriment.
Oh, I'm just laughing
said.
at
Glasgow," he
VII

A FEW weeks ago one of the impassioned
critics who tell posterity about books in the
Times
literary
supplement ventured
rebuke
to
a poet for remarking in his preface that few
people take
I
have
little
much
interest in
modern
which contained this

d' esprit, and my heart
lost the cutting
journalistic
jeii
sinks at the thought of searching for

in the files of the Times.
that
verse.
But
it
anew
may
say
could not help smiling at the noble
and sympathizing with

the dolorous plaint of the poet. Hardly anyone does take any interest in modern verse,
and this may be proved not only by looking at the boots of poets and the penny
ardour of the
critic,
boxes of secondhand booksellers, but also

from the most cursory examination of the
columns of the Times
itself.
56
Now
and again

it
57
has printed a political tract in rhyme from
the pen of Mr.
Kipling,
and
have some
dim recollection of other political tracts and

memorial couplets that have appeared in its
columns. But I have never suspected it of
any effort to print a poem because it was
good.
And
with
which it shares
morning papers, is suffi-
this lyrical reticence,
all
the other
ciently suggestive at the present time,
when
even our most dignified periodicals are fain

for that popularity
which has so much weight
with advertisers.
If the
ticket
heart of the season-
holder were capable of being stirred
by the rapt words of poets, we should see

our modern editors scaling Parnassus with
cheque-books in their hands, in search of
the
blithe
singers
they
now
successfully
With smiles and courteous phrases

on their lips they would ply Pegasus with
avoid.
him
to
titles
of
ingenious dopes of flattery to rouse
record-breaking
flights.
The
soft
poems would contend on the bills with the

names of criminals and co-respondents. We
should have the poet's criticism of the Cuptie
final
and
the
Boat
Race
and
Tariff
MONOLOGUES
58
We
Reform.
how he wrote
should hear
his
poems and what he had for his breakfast.

His photograph would figure in the advertisement columns, and he would tell us how he
cleaned his teeth and where he bought his
rouge.
In brief, he would be famous.
But as a matter of
fact the season-ticket
holder does not care a rap for poetry, and

the judicious
editor
is
at
pains to imitate
Only, since a newspaper must be cul-
him.
tured, he every
now and
then allows one of
young men to deal with a score of little

volumes in a column headed " Recent Verse,"
and it says something for the present-day
journalist that frequently the column is very
With the editor, in nine cases
well written.
his
out of ten a commercial
more or
wishes
less
of
his
man
successfully
customers,
to
I
endeavouring
interpret
shall
the
have no
further concern, but the case of the average
Englishman
is
more
interesting.
How
is
it
that he, a creature of flesh and blood, eating
and drinking and loving and breathing good

air,
does not care
to see his
am
to
expressed
terms?
meet the objection that
in its highest emotional
prepared
life

to-day
the
we have no
favour
of
For
cultured.
outstanding poet to win
majority
the
to
semi-
the
of
middle classes
in the past the
have been content
59
own
elect their
gods.
They preferred Byron and Walter Scott to

Keats and Shelley, and Tennyson and
Coventry Patmore at their worst to Browning
and Mr.
Swinburne.
think
it
may
we have not discovered a Keats

Browning among our living poets, but
be said that
or a
I
feel
sure that only encouragement
is
needed
produce a very good substitute for the

Byron of " Childe Harold " or the Tennyson
to
of the "
May Queen."
couragement that
is
But
it
is
lacking.
just this en-
It
is
not that
the general taste in poetry has improved
it
has rather died a natural death, so that
poet
is
put to
all
manner
of
shifts
to
win a hearing. A friend of mine has solved

the problem by visiting coffee-stalls in the
little hours of the morning, and giving cake
and coffee to the unemployed on condition
that
they listen to
his
sonnets.
would
rather read a sonnet to a body of loafers
than
to
the
occupants
of
second-class
carriage in a suburban morning train.
MONOLOGUES
60
And
in this preference there lies the heart
problem
of the present
class intellectual
who has
nassian colours,
it
made
it
has done
it
is
not
see
difficult to
When
so.
about the
critically
At mid-day his view of the weather
becomes introspective,
at
night prophetic.
a kind of inexact barometer.
pessimist
why he
he meets his neighbour
morning, he talks
weather.
is
deserted the Par-
his defection that has
is
impossible for a poet to earn a living
wage, and
in the
the middle-
is
it
he
welcomes
interrupts the rain
if
the
If
He
he be a
sunshine
that
an optimist he de-
plores the rain that interrupts the sunshine.
him is always a matter of

weather.
Now, and it is failure to realize
this that has made poets what they are, an
But
life
for
Englishman
he
is
talks about the
weather because
afraid to talk about anything else.
feels that in all
To
perils.
sociology
violent,
is
other topics there lurk vague
admire
scenery
But
is
affected,
drama
vulgar, politics
discussion
blasphemous,
coarse, the
religious
and so on.
He
to
remark
that
we
really
do have extraordinary weather in England

is
at
once good -citizenship and sound im-
61
perialism.
Therefore the poet, when he does
happen
reach the ears of the lords of
to
middle-class homes, annoys them very
much
by his un-English lack of reticence.

As every tradesman knows, there is a
fortune for any one who can please the great
middle-classes, and, as in a dream, I can
see a race of poets springing up and waxing
by means of their subtle power of expressing the real emotions of the backbone
of England.
They will make epics of wind
and rain and sudden hail, or in lighter mood
they will weave ballades of fog and triolets
fat
of
mud.
in the
way
Their works will be largely quoted
suburbs and on the platforms of
stations,
of the
and as
man
rail-
form part
To
curriculum of private schools.
know them will be

to own the weather
a
literature will
as
my dream
an
and
a sign of culture,
anthologies will stamp
intellectual.
Once more, so
runs ecstatically, poetry other than
limericks will be good form, provided always

that the poet observes his anti-cyclones
keeps a wise eye on his depressions.

will
and
Poets
have harems and motor-cars, and nice
things to eat and drink, and their poetry will
MONOLOGUES
62
now
not suffer, for even
the finer luxuries
of the rich are the mere necessaries of poets.

The Poet Laureate will have a larger income
than any of the able office-boys who form
governments.
By
virtue of his rank he will
be able to go to pantomimes and music-halls

paying
without
for
his
seat
or
his
pro-
gramme, and 'bus conductors will know him

He will form one of the select
by sight.
group of great men who answer the conundrums of the day. The Times will print
his verses.
Of course,
a
dream
this is
only a beautiful dream,
too beautiful to develop into a con-
crete fact.
And
it
must be recognized that
the responsibility for the present neglect of
poetry
word
lies
chiefly, in
efficiency,
Writing
once
an age that loves the
with the poets themselves.
before
upon
this
matter,
put forward the perfectly reasonable sugges-
have their poems sold

This would
in the streets at a penny each.
manifestly be good for the poets, and also
tion that poets should
for
the
happy English homes
their songs.
But
ing a correspondent
that
gained
only succeeded in draw-
who
accused
me
of en-

"shrieking versifiers."
coiiraging
mistrust the poet
body
who
utterly
does not want every-
read his poems, just as
to
63
who
utterly
about
the
dignity of povert}^, and does not want
lots
of
poet
the
mistrust
money
to
spend.
An
prates
without vanity
artist
and a poet
who does not long for every kind of emoTo live happily
tional excess is a coward.
in an attic nowadays, when money can buy
is
like a rocket
so
many
without a
stick,
different kinds of roses,
of a deficient imagination.
It
is
the sign
true that
is
the poet's strength lies in his dreams, but
he
can
leaves
wings
to sail
always start dreaming where
off.
;
if
If
life
he has a motor he will desire
he has an airship he will long
through the passionless seas of space.
You cannot weary a man of nectarines by

giving him apples.
And now, after, I fear, an excess of errant
flippancy, I come to my point. Poets must be
supported by the State, and handsomely supported in order that they
may
cultivate their
bitter-sweet disease to advantage.
calculate
that the cost of
one Dreadnought would pro-
vide an annual
sum
sufficient to
keep twenty
MONOLOGUES
64
Probably,
poets from emotional starvation.
England is what it is, they will have

to be chosen by competitive examination, but
once chosen they must have complete liberty
Probably
to waste their lives as they will.
since
three-quarters
content to
more
of
lead
them
pretty
will
lives
thereafter
be
write no
and
possibly the others will turn out a
few decent
lyrics.
But the moral
effect
of
State recognition of the value of poetry will
For the moment the middle
be enormous.
classes
discover
that
there
is
money
poetry, they will respect poets and
buy
in
their
works and their portraits. Surely this desirable end were cheaply attained at the cost of
one battleship
VIII
PENSIONS FOR POETS

A FEW weeks
I
ago
wrote an
lish
poets.
stated
my
the reader's sake, but
my
purpose of
that
to
article, in wtiich
suggested the wiiolesale pensioning of Eng-
own.
matter any one
case flippantly for
had quite a serious
think poets, or for
who
devotes his
life
the unremunerative production of beau-
should be handsomely supported
tiful things,
make
We
oil-cloth
reward the persons who

and umbrellas and things of
We
supply policemen to take care
by the
State.
that sort.
of their houses,
their
and Dreadnoughts
factories.
and
spoons,
let
We
to
defend
on their
them adopt the names of
put
crests
pleasant English villages in place of their
own.
souls
We
of
even create Bishops in case the
manufacturers
injured by their
own
should
machines.
5
have been
But for
?5
MONOLOGUES
66
who
the poets,
the
are really the designers of
umbrellas and
we do
oil -cloth
They have no
nothing whatever.
homes or
factories,
of to-morrow,
or spoons, and their souls
are beyond the reach of Bishops.
pensive
The
ex-
systems that guard our con-
little
ventions are merely tiresome limitations to
them.
All that
that they alone
we
I
we can give them is the gold

know how to spend, and this
withhold.
feel
a certain diffidence in approaching
John Davidson,
partly because nearly every one else who
has written about it has annoyed me, and
the
presumed
partly because
motive.
It
suicide
of
cannot quite understand his
has been assumed generally that
was lack
from
his
of money, and one might deduce
last letter that for another hundred or two
a year he would have been willing to continue living and writing poetry.
There is
something significant in the Wordsworthian
the immediate cause of his suicide
simplicity
of
that
ideal
designed before leaving

time.
Potato
pudding are
soup,
all
dinner
home
boiled
good things
for
beef,
in
that
the
and
their
he
last
rice
way,
PENSIONS FOR POETS

but the combination
the meal of a feeder
is
rather than an eater.

dignity in the
it
berries
man who
him no
holds for
but, in all
67
can find a certain

rejects life because
truffles
or April straw-
sympathy,
it is
ridiculous
commit suicide because one cannot have

enough rice pudding. Poets kill themselves
to
because they have not got ten thousand a
year with which to exhaust the emotional

concrete
of
possibilities
pleasure
would voluntarily cease from
no one
living for lack
of a plateful of potato soup.
And
me
it
was
this
consideration that
made
smile at Mr. William Watson's passion-
ately sympathetic letter to the Times.
land
does
whole,
it
starve
is
better
her
poets
that she
than that she should
but,
Engon the
should do
make them
so
a pauper's
allowance of boiled beef and rice pudding.
was Chatterton's stricken vanity and not

his hunger that made him hurry so, and I
feel that the same might almost be said of
Davidson. He was one of those unfortunate
It
people
to
who
convey
that
it
is
believe that they have a message
to the
world
forgetting, perhaps,
impossible to convey messages to
MONOLOGUES
68
a stomach.
The
prophet
cumulative, and in
is
imhonoured
bitterness of the
end his
tlie
message smashed John Davidson. If it iiad

man with an idea in his
been the ordinary
head, or, in polite English, with
we should have heard
his bonnet,
a bee in
about
little
but it happened that he was also a poet,

and rather a big poet. So all the little newspapers danced on his body, and the constant
it
readers asked
why he
did not try to earn
an honest living when he found that poetry
There
did not pay.
such asses
no need
is
to
answer
they shall burn in any hell of
mine until they are weary of pain itself.

For the rest, it may well be that the prophet
Davidson grew weary of waiting for the
tardy ravens
the
but
it is
man who wrote
and the
self
"
certain that the poet,
the " Ballad of a
"
Runnable Stag," did not kill himhundred a year.
for lack of an extra
Nor, indeed,
The
is
he dead.
case of John Davidson has reminded
the journals of to-day that poets
may have
a kind of sentimental value, and that
be
Nun
creditable
singers
in
from starving.
country
But
to
it
may,
save
her
in discussing the
PENSIONS FOR POETS

question
of
they
support,
State
69
admit,
sensibly enough, that no officially appointed
body could be trusted to distinguish the sheep

from the goats, the singers from the amiable
persons
who ought
The
write prose.
to
tests
any such body would apply would be the

kind of tests that govern the admission of
young men
strange
rooms, and
we
should end by having twenty
poet laureates where
while
Ernest
the
suburban drawing-
to
now we
Dowsons
Thompsons would continue

gutters of
I
London.
This
is
suffer but one,
and
Francis
inherit
to
the
so certain that
cannot blame the leader-writers for shelv-
ing the problem until the next
makes himself
into a
young poet
rondeau with strych-
nine, or blows his brains into a rosy lyric.
Nor do
think
it
matters,
for
do
not
two hundred and fifty a year

would do any poet any good, and I doubt
whether the present age is sufficiently enbelieve that
lightened to pay
its
poets more.
Such an
and com-
income represents compromise,

promise is bad for poets. There is a type
of poet that can do very good work in
prisons and doss-houses
there is the other
;
MONOLOGUES
70
type that wants to pelt expensive actresses

to
death with orchids and drive over cUffs
in
amber motor-cars
ideals
there
and between these two

of spiritual and physical asceticism
lies
respectability
and the whole
;
modern English poetry. I suppose Wordsworth and Tennyson and Brown-
tragedy of
ing have something to answer for, but
when
most of our modern young poets I long

make them drunk on methylated spirits.
They are so neat and tame and pretty. They
I
see
to
would
find
Shelley odd and Burns coarse,
and Villon would pick their pockets. There

no need to provide pensions for young
is
men
like these
they can alwaj^s
fall
back
on the more dashing kind of journalis'm'.

As for the others, an illimitable optimism
is needed to believe that any Government
would give ten thousand a year to a disreputable person merely because he had a
gift of song.
Yet this is what we must do
if
we
are going to concern ourselves with
the worldly welfare of poets at
not so
effect
much concerned with

of
this
though one
living
may be
wage on
permitted
all.
the
possible
their
to
am
work,
wonder
PENSIONS FOR POETS
71
what Shakespeare or Burns or even Stevenson would have written if they had been
really well-to-do.
What charms me is the
thought of how delightfully the poets would
spend the money. They would not, as most
rich
men
do, so order their scale of living
that they hardly

sential
had a penny for those
extravagances
that
are
ines-
essential
to
children and the elderly wise.
Nor,
were the
would they
of Bohemia
of
poet,
wholly forget the coffee
stalls
in the
right
sort
wine cups of Utopia, though

would forget the coffee.
if
they
trust
that they
And
their dreams.
...
It is
really pitiful
what a lot of time our poets waste

dreaming
that they have motor-cars and
in
yachts and music-halls of their own, when
the possession of these trifles would enable
them to solve the riddle of the universe in
a lifetime or so.
Our poets have always
been underfed, and, in consequence, they
have given us a great account of life, like
the hungry boy who flattens his nose on the
cook-shop window and thinks nobly of
A generation of fat poets would
sausages.
alter all that, and perhaps would shake our
to reflect
MONOLOGUES
72
of material
state
are so sure of ourselves that
pared
To-day we
contentment.
we
are pre-
to classify miracles as they occur.
can imagine some one running from the bed

of Lazarus to a present-day drawing-room,
with the news that a
man had
been
just
from the dead. The twentieth century

would comment, " Oh, in America, I suppose," and Lazarus would creep gladly back
raised
his
into
grave.
The
satisfied
are
damned
and nowadays
in this sense nearly everybody is satisfied
but realizing the power of money, I think
that a man who was at once a poet and rich
might contrive a miracle or two to set the
because they need no
faith,
idiots gaping, as healthy idiots should gape,
nightmare of a world.
suppose this theory as to the function of
at this
I
poets would be called far-fetched, though
doubt whether
how
should secure belief
if I
said
had fetched it.

But the poets,
themselves must be blamed if their attitude
towards life is misunderstood. Once it may
have
far
been
natural
for
poets
to
demand
now
man who
flowers and love and things of that sort

the true lover of Nature
is
the
PENSIONS FOR POETS

wants ten thousand a year
to
73
spend on the
concrete iUustration of his dreams.
must claim
right
and
;
have only
this,
if
to
Poets
not as a charity, but as a
they do
not secure
cease writing.
it
Perhaps
they
in
few centuries they will have their revenge.
IX'
HOW
TO BE A POET
Mr. William Watson's recent timely remonstrance against the use of the term " minor
poet " raises the question of the complete
ignorance
what
of
general
the
public
as
Of course,
there is no such thing as a minor poet
it were
as sensible to talk of minor dipto
constitutes
poet.
A man
somaniacs or minor consumptives.
either has the will to express himself lyrically
or he has
it
not.
If
he
bitter-sweet disease he
escaped
it
he
is
just a
is
is
smitten with this
a poet.
If
he has
something in the poet's
background, a something that will turn
to
dust and then to daisies, to sway deliciously

in
the wind,
loved,
girl
because long ago some poet
or more likely thought he loved,
who bore
the
name
even while the minor
of that flower.
critics
For,
are perfecting
^HOW TO BE A POET
delicately offensive phrases with
and
to ex-
serve the
changing the venom
are
very
of those
filth
which
who
press their contempt for those
Muses, the poets
75
spring
into
critics
flowers and sunsets, and beautiful, hopeful
Perhaps it is a sub -conscious sense

magic metamorphosis that makes
things.
of
this
critics so
little
When
a child
harsh with poets.

is
born
to this earth
opens
it
and yet there are
and weeps lustily

who would deny that very young
As the
children have the gift of insight.
its lips
persons
days and the months and the years pass by

it is
bribed into the habit of living by means
and
of sops
mode
hush
its
it
When
trifles.
neighbours
when
its
is
it
play
punished into silence.
is
its
given sweets to
too
normal
child
noisy
So in time
the great rule of compromise,
a healthy,
tears incom-
it
and
it
it
is
learns
if
it
is
dies at three-score-
years-and-ten, without ever having laughed
awaken jealousy in its fellows,

without ever having wept so long as to
imply a criticism of the wisdom of the
methods of God. Whether its existence has
made any difference is a problem for those
so loudly as to
MONOLOGUES
76
who can weigh
scientists
dirt to the billionth
part of a grain.
now and again there is born

whose tears may not be stayed with
But
a child
sweets,
whose laughter triumphs over chastisement.

Walking a little aloof, singing and laughing
and weeping,
troubles
it
that lulls the hearts of

idol that its fathers
the great silence
men.
It
flouts the
have served for genera-
worships a wind-torn poppy that

only a reaper's whim has spared.
While
tions
it
other children grow
about
farther
more and more akin
every day seems to set this child
it,
from
grows more
its
like
day it
the flowers and winds and
neighbours,
And
the trees of the world.
children of civilization
among
every
so while the
grow old and
pass,
and silent places

and does not die.
On the world of men
and women into which it would seem to
have wandered by mistake its influence might
be ignored. And yet for centuries the young
it
stays
man
shall
woo
the
hills
the maidens with the love and
the song that it gave the world, and the

maidens themselves shall have wide eyes and
crimson lips, because it was so that the
HOW
wonder-child
TO BE A POET
them
liked
77
Of such
be.
to
children are the poets.
To
divide humanity into groups and put
each group
zation
bed with a sweeping generali-
to
popular but dangerous amuse-
is
ment, and especially
is
it
deadly to provide
verbal paramours for the group of splendid
we
accidents
it
call
In the
poets.
place,
first
not easy to say what a poet
is
most
suppose
would imply in
he was a writer of
definitions
some way or other

poems.
is.
that
But even here there
a doubt.
is
The
many differEdward Fitz-
desire for expression exists in so

ent
For
degrees.
gerald
was
satisfied
instance,
with the compliments of
a small circle of intimate friends, while
John Davidson wished a nation

his truth.
his
whole
life
self lyrically
haps.
What
man
can conceive a
to
to
to
poor
accept
devoting
the effort to express
him-
woman
per-
one person, a
a fine thing
it
would be for a
poet to pass his hours in writing the eternal
and what a
fine girl
It seems ridiculous to suppose
that if Shelley had never learnt how to write
he would not have been a poet.
song on the heart of a
!
girl
MONOLOGUES
78
Yet
write
one
we admit
poems we must
is
if
at times
is.
little
poet need
and so in a sense
heard a slory the
London
child
taken out to the country for the
and
set
down
in a field to play.
about her in a dazed
not
allow that nearly every
a poet,
nearly every one

other day of a
that
way
at the
who was
first
time,
She looked
green
fields
and hedges, and then was physically sick. If

that child had possessed the gift of verbal
expression she would have written a
but even so
poem
doubt whether she could have
paid Nature a finer compliment than this.
have noticed that in moments of great

sorrow the uneducated achieve a singular
dignity and felicity of phrase, and it is
reasonable to suppose that it is their ignorance of craftsmanship rather than any lack
of emotional force that prevents them from
I
expressing themselves lyrically.
our
stultifying
superlative
which only
civilization
moments
In spite of
there are a few
in the lives of every
failure to
one
acquire the habit of
writing verse prevents them from expressing

in poetry.
But apart from the joy of believing that
HOW
TO BE A POET
79
there are possibilities for good in every one,

it
is
must be acknowledged that

so
firmly
this latent poet
suppressed in the bosoms of
the respectable that he might almost as well
and we are therefore

justified in demanding that to earn the title
Beyond
of poet a man should write poems.
this the adjudgment of poets always seems
not be there at
to
me
all,
a question of
how
far the individual
poets have succeeded in expressing the ego

of the critic.
Thus
probably think far too
much of Dowson because he wrote "Cynara"

a
poem, however, which only the maddest of
And similarly, while

I own to loving Francis Thompson for his
poems about children, it is a poem called
" Memorat Memoria " that takes my breath
prigs could call minor.
am one of the very unfortunate persons who really know what it

means.
Yet I know both Dowson and
Thompson did much better work than this.
away, because
This
is
the difficulty, this conflict between the
emotional and the intellectual judgments, that
must always trouble

to
divide poets into
those god -like critics
critics
classes,
who endeavour
saving always
who own
to
no emo-
MONOLOGUES
80
and may therefore be safely permitted

bore each other till newspapers cease to
tions,
to
appear.
not always the so-called great
It is
who knock
poets
perches. There
lies
poems published
of
us
our
off
beside
me
exactly
intellectual
little
fifty
volume
years ago
by Thomas Ashe, a name that, till I looked

between the covers, bore for me only the
dimmest significance. Yet there are surprisingly beautiful things in that little book, and
I
think a
tion
his
in
modern poet could make a reputa-
this
age by reproducing
untuneful
curiously individual
poetry
nearly
are
music.
useless,
Critics
because
of
their
blood, save by rare coincidence, can never
run the course of yours or mine.
And now,
to
justify
suppose, the time has
title,
carefully
strike the thoughtless
while
to
For
would-be engine-drivers^ the question
the
to
answer seems
to
me
an
"
Take something," I would say

young man desirous of Parnassus,
easy one.
" take anything

if
to
should hesitate before giving advice
have undertaken
to
calculated
impertinent.
as
come
and love
it
"
!
and thereafter,
he were a child of his century,
should
HOW
have
to
tell
him
TO BE A POET
81
of love, the rude, uncivi-
lized force that has inspired
all
the deeds
worth doing, that has made all the things

worth making. I should tell him that it
was nonsense to speak of anything or anybody being " worthy of his love," that tlie
question was whether he could make his
love worthy of any shadow of an idea that
might penetrate his education.
should
tell
him
To what end? That he might see life as
he would have made it, and weep his years
away
that he might find beauty and fail
to win it
that he might cry his scorn of
;
ugliness on the hills and have never a hearer

for
let
too
Pooh
were kinder to
him snore with the others. There are
his
pains?
many unhappy
it
people already.
X
TRAITORS OF ART
Probably every one remembers Swift's famous
essay on a broomstick. But it is to be feared
that this, whicli was thought a masterpiece
of ingenious fancy in its time, would pass
unnoticed in these sophisticated days.
For,
nowadays, everybody writes about broomsticks, and indeed the writer who does not
do so is in danger of faihng in that final
task
of
belly-filling
inevitably
to
the
that
man.
relates
In
the
other
artist
words,
specialization, the art of losing the infinite
in search of the finite, has

art
that
golden
the
pieces
brute
become the only
many who hold
deem
worthy
of
the
reward.
Treated in this way, the eternal things that

thrilled
and troubled our fathers become

and duly subservient to the
manageable,
82
TRAITORS OF ART
popular
will.
It
difficult
is
83
patronize
to
death, but easy to prattle of cremation
Love, resisting the steady
curious epitaphs.
pressure
moral,
of
civilizing
we have
but
forces,
we
remains un-
invented
morality for marriage, and
have
and
it
definite
serves.
Nor
spared such semi -concrete things
We have
and the blue sky.
the
measured
weighed the atmosphere and
stars, setting limits to their wonder, and
as
the stars
it
would
sun
the
take
shake
to
week-long
our
eclipse
on
reliance
of
the
astronomers.
Observing that the passion for specialization
and the
specialist is regarded in
as tending to efficiency,
add that
to
cient
man,
if
it
is
it is
insane.
hardly necessary
The wholly
effi-
he exists anywhere, which God
forbid, is certainly insane, for a

lies
England
man's soul
neither in his strength nor his weak-
ness, but balanced
featly
between the two,
hands of a child. A man

without strength is an idiot, but a man
without weakness would be a god in an
like a ball in the
asylum.
In
terms
of
life
specialist
might be
MONOLOGUES
84
defined as a person of unusually widespread
ignorance, but his tragedy really
him from knowing anything
evitably prevents
about that subject.

a
illustrations,
Thus,
an astronomer
man who cannot see

botanist is a man for whom
go
modern
that our
and yet
information.
for
though
it
man
be a
the
stars
is to
such folk
would have us
even
Concentration,
life -time
the earth pro-
it
simplicity
man who
is
vides no flowers
simple
take
to
bibliophile
knows nothing about books

is
the
lies in
absorption in one subject in-
fact that his
long, can only give
knowledge of inessential things

won from those inspired
moments that build up eternity. I suppose
a
truth can only be
it
is
doctrine
of
confuse
realization
learn
all
thing,
thorough
too
free-will
that
has
knowledge
of
facts
of
We
truth.
that there
the
truth
is
faculties
to
feel
be
of
led
us
with
that
if
the
to
the
we
known about
must be ours, though
our very knowledge

obscure.
acceptance
is
A man may
likely
to
concentrate
make
all
it
his
on an abandoned pump for thirty
years, before
little
dog, with a flash of
TRAITORS OF ART
85
shows him how it can be made

useful.
The knowledge that we deliberately seek is rarely of any value
wisdom
intuition,
lies
appreciation of the
in
significance
of
the accidental.
All
from
this
seems,
but
literature,
present
state
perhaps,
of
little
application
its
English
art
is
remote
to
the
only
too
At no period of English literature
exact.
have our authors been so greatly confused

by what are pessimistically designated the
" facts " of life.
These
may
be divided into
such natural phenomena as cold and hunger,
and such generally lauded conventions as

cleanliness and education, and their effect on
the minds of our writers has been to make
them minor prophets and great bores.

the persons
taste
their
who ought
for triolets
duty
to
to
Thus
be gratifying our
and fairy
stories think
produce didactic plays
it
and
from which one would judge that

the first task of man is rather to improve
his neighbour than himself.
The weakness
novels,
of propagandist art lies in the fact that his
message leads the author

attention to the
whims and
to
pay too much
prejudices of his
MONOLOGUES
86
was possibly necessary that the

EngUsh people should be reminded of the
"facts" that are the foundation of "Mrs.
readers.
It
Warren's Profession," but in order
them home
to
you prefer
martyrdoms
it,
Mr. Shaw
a good, or,
is
bad example of the
artistic
make
present
that
will
literary period notorious
He
bring
his audience the author has
spoiled his play.

if
to
has sold his soul
the
one of these days.
to his
conscience for a
mess of unconventional morality. Certainly

he does not credit the facts of which he is
indeed the slave.
But
this
dissatisfaction
with the purely
honourable task of creating beautiful things

is in the air, and can hardly, be dismissed
with a phrase.
siderable
force
It
in
is
the
expressed with conlatest
novel of Mr.
who
fine poetry
damned Mr. H. G. Wells,
soured Mr. John Galsworthy, and made Mr.
John
has written
Masefield,
before now.
It
has
Chesterton frequently tiresome.
Davidson, and
afflicted
of Dreadful Brass "

" Sussex."
It
has killed
us with the
from the hand
" City
that wrote
Only time will tell us what its

But
influence may be on the younger men.
TRAITORS OF ART
87
to
me
to
the honesty of the artistic ideal
it
has
the serious aspect of this scepticism as
made most
traitors
all
to
their
is
our men of
of
cause.
that
letters
suppose that
at
times there have been persons, a great
many
persons,
artists
were
who
thought that the
useless, but
it
How
can
of
has remained for
the artists of to-day to say as

selves.
lives
much them-
we hope to succeed in our

men and women and
task of teaching the

the
children of England to
beautiful,
appreciate the
we commence with
if
the admis-
The
sion that beauty does not count?
so-
were skilled
we, with our more
called decadents of another age

to find roses in the
wholesome,
mud
utilitarian outlook, are eager to
find
mud
the
blunders
in every rose, in order to bring
of
civilization
home
to
the
minds of the civilized.

Lord Curzon once told a grateful audience that there was no reason why England
of us
should
who
feel
depressed,
but
to
those
believe that Shakespeare, Keats,
and Swinburne have done more for their

country than Nelson, Wellington, and Gladstone,
it
matters
little
whether England
is
MONOLOGUES
88
sorry because there are yet worthless things
which she cannot attain, or proud of the

worthless things to which she has attained.
But that those men who ought to be leaders
to
camp
in the
her
in
of truth should encourage her
esteem
should speak
diseases
that
of
inessentials,
her of the
to
they
that
little
when
dread,
they
passing
love
is
out in the world and the great salt winds

are beating in from the sea, that
is
the last
treachery.
will give
an illustration.
these people have
kind
of
suppose,
if
not written in vain, that
Embankment has come
the
be considered
to
rallying-ground
for
nocturnal
misery, a place where vice and misfortune
rub shoulders and wait for bowls of soup.
As a matter of
night
is
fact,
the
the finest thing in
Embankment by
all
London, and
some measure London's justification. I

had always appreciated the sombre beauty
of the river with its shadows and reflections,
but it was a poet of my acquaintance who
in
first
pointed out to
me
the exquisite tracery
of the shadows thrown by the branches of

the plane-trees on the grey pavements. Given
TRAITORS OF ART
89
a slight breeze to set the branches swaying,
there
can be nothing more beautiful than
whole round world. Now I confess that I have not conquered my natural
aversion for all forms of human discomfort,
whether exemplified in my own body or in
those of other people, but let me add that
this in the
in face of that lovely
brief sorrows
to
me
changing tapestry, these
and even these brief
of small importance.
We
seem
are born
lives
and shiver for a while in the

gutters of life and presently we die.
But
beauty is eternal, and it is only by means
of our appreciation of beauty that we can
bear with our clumsy, rotting bodies while
our life lasts. All other creeds seem to me
forlorn and self-destructive.
And to the young men for whom I write,
to
starve
since the follies of age extend to the grave,
would commend those delicate shadows on

the stones of the Embankment, as giving this
I
sordid city
life
a certain eternal significance.
Doubtless the loathsome details of that
life
choke them, as they seem to

have choked most of our older artists. But
threaten
to
while God
is
content to spread His beauty
MONOLOGUES
90
beneath our
the
feet
feet,
He spread
of Shakespeare,
Swinburne, there
who can
as
see
it.
is
it
of Keats,
beneath
and of
hope for those of us
XI
SUICIDE AND THE STATE

In
the
"Shropshire Lad," by Mr.
Housman,
who
poet
among
alone
loquacious kind sings too
Uttle,
E.
A.
there
his
is
curious expression of opinion on
one
almost say defence of suicide}.
have not the
book by me, and
much
might
admire Mr. Housman
poem from memory,

but
hope that readers will know their
" Shropshire Lad " too well to need more
than a reference to the poem to recall it
to their memories,
A young man who has
too
to re-write his
become troublesome
worst of
all,
to his
troublesome
neighbours, and,
to
himself,
closed his brief history with a bullet.
done, lad," says the poet
Now,
I
am
" that
has
" .Well
"
was brave
an age
!
sufficiently the slave of
hate to feel a certain timidity in appro ach91
MONOLOGUES
92
ing this subject of suicide, or self-murder

as fat people prefer to call
that the normal,
may
be,
do not
destructive
a thing
It is
it.
however broadminded they

of
criticism
for of
discuss,
like to
life
this
is
all
the
most weighty. Other criminals, murderers,

thieves, and the like, we can punish or even
we know
forgive, because
us
under
one of
conditions might
that each
unfavourable
commit murder or theft opportunity alone

makes the upright man. But a suicide does
more than attack our persons or our pockets
he injures our self-complacency and murders
;
We
our vanity.
can forgive a
man
for boo-
ing or creating a disturbance in the theatre

of
out
In
we cannot forgive him for

with a yawn before the play is
life,
but
effect,
and your
find
a lot of tiresome fellows

of the business
cessful
tinence.
is
that
if
"
can,
and
And
the devil
the rascal
we cannot punish him
We
over.
your society dull

do not amuse me. You are 1
he says,
follies
"
going
is
suc-
for his imper-
believe sometimes
do, send people to prison for failing to kill
themselves,
in
order that they
may
there
acquire a fuller appreciation of their fellow
SUICIDE
AND THE STATE
93
human beings. But with all our wisdom

we have, as yet, no certain means of chastenLike the mythical
ing the untimely dead.
woman, the suicides always have the last

word in the argument, and, while we condemn their folly, we have the uncomfortable conviction that they cannot hear us.
Of course,
it is
impossible for any person,
breathing air and holding the flowers of the
world for his reward,

but
it
man
defend
to
do not
be weary of
We
exist.
life until
When
he
dead a jury of British tradesmen breathe
the
word
" insanity "
body, and then go
home
for epitaph over his

to
troublesome doubts as
Yet every honest
suicides
to
dinner without any

the value of
man knows
life.
that nineteen
out of twenty are perfectly sane.
The majority
lives
what life gives it,

what life withholds
for
the minority dies for
and, while for once in a

to
believe
he has pulled
the trigger or emptied the cup.

is
suicide,
another thing to suggest by our
is
silence that suicides
no
to
way
agree with the majority,
it
it
is
possible
must be ad-
mitted that the point of view of the minority

is
not irrational.
It is
pessimism rather than
MONOLOGUES
94
wisdom
it is optimism
and not madness that leads the suicide to
that keeps us alive
seek for better things in the grave.
But once
it
but
sane,
admitted that
is
individuals w^ho
commit
even
intellectual
whether their
it
lives
of the
suicide are not only
possessed
gifts,
many
considerable
of
seems natural to ask

might not be expended
humanity instead
of being merely abandoned in dark corners.
At present it is poor civilization's only
usefully in the service of
revenge
family
a
of
suicide.
certain
stigma
person
But
if
attaches
to
the
who has committed
instead
of
being
posthu-
mously dubbed insane or a criminal a man

were said to have devoted his life to the
State, we might come to feel rather proud of
these unhappy critics.
Let us put aside all
our beloved nonsense about the sacredness
of
human
life.
Leaving
the
extravagant
waste of war out of the question, every
way
rail-
journey, every ton of coal, and every
unit of electricity costs a fraction of a man's

life.
We
achieve a greater degree of com-
by our cunning, but the

railway line, and the dynamo,
fort
colliery,
all
the
take their
SUICIDE
AND THE STATE
95
and part of the wages of

the men we pay to work them is a greater
risk of death than we run who are contoll
in accidents,
tent to use
of
them.
individuals
Consideration for the lives
has
never been
allowed
interfere with the convenience of the
Yet
to
many.
can conceive the outcry of the coal-
burning, railway -using sentimentalists against

the foundation of a State department for the
expenditure
useful
persons
it
is
who
hardly
are
of
the
lives
weary of an
creditable
to
of
those
existence that
endure.
imagine the simplicity of the scheme.
But
There
would be an office in London which wouldbe suicides would seek in place of the gunmaker's shop or the river.
Thence, after
up a form, they would be drafted to

an establishment in which they would be
maintained at Government expense, and, after
a week of probation, they would become
officially dead.
Once there, they would be
beyond the reach of the law, and their wives
would be free to marry again, while in cases
of destitution provision would be made for
the families they had left behind them. The
living bodies of these dead men would then
filling
MONOLOGUES
96
be
They would
at the service of the State.
be available for the doctors in place of dogs
and monkeys for experimental germ-breeding and vivisection

they could test high
explosives and conduct dangerous chemical
;
operations
in time of
war they could man
steerable torpedoes or dynamite-laden aero-
In
planes.
work
they could be used in any
fact,
that involved great risk to
They
life.
it is no
scheme that they should be
hurried into the next world by means of the
ordinary prison diet. Perhaps a maximum
limit would be put to their existence at the
would, of course, be prisoners, but

part
of
my
option of individual patients.
death might be
All this
but
it
made medically
sounds possibly a
really
found
out
useful.
little
inhuman,
only a question of facing
You cannot persuade
facts.
has
is
But their very
life
to
a person
continue
living
him tracts.
Personally I
have more sympathy with suicides
giving
killed
themselves
when
they
who
were
by
should
if
they
very,
very happy, in order to avoid anti-climax.
must be realized that there is a

minority a minority that our growing seepBut
it
SUICIDE
97
increase that
finds
an intolerably tiresome business.
The
ticism
life
AND THE STATE
materially
will
simplest study of the epistolary literature
left
behind by these persons will convince any
one that they

creatures,
to
and
are, as a class, the vainest of
be attracted by the scheme
lined
above.
It
is
people ought not to

will
well
do
it,
make
hardly
this vanity could
and
their
this
of no
kill
have out-
use to say that
themselves.
being
whim
as
fail
so,
They
we may
valuable to
bulk of humanity as possible.
as
the
XII

Let me
by saying that
start
my
does
title
not refer to that delicate period in the

of a
human
childhood,
the
appealing
and
comfortable
faith in one's elders, the belief in the

ficent care of
machine-made gods
and are no more, and earth,

yet
feet
the
life
being at which the illusions of
vast,
bene-
fall away
unknown,
yawns before the

For one thing,
of adventurous youth.
The
disillusionment is never complete.
still
strangely alluring,
childish illusions fade, the no less visionary
and delightful
illusions of
youth take their
and so to our graves. But, while it

falls to no individual man or woman to see
things as they are, or perhaps I should say,
place,
to find that things are not,
groups of
men and women,
and nations,
to achieve this
it
is
possible for
for cities, races,
morbid
insight.
MONOLOGUES
100
The
lious
souls
compose the faithless, rebelwhole continue to soothe their bruised
units that
with the eternal legends
faith and
man, and
hope and
love, they say, are of the soul of
him
from the
lower animals who hope and love and worship around him, and for these universal
set
definitely apart
qualities he will ultimately receive a glorious
and especial reward. So they comfort the

moment's tears, and he would be cruel indeed
who
should seek
deny them
to
solace for the pain of living.
weak
this
But, oddly,
the faith of a nation seems to have no part

in these personal
appears
rather
and enduring
to
be
the
sum
sombre, unshapen doubts that no

to
express.
man
human
did not believe some theory,

miracle, in support of
which
produce no evidence.
It
is
some
We
dares
would
being
who
idea,
some
his reason could
equally impos-
sible to discover that, as a nation,
in anything whatever.
it
we
believe
have outworn the
our fathers, and our eyes can
cover no star to guide us anew.
disenchantment
is
now.
It
those
of
To-day, in England,
be impossible to find a
faith of
beliefs.
dis-
The age of

Where should we seek
find
to
the
101
soul
most clearly expressed? First,

of course, in its literature, and, above all,
in its poetry, though we must remember that
it is always the second-rate work that shows
of a nation
the closest connection with the age that pro-
duces
it,
genius knowing no time and repre-
senting no
think, in
age in particular.
its
politicians,
who
Secondly,
achieve a fine honesty of mediocrity

lastly, in
and,
the lives and speech of the people
general,
in
aspire to and
and in the newspapers, which
represent faithfully enough the interests and

desires of the
uneducated classes.
perhaps be convenient
if
It
will
consider these
expressions of our national impulses one at

a time.
And
and most sadly, as to our literature.

To my mind there is no more striking
token of our national disenchantment than
the abandonment by our artists of the belief
first,
in beauty for beauty's sake.
This,
when
es-
was the faith of

Milton and Shakespeare, or, to come nearer
to our own days, of Keats and Robert Brownsentials
ing
are
considered,
and Swinburne.
Among
the representa-
MONOLOGUES
102
of our time
tive writers
doned
as
passionately
sought to express
its
place?
Shaw and Mr.
our predecessors
as
And what has taken
it.
No doubt
has been aban-
it
it
may be
said that Mr.
Kipling and Mr. Wells have
No man can live as near

we do without some protecting
a personal faith.
space
as
But under what banner
screen of belief.
make
their
the heart of
man
of enchantment do these writers
appeal, to
what echo
in
do they cry for an answer?
To me, Mr.
Kipling recalls the consuming folly of the

half of the South African war, and Mr.
Bernard Shaw the shamed cowardice of the
first
second half of that luckless victory.
messages are alike contemptuous
Shaw
Mr. Wells
his
day than they
an
artist,
he
His message
that
can
them more careful work.
more
is
is
is
win
but Mr.
more than Mr.
despises his audience
Kipling, and gives
Their
truly representative
of
are, possibly because, as
inferior to
either of them.
the poignant cry of a race

to
no
belief.
Yesterday,
Fabian, to-day a Liberal, to-morrow a Tory,
he
is
of
life
inspired by a faintly a3sthetic distaste
and ridden hard by a conscience in

which he does not
things
negative
is
down fifty
know one
could set
things that he dislikes,
do not
He has found
He is
thing that he appreciates.

life,
His view of
believe.
103
out
but he has not found heaven.
artist of
the
disenchantment, the Wells at which
no man can quench
his thirst.
these three writers
have taken
should add, by the
(I
way, that Mr. Kipling once was enchanted),

because
they
tendencies
is
stand
modern literary
of our young poets
for
but the case
even sadder and more
to
We
the point.
have none.
When
my
ink in
I
am
come
to the politicians the bitter
fountain-pen turns to honey, for
very sorry for them, even more sorry
than they are for themselves.
more simple than
Their case
is
that of artists, for artists
are always exceptional men, whereas politics
demands
of her children that, save in rare
instances, they should be fiercely

place.
this
The hardness
although
that,
of
they
their
common-
lot
lies
represent
in
with
passionate honesty the views and faltering
ambitions
believe
in
of
ordinary
them,
and
men,
under
no
one
pressure
will
of
104
MONOLOGUES
circumstances
they
To
themselves.
this
due
is
longer
party
the
to
that
Chinese
disliked
system
who
due
Home
mistrusts
accept
Tariff
in
the
commands
man
Labour
believe
the nationalization of land,
in
believe
a certain extent, no doubt,
invention
delicate
who
no
to
man
and a
Rule for Ireland
Reform.
Rut,
chiefly,
to
is
it
to the spirit of the age, the spirit that
holds that
all
things are bad, that no act of
ours can
make them
our duty
to
We
our representatives, and then turn
elect
our faces
and that
better,
spend our
it
is
lives in the attempt.
to the wall in the
mournful
belief
do not represent us, and

comes it takes all the screaming eloquence of the newspapers to convince
that after all they
when
the time
us that a crisis
again,
is
at
the interrogation
living
utility
And,
members
marks
of
to
Politicians to-daj^ are
book of Destiny.
return
vote
and once more return shrugging
our uneasy slumbers.

the
Then we
hand.
the nation sets in
It is
our doubts that
Parliament
they
are
symbols of our lack of belief in the

of man's endeavours.
lastly,
we come
to the
people them-

the
selves,
that
stuff
fills
105
our houses and
and overflows into our gutters. To

their state of disenchantment is pitiful.
streets
me
They
and praise
death
flee
they seek
it,
demand
and condemn it, they

beauty and kill it. No cynicism is
for their lips, no act of fanatical
It is
too harsh for their hearts.
pleasure
too wild
tyranny
not that
they outrage literature with a pair of North

cliffe
scissors
them
nalists to tell
believe
to
they do not intend to
go to the churches, though
love and
their
how
hidden
and
to hate,
unemotional
these things
the
this is the
decadence.
simulations
callous
their
all
But they are forgetting
are true.
of
lies
not even that they are ceasing
is
it
not that they pay jour-
it is
of
to
measure
Behind
passion
cowardice
calculating
how
of
lies
the
same way that behind their

honour there lurks the swell-
financier in the
definitions of
mobsman who
men.
in
Love
is
fears
degraded
more than word
affirmation of good,
able,
the
is
cudgel of honest
to the registry -office
hatred,
in
itself,
an
recognized as unprofit-
with the policeman waiting round the
corner.
cold
scepticism
is
burning the
MONOLOGUES
106
hearts of
men and women
desire that painted

lips of
over
women
all.
We
red,
to
ashes of that
and the
the stars moving
tlie
trees green
and
set
are disenchanted.
XIII
ON DREAMS
Some
time
which
ago
ventured
an
suggest
to
article
that
in
within
we can make our dreams what
certain limits
we
wrote
and that a considerable assthetic

be derived from regarding this
world of tables and chairs that surrounds
us as illusory, the dream-world to which we
win at nights as passionately real. It is no
will,
may
pleasure
part of
from
the
though
nalism.
all
my
I
intention to disinter that article
cemetery
think
For
it
of
was
forgotten
fancies,
truer than most jour-
realize that since then
we have
lived through a short period of wakeful life
and possibly many centuries of dreams, and

are therefore, or so our quenchless optimism
would assure
feet
us, so
much
the wiser.
Our
have trodden the pavements of starry
palaces then unbuilt, and the walls of strange,

107
MONOLOGUES
108
night-hung
made
cities
have echoed
In the year nineteen hundred
songs.
and eight we were children

nineteen hundred and ten
men
to-day,
who
Poets,
moving
our new-
to
we
the year
in
sliall
be old
we dream.
are the most interesting of the
objects
inhabit
that
the
daylight
world, win their curious supremacy in that

world,
supremacy always disputed and
always beyond dispute, by means of their

imperial possessions in the world of sleep,
kingdoms
under the moon that enables them to give
colour and beauty of form to the grey world
that holds our disillusioned lives.
But,
though we cannot hope to share, save at
and
it is
their recollection of their
secondhand, their intense recollection of the

beautiful
remember
life
it
of sleep,
to
we
perhaps, not to
life,
all
make
but
to
able to
and we
wisely enough
a certain extent
use this partial recollection,
our wakeful
are
us discontented with
credit that life with
which it docs not possess. I doubt

very much whether many people realize how
far their normal lives are affected by their
dreams yet it is in dreams that all desires
qualities
are born.
ON DREAMS
109
The popular phrase " as empty

dream " is a very good example of the
as
fairly
general maxim, that to be successful a phrase
must convey a definite untruth. Dreams are

not empty
indeed, I can conceive no human
;
experience that less deserves that contemptuous adjective, for sometimes in a night of
dreaming we live a hundred lives. Nevertheless, the popular contempt for the dreamer,
the
man who
allows his love for the beauties
of the sleep-world to dull his realization of

the ugly facts that constitute
life, is
founded
on something more than a misleading phrase.

Deep down in the heart of every man you
will find the instinctive conviction that
life,
despite the generous praises of the dying,

a
monotonous task
us to perform.
to the
that
From
is
it
this
it
very noble of
but a step
is
assumption that enjoyment
how immoral,
is
is
some-
a belief silently held by nearly
every one, and not least by the pleasureseekers themselves,
and that happy people
are evading their duties.

belief in the divinity of
It
is
this intense
our secret discon-
tents that is called joi de viure.
Now, looking round
the world,
can find
MONOLOGUES
110
no man more happy, and, therefore, I suppose no man more wicked, than your suc-
He
cessful dreamer.
is
the eloquent excep-
tion to the rule that in the gratification of
desire lies misery, for his desires have only
and for him

achievement brings no sorrow. There is so
great a variety of life in the world of
dreams that satiety is impossible your practised dreamer rather finds it difficult to
linger in enjoyment of his perfected conceptions, so wide a world lies ready for his
to
be conceived
to
be
gratified,
adventurous
feet.
Nor does
the reproachful
humanity encourage him to leave his dreaming and take

up his duty of life. No rich man, stricken
bankrupt, is as poor as a dream-magnate
attitude of patiently suffering
in
his
rare
moments
In place of his
mud
of life-consciousness.
palaces he finds villas of
in place of his laughing
finds a disillusioned
world
kingdom he
in place of his
generous courtiers he finds a people patently

mistrustful of him, and, even harder to bear,
secretly mistrustful of themselves.
to
It is
not
be wondered that the habit grows with
age, so that the
boy who can lay aside his
ON DREAMS
dreams with
who
can
becomes the man
his marbles
liardl}^
111
recognize the fading shapes
of the concrete world.
And when we have

a
man
of far
finislied
laughing at
because he will not leave his gardens
and dreamy roses
perhaps we
may admit
to
brush his hair,
that there
is
a note
mocking criticism of his unkempt head. There is, to snatch the obvious
pun, a sorrow not wholly sweet in our partings.
Without in the least wishing to insult
of envy in our
or even ignore convention,

lack the power.
chance,
our
If,
locks
we know
that
we
by some strange miswere shaggy and un-
trimmed, two bars of a familiar tune whistled
on the
lips of a street-boy
would
suffice to
send us cringing to the barber.

Every
normal individual believes that he can only
hide the weakness of his coward soul by
imitating his neighbour in inessentials
and
the result of this mutual mimicking is a
mournful uniformity in the hideousness of
;
our appearance.
for looking at a
defend our
own
When we laugh
golliwog, we are
neglect of beauty.
not look like golliwogs, but
we do
at a
man
trying to
We
do
look like
MONOLOGUES
112
each other, and reason should

that
is
us that
tell
worse.
Of course,
it
may be
said that a dreamer
does not ignore convention because he dis-
approves of
scious of
it
it,
and
you prefer to
weakness or
ledged
that
number
which
is
but because he
this is true.
call his
strength,
it
helps
of difficulties,
enough
to
not con-
is
But whether
mind
rapt absence of
must be acknowto overcome a

the mere possibility of
it
him
keep us timorously miser-
Poverty, which might be called the
able.
daymare
of humanitj'^, only sends
him more
passionately to his dreaming, and
it
is
thus
which the image

holds us wretchedly wakeful. We would all
like to conquer our fears, and the dreamer
succeeds with a flicker of the eyelids and an
If
inward glance at his heaped treasury.
with
all
the misfortunes of
dreammg be
a weakness, as those aver
have consciences
like alarm-clocks,
it
who
seems
better able to conquer the facts of existence
than our strength.

Yet,
if
we
are not dreamers,
we have our
dreams
if we have not the ropes of stars,
and purses of silver moons and golden suns
;
ON DREAMS
of the poets,
113
we have not wholly
bric-a-brac of our own.
valueless
moments
Clear-cut
fragments of mediteval carving
of sleep like
faces twisted with streaky clay
by Japanese
wet pebbles that have caught the

pine-trees and smooth
sun on a rainy day
tinted
hills and burning fields of gorse
tatters from the rag-bag of our conscious-
fingers
ness
these things add a touch of enchant-
ment
our most sober nights of sleep, and

set us astride behind the witches
to
sometimes
to
mad world from
see
broomstick
and
the
flout
the back of
law of gravity.
After a night spent like this
absurd
minutes
late,
man who
it
is
little
is
and
two
over-cooked.
Yet
Northcliffe, Fate,
Government because the
the
the
damn Lord
to
or an egg
is
train
can build castles of moonbeams
and twist ropes from sand in pyjamas, becomes a foolish and petulant child when he
puts
on the uniform of
his
kind.
It
is
possible that his folly represents an honest

effort to
express his share of our
humanity,
never
but
meet a
it
folly
is
that
8
nevertheless.
City gentleman
he had brought his
clean
nice,
without wishing
common
MONOLOGUES
114
broomstick
with
Without
liim.
it
he
is
merely a careful example of a colourless and

uninteresting type.
bad form
but it is bad
It is, I believe,
in the City to be individual
an unimaginative reproduction of
art to be
man.
My mind prefers even the golliwogs and
teddy-bears of humanity to these soulless
the conventional conception of civilized
No doubt
picture-postcards.
criticise the
to
is
pleasant
Daily Mail and the Govern-
damn
ment, but to
it
one's neighbour and culti-
vate one's individuality
Is
more hopeful
But most people only do this in

dreams, and as they die every morning when
task.
wake
they
up,
we never
see
anything but
their corpses.
My
in
moral
is
most of us
that
dreams, because when
we
live
only
are awake
we
are not brave enough to face the task of

living with
we
all
If
part our hair in the middle, and wear
the
same
same
not
know
the
our unaided individualities.
silly clothes,
us apart
and feign
interest in
perhaps the devil will
silly things,
that,
suppose, would
be the mediaeval interpretation of our motive.

Substituting
our
own
consciences
for
the
ON DREAMS
devil,
it
man
designed
punish,
to
our every institution seems
dreams, and only

ten.
lives
If,
But the
stands pretty well to-day.
dreamer, the
he
115
he also
differs
lives
from us
only in
in
that
twenty-four hours for our eight or

in place of his daylight
dreaming,
we
achieved a splendidly passionate manner
of
life,
our reproaches might be
But we should not blame him
if
justified.
he finds
our petty puppet-show undignilled, and our

timorous art of mutual mimickry unworthy
of his attention.
XIV
NEW
When
that
admit that
I
I
YEAR'S EVE
was and a
have stolen
little
this
tiny
way
boy
of begin-
ning an article from Mr. Quiller Couch
was always something very precious

to me in the simple ceremony of letting in
the New Year and letting out the Old.
Doubtless, the unwonted thrill of sitting up
late, and sipping hot lemonade, which we
children called punch, had something to do
with the deep -breathed solemnity with which
the occasion inspired me.
But even now,
when I am tired of sitting up late, and even
there
more
I
tired of punch,
and, above
all,
when
have realized that the years grow worse
instead of better, even
now
cannot hear
the clock strike twelve at midnight of the
December without a quickenpulse, for which my reason can
thirty-first of
ing of the
116
NEW
YEAR'S EVE
117
supply no satisfactory explanation.

that
have got beyond the
New
the
Year
to
to
and
spend the
repeat
folly of expecting
be any better than the Old.
Indeed, the present year has given

satisfaction,
me
every
should probably be wiser
rest of
my
days in the year
1909, than to fare further into the
unknown.
But we poor two-footed beasts have such

an itch for travelling that I do not doubt
that
will let in the
New
Year
at the earliest
moment, and kick my good friend

1909 ungratefully from my door. The New
Year may prove the scurviest of fellows, yet,
possible
mad
optimists as
waiting for
He
are,
we
him before he
will help to
teeth,
we
will all
be there
due to arrive.
rob us of our brains, our
and our hair.
He
is
will continue that
process of decay that brings us at last to
our tardy graves.
He
will put
some
of us
and some of us in prison, but his

amusement will be most mischievous of
for he will hardly be five minutes old
in love
first
all
before he sets us cheating ourselves into the

belief that
fellows.
we
are about to become very fine
Every one goes
to
bed on
New
Year's Eve with his hands smeared wilh tar
MONOLOGUES
118
from
on the road to
hell.
It is so easy to make good resolutions
while the bells are chiming their welcome
his paving operations
over the midnight sky
all
but
it
is
still
easier to feel foolish in the morning.
may
It
be questioned whether there
an element of danger
in this violent
not
form-
A debauch
ing of impossible resolutions.
virtuous feeling overnight
is
apt to
is
of
induce
"
moral
hot-coppers " in the
morning, and the sudden realization of the
kind
of
hopeless nature of their good resolutions

lead people to
There
too readily.
little
own
accept their
failings
says
man who
the
"
wicked
am
" I
says
In truth,
it
is
"
fall
short of our
or
we
to
fit
ma}^
our
own
start
own
as well
just
how
have too clear a sense of
to
man
and that of
wish I were not
wicked
'*
a good deal of
is
difference between the position of the
who
may
far
not
we
standards of morality,
degrading our standards

case.
When
man
has
solemnly formed a resolution and failed to

he has done an injury
keep
it,
It
better to
is
resolutions.
improve than
to
to
his will.
form good
NEW
YEAR'S EVE
These are truisms
119
but the truism
is
wild fowl very seasonable at this time of

the year.
It
resolutions
difficult
generally admitted that the
is
made on New
seen that this failure
"What then?"
is
we have
bad for character.
can conceive the conscien-
reader asking, " what, then,
tious
Eve are
Year's
or impossible to keep, and
am
to
do next Friday when the bells are tolling

I
am
Reallj'^,
the
out the Old Year, and
and uplifted?"
feeling
solemn
question
is
difficult to answer.
It might not be
bad plan to make a few good resiolutions
on behalf of other people
to
Bernard
resolve,
for instance, that Mr.
Shaw should write no more to the Times;
little
that Miss Corelli, of Stratford, should hold
her peace about matters that do not concern

her work
no more
the Jungle
that the Laureate should
rhyme
Rudyard Kipling of
Books should return to us
that
that the Mr.
writers in general should believe in their

art,
and that the whole school of moral
critics
should rush
the sea.
I
own
came
down
Personally,
to
that
last
a steep place into
should wake up
resolution.
It
when
would
MONOLOGUES
120
strain even the
Eve
New
optimism born of
to believe in the possibility of
Year's
anything
so desirable as that.
Seriously, there
on
New
Eve
Year's
something in the wind
is
disposed to regard
most of us
that affects
At no other time are
strangely.
we
as rather
life
a series of haphazard moments.
so
much
more than
The years
take ordered shape behind us, and while
regard
no
sense of other years
The
wait our coming.
less
ordered that
arbitrary division of
our calendar assumes an almost spiritual
We
nificance.
as the
of
moments
can
fall
feel
sig-
ourselves changing
gently through the hands
and we return
our homes
one
the stroke of twelve not
year but
Destiny,
after
we
them dispassionately we have the
many years
moment of
older.
intense
It is
to
as though, in that
consciousness,
we
are
permitted to catch a glimpse of the world

that lies outside us.
Our
senses are abnor-
we can feel the breath of the

bumping hours
we can hear the pulse of
mally keen
the world's heart.
minds can
bewildered
Almost
it
seems that our
detect the purpose of our strange,

lives,
dim, uncertain, incompre-
NEW
hensible, but yet
YEAR'S EVE
121
endowing them with a new
new resolve.
we creep bacli to our
dignity, a
After,
cold,
hearths a
little
with rebellious voices, our hearts strugagainst disillusionment.
vainly
gling
tating trifles
swarm
Irri-
and blot
into our minds,
out our sense of the infinite.

It
time
is
the
children
were
bed.
in
We
Christine has obviously caught a cold.
must remember to put 1910 at the head of

our letters. The dream is over.
So far I have been content to consider
the case of those who observe the coming
of the New Year with proper ritual, but
there are others.
For my part I think that
the man who lightly misses an opportunity
of resting for an instant from the whirl and
babble of our breathless lives is much to be
pitied,
and, therefore,
sympathy
the
New
all
patronize with
those lost creatures wlio snore
Year in in bed, and shout
restaurants.
my
have welcomed
it
it
in
in in
many
comes perhaps
with the best grace in the country. Nevertheless, one of the most impressive New
Year's Eves I remember was spent on the
places, but, like Christmas,
it
MONOLOGUES
122
balcony of a London
came swaggering
when
the year
in with such a jangling of
Cross
the fine lady of Banburj^
that
bells
flat,
was nothing to him. After all, the spirit

is always more important than the environthe great thing is to stop for a
ment
;
moment and
look one's
after
it
all,
is
future
the
life
in the face
nor,
such a bad thing to regard
hopefully.
It
not do
will
us of the thrill proper to the optimist.

us,
the
any good, but nothing can deprive
future
by
means,
all
" greet
Let
the unseen
with
a cheer."
And
it
word in passing for the year that

gone, to come again no more. What days
has given us, what golden, magic days
It
is
is
true that only a minute fraction of
remains with
of
us,
The pride
all.
gleam of a
to
sit
hills
in
fields
the
wet with autumn rain
the fragment of song that
how good
my
sunny
it
the best
is
we found in a hollow of the
us on Exmoor,
were,
of
girl's face
the lonely star
Sussex
but that fraction
how good
they are even
these
now
came
things
I
can
chair on the brink of 1910, and
think of a hundred
moments
in
1909
to set
NEW
my heart
my body
YEAR'S EVE
radiant with joy of
my
Believe
to.
make
And so
beating with excitement and
can every one of
mind
123
if
readers,
life.
if
you wish
they have a
that the pains
outnumber the pleasures, but bear

in mind that it is your o\vn fault if you keep
the evil and forget the good.
If I could
of
life
thread the stars like beads,

a necklace of
and
them
my
Welcome
really
What enchanted
is
the
fairy, 1909,
little
hard
What
moon
New
but do not neglect to
will,
of gratitude for the Old.
days
good
should give him the sun and
for playthings.
you
for
make
should
Year as
drop a tear
golden, magic
nights of stars
to believe that the
Year will bring us anything as good.
It
New
XV
WHY WOMEN
FAIL IN ART
when women
In these exciting days,
longer the
and
timorous creatures beloved
frail,
shall
are no
we whisper patronized? by our

it may be unwise to con-
robust ancestors,
sider such a
of
title
my
problem as
article
is
without giving at the start
a definite assurance as to
of the thousand
Personally,
sex.
movement
little
of the
qualities
I
to
my
appreciation
charming
of the
confess that the spirited

leaves
Suffragettes
cold, not because
ought not
conveyed in the
think that
me a
women
have votes, but because
can-
not conceive that any sane person can want

a vote or find
After
all,
it
of any use
the methods
tant Suffragettes are their
my
part,
am
if
employed
own
he has
b}^
affair.
afraid of hat-pins, but
found the bright eyes of

124
girls
it.
the mili-
For
have
more deadly
WHY WOMEN
I
FAIL IN ART
125
mistrust dog-whips, but the domestic elo-
women
me with a greater
the anger of women is terrifying,
tears consume me utterly. I should
quence of
dismay
but their
believe
votes
in
Votes for
fills
women, or even
for
Women,
if
in
believed in votes at
all.
And now
hope
after
preliminary
this
explanation there is no risk of my being

waylayed by militant vote-seekers with a
taste for letters.
The argument that because
women have not shone in the world of art
they do not deserve a vote
there
fit
is
him
nothing in the
foolish,
is
because
of the artist to
life
specially for the task of interfering
misgovernment of his country. Indeed, I suppose brains are part of the artist's
birthright, and they are a serious drawback
in a politician, as Mr. Balfour's admirers
in
the
have found.
So, dear ladies, the very extent
your
of your capacity as
of
failure in art
may
be the measure
politicians
Is
not that
a pretty speech?
There
is
one other kind of
whom I should
my argument,
like to deal
and
that
critic
before
is
the
with
take
up
impulsive
MONOLOGUES
126
who
person
will read the title of
my
article,
and promptly send me a queer list of names,

ranging from Sapho to Gyp, from Christina
Hemans, from Vigee le Brun

Kate Greenaway.
Now, it is true that
Rossetti to Mrs.
to
until comparatively recent times
been
women
difficult for
to
it
may have
achieve distinc-
tion as painters for lack of opjôrtunity
and
training, but there has been nothing to pre-
them from displaying their merit as

writers if they had it. They have had free
access to pen and ink and paper, and on
the whole they have had a great deal more
leisure than men in which to cultivate the
most agreeable of arts. Yet, although at all
vent
times critics have erred in generosity in
mating the value of the work of

writers,
it
would be
of a thousand
women who
work
men
is
Why
this?
can do what they

life
should
world of art?
time
than to give one of

to
list
fifty
have produced
of definite artistic value.
Why
of
women
easier to prepare a
could be said
esti-
it
is
it
that
like in the
accomplish so
I
women who
normal world
little
in
the
suppose that once upon a
would have been
sufficient to
mention
WHY WOMEN
family
their
explanation
the
present-day opinion of
reasons.
tler
but
the
women demands
sub-
would suggest two.
127
and pass on serenely
duties,
with
satisfied
FAIL IN ART
In the
place the motive force that drives
first
all
artists is the desire for self-expression, and

I doubt whether in this sense of the word
women have any self to express. Secondly,
women
regard
life
a conscious art,
itself as
and intensity with which

they develop this idea leaves them little
They might
energy for creative work.
and the pertinacity
almost
be
said
exhaust
to
their
creative
energies in seeking to invent themselves.

It will
lap, so
it
together.
be seen that
my
two reasons over-
And here
must
say a
the classic perils of generalizing

It
is
always dangerous
anything, but
that
it
is
them
word about
on women.
will be convenient to consider
think
easier
to
to
it
generalize about
may
treat of
fairly
women
be said
in
the
aggregate than to form any general conception of the character of
far
men.
more womanly than men
this is
the heart of
always strike
me
my
first
Women
are
are manly, and
reason.
Women
as being rather representa-
MONOLOGUES
128
tive
fragments of their sex than independent
human
beings in a state of individual exist-
In this connection
ence.
it
is
interesting to
Boys have
contrast children of either sex.
strongly -marked
certain
their ow^n, but they do
semblance
to
men than
characteristics
of
more
re-
not bear
puppies do to adult
on the other hand, so far as

they have any character at all, are women
in miniature, and as like their elder sisters
dogs.
Girls,
as kittens are to cats.
have seen a
girl-
baby, six months old, practising the art of
producing smiles of calculated sweetness in

her
cradle,
older,
was
while her
still
two years
brother,
content with the rapt, un-
conscious grins of innocent childhood.

is
curious that while the
word
stands for pleasant youthfulness,

qualify
" little "
It
the
to
word
grant
" girl "

it
with
"
boy
"
It
still
we have
to
the epithet
a similar grace.
may, perhaps, seem a hard saying that
women do not exist at all, but at least

I may venture that only in very exceptional
cases can they claim an individual character.
do not know who first traced the resemblance between a woman and a mirror, but
I
WHY WOMEN
FAIL IN ART
129
whoever it may have been he had won more

than an idle fancy from his reflections. Men
are born with the germs of character which
they develop in passing from youth to
maturity.
Women are born with violent
instincts, but with no character that they can
call their o\vn, and they spend their lifetime in
endeavouring to acquire one. Wherever they
Women,"
said Wilde,
sphinxes without secrets."
But he did
"
admire, they steal.

" are
not give them sufficient credit for their

in the construction of sphinxes.
We
skill
simple-
minded men may well lament over the subtlety

life
of womaii,
by year on that
self.
when
in
all
her wakeful
she has laboured day by day and year
Her
delightful
work
smiles, her tears, her
of art, her-
moments
forgetfulness, all have their significance
represent hours of patient

are pitiful
toil.
Her
of
and
failures
but her triumphs are beyond
those of any ordinary artist. In her highest

forms her air of the unconsciousness that
conceals art
is
perfect.
plicity of a child, the
She
affects the
sim-
courage of a man, the
fervour of a prophet,
and the wisdom of
Solomon, and over
she flings the cloak
all
MONOLOGUES
130
of mystery that envelops the lives of those
who
hold high dreams.
Free herself from
shadow
the intellectual, she
the doubts that
men
secretly despises
clever
to her,
because they are not
enough to give the credit of her work

and not to Nature. Sometimes, in-
deed, she feels the longing of the artist for

recognition, and
be but a
little,
the curtain, though
lifts
man
to the
she loves, only
when she realizes

her handiwork that men love, and
let it fall
aghast,
that
it
to
it is
not her-
Perhaps in her wakeful nights she
self.
wearies of her life-long task, and mourns

for the simplicity that
her smiling,
finds
ready
to
But dawn
not hers.
alert,
certain
of herself,
add a new touch of colour, a new
phrase, to the
lessly to the
Looking
I
is
work
that she follows daunt-
very gates of death.
at the
pages of literary history,
am, on the whole, surprised that
have accomplished as much
in
women
pure art as
they have, for at best a woman's
work
is
never more than a secondary occupation in

her
life,
and we have seen that her labour
in her sweet task of self-creation

terribly
exhausting.
No
must be
writer or painter
WHY WOMEN
FAIL IN ART
devotes a tenth part of the time to his

a
that
woman
charmed
woman
work
spends in carrying on the
traditions of her sex.
we endow
131
with
And even
if
extraordinary
powers of expression we must remember that

she will have little save echoes to express.
She has formed an enchanted human shape
from impressions of a thousand models, but
beyond these skilful derivations she has
nothing but the normal instincts of her sex,
which Nature is over-eager to express for
her.
If the natural woman survive behind
the
mask she
will express herself in children
these are her sonnets and her love stories,
her nocturnes and her autobiography.

natural
woman
has
perished
If
beneath
the
the
and I suspect that the death-rate

amongst natural women is rapidly increaspaint,
ing,
ately
she will fling herself the

into
more passion-
her task of creating the vision
that decks the lives of
men
with the glory
they call love.
Why
can
should
bear
children?
write books
Why
when they
should
women
when they can make themTheir work has inspired all that
paint pictures
selves?
women
MONOLOGUES
132
is
best
ill
the art of
man
our lyric poems
are but timid reproductions of their conceptions
they
we win by
sible that
bj^
day the dreams that
the light of the stars.
some
hardly
will
make
of
feel
them reading
by this
flattered
It is
pos-
this
page
perfectly
sincere appreciation of their skill in creat-
ing
their
why
they
own charm.
title,
that
do
not
know
would
should be displeased.
point out, however, that

its
for
women
my
article negates
have endeavoured
to
suggest
are the greatest and most suc-
cessful artists of
all.
It is
only by the light
woman, this supreme invention of women,

that men come to a sense of their own imWe worship them from afar
perfections.
even when they lie on our hearts, and it
is for love of women as women have made
of
them
that
men
succeed in
art.
XVI
As
student
lax
seems
me
to
of
that
many newspapers it
great deal too much
has been written
about General
and
the
that
this
great
truly
is
talk
Elections,
moment when
something
about
the
else.
do not say that the journalists are wrong.

English
seem
people
to
be
very
fond
of
They would not celebrate the

apotheosis of poor old Guy Fawkes year
elections.
year
after
they
if
were
not,
but
doubt
whether they are quite so fond of them as

the future student of our contemporary Press
may
lustily
the
The men who can cheer
imagine.
when
features
they see for the thousandth time

of
Mr.
Chamberlain or Mr.
Lloyd George flung on a screen are few and

far
between.
enthusiasms
We
are
others,
less
133
whose
god -like,
political
may
well
MONOLOGUES
134
plead election headache after several days of

strident
democracy and
hubbub.
aristocratic
And, fortunately for the average patriot

whose lungs and ears and degree of patience
are only normal, there are
than
joys
those
of
more
leisurely
General
Election
there are quieter kingdoms than the fierce

It is possible to
world of party politics.
steal away from the argument, about it and
about, to some pleasant field of dreams where
no crime to lie and take one's rest,

and where the heart may whisper without
treason, Does it matler?
was
I remember reading a long time ago
it
is
it
not in the fragrant pages of the
Book"? a
Beerbohm on the
not recall a word
an hour
seaside in winter.
it
Max
can-
hardly
an idea but
wind blowing in from
me the whole atmosphere
of
it
back the cold
the sea restored to
of
Yellow
by Mr.
article
delightful
"
and, after
all,
in essays
it is
the atmo-
sphere that counts. The receding tide hushed

the
softly to me in the winter twilight
;
ribbed sand greeted

the soles of
me
the
my
cliffs
my
grateful feet through
town-going boots
climbed
vaguely
to
behind
heaven.
135
showing here and there a glimmering light

remind me that I dwell in a civilized
to
was a solemn moment one of

those moments in which the individual feels
at once modest and important
modest in
world.
It
his share of
life,
and important
tionship to
it.
And
came
to
me two
there
in his rela-
solemn moment
in that
One, as
impressions.
I have said, was that of having read an essay

by Mr. Beerbohm a long time ago the other
;
touched
the
on
dries
deposit of
pearance of that deposit.
Had
lives
the dusk and
home,
seem
my
recalled the
For most
ap-
of our
as meaningless as that.
content with the peace of
rested
sea-water
brown boots it leaves a white

I was not wearing brown
salt
boots, but, nevertheless,
days our
When
ridiculous.
my
two impressions and gone

mind, I suppose, would have dis-
missed the occasion as uneventful, and this

article
would
Instead,
gave a
the thickness
briskly
have
of
little
my
remained
unwritten.
shiver in criticism of
and walked
a place where
overcoat,
along the shore to
the rocks thrust rugged heads through the

level
sand
place where there were pools
MONOLOGUES
136
and seaweed and a
salty
There
smell.
something about seaweed that takes

the throat
something,
nevertheless,
that
cannot express for myself in words.
day
fancy a writer will explain
tion to
me
is
me by
I
Some
my emo-
in an epithet or in a line
half of verse
but as yet
the revealing phrase.
It
I
is
and a
have not found
so cold and so
at the same time so tenderly fragile.

on the shore in haphazard bunches
and tresses, and you have to look at it carefully before you realize the beauty of these
poor dead flowers of the sea. Men and
women trample them underfoot unheeding,
dead and
It
lies
but children,
who can
see the beautiful better
than we, love them and heap them high in

their
little
pails.
It
may
fairy story that links
be some forgotten
seaweed in
my mind
with the hair of a beautiful woman, drowned

while she was
gave
me
still
young, or perhaps Ariel
the image in a dream.
But there
where the rocks were and the seaweed with

its strange, sad smell of the sea, I saw a ghost
a ghost that I thought I had laid for ever.
will not set
down her name
here
out of respect for the dead, for she
not
is
not
137
dead, nor out of sentimental regard for
my
have learnt
but
feelings, for
because,
if
to forget her,
she happened to read these lines,
she had rather that
I did not.
In any case,
must beware of the crime of Richard le
Gallienne and Sentimental Tommy, the crime
of making copy out of emotions which we
ought to have experienced but have not, for
my
to
ghost
was
a girl
whom
love in the hot pride of
whom
meet no more.
once thought
my
This
is
youth, and
not, I sup-
pose, the place for a philosophical disserta-
on the nature of love in general, or I

would make some judicious reflections on
this case in particular.
Say that I loved a
tion
girl
who was
willing to accept
my
friendship,
modern equivalent of the " I'll be a sister

to you " of our shrewd grandmothers, say
that some strange things happened, some
humorous and some, perhaps, not unsympathetic, and you will have done justice to
the
the
Speaking dispassionately,
situation.
should say that the really wise youth will
always accept a
for his love.
young men?
girl's
friendship in return
But are there any really wise
MONOLOGUES
138
be seen that Fate had played an
will
It
odd
trick
on
me
in sending such a ghost to
charm the wintry shore
to
pulse quickened and
was
my
from blaming
far
my
excitation of spirit,
of
the
order
natural
heart beat louder
The
apparitions.
winter
warmed
Yet, in spite of
my
senses took note
phenomena
of
my
that austere lady for
her choice of a messenger.

curious
but while
things
in
that
the
are
the
world of
night glowed into day, the
into
summer, and from the
vague shadows there sprang blue sea and

yellow sands, and green -capped
sky,
of white.
but
I
say that
did not astonish
it
cliffs
noticed this change,
me
a jot.
Nor was
surprised to find that in her metamorphosis
from
and blood to a creature of dreams

had remained unaltered. She could
hardly grow more pretty
and why should
any one be less beautiful in a dream than
in real life?
My aesthetic sense went out to
do her homage.
my
flesh
love
always mistrust a
lyrical,
can give a
but accurate, description of the
he loves.
it
man who
True passion
is
girl
never eloquent;
stumbles vainly through the shadows of

139
speech in search of some iUiiminating and
tremendous word.
can
no
give
description of the appearance of
logical
my
ghost.
She had dark hair and a nice-shaped face,

and there was something about her eyes
but I have noticed that there nearly always
She was
is something about their eyes.
sitting on a rock in the sun, and her feet
were bare and shining wet from the sea.
As
Observe how dreams improve on life
.
a matter of fact, in
my
passion
now
the long
all
months of
had never seen her
feet,
yet
was
found them
that their silver -pink shapeliness
me
revealed to
in
my
vision
very well worth looking
at.
There
is
some-
thing charmingly intimate about a girl's toes.
drew near her my ghost raised her

No, I cannot tell you.
head, and said
In truth, the dialogue that seemed so gracious
and sagely witty in the light of a dream
turns to the merest dust of words at the
And
as
touch of
my
wakeful pen.
As with the sea-
my
ghost, the decisive
weed, and the face of
word
give
eludes
form
search for
to
it
me
that
would enable me to
and in the vain
her message
my
fancy totters to
its
founda-
MONOLOGUES
140
and I know that I have built

Spanish castle on the sands of doubt.
tion,
No,
have not been down
winter,
sea this
have passed the long days in a
city distraught
and
to the
my
between meaningless rumours
idiotic passions.
As
write a hoarse
cheering breaks from the street and rattles
upon
some
window-panes.
the
creature
of
ignoble
pleased the vanity of the
him an
to raise
its
own
level.
The success of
mob
has
ambitions
that has helped
infinitely small degree
above
All over the country the
news
will fly of another victory for
an army that
exist, in a campaign that does not

and other mobs will offend the air
of heaven with their impertinent breath.
does not
matter
The
successful creature will strut for a while,
flattered,
envied,
and abused by those who
have given him his barren honours, and then

he will pass and be no more.
There will
come other fools to take his place.

What though the dream leave a bitter
on the lips of the awakened dreamer?
taste
He
dreaming again, and forget the

sorrow of his shattered visions
and sooner
can
fall
to
or
later,
perhaps, he will find that
all
his
141
haphazard wanderings in the sleep-lit world

have had a definite and assured aim
that
unconsciously
he
has
drawing
all
been
;
nearer
the goal of his desires.
to
elections
more
significant
real,
than
the
more permanent, more

dream you won last
night, or the sea that
my
ghost and
heart
is,
Are the
broke
me an hour
at the
feet of
Where
also.
By
ago?
the
is
all
there the treasure
means choose the substance and abjure the

shadow but who shall say that the dream
;
is
us,
not the shadow, the

the
hearts?
terrible
life
shadow
of
that surrounds
our
desolate
XVII
THE NEW SEX

I
DO not wish
another article
weary readers with yet

on whether women should
to
or should not have votes.
lem
is
of very small
men and women
In
itself
the prob-
importance, as most
realize that
it
is
not votes,
but opinions, that govern a country.

the
" cause,"
as
believe the elect call
But
it,
becomes significant when it is considered, not

as an isolated battle, but as a relatively unimportant skirmish in an enormously important
campaign. This is the campaign that began
with the conspiracy of Eve against Adam,
and has developed in course of time into
what is known as the sex -war, the eternal
We are
conflict between man and woman.
told that in its initial stage the devil was
on the side of women in this campaign, and
cynics of the male sex would have us believe
143
THE NEW SEX

that this
is
still
the case.
143
would prefer
think that, like the immortal Dr. Bulti-
to
tude,
devil
the
either side,
the
reward
is
prepared
to
score
and that he does not
fail to
of this impartiality.
Both
for
reap
sides,
impelled by the purest motives, forswear the

aid of their
is
dusky auxiliary, but the devil
not notably discouraged by their ingratiIn
tude.
fact,
nothing
is
the thoughtful than the

devil
continues
to
flourish
and
reprobation,
universal
more surprising to
way in which the
wanting philosophers
to
in
the
there
of
face
are
not
suggest that he
is
not only responsible for our immoralities,

but for
devil,
our conventional moralities as
Certainly they do
well.
It
all
is
not
my
purpose
him no
to
dis -service.
write about the
otherwise than indirectly, but the
culty of writing
diffi-
about questions of sex in
the English language for English readers

that
it
is
is
absolutely necessary to display a
wholly indecent reticence.
The only
dis-
on sex that is really tolerated in

England is the unrecorded badinage of our
smoking-rooms, the modern equivalent of the
folk-tales and folk-songs of our uncultured
sertation
MONOLOGUES
144
ancestors
and the mind shrinks from the
task of translating
sex-questions
of
serious
azure
into
libidinous limericks.
cently
reticent
than
consideration
anecdotes
and
had rather be indeoutspoken on those
terms.
Before
stances
we come
consider the circum-
to
have brought about the
that
latest
phase of the revolt of a certain section of
women
against men,
is
it
necessary to recall
the nature of the truce that
or
less
had been more
observed by both sexes before the
recent upheaval of militant femininity.
The
truce took the form of a compromise, and a
very ingenious and successful compromise at

that.
Men were
to
be nominally,
wholly, monogamous.
privilege of possessing one
man was
that
woman
It
men were
was
tacitly
intellectual,
courageous, and masterful, and that
were simple,
faithful,
thousand charms.
pact
wholly,
expected to provide for her and
their joint offspring.
stood
women
In exchange for the
women
and possessed of a
Neither party to the com-
was supposed
natural qualities.
undercapable,
from these
Men were not to be emoto
depart
THE NEW SEX
145
and women were not to think. Looking back we can realize now that as far
as they went they were golden days. Regarding the future we can feel no such blissful
tional,
certainty.
Of course, the compromise failed in individual instances, but on the whole it worked
very well, and
that
we must
is
not to
trace the
new
these
failures
feminist
move-
due probably to two causes

the greater measure of education that
ment.
It
first, to
is
it
is
nowadays granted
to
women,
and, second,
to the economic fact that a large
women
can
now
earn their
own
number
of
living with-
The first
but probably the more cogent,
while our modern system of
out loss of liberty or self-respect.

is
the vaguer,
reason
for
education has produced no noticeable change
worse in our
young men, it has certainly had a remarkable effect on our young women. They have
either
for the better or the
taken, with the beginner's eagerness, to the
engrossing pastime of thinking, and, in consequence, they
show an increasing
desire to
break the great truce between the sexes.
And
the second reason that

10
gave above
MONOLOGUES
146
them with the opportunity. There

has always been a considerable number of
supplies
women who
self,
did not desire marriage in
it-
but who, nevertheless, were forced to
marry
one
in order to obtain a
support
to
women
them.
can obtain a situation as clerk or
and deride the
typist
home and someNowadays these
man
masterful
queenly citadel by
to take the
These
storm.
efforts of clever, strong,
newly -enfranchised
women
are rarely sufficiently sure of themselves to
ignore
man
ignored.
in
order
they
as
feel
They are rude

to
to
he ought
him
in the
to
be
mass
counteract a despicable, secret
some individual manifestaThey throw away

tion of him their master.
the one effective weapon of their sex of their
desire to appoint
own
free
will,
but they are not prepared
to face the resultant loss of all their battles
with philosophic calm.
They disdain
the
charming men, but are dismayed

when they And that men are not charmed.
Behind the most ferocious Suffragette there
still lurks woman, with one eye on the world
and one on her mirror, and therefore she
idea
of
cannot see
to fight.
THE NEW SEX

It
is
147
men have been
for this reason that
whole problem of
able so far to treat the
the Suffragettes with tolerant good -humour
but the
man
not a bad place in which
who
dwells in a fool's paradise (and
dwell either
to
does not realize that behind this insig-
nificant
demand
for
votes
hidden the
lies
germs of a struggle of a far more desperate

character.
It must be remembered that the
standard of feminine education
rising,
women
and more
supporting
every
tendency of modern education

in the individual that curious
content
known
less state of
woman
it
is
the
whole
to
arouse
form of
dis-
as ambition, without provid-
ing him, or her, with

of satisfying
steadily
are becoming self-
Now,
year.
is
it.
In
mind
has the
is
any
man
efficient
means
this hopeful, help-
almost normal, but for
fatal attraction of novelty.
For countless generations she has been content with waging the placid warfare of home
life, and its little victories and little defeats
have composed the history of her days. But
now, as it were in a dream, she sees the
world that man has conquered opening to
her feet, and, the dream being new, she does
MONOLOGUES
148
not realize that the boundaries of that world

are no
wider than the boundaries of the

and
kingdom tiiat she has ruled hitherto
;
she longs to change the substance for the
shadow.
Revolting against the divine pur-
pose of her motherhood, she covets the unreal
splendour of the purposeless
lives
of
men. Why should she, she asks, with her

hands and her eyes and her brain, be no
more than a mother and a nurse of babies?
She does not stay to consider that man's
part in the universe
She wishes
this.
even smaller than
is
to sacrifice the
privileges of her sex for the
ennobling
glamour with
which men hide the weary emptiness of
And circumstance
days.
do
their
helping her to
is
it.
The
woman
motherhood
but whereas in bygone
is no new thing
years we have been accustomed to regard
revolt of
against
it
as
an eccentricity,
the future
we may
factor in
our national
among
rate
as
is
am
not find
life.
not sure that in

it
a very serious
I
believe that
the English middle classes the birth-
already abnormally low, and when,
seems
likely to
happen sooner or
later,
THE NEW SEX
149
whole of our population joins the middle

class, the effect of the new feminine ambithe
tions will certainly be very serious.
am aware
that,
so
from attacking
far
motherhood, the actual Suffragettes of to-day

find it one of the most useful weapons in
their oratorical
armoury
but the fact re-
mains that they themselves, the pioneers of

a movement that is to work wonders for
their sex, have done very little to supply
the incessant
and
it
is
tendency
demand
difficult
is
of the State for babies,
not to conclude that the
for the intelligent
woman
of the
examine the problem and find that

not worth her while to be a mother.
The only drawback of this decision is that
day
to
it
is
it
renders her absolutely useless and even
wasteful to the country that gives her shelter.
She
eats food
human
State
is
and burns
coal,
the
but so far as
prosperity
of
the
concerned she might just as well
not be there at
may humbug
first
or
progress
all.
We human
ourselves as
law of our existence
continue the race.
we
is
creatures
will,
that
but the
we must
For women the breeding
and raising of children have proved
sufficient
MONOLOGUES
150
completely occupy the
to
The
their lives.
efficient section of
men
duties that
inherit are
smaller, and they have found
it
invent politics,
justice,
science,
art,
necessary to
educa-
and a thousand other toys to while

away the idle hours and to help them to
conceal their relative unimportance from the
female sex.
Hitherto we have most of us
imagined that women could see through the
hollow pretence of our lives, and it comes
tion,
as a
shock
and clever
to
discover that there are
women
women,
at that, capable of
envy-
ing us our possession of gaudy, painted wings

that glisten in the sunlight prettily enough,
but will not help us
we
are
some
of us
Heaven knows
weary enough of this
to fly.
load of petty shams that the
women
of to-
We have got to live out

day seem to covet
our days, and we may as well make the
!
best of them, but surely
remark
it
is
permissible to
that they do these things better in
bee-hives.
I
"
have ventured
New
Sex,"
unreasonable
and,
to see
to
call
my
article
the
is
not
drifting into
two
looking ahead,
women
strongly -divided camps.
The one
it
intellectual,
THE NEW SEX
independent, and supremely use-
energetic,
less
the
151
other
emotional,
affectionate,
and in all things motherly.

The
weakness of the former camp will be its
sterility, though doubtless every generation
placid,
will send
its
of the latter
With the
tithe of recruits.
camp
will
intellectual
be
its
To
strength
permanence.
women men
as they fight with each other,
miserable equality.
The
will fight,
on terms of
the emotional
women
they will go, as they go now, to justify their

existence and to meet their fate.
who
is
The woman
wishes that she had been born a
a fool.
man
XVIII
ON EDITORS
In spite of their lack of faith,
generation
make
it
is
but
in
it
who
and thereby
heart of the great mysteries.
is that,
though we do not believe
anything in particular,
to accept the
present
tolerant of those
their business to reveal,
to destroy, the
Perhaps
little
tlie
we do
not wish
necessary responsibilities of our
sceptical attitude
towards things in general.
Like the mythical but ubiquitous ostrich,
had rather
we
our eyes with the sands of
veil
which is half-sister to faith, than

acknowledge the wholly inimicable character
of the shadows that haunt the desert in which
doubt,
we
live.
We
do not believe, but
unwilling to be told that
And
of our fear
mindedness.
none
is
more
Of
we
we do
we
are
not believe.
create a virtue of broad-
all
the concrete mysteries,
loyally
and watchfully guarded

162
ON EDITORS
153
Dimly,
than the mystery of the editor.

a
dream
we
a
are
like
seen from the heart of a dream,
permitted to perceive that here
Force,
Power,
Cause that induces
multitudinous
and widely -scattered
We
him
conceive
as
is
being
effects.
essentially
super-human, a subtle judge of right and

wrong, a dreamer of gigantic dreams, whose
messages to us have the emphasis of an
To all ordinary men
inspired command.
and
women
enough
to
remains
he
invisible
it
is
have met a sub -editor who has
touched the great man's hand, an office-boy
Not that we
would wish to see him if we had the power,
for his infallibility would scourge us for a
Even his
hundred mental weaknesses.
who
has
thoughts,
It is
filled
we
feel,
are correctly punctuated.
not without a just sense of the value
of mysteries that
editors
ink-pot.
his
hazard the assertion that
are not really like this.
It
is
not
passing the bounds of a decent reticence to
remark
that
by daylight they vary a
but, nevertheless, in
all
the ordinary man.
If
little,
essentials resemble
I
impressionist sketch from
had
to
form an
my
vague recol-
MONOLOGUES
154
lections of the type,
a timid,
hesitant
on one or two
think
should draw
man, very well informed
subjects, but with the vast
ignorance of the traditional judge on things

in general.
should represent him as peep-
ing gratefully at a catalogue of spring bulbs

in
the intervals of directing the affairs of
the Empire.
anxious
to
Honest, kindly, conscientiously

reconcile
his youthful
dim remnants of
the
sestheticism with
his duty to-
wards his directors, his advertisement

manager, and his family.
Utterly out of
touch with the literature of his day, but with
a jealous admiration for Milton, Dr. Johnson,
and Thackeray, and a very great con-
tempt for the frivolous graces of modern

prose.
timid,
A man, as I have siaid,

who would be reduced to
essentially
dust in a
day if he were not handsomely guarded by

an army of cynical sub -editors and truculent
Some such shape my fancy
oflice-boys.
portrait
But
would assume.
this is a fancy portrait
as
far
from
the truth, perhaps, as the imagined editor of

a literary-minded boy.
tional
editor
is
largely
think the tradi-
founded on these
ON EDITORS
155
happy dreams of scribbling youth. Sucking the midnight fountain-pen, and writing
with that flattering ease indistinguishable, by
from
night,
inspiration,
natural
is
it
that
youthful writers should conceive that editors

" If
are on the side of the literary angels.
my
blank-verse
Asphodel
Chimes
tragedy
is
will be glad to print
and give
good,"
young
says to himself, " the editor of the
me
for Phyllis."
it
golden sovereigns
The
in his paper,
to
cynic, being the
buy roses
man who
knows, would deal harshly with poor Asphodream.
del's
He would
least judicious assistant
point out that the
would not allow the
tragedy to reach the editor, that even

did the editor would not
if
it
know whether
it
was good or bad, that even if, personally,

he thought it was good he would not dare
to print it, and, though this is beside the
case, that Phyllis would prefer to receive
jewellery
knowledge
or
is
chocolates.
hidden
Fortunately,
from Asphodel
the
he
writes his tragedy for the waste-paper basket,
and doubtless learns something in the writing

of
it.
philosopher might deduce something of
MONOLOGUES
156
the novelist's soul
from the
fact that, saving
modern
of the photographs of the
realistic
school, the average editor in fiction
whom young
unlike the ideal person for
phodel twangs his ambitious
be
can
of
heroine
lyre.
more touching than
when she
the
gentlemen
these
attention
is
give
not
As-
Nothing
amount
to
the
takes to story-writing in
order to keep her younger
sister at Girton,
Instead of rejecting her with printed slips

of a
clammy
coldness, they give her encour-
agement, good advice, and crisp five-pound

notes
with
would do well
lavishness
to imitate.
fictional editors are
that
I
real
editors
notice that these
always curiously suscep-
charms of young women in disit would be tactless to

inquire whether this pleasant editorial trait
I have never
has any foundation in fact.
met a heroine in real life who has sought
assistance from editors by breathing on their
tible to the
tress,
but,
perhaps,
grizzled heads, but
it
things are done.
do
who
sent
London
short
daily paper
is
possible that these
know
story
to
a boy of eleven
a well-known
and received in reply
a three-page letter of kindly criticism in the
ON EDITORS
157
authentic handwriting of the editor.
But
if
had found this incident in a novel I would

have thought it improbable.
I
have said above that in all essentials
modern editors resemble the ordinary man,
I
and
it
is
only going a step further to assert,
with due deference to our
common need
mysteries, that editors do
not exist at
There was
a time
when
of
all.
the personality of
an editor dominated the paper he edited

to-day the newspaper seems to eliminate the
Very few people could name the

editors of newspapers to which they are
regular subscribers, and fewer still, perhaps,
would notice any alteration in a newspaper
if the editor were changed.
It must be ad-
man.
mitted that this state of things

fault of the editor.
is
is
rarely the
Nominally a tyrant, he
in truth the slave of
many
masters
his
on whose favour
the continuance of the paper depends, the
proprietors, the advertisers
conservatism that drives the oldest readers

of a paper to passionate rebuke
shows any signs of change,

forces
Then
to
the
be
reckoned
English
with
law of
if
all
the paper
these
are
and obeyed.
libel
frequently
MONOLOGUES
158
demands not merely
suppression of the
downright affirmation of falseAgainst these powers the strongest
truth, but a
hood.
personality can
make
Newspapers ought
but a feeble struggle.
really to die as soon as
they have accumulated

their
growth
traditions
to
check
you can trace the

down Fleet Street by
failing this,
passage of an editor
the clanking of the fetters.
haps, he wrote lyrics
Years ago, per-
more passionate than
Swinburne's, more lucid than those of the

Restoration
singers
he
to-day
can
only
consider the pretentious doggerel that passes
A power
for verse at General Elections.
in
the land, he dare not give his honest opinion
on any mortal or immortal subject if that

opinion is in any way opposed to the opinion
of his readers.
His very position deprives
him of the right of free speech.

The decay of the Press began
when
journals
first
endeavoured
in
England
to give their
readers what they wanted rather than what

they
lacked.
became
the
before he had
The
servant
editor
of
the
automatically
public,
where
been the public's master.
and soap and publishers, board -school
Pills
in-
ON EDITORS
159
tolerance and academic priggishness, fraudulent politics,
common
and a fulsome obedience
sense that
is
common
to the
without being
sense, these are the forces that dictate the
policy
modern
most of the successful
of
newspapers.
The average man
is
a fool, to
be pardoned in this world and crowned in

the
folly
next,
;
mitted
because he does not realize his
but
to
by degrees he has been perbring
nearly
all
his
periodical
empty
mind. He expects his daily newspaper to
support his own wavering opinions, and if
one newspaper is recalcitrant he spends his
copper on another. This man with a penny
or twopence a day to spend in literature that
shall start no disturbing echo in the vacant
corridors of his mind is the virtual editor
The power
of half the papers in England.
of the Press, of which we hear so much,
is little more than the lackey's power ,Xo
wheedle a coin or two from his master by
and the people
dint of flattering obedience
have come to demand both the flattery and
literature
within
the
range of his
the obedience as a right.
The
perfect editor
would
edit the perfect
MONOLOGUES
160
newspaper because he would insist on

making of it what he wished, and I think it
would be a feature of his perfection that
he would allow his contributors to write
what they pleased. He would collect individualities as a boy collects postage-stamps,
and having collected them he would appreciate their varied colour and design, and
would not endeavour to mould them into a
worthless, meaningless lump. He would not
go out of his
way
possible
please
either to please or dis-
advertisers.
He
would
neither flatter nor abuse great men.

lastly,
it
is
not
have written
not
care
readers.
this article in vain if
apparent that
important of
one
all
And,
think this most
the perfect editor
proverbial
damn
would
about
his
XIX
THE REVOLT OF THE PHILISTINES

I
DO not know whether
to the reader,
who
it
has ever occurred
possesses, no doubt, care-
and art, to
sympathize with the point of view of the
man or woman who has not this supreme
fully cultured tastes in literature
advantage.
visedly,
for
individual
use the
who
impossible to regard the
is
it
word sympathize ad-
has failed
to
explore the finest
country of the kingdom he inherits as anycall
him
the intellectual snobs, and
still
thing but unfortunate.
wrong with
less would
spirit of
a certain
I
call
him
would not
right
in
comradeship that seems

section
the genial
to
of the democratic
inspire
Press.
much the
man born blind,
cannot help regarding him in
same way as
who
regard a
has never had the privilege of seeing
flowers or the faces of pretty

11
girls,
and, not
161
MONOLOGUES
162
having
seen
them,
quite
is
incapable
of
reaUzing what he lacks.

a
distinction
There is, however,

between the two cases, for
whereas our blind man cannot see at all,

even the most ignorant people have rudimentary eyes for art
and it may be ad;
much
mitted that they derive almost as
enjoy-
ment from the crude pictures and books
that
they can understand as a person of culture

derives from the last
some great
artist.
It
word
in expression of
may
be said that the
appeal of certain kinds of bad art to the
uncultured
is
known sound
purely emotional
critics of literature
but
have
who were
willing to confess that their judgment of a
book was largely influenced by the effect it

produced on their emotions, though, of
course, their intellect had trained their emotions to require subtler food than that which
brightens the eyes of maid -servants and sends
factory-girls singing to their work.
For the human being who has learnt to
appreciate good art, bad art becomes impossible and even painful.
But bad art is more
than sufficient to allay the aesthetic cravings
of the large majority of people,
and they
163
therefore not unnalurally regard fine pictures
and books as being meaningless, pretentious,

and they further
and frequently ludicrous
;
consider that the persons
who
profess
appreciate such pictures and books are
bugs of the most irritating character,
to
humwho
are secretly amusing themselves at their expense.
It
attitude
of
because to
is
necessary to understand this
mind
it
of the average
due that
is
Philistine,
bitter spirit of in-
tolerance directed against the beautiful as the

aesthetically
educated minority conceives
The average mind

it
it
is
not soured
it.
because
cannot find any beauty in Keats or Shelley

angry that any one should pretend
is
;
there
is
any beauty there
to find
and really
this is a very natural attitude for the average
mind
to
In asking a
adopt.
trust the evidence of his
own
man
to
mis-
senses as to
what is or is not beautiful, you are asking him to admit that his individuality, to
which he clings as his only birthright, is
a possession of no particular value after
I
repeat, then, that
he should prefer
ments are
to
to
be
it
is
not unnatural that
think that his

relied
all.
on,
own
judg-
and that the
MONOLOGUES
104
and seeks
loves,
who
person
superior
standards,
is
an
to set
abuses
the
art
he
up incomprehensible
aesthetic charlatan.
With these facts in view, the most ardent

admirer of Robert Browning's " Red Cotton
Nightcap Country " should hesitate to condemn the Philistine merely because he is
intolerant and a little apt to snigger in his
beard when the name of Browning is mentioned.
Nor, though I have often heard it
pleaded against him, can the aggressiveness
be said
to
be wholly on the side of the
armies of Askalon.
pictures
which he
We
spend his money on
finds absurd
hideously ugly
and
late
and we
we
fill
his
which he considers
streets with architecture
him a fool early

not buy and read
call
because he will
books which he cannot understand, or support
national
drama
barren and unnecessary.
that
he
considers
What can he do
Once upon a time he could

deride our long hair and our sunflowers and
in
revenge?
condemn our laxity of morals, but to-day

we dress as he does, and conceal our little
weaknesses under a similar disguise.
have a dozen periodicals, a dozen
We
societies

in
which we can
get
up and abuse
165
his ignor-
But there is
ance to our heart's content.
not a newspaper in the country no, not
even
now in which an
Mr. W.
J.
honest admirer of
Eaton (author of the

and many other
Wedding
"
ballads)
can
say that
"
Fireman's
broadsheet
Wordsworth was
babbler and Byron a nasty -minded aristo-
and that people who profess to admire

them are in urgent need of further education.
You and I, dear reader, from the
heights of our superiority, can score off the
crat,
Philistine as often as
the Philistine get his
Taking everything
How
we wish.
own back?
into consideration,
can
am
only astonished that the Philistine should be

so tractable as he
bered that he
is
in
must be remema sweeping majority in
is.
It
and that this is an age very much

inclined to meet the demands of majorities
Yet, with the possible exception
half way.
of certain newspapers circulating entirely in
the land,
Philistia,
which, while they decline to share
his attitude of mind, are willing to call
him
a very fine fellow for his halfpence, the position of the aesthetic aristocracy
is
stronger
MONOLOGUES
166
There
than ever.
no question iiere of
yielding to the rights of the democracy
rather it is coming more and more to be
a canon of criticism that there must be
something wrong with a work of art that
has a wide popular appeal.
Hitherto, it
must be presumed that the general lack of
interest in art of any kind has saved this
tyranny from meeting the normal fate of all
tyrannies, but there are not wanting signs
that this popular indifference is coming to
an end.
Two or three generations of a
knowledge of the arts of reading and writis
ing,
and the steadily rising
cation
wants
that
or
it,
later.
Will
is
is
provided for any one
bound to make a
And then.
.
the
Philistines
authority of the few

to
level of the
who
difference sooner
rebel
against
the
will they claim the right
elect great artists for themselves,
crown with immortal
edu-
laurels those
and
to
who have
given them pleasure and satisfied their sense
The mind shrinks at the

thought of the reconstruction of museums
and picture galleries that their revolt would
Chromo -lithographs would
bring about.
of the beautiful?
167
deck the walls of the National Gallery, and

the Royal
Academy would be devoted
talents of the
pavement
artist unless
the
to
he be,
sometimes suspect, a product of decadent sestheticism.

On the newspapers the
as
new movement
could hardly
fail
to
react,
and the working-man's epithet would incarIt would

all their leading articles.
nadine
perhaps, too wild a
be,
flight
of fancy to
imagine that even these events would induce

the publishers to depart
from the
traditional
conservatism of their trade, and doubtless,
now, they would continue in a dignified

manner to publish books that no sane man
could be expected to read. But in all other
centres of artistic activity there would be
chaos, and it is hard to say where the
as
movement would
It
is
stop.
impossible to dissociate the idea of
revolution from that of bloodshed,
and
if
the small group of critics and artists refused

to
revoke their former dogmatic judgments
the revolt of the Philistines might prove to
be
serious
indeed.
As
in
wholly deprived of splendour,
a
I
dream,
not
can see Bed-
ford Park going up to heaven in a shape
MONOLOGUES
168
and Chelsea riven to its

fire and hazard of war.
of flame,
heart by the
see critics shot
down
artistic
I
can
in the street like dogs,
and the bodies of poets swinging from tlie

lamp-posts of Westminster. The air would
be bitter with the smoke of burning books,
and the
feet
of
the
mentally poor would
spring buoyantly from the pavements, released from the intolerable load we have laid
upon them since they were born. In broad
daylight grown men would praise the Albert
Memorial and call it lovely, and women
would chant the ballads of Mr. G. R. Sims
without shame for the ignorance of their
sex.
Wherever a man might go he would
see
men and women
writing their autobio-
graphies, free at last to express the miraculous spirit of their lives, without fear of the
and their iron laws. Like paupers

splitting firewood, so would they split inficritics
pen and a merry, heart

for the wonder of the things they had to tell
their fellows.
All men would be painters,
critics, poets, architects
in a word, all men
would be artists. Here and there, perhaps,
nitives with a light
in a quiet
corner one or two of us would

mourn our
but
lost aristoci'acy,
all
169
around
us would surge the triumphant people,

loose in a world the like of
let
which they had
not known, joined in a universal brotherhood

of
bad
art.
This,
if
but there
tion,
in
you
it.
will,
is, I
is
a fantastic specula-
think, an element of truth
To-day the majorities win, and
it
is
not unlikely that sooner or later the majority

will
triumph over the
critics
in matters of
and that the unfixed standards of beauty

will be lowered to meet the tastes of the
half -cultured and the half -educated. And the
only melancholy satisfaction to be derived
from the foreboding is that we can do
art,
to prevent its being fulfilled.

There
no stopping majorities when they are out
for blood, and sooner or later they will realize
the importance of art, and sweep us off the
nothing
is
face of the earth.
The only miracle
is
that
the Philistines have endured the brow-beating of aesthetic critics so long.
XX

One
of the disadvantages of writing in the
language of a Puritan people
you argue about a problem

expected to consider it from
that before
is
at
you are
all
the standpoint
But, as a matter
of conventional morality.
which
above or below
of fact, our moralities are dogmatic,
means
that they are either
Thus the many
argument.
who
is
on
are
in
of the
a
itself
the
excellent persons
opinion that drunkenness
from
apart
sin,
or
individual
the
race,
effect
its
ob-
are
viously not prepared to argue about drunk-
enness at
condemn
absolves a
all,
the
and
should be the
comfortable
man from
all
last
convention
intellectual
to
that
effort
and responsibility in judging between right

and wrong.
But there are, I imagine,
170

many
great
with
consciences
judgment
to
sleep
generalizations
of
their
their
placid
the
whose
people
allow
not
will
171
and for these the art of getting drunk must be examined in all its asBroadly
pects before it can be condemned.
speaking, even the unmoral have agreed to
forefathers,
regard drunkenness as foolish, but the con-
which can
only be regarded as the process by which
a man becomes drunk, has many eloquent
admirers and supporters. This, I know, is
suming
alcoholic
of
favourite
fanatics
so
beverages,
argument of those passionate

humorously labelled with the
word temperance, who hold
that a
drinks a glass of beer
is
man who
of beer
glass
The
nearer intoxication and nothing more.
normal answer
is
that
really
a
in
to
raucous moralists
these
man who
eats
muffin
he consumed
it.
was before
But in arguing,
divine right of the individual to
argument
ing
he
pleases
confess that this
every
not
any greater danger of perishing
of a surfeit of muffins than he
and
is
with
is
the
crown what
his
method
it
approval,
of regard-
one who cats a liqueur choco-
MONOLOGUES
172
potential drunkard appeals to

and
satisfies my reason.
my fancy
Apart from the moral aspect, it is necessary to consider the effect of getting drunk
on the mind and body of the individual, and
as
late
far as
also, in so
his
effect
munity
getting
it
affects his welfare, the
drunk has on the com-
Now,
at large.
part of the problem
noble
his
concerned,
notice
who
Like every one else
a curious thing.
abuses
so far as the former
is
gift
of
by reading
sight
have read an extraordinary

I
of drunkenness from
condemnation
mass of
newspapers,
pens
the
doctors,
of
clergy-
sociologists,
men, reformed drunkards, and other interested persons, but I do not recollect coming
across one respectable argument against a
man
occasionally
getting
To
drunk.
drunk is to consume alcohol to

and all the statistics and diatribes
get
excess,
I
have
discovered have been directed against excess

of this excess, rather than against the excess
in
is
itself.
course
know
that
there
a widely accepted theory that drinking
begets
of
Of
drinking,
persons
with
but,
except
natural
in
the
tendency
case
to

intemperance,
do
not
that
believe
theory has any foundation in fact

the
theory
wilder
yet
drunkenness,
begets
while
man who
had too much

encouraged to drink
to
drink
to
excess
when we remember
the
once
this
drunkenness
that
that
173
has
thereby
is
again,
extreme
is,
physical
discomforts with which Nature rebukes excess, altogether
beyond
belief of
any reason-
able person.
As a matter of
average consumer
fact, the
of alcoholic beverages never gets drunk,
if
only for fear of the bodily pains that state
and my mistrust of compromise

in general would lead me to suspect that
this timidity is a vice rather than a virtue
induces,
that he
we
is
likely reaping the varied
ills
that
are told are the necessary consequences
of the
consumption of alcohol, without enjoyfrom
ing the undoubted benefits that accrue
coming
grips
to
now and
laws that control his
who
on
has sobbed
its
than
fault,
mother's
it
so
did
the
its
child
Just as a child,
life.
way back
lap, feels
before
again with the
it
to
committed
man
penitence
wiser and happier
is
its
apt to
little
win a
MONOLOGUES
174
greater love and a fuller knowledge of his
mother
Nature
has
she
often
punished
him with her frowns, and
dried his tears
with her sunshine.
all,
more than
After
we
are no
on a big scale
we are not afraid of dark rooms, but we
are afraid of the darkness of the heavens
we do not run from our own shadows,
children
little
we
but
stand
shadows
analogy
may
nursery
it
its
be
is
all
due
own
our
of
gets into
panic-stricken
trusted
the
And
the
the scrapes.
further.
best
It
In
that
child
has inherited
and
naughtiness,
of
not cunning enough to keep

sions
the
hearts.
always
share
within
its
it
is
transgres-
within the vague limits of the law.
And we may
trace the
through
sinners
life
way
readily
of the simple
enough.
drunken man walks down the street, and

the hypocrites lean from the windows of
their houses and rend the skies with their
clamorous disgust. It is always pretty safe
to trust a man who wears his vices on his
sleeve.
But
from
my
fear
that
argument.
have strayed a
I
hold
little
no brief for

do think
drunkenness, but
good thing that a
man
very
if
occasionally
much.
In
the
his transgression
his
own
frailties
dreary
of the less
even
or
to,
concrete
ignorant
The
companionable.
so
not
this
and a realization of
keeps a man modest and
of,
totallers,
does
place,
as
too
many
uncertain
vices,
is
it
should occasionally,
you wish, drink
first
him, like
leave
that
175
far as
propagandists,
greatest fault of tee-
have examined those

is
not
they
that
are too consciously proud of their sobriety

in face of a total absence of temptation, but
that they affect to be wholly free
from
those weaknesses that knit individuals,
image of God,
in the
Yet
it
is difficult
into
human
all
made
world.
not to believe that drunken-
ness which reaps so violent and immediate

a punishment
is
not a lesser vice than those
meanness and hypocrisy that a

man may nurture unpunished in his heart.
defects
of
Self-respect
is
quality
so
near akin
to
self-righteousness that in preserving the one
we
are
always in danger of breeding the
other.
talisman by aid of which a
man may
MONOLOGUES
176
remain tolerant
is
cheaply purchased
at the
price of an occasional headache, but

willing to go further and say that
that
for
am
believe
an occasional excess in his cups is good

a man's mind and body as well as
for his heart.
Any one who
uses his
mind
is an
work, though I fear that this

argument that only appeals to the minority,
will have suffered from time to time from
an attack of stateness.
If he be a member of Parliament he will find himself at
a loss for a method by which to reform
the House of Lords.
If he be a writer
of little articles he will find that all the
little articles have already been written by
some one else. If he be a poet the music
of the universe will sound in his cars like
the thin voice of a barrel-organ, heard
At such a time, to betake
from afar.
oneself to the wine-bowl, in fitting comin his
pany,
is
be
said,
it
some
to
win, after the lapse of a day,

a
friendly
stagnant
new
brain.
hand
had
mind with a
It
is
stick,
though
as
stirred
up the
and brought
the ideas to the surface like bubbles.
there
is
parallel
state
of
bodily
And
stale-

which
for
ness,
change of
in
air,
doctors
the
prescribe
seems as
It
though Nature
likes obedience,
demands
desires
nor
but neither
from
servility
A day of hot coppers,

mood of patient humility,
children.
in
man back
to
that can frequently be cured
same simple fashion.
tlie
177
his
work
her
suffered
sends
the glad spirit
in
dew-drunk butterfly.
I
do not believe in making a habit of
inebriation, any more than I believe in
making a habit of doing anything, either
good or bad. To be efficacious, a remedy
of this kind must be used cautiously, and
The
only when the occasion demands it.
man who is perpetually drunk is no better
of a
off
than the
man who
is
perpetually sober,
and believers in Wilde's epigram should re-
member that excess ceases

when it becomes normal.
as
to be successful
It
is
difficult,
Montaigne found in considering a rather
down
similar
problem,
rule
conduct in a matter of this kind,
but
of
I
tunate
to
lay
should think that
who found
more than
it
man
definite
very unfor-
necessary to get drunk
twice in a year.
12
It
is
possible
MONOLOGUES
178
that,
after
life,
when
nourish
bility,
he
certain
has
period
sinned
any further belief

and when his mind
in
too
in
man's
often
to
his
infalli-
no
longer
is
capable of giving him surprises,
it
necessary for him to get drunk at
is
all.
not
XXI
THE VERDICT OF POSTERITY

It
is
very
common
for
critics
individuals wlio take an interest
porary art
how
and other
in contem-
indulge in speculations as to
to
manifestations of that
far certain
which appeals
to
art,
them, perhaps, in spite of
their better judgment, possess the quality of
durability.
After
Mr.
Kipling's
cloven-
hoofed critic has examined a work, admitted

its prettiness, and expressed a doubt as to
whether it is art, there follows very closely

the gentleman who says, " Oh yes, it seems
And of the two
to be art, but will it live? "
he
is
place,
it
is
very
stitutes life in
may
difficult
to
reasonably
be
doubted
first
say what con-
terms of works of
artist's effort at
in
In the
the harder to argue with.
art,
and
whether
it
any
expression lives in the sense
which we use the word

179
in discussing the
MONOLOGUES
180
claims of a contemporary artist
do not
What we can say
like.
whom we
is
some
that
time after publication some books are read
more than others and

be read at
all
works of
the
that
that
is
it
many
cease to
not necessarily
that preserve the widest
art
audience that secure the greatest measure of
may sound paraand that many of our so-called
general esteem, though this

doxical
English classics linger chiefly in the pages

of literary histories, and are rarely read save
by
experts.
When we leave art and consider the attributes of human fame in general, we are
bound
to
human
admit that for the majority of living
beings the dead have
or significance.
We
;
existence
where they
the rest
we
say,
interest
adopt, or rather, per-
haps, adapt, their ideas

of their discoveries
little
we
like
we
take advantage
take up the task of
laid
it
down
Tyltyl in the
but for
"
Blue
Bird," that there are no dead, though our
motive
is
with
idiot
We
different.
that a live
dog
is
whole-hearted
who
accept the theory
better than
a dead lion
and the
of an asylum
enthusiasm,
gibbers in the
cell

is
infinitely
more
alive
to
us than Shake-
we
Perhaps, subconsciously,
speare.
181
despise
the dead because they have not been clever
enough to go on living.
No, we will not allow the ghosts
smallest fraction of the
makes us
and
veins
heroic
that boils in
commit crimes
our
and
Yet looking ahead to that
actions.
when
inconceivable age
be no more,
life
tlie
we
we, ourselves, shall
display a childish eagerness
as to the ultimate fate of
our individual per-
Whether we are criminals or

sonalities.
heroes, we wish the age to come to be aware
of our identities, and it is possible to conclude from the lives of many of our great
men that they would rather be remembered
for
their
Yet the
than forgotten
follies
man who
altogether.
sacrifices part of his life
posthumous fame should reflect that only

a small percentage of men and women have
any regard for the past, and that the remainder will avail themselves of whatever
for
they
may
find useful in his life's
work, with-
out giving a thought to the dead
was responsible
Nevertheless,
man who
for their inheritance.
when we
talk of a
work
of
MONOLOGUES
182
we mean
art living,
that
it
retains
still
its
individual appeal to a limited audience, and
an estimate of what will survive of contemporary literature in a hundred
in attempting
years' time
we must
the lines along
take into consideration
which the cultured
likely to develop.
And here
class is
may remark
that in spite of the spread of scholastic edu-
cation
it
does not seem likely to
cultured
class
of
the
future
me
will
that the
be
any
numbers than it is now. It is

nowadays we teach every one how
to read, but at the same time we take care
to teach them that the habit of reading is
unfortunate from the point of view of their
greater in
true that
material welfare.
ward
to a
golden age
read good books, but
should like
talk
look for-
when every one should

I
fident that a time will
will
to
about them.
cannot even
feel
con-
come when every one

I
foresee that the
cultured class of the future, surrounded on
by individuals who are uncultured

from choice and not from necessity, will tend
to become more precious and more priggish
all
sides
than
which
ever.
caters
The gap between journalism

for
the
many and
literature

which can only appeal
widen, and persons who
the
to
183
few will
fit
really take an in-
terest in English literature will
be regarded
which students of
Anglo-Saxon are marvelled at now.
It should be possible to deduce what contemporary works this cultured minority will
find worth the reading from the kind of
literature that has worn down from the
past to our own day, with some elements of life lingering between the battered
rather
in
boards.
light
in
The
difficulty
the
books that
between
genuine
the
if
here
is to
still
distinguish
command
strictly limited public,
and those
that really only survive as historical docu-
ments for the student of

recent
flood
numerous
how
but
of
cheap
The
literature.
reprints
gave
us
editions of books of both classes,

far
these
books were bought
to
and how far they were bought as a

convenient substitute for valentines and
Christmas cards, not even the publishers who
sold them can say.
This and the habit of
read,
giving books as presents and prizes render

the circulation test unreliable
to
the
classics.
How many
when
applied
people
read
MONOLOGUES
184
He
Spenser to-day?
But
great immortals.
class
is
and Mr. John Burns?
Ben Jonson?
read by
any
the profes-
call
that
of book-reader
leader-writers
essayists,
lie
we may
one outside what

sional
seems, one of the
it
is,
is,
poets,
search of tags,
in
Does any one read
Does any one,
to
come nearer
our day does any one here read Shellej^?

These are questions to which it is impossible
to
to obtain a definite
say that
if
there
answer
a large
is
classics,
they
moments
can only
of persons
read the English
keep very quiet about their
amiable hobby.
in
but
number
who
outside literary circles
have sometimes thought,
of
depression,
that
we who
write get our living solely by taking in each

other's scribblings.
that the
state
of
mind
am
willing to
of a
allow
man who
can
read the works of others without wishing

to write
and
it
is
himself
is
incomprehensible
to
me,
possible that he does not exist.
This doubt as to the nature of the circle

that the classics
still
enchant renders argu-
ment by analogy a little difficult when we

come to consider the work of contemporary
writers from the point of view of posterity.

but one or two theories
Work
vanced.
may
freshness of
fection of
expression
new
theme and the
bound
is
to perish
pubUc mind has assimilated
as soon as the
the
its
merit
its
arguments than on the per-
its
its
safely be ad-
depends for
that
rather on the novelty of
185
ideas such
work
puts forth.
Tliis
whole
of the work done by the more prominent
rules out at one stroke practically the
writers of this very didactic age.

see,
to
take
a striking instance,
induce posterity to
cannot
what
will
read the plays of Mr.
But a section of our modern
Bernard Shaw.
drama may
survive as presenting a truthful
picture of the
life of to-day, while, as in

the case of " Gulliver's Travels," the didactic
significance
"Justice,"
overlooked
is
take
to
very
or
forgotten.
up-to-date
in-
stance, may well render such a service to

posterity as the " Shoemaker's Holiday " and
"
Bartholomew Fair
"
have rendered
to us in
restoring the atmosphere of a vanished age.
Again,
artist's
that
sible
think
style
appeals to
for
it
is
important that the
should possess that simplicity
an
all
ages
intelligent
alike.
person
It
is
to
pos-
read
MONOLOGUES
186
Chaucer without a glossary to-day. Will it

be possible for any one to read Mr. Rudyard
Kipling with equal ease in the year 2200?
Chaucer, while sinning freely in his passion
most part on
for gallicisms, relied for the
simple words and simple turns of speech.
Mr. Kipling has such an affection for the
ephemeral dialects of the hour that his early

short stories already betray their age. There
a
is
danger,
in
too,
the
direct
appeal to
sentiment, for the sentiment of one generation
is
the sentimentality of the
ticated
generation
Barrie's
little
Thrums
good when they

escaped the
first
effects
more sophis-
succeeds
that
it.
Mr.
papers, that were so
appeared, have hardly
of this disastrous meta-
morphosis.
Where
we
to
find
our present-day
writers of distinction
who
are not didactic,
are
who
are not sentimental, and who write clear

and expressive English? I have made a list
of five, and I think that the reader must be
happily catholic if he can make a longer
list
And
for himself.
of literary
harder
to
art,
it
find a
if
we
would,
number
leave the realms
of
think,
men
be even
likely
to
187
man
achieve even that transitory fame that

grants grudgingly to the mighty dead.
think of two
of one politician
a
shadow
to
but
painters,
who
can
cannot think
seem more than

come after. Per-
will
those that
haps, like the majority of our countrymen,

the
age
to
come
will
esteem professional
and football above art, and we may

not make so bad a showing after all
The
thought is consoling to our national vanity,
even if we do not go so far as to hope
cricket
that the possibility
may
be
fulfilled.
XXII
IS
ENGLAND DECADENT?
While, on the whole, finding party politics

a little insincere, and inclined to sympathize
with the oblivious state of mind that readily
forgets General Elections, I think it would be
rather a pity
particular
if
the message of one election in
was allowed
to
pass unregarded.
This message, as our partisan newspapers ac-
knowledged a
little
was
of a wholly
The people
of England
ruefully,
negative character.
and did not believe in the House of

Lords
they liked and did not like the
Budget
they appreciated and did not appreciate Free Trade, or Tariff Reform, as
did
it
is
sometimes
called.
by means of a record
In a word, speaking
poll, the
people of Eng-
land said nothing to which any reasonable
man
could attach any reasonable meaning.
Our
professional politicians shouted lustily

188
IS
ENGLAND DECADENT?
and waited
into the abyss,
sound of an echo.
since
politicians
are
It
189
in vain for the
only fair to add,
is
much
maligned,
that
both parties detected the inspiriting voice of

victory in this embarrassing silence
face
of
the
but in
natures of their
irreconcilable
seems juster to presume

that both parties were defeated, and this, to
respective claims,
it
the discriminating student of
seemed the most natural

election.
was
It
may
men and
result of the recent
be true of
all
certainly true of this one
elections
that
the
in the street, indistinguishable in these

cratic
voters,
it
man
demo-
days from the god in the car, votes in
accordance with the decrees of his
own
pre-
from any strong feeling

on the general issues of the election.
A
judices, rather than
name
candidate with a queer-sounding

votes, just as a candidate
a peer gains them.
who
Owing
to
is
loses
the son of
the varying
degrees of intelligence possessed by voters,

this
system of voting produces chaos.
in the election
under
notice,
many men
Thus,
voted
the Government because the publicans

had raised the price of whisky, while many
for
men
voted for the Opposition for the very
MONOLOGUES
190
same reason
was unreasonable
It
a country thus distraught
we
get
from
nor, indeed, did
it.
imagine that patriotism, using the word
in
ex-
to
pect a definite opinion of the Budget
any but
the rarest of
mands
the
individual
parish -pump significance^
its
human
all
enthusiasms.
It
is
de-
possession
on the part of the
two
altruism
of
qualities
and
imagination, which are sufficiently rare by

themselves, but quite exceptional in partnership.
is
It
is,
think, fairly obvious that
it
in imagination that present-day English-
men
are lacking
they have not the art
to
of seeing beyond their

and
they
demand
that all their sacrinoses,
fices should be of immediate and obvious
use a homely phrase
benefit to their neighbours.
a hard saying, but
idea of
making
How
am
for their country
Englishman
far this
growing materialism
perhaps,
sure that the mere
sacrifices
strikes the average
of cant.
It is,
as savouring
may be due
to
do not know.
our
In
the golden age of Elizabeth England seems

to
have
greatest
bred
ease
fine
imaginations
her sons were
with
the
not merely
ENGLAND DECADENT?
IS
191
imaginative in word, but also in deed, as
But
stories of her ancient ports can testify.
nowadays there
something
is
tiie
essentially un-
English in concerning oneself with national
own
which we
abstractions to the detriment of one's
According
business.
have elected
to the labels
our individual pre-
to attach to
word patriotism
judices, the
unpleasantly
is
suggestive either of Jews, Mafeking, and cheap
Union Jacks, or of
disloyal Celts
patriotism
that
and bomb-
The invention
throwing niggers.
of local
rascally phrase to salve the
consciences of the unpatriotic
has
proved
but a step to the general adoption of self-
The modern Englishman
patriotism.
and blindest kind of
deafest
Any
idea that
environment
ridiculous.
is
lies
is
the
individualist.
outside his
own mental
strikes him as fanciful and

The country in which he lives
inhabited only by his friends and connec-
and
tions,
his
sole duty
is
to
guard their
Sometimes he has a snobbish
interests.
esteem for the masters of richer countries

than
his,
mental
sometimes he indulges in
pity
frontiers
for
masters
those
of
who
starve
no country
sentiat
at all.
his
But
MONOLOGUES
192
normally he makes his house not merely his

but his kingdom, his empire, and his
castle,
heaven
ultimate
ideal to
England as an
well.
as
be served and cherished no longer
exists for
him
at all.
The decay of the patriotic ideal is serious

enough in itself^ but it becomes even more
significant if we regard it merely as one
particular manifestation of a general decay.
The present-day Englishman
is
afraid of the
big thought, the big emotion, the big love.
The
big thought
tion
is
with
is
pretentious, the big
bestial, the big love is
shrinking
phrase
laugh, he tries to veil his
affected
emo;
so,
and a cackling
coward soul from
be comfortable to
anything too great
to
infinite smallness.
Generation on generation
its
him of
bond of fellow-
of unchecked prosperity has robbed
humility, the virtue that
is
ship between the nobly
little
He has come
great.
to
and the nobly

believe that he has
not only inherited the earth but created

or,
at
all
events,
so
far
its
his
by
original design that all the credit

right
and he
feels
plied in the existence
it,
improved on
is
that the criticism im-
on his earth of greater
IS
ENGLAND DECADENT?
forces than himself
irreverent.
is
the throne that he has raised,

satisfied
lie
193
Seated on
lie
is
quite
with the odour of the incense that
himself has lighted, and the winds that
blow through the temple doors and disturb

the calm ascent of the admiring smoke are
very distasteful to him.
Within his breast
the anger of an outraged god and the sorrow
of an interrupted worshipper strive for
mastery, which means that he meets criticism with a lofty air of unconcern, not the
less insolent that
when
the
it
assumed.
is
Time was
English were the most arrogant
people in the world because they lived in
England
gant
to-daj^
country
England
the most arro-
world because
the
in
is
it
is
Then we were
proud of our manly virtues
now we are
proud of our freedom from the manly vices,
without asking what that freedom signifies.
It is our pleasure to set an example to the
inhabited by the English.
civilized world, yet as a nation
united even
in
sanctimoniousness.
own
standard of bigotry.
however, more or
are not
Every
force the majority to
individual wishes to
accept his
we
less
We
are,
agreed in condemning
13
MONOLOGUES
104
the
manner
of
and
nations,
not our
is
it
European
of the other
life
fault
tliat
they,
regard us as hypocritical yahoos, and hold

Saint John Bull himself to be no
more than
an inflated frog, by no means emancipated
from the ancestral
slime.
Being a journalist,
may
much importance
attach too
be inclined to
to the
Press as
representing the public mind of the hour

but so far as
study a nation,
has the Press
possible for one
is
it
am
to
convinced that England
deserves.
it
man
In
itself this
is
whole policy of present-day

newspaper proprietors is to turn out a paper
natural, for the
that will
please
readers rather than in-
its
In consequence,
form or influence them.
from the pert frivolity of Punch to the
Teutonic and stodgy erudition of the Athen-
ceum,
the
earnest
student
of
periodical
literature will find that a constant effort is
being
made
to
treat
of the concrete, to
a fixed
and
the abstract in terms
measure the
infinite
belittling point of view.
are party politics, religion
is
from
Politics
the clash of
compromise between
the Divorce Court and the Agony column,
rival creeds,
love
is
IS
ENGLAND DECADENT?
an obituary notice five

literature is bad journalism,
death
letters long,
is
morality, and,
it
195
bad
might be added, a newspaper
art
is
an advertisement sheet containing certain
is
other matters.
only necessary to com-
It is
pare this with the view, for instance, held
by the man
different
on the subject of
in the street
nationalities
how
realize
to
exact
a judgment the newspapers have

the
popular
formed of
The French are im-
mind.
moral^ the Germans eat sausages, the Italians

play barrel-organs, the Japanese use fans,
Spaniards
visit bull fights,
and Russians are
anarchists.
Thus with one pregnant
democratic
critic
is
between foreigners, or
called,
if
they
are
able
aliens,
fact the
distinguish
to
as
unfortunate
they
enough
are
to
have no money.
doubt whether the English were ever

broad-minded as a nation indeed, the ElizaI
bethan comedies and the narratives of the

early
voyagers breathe as
full
spirit
of
intolerance as the most ardent patriot could

desire
but this older intolerance was very
definitely national
that
is
to
say,
it
sented the prejudices of the nation
reprerather
MONOLOGUES
196
than those of individuals, and from one point

of view this spirit
was
to
be commended.
But to-day we can only judge the temper

nation by striking
the
of
an average be-
tween the loud-mouthed condemnations of a

thousand factions. The newspapers, which
might help, are swayed hither and thither
by the clamour of individuals.

voice of the nation
we hear
I
is
When
the
asked for a judgment
the babble of a million tongues.
remember reading somewhere
as a sign
of our national decadence that, whereas in
our brave days we were proud of being so

small an island,
we now
sought the favour of
the gods by bragging of the immensit}^ of
our Empire, and perhaps the criticism contains
hint of the causes of our
present
That we are strangely weak no

man who has considered our attitude towards
Germany can deny. While cultivating our
individual conceit, we have lost the happy
faith in ourselves that helped our forefathers
We have no
to
do impossible things.
national religion, no national art, no national
songs. We have not the power to act nobly,
so we brand as fanatics the few who seek
weakness.
ENGLAND DECADENT?
IS
to
We
conquer themselves.
power
to
think nobly, so
we
197
have not the

scoff at
noble
During the last appeal in question to

the nation, the whole of the arguments of the
things.
were directed
politicians
it
was
as individuals that
England,
it
might be
to individuals,
we
said,
and
replied.
no longer
exists
we may
we must draw what
consolation
from the
has been conquered
fact
by Englishmen.
that
it
XXIII
Spring
is
here again, and the observant will
doubtless have noticed shy almond -blossoms
gleaming in the front gardens of suburban

villas
above the
many-mooded
tufts of crocuses.
weeks
begin
to
Now
the
grant
us
tremulous blue days, tender and soft as the

petal
in magnificent
that
we
promise of the azure summer
shall not get.
light the streets
new
the old
The
flower-girls de-
with fragrant heralds from
the Channel Islands

the
and one there
of a flower, one here
tailors
talk glibly of
spring patterns that are exactly like

;
women
feel
a strange longing to
impale the dead bodies of new birds with
honour of the season the

democracy cleans its bicycle and schemes
and the hibernation
improbable holidays
their hat-pins in
198

of county cricketers
draws
to
its
199
welcome
close.
Tliere
of writers,
to
a general tendency on the part
is
and possibly of most individuals,
describe spring as being a very joyous
season for poor humanity.
Doubtless
was
it
joyous enough in primitive days, when

lived in caves
and went
our table d'hote

tion
we
to
Nature direct for
but in a state of civiliza-
are unwilling to be reminded of the
primitive element in our natures.

possible
we
we have
As far as
The
abolished the seasons.
long nights that must have been singularly

monotonous to our hairy ancestors are no
more indeed, for the privilege of living a
few hours by artificial light we spend an
;
appreciable fraction of the daylight in bed.
We
in
skate in
winter.
round, and
summer and
We
have flowers
we do
ing of the buds
and over-eating.
strawberries
eat
all
year
the
not associate the break-
on the trees with warmth

Even the traditional custom
making love in the spring is, I fancy pace

Tennyson going out of fashion.
Spring,
of
the birth of the

its
new
green
jêar,
old significance of good times
has
come
lost
again.
MONOLOGUES
200
Children are often, oddly, more civilized
than grown-up people, and
show
it
is
they
who
the greatest resentment of the perturb-
ing effects of spring, so that at this season

of the 3êar the wise ruler of children does
not
to
fail
lay in a supply of tonics, those
nauseating compounds that are supposed to

reconcile
young people with
adult grievances
frivolity
But though
life.
against Nature's recurrent
are not so easily cured, they are
by no means
less
genuine.
It
during the long winter months
and polished our
latest
may be that
we have cut
philosophy of
life
to a fine perfection, yet a careless spra}' of
almond-blossom and a wind like good Burgundy will undo our work in a trice, and
all is to be done again.
It seems as though
a man may by no means contrive to pass
peaceably from his cradle to his grave borne
on the placid wings of a fixed idea. The
spring has a rough way with our philosophies,
though
philosophy
is
civilized
forlorn
man
without
and disillusioned
creature, painful to the eyes of the cultured

elect.
To
the
convenient dogmas of civi-
lization the spring affixes
an impudent note
201
wakes strange doubts of

authority in our minds in the spirit of the
schoolboy whose idle fingers elongate the
nose of his schoolmaster, caricatured on his
of interrogation
We
blotting paper.
feel rebellious
begin to
conventional virtues that have
the
against
it
been as iron laws through the winter. We

question work and obedience and sobriety.
Our
eyes,
rigid
moralists at other seasons,
detect the shapely angles of
We
certain glee.
women
strut a little in
with a
our walks
abroad, and clutch eagerly at feather-brained

excuses
our business.
neglecting
for
quickened blood reproaches

rules of
We
life
dream
as so
as
far
many
as
all
Our
our decent
spoilers of sport.
our lack of practice
The wind
mountains has made
in that exercise will permit us.
which blows across the

us mad.
And
of
yet
year,
difficult
we
are not happy at this time
and the reason is by no means

During the calmer
to discover.
months we are content to live the life that

civilization demands of us, ignoring the mischievous suggestions of our emotions and
even
of
our
intellects.
But
when
April
MONOLOGUES
202
comes,
encouraging us
and,
wisdom
our voluntary
of
to
doubt the
deprives
fetters,
solemn vanity which guards

us normally from the consequences of our
humanity, we are like rudderless ships cast
haphazard on to the disordered sea of life.
us
of
that
In December
we can
look at pretty girls with
a proper reticence of eye and thought, for
we know
that the moralities of
bours are
all
May we do
about us
not
care a
our neigh-
but in April or
primrose for our
neighbours or their moralities.
Our eyes
sparkle, our lips taste the breath of

feel tap
hearts
tunes on the pavement, and in our

say, "
we
Good heavens
the girls are this year
we were accustomed
and
knew how
to
how
pretty
"
!
This would be well enough in

braggart
our
life,
to
its
way,
dealing with
swashbuckler
if
such
and
thoughts
keep them under a generous
but firm control.
But in the placid seasons
of the year
civilization
own we do
that
not think at
all,
has made
since wise
its
men
have thought for us already, and we only

permit ourselves such emotions as the experience of others has
shown us
to
be safe.
203
Rebel spring will have none of our cautious

conventions, and his foaming splendours act
on our minds
like strong ale
bodies of total abstainers.
on the guarded
We
are
in the spring, but, unlike those
all
who
poets
dwell
all the year round on the slopes of Olympus,

we do not know where we are. We call
our mother Nature "ma" with the unblushing confidence of commercial travellers, and
are genuinely puzzled when she scratches our
Even the
faces in a tempest of indignation.
narcissus, according to certain scientists, can

give us influenza, or, at the least,
and
hay -fever,
our new-found enthusiasm for emo-
in
we shall be lucky if we
What will they say in
escape so lightly.
Hampstead if we take to reading the Yellow
Book because the daffodil has more courage
tional
adventure
than our sister the swallow?

I
tion
suppose
of
the
was
my
perils
of
it
subconscious realizaspring
that
led
me
recently to fly to the friendly shelter of those
won me as a child,
part of me captive still.
Surrey pine-woods that
and hold the better
The man who has never made friends with

a pine-forest does not know what a forest
MONOLOGUES
204
My own
can be.
moving dignity
dimness
of a vast cathedral
untrodden
of
woods have the
especial
aisles
the cool
stretching
between tapering columns, while here and
were through stained glass, a

brittle sunbeam falls to break into a thousand
glittering fragments on the smooth roughthere,
as
it
The
ness of the pine-needles.
birds are the
best of choristers, while numberless insects
droning in the heather of the clearings imitate closely
enough the devout murmur of a
distant congregation.
Moreover,
to
help
my
peace, there are no
creatures of the female sex in these far solitudes, save for a
who
gather
majesty
of
fuel
the
few small pinafored atoms

in
silence,
pines
hush
to
it
is
same at any season of the

sume no sordid poverty in
gant hopefulness in spring.
to
shrill
an agreeable
quality in pine-woods to be very
has a thousand moods
the
the
In a world of
loquacity of their youth.
feminine changeableness
suffering
year.
much
the
They
as-
winter, no arro-
An
oak-forest
perplex the heart
man the pines have but one mood, and

that a mood of noble and enviable serenity.
of
"
never get between the pines but
Sussex
the
Mr.
sang
air,"
same way
me
of that fairest
smell
Belloc
Hilaire
him wholly, and
before Westminster took

the
205
in
the pines speak eloquently to
where
part of England
Black Lake,
Hampshire.
Waver ley, Sandy Lane, Lower Bourne the
very names are like songs to me. There is
Surrey
meets
an inn that some of
name
that has a
my
readers
poem and draught-
like a
beer like an anthology, and the

the Valley," with
and
its
may know
"
Pride of
proprietary fish -pools
maternal solicitude for the welfare
its
of the " Devil's
Jumps,"
is
that the
all
most
ambitious valley could desire.
But
all
this
is,
perhaps, a
from the spring, save that
man
is
wise
who
little
remote
hold that that
realizes the dangers of this
some
where he can contemplate the
ring-time season and betakes himself to

quiet
place
face of Nature melting into her
new
laughters
without fear of being compromised by that
element
of
vives within
primitive
him, and
man
is
violent manifestations of
the buds are breaking
that
still
sur-
apt to
give
such
its
existence
on the
trees.
when
This
MONOLOGUES
206
is
the season
when stockbrokers marry
their
typewriting girls and the younger sons of

hereditary legislators go every night to the
with
Theatre,
Gaiety
thrown
novels
in.
tell
This
is
Saturday
matinee
the season, or so the
me, when grey-haired editors pinch
the cheeks of their beautiful poetesses, and

the poor
young man, who has loved
faithfully all
the winter, proves to be the
when
us
Duke
of Southminster, the richest
interesting of all the
backwood
and most
peers.
To
the foolish, romantic incident of this character maj^
but to
the
seem harmless or even desirable
majority that has realized the
on which civilization
has decreed that the world should run,
spring, with its eccentricities, must remain
soundness of the
lines
an inconvenient and distressing season.
XXIV

There
a season of the year
is
when even
women
most steady-going of men and

are incited by the winds of spring
the
an interest
the
even to
in the affairs of tlie Turf,
extent of hazarding
pieces of gold
the behaviour of horses of
so,
it
hardly astonishing that a poet should,
once
in
though
way,
write
on
which they have
This being
not previously heard.
take
to
sporting
is
for
article,
have no intention of discussing the
chances of the horses entered for the Derby,
beyond remarking that Tressady

tier
is
name than Lemberg
a pret-
is
or Neil Gow.
It
the sportsmen rather than the horses that
interest
me, and when a race
look round
losses.
to see
When
how
is
over
always
losers are taking their
an Englishman meets with

207
MONOLOGUES
208
weep or de-
disaster he does not swear or
He
pose his fetishes.
mark
adapts his face to a
and
of unconcern,
his
fixes
eyes
on
any human being should detect

England,
the un-English upheaval within.
eternity, lest
of
all
nations,
the nation of gamblers, but
is
knows how to lose almost

knows how to win.
it
better than
it
Yet in this passion for taking risks, and
even more perhaps in this stoicism in face

of
defeat,
it
easy
is
to
trace
one of the
principal causes of our extraordinary success

as a nation.
It
must have occurred
to
every
one who has studied the voyages of the English seamen in the pages of Hakluyt and
Purchas that few of these expeditions could

described as sound commercial transand, ignoring this trait of the Engactions
be
would be compelled to
should be preEnglishmen
wonder, not that
pared to risk their lives on such enchanting
ventures, but that staid London merchants
lish
character, one
should be willing
times these
of strange
little
to
finance them.
Some-
ships brought back diaries
adventure written in naive and
charming English
sometimes they did not

come back
at all
they have brought

spices
to
but rarely,
much
fancy, can
treasure in gold and
imaginative
the
equipped them.
209
who
capitalists
game went
Yet the
on,
and
while the adventurous vessels cruised happily

in
unknown
seas, the
merchants who owned
them dreamed over their musty ledgers.

They would have diamonds and rubies
enough when their ships came home. There
something
is
significant
in
the
pleasant
English phrase.
suppose
it
seems a far cry from the
sea-washed Indies
to pastoral
Epsom Downs,
from the gentlemen adventurers
of Elizabeth
other gentlemen who will lose

money with a calm brow on Derby
Day.
And yet I think it is only another
instance of the way in which civilization
to
those
their
preserves
our
changing our
primitive
passions
while
expressing
these
manner
of
am
sure
any
is only our lack of imdeterioration
it
agination that makes the present seem so
sordid. We know that those little ships were
badly provisioned and utterly dirty.
We
know that their crews frequently mutinied,
passions.
not
14
there
is
MONOLOGUES
210
and that the
among thememployers.
They
officers quarrelled
and cheated their

would murder natives on the smallest provocation
probably they did not wash. Against
selves
these things
you may
an almost animal
set
courage and a not unimaginative patriotism

that permitted
a good heart.
them to steal and murder with

A modern racecourse crowd,
considered in bulk, will be found to

these attributes.
ill -provisioned,
dirty,
It is
quarrelsome, and dishonest.
Derby Day proved,

in the world, and
it
But,
would be
idle
mob
another
has
would be unjust
quality
ignore
to
last
crowd
to deny
The
the courage of the gambler.
course
as
the most loyal
it is
it
shaj:*e
is
it
race-
that
it
insanely
generous.
I
have an ancestor, so runs the dearest
my
of
family traditions,
who was hanged
a pirate by the Spaniards
How much
the
I
may have
do not know, but
Roger
in
Port Royal.
of that priceless piratical blood
centuries
carnation
at
as
could
if
transmitted to
were
hardly
an age that
may
me
his very rein-
hoist
the
Jolly
believe in fairies,
but certainly does not believe in pirates.

modern Captain
211
would be driven off

the high seas by the journalists. They would
count his pistols, and measure his black flag,
and publish interviews with his schoolfellows.
It would be impossible for him to
maintain the correct atmosphere of mysterious cruelty when Tiny Tots had given
its little readers a photograph of his pet
Besides,
rabbit.
living
Flint
on the
he could make a better
" halls."
This being
needs find another outlet for
my
it,
my
so,
fraction of
ancestor's adventurous spirit, and
not unworthily
must
find
hope, in the occasional
backing of outsiders.
There
much
is
of adventure.
you
to
to
In the
be said for this kind

first
place,
it
enables
back your fancy on the only sound
system of betting on horses with agreeable
may burden
minds with
tedious histories of pedigrees and previous
runnings
you are at liberty to let your eyes
names.
Others
their
roam over
the
card in search of pleasant
gatherings of vowels and consonants.
Some-
times mischance will lead you to select a

horse, the
that
it
cramped price of which suggests
may
possibly win, but there
is
no
MONOLOGUES
212
need
to
any
You have only
be disheartened.
choose again.
risk
Nor, in the long run,
of
turning
success
speculations
these
commercial
into
to
there
is
idyllic
transactions.
Now
and again, perhaps, the heavens will

and your ship will come home laden
with gold and silk and ruddy wine. But on
the whole your ledgers, if you keep them,
fall,
will tell a long tale of
men and uncanny

compensated
are
my
rewai'ds
true
the
swift
too,
of
adventurous.
the
this principle.
last
When
Derby
bookmaker turned
a charming smile.
thrills that
are very pleasant to you
investment on the
ful price the
amply
disasters,
however, by the
for,
Bookmakers,
if you bet on
wrecks and drowned
made
at a delight-
to
me
with
" I
hope I shall have the

pleasure of paying you " he said.
I fear
!
backers
of
favourites
rarely
receive
such
courtesy.
It is
a fact that
if
you are not a Carnegie
or a Rockefeller an occasional bet provides
an admirable foundation for the building of
dream -palaces.
is
"
When
back a winner
"
up pleasantly to the
deal of fairy gold, and the
a phrase that leads
spending of a

best of this kind of shopping
are expert at
that
is
if
213
you
the possession of the real
it
win becomes in a
sense unnecessary. If you purchase a thing
a hundred times in dreams and then find
that you still really desire it your imaginagold that
tion
is
hard
so
wants looking
know how
to
But
to.
really
the Nonconformists can call bet-
ting sordid.
hold no brief for the facial
beauty of bookmakers, nor do
word
man makes a
stands the last
when
do not
in
find
architecture
bet he
is
grand
;
but
simply seek-
ing for something that he thinks necessary

to
complete his
may
life.
be diamonds
but in either case
human
to
it
It
may be
deck an actress's
If betting,
it
leg,
represents an ideal, a
aspiration, and as such
despised.
beer, or
which
is
not to be
after all is the
if the least reliable, way of trying

make money, is sordid, then must all ways
of making money be sordid. But, as a matter
of fact, few people bet as a means of procuring necessaries. Whenever I see any one
putting money on a horse I see a man,
simplest,
to
gambling
it
may
be, but, nevertheless, striv-
ing ever for beauty as he conceives
it.
When
MONOLOGUES
214
I
see a mail earning his living
lent
And now,
I
see a trucu-
one
as this
is
a real sporting article,
At
end with a story of the Turf.
will
of
entered
smaller
the
in
meetings
was
there
horse
S3lling-plate
Pegasus, of which
tout
stomach.
called
even the most cunning
knew nothing whatever.
As the handi-
cappers were equally ignorant, they gave
it
hoped
When the market opened on
the welter weight of ten stone, and

for the best.
the race the horse travelled badly
in fact,
nobody would put a penny on Pegasus, and

fifties were vainly proffered after the experts
had examined the sorry screw, and the
extraordinary person who, calling himself the
owner, proposed to ride it. The denouement
you will probably have foreseen. When the
tapes flew up Pegasus unfolded a gorgeous
pair of amethystine wings and fluttered coolly
down
the course to
win by
You
a distance.
can imagine the gaping crowd, the horror

of the s.p. offices, the joy of the poet and
his friends.
But the sequel
the subsequent auction a
is
strange.
At
Jew bought Pegasus
for fifty thousand guineas after brisk
com-

petition.
The race fund prospered and
215
the
owner of the second, but Pegasus never flew

another yard.
And
the
Jew
poet will not
tell
is
a sad man, because the
him what dope he
used.
XXV
THE EOET WHO WAS

There
are
some
which no man who
illusions
has formed a high conception of

readily
allow
because
we
that
it
lies
We
die.
to
cling
realize that there
beyond the truth
a wisdom
as
illusions
there
special value to the artist
one
;
we can
the
lie,
that great
done by great men.

creative artist
and
if
he
is to
fails
carelessness,
The
see
from our
that
is
of
he must believe,
however often circumstances appear
him
them
wisdom
Of these im-
timid doubts and reasonings.
mortal
will
to
is
that holds itself aloof
is
life
to give
work can only be

first work of every
create his
own
character,
here through weakness or
that failure will be
expressed
and emphasized in his artistic work. So if

admiring grapes we find ourselves confronted
with the bramble that has produced them,
216
WHO WAS
THE POET
we must form one
the grapes
Sea
of two conclusions
are not true
lack
sympathetic
the
would enable us
either
grapes, but
bloom without and ashes
fruit,
we
or
217
to detect the
Dead
within,
insight
that
authentic vine
in the heart of a briar.
Years
poems
ago
which
for
appeared a volume of
there
have ever had a great
admiration, and, holding this illusion beyond

all
others,
always wished
who wrote them.

in
work
poet,
He
was,
meet the man

knew, engaged
that could hardly be grateful to a
and he was not
read his book
should meet
I felt
this
be encountered in
to
ordinary literary circles
to
whenever
still,
sure that sooner or later
man and
like
His
him.
my more individual emomoods with which I was
poetry appealed to
tions,
expressing
Meanwhile,
personally familiar.
know him
better,
till
might
contented myself with
poems whenever I
had the opportunity.
Then one day I found a distinguished man
of letters and the most enthusiastic of Eng-
writing in praise of his
lish editors sitting together in a
cafe.
We
fell to
talking of the
Regent Street
man and
his
MONOLOGUES
218
poems.
We
therefore,
we
all
all
admired his work, and,

wished to meet him. "It's
easy
enough,"
cried
"
after all
we know
and
the
the
man
man
of
letters,
through his
him a mutual invitation

to-night, and take him out to lunch tomorrow." There was something gallant in
the idea, for we risked being snubbed, which
book.
is
Englishman cares
wrote the letter and sent
the last adventure an
We
have.
to
it
We'll write
off.
The next morning was one
of those rare
and splendid days of which only England

seems to have the secret days when the
wind is sweet and cool like a russet apple,
warm
and the
sunshine follows close
at its
heels before one has time to be chilled.
It
good day on which to make a

new friend. We called for our poet, and
received a message that he would be pleased
seemed
to
come with
us in an hour's time
we
so
Park and watched the

squirrels playing with the nursemaids, and
went
into
thrusting
Regent's
their
flowing hair of
v.âs
inquisitive
little
girls.
noses
We
into
felt
the
that
it
a generous world that gave us sunshine
THE POET WHO WAS

and
little
219
men who wrote
squirrels and
"fine
songs.
It
perhaps foolish
is
to
expect
men
of
talent to
be either very handsome or very
ugly, but
with
my
looked
confess that
first
was disappointed
impression of the poet.
elderly
gested in
some
and
insignificant
subtle
mute, the kind of
way an
He
and sug-
undertaker's
man who wears
black kid-
gloves too long in the fingers, and generally
has a cold in the head.

that his eyes
thought, however,
might be rather
fine in repose,
but the whole body and speech of the
man
were twittering with nervousness, and he

affected me like an actor in a cinematograph
All Nature is the friend of the shy
man, and behind this superficial unease we
divined qualities of enthusiasm and amiability that would no doubt be patent when
this overwhelming timidity had passed away.
Looking back, it seems to me that we all
worked rather hard to set the man at his
ease and find him worthy of his own work.
We told him stories, we found mutual friends,
we encouraged him to talk, we sympathized
with him over his luckless environment, and
picture.
MONOLOGUES
220
when
called
upon we praised and quoted
poetry without stint

like a bird
but
his
he fluttered
still
He
caught in a snare.
took his
food without enjoyment, the sunny wine of
warm him a
him his own tunes,
France did not
degree.
piped to
all
We
the tunes
would not dance.

It was not that he was embarrassed by our
compliments
he took them for his due, as
a poet should.
But he seemed to think that
our enthusiasm must have a sinister motive,
that it was impossible that any one should
have discrimination enough to wish to meet
the author of his book for the book's sake.
of the world, and yet he
Nevertheless, being optimists in matters of

art,
our
we
could persuade
man
held true
him
to
faith in the
if
only
drop the mask
we thought
At the end of lunch we succeeded, and
He stood
then I think we were all sorry.
of his nervousness
there leaning gently against the table, while
soured
vanity
spoke
with
stammering
tongue.
It seemed that our little luncheonparty was a conspiracy to persuade him to
publish
some
of his
poems
in the
paper, and therefore he found
it
editor's
necessary
THE POET
to
WHO WAS
221
Had his suspicions been true,

more modest man might have thought such
be rude.
a plot pardonable, or even rather flattering.
But the terms in which our poet expressed

himself placed him beyond argument or
sympathy.
We
and ever.
So far as
my companions were
shook hands and said goodbye, and he went away out of our world
of sunshine and tame squirrels for ever
the
ended there.
matter
wêre secure,
concerned
Their kingdoms
and they could afford
to
laugh
honourable discomfiture. But my

kingdom was yet to win, and I could not
spare the smallest of my illusions. If such
at
our
man
had met that day could do the

big things, Art became of a sudden an unworthy mistress to serve. I went home and
nervously took his book from the shelf,
wondering how far my new knowledge of
the man's personality would spoil my enjoyment of his work. I need not have been
they were real grapes, though peranxious
a
as
haps
acknowledged for the
first
time that
their distinctive bitter flavour prevented
from being of the
first
quality.
Still,
them
they
MONOLOGUES
222
were admirable of
satisfy
their kind,
how
myself
and
had
to
such fruit could have
grown on such a vine.

And then with a flash of intuition I saw
the truth. The flesh, the features, the mortal
part of the man might survive, but I knew
had been present at his
death-bed that the youth who had written
those poems was dead. Needless to wonder
what thwarting of emotion, what starvation
of appetite, had produced that burst of song
the important thing to me was to realize
as
surely as
if
that the
man
himself, as
we reckon men
in
had perished in the singknowledge to aid me, I could
the hopeful world,

ing.
With
this
sympathize with the rudeness of the
had sought
to
knew himself
honour.
little
For
man we
in his heart he
better than a changeling,
and with the giant's robe of his splendid

hour of youth hanging loosely about his
shrunken bones, he must have found our
enthusiasm no more than mockery.
I have not yet been fortunate enough to
meet the author of that book of poems which
I
have admired so long, yet
sooner or later
shall
feel
meet the
sure that
man and
THE POET WHO WAS

like
him.
and
have
know
that
223
he will be young,
think that on his lips his songs will

lost their bitterness
thing
if
we
for
it
is
a hard
must carry our concern for the
and our sorrow for the spring-tide

lightness of girls beyond the gateway of the
roses
grave.
XXVI

remind readers
that Carlyle, the Scotchman wlio wrote a
fine romance about the French Revolution
but generally preferred to write in broken
German, once devoted a book to the consideration of Heroes and Hero -Worshippers.
These words are set on paper a long way
from that and most other books, and I canIt
is
hardly necessary
not recall for the
he
adopted
to
moment
towards
the exact attitude
hero -worshippers
whether he pitied them, patronized them, or

admired them. As he was himself undoubtedly
a hero one would expect his emotions to
vary between compassion and admiration
the strong man's compassion for the weak-
ness and admiration of the strength of the
weak.
not
fall
am
into
sure at
all
events that he did
the vulgar error of despising

224
225
hero -worshippers because they are content

not
to
me
to
be heroes.
that
sliipper " has
we
the
Yet as
very
seems
"hero-wor-
write
name
it
been spoilt by sneering
lips
are asked to believe that they are only
weak-minded enthusiasts with a turn for undiscriminating praise, and that they swallow
their heroes, as a snake swallows a rabbit,
bones and
all.
Personally
which
way
in
to
think this
is
way
a bad
in
eat rabbits, but the best possible
which
to
take a great man.
detest
the cheese-paring enlhusiasm that accepts the
Olympian head and rejects the feet of human

clay.
Until Frank Harris taught me better
I thought Shakespeare's Sonnets were capable
of but one probable interpretation
but
not wag my head with the moralist

Browning and cry, " The less Shakespeare
To-day I do not find Shakespeare
he "
less great because he loved Mary Fitton
it
did
seems impossible that any one should.
Yet
Moore burnt Byron's autobiography, Ruskin

would not write a Life of Turner because
of the nature of his relationship with women,
Stevenson
abandoned an essay on
15
Hazlitt
MONOLOGUES
226
because of the " Liber Amoris
"
Stevenson,
whose essay on Robert Burns

heaven
these
"
it
" shells
to
In the face of such spectacles as
surely legitimate to pine for the
is
blind generosity of the enthusiast, that in-
cautious
great
and
fullness
men
appreciation that
of
lifts
with their due complement of vices
follies
on
higher plane where the
to a
ordinary conventions of
human
conduct no
longer apply.
Great
men
are usually credited with an
enormous confidence
in their
own
ability,
but
often enough they have been distinguished

for their modesty, and the arrogance has
come
late
in
life
to
onlj'-
support their failing
powers of creation. In fact, it may be said

no man, even the most conceited, is
assured of his own heroic qualities till some
one tells him of them, and thtis far it would
seem that the hero -worshipper creates the
that
hero.
One
enthusiast
can
many
create
heroes, which possibly accounts for the fact

that
we
find in life that heroes are far
numerous than hero -worshippers.
more
Nearly
every one possesses the heroic qualities in

posse;
the gift of
appreciation
is
propor-

tionately rare.
great
men and
fewer admirers of greatness
common
be so
will
Every day there are more
In the next generation super -men
man.
in
227
that
will
it
become a
distinction to belong to Christ's democracy.
The standard example

Boswell's
greatness
" Life of
is
of hero-worship
Johnson," a book whose
universally admitted, and,
may
If we
it
be added, universally misconstrued.

are to class biographies by their
loses
its
is
pre-eminence, for
derived a considerable
if
utility,
it
we would have
insufficient
know-
ledge of Johnson from the pages of Piozzi,
Hawkins, and others whereas if that matchless prig Austen Leigh had not written the
Life of his aunt Jane Austen, we should have
;
known
nothing of the inspired
practically
than we
know
miniature painter,
less certainly
of Shakespeare.'
But, of course, the great-
ness of Boswell's Johnson rests with Boswell,
and not with Johnson

all
at all.
Johnson had
the traditional virtues and vices of the
average
mythical
Englishman.
He
was
brave, honest, obstinate, intolerant, and
mannered
he was
all
ill-
these things with a
violence to shake society, as his vast
body
MONOLOGUES
228
shook the
floors of houses.
marks him out
that
any kind
for violence of
safe to
is
it
will
It is this
abnormal, but
is
that for one Boswell there
saj'-
be born a hundred Johnsons.
of literature
violence
as an exceptional man,
Johnson
is
In terms
only of interest as
being the protagonist of Boswell's masterpiece.

to
"
If his "
Lives of the Poets "
the
irritate
still
exist
" Irene "
unwary,
Rasselas " are dead and buried.
and
For
all
had not the wit to

win for himself his measure of immortalit5^
It needs the magic of Boswell's pen to put
his
greatness Johnson
life
into
hand
in
his
He
dead bones.
many
parts
as
displays his
a learned pig, as a
sulky child, as FalstafF, and, happily enough,

often as a simple, kind-hearted
whatever the
role,
be admired.
He shows
this is a
he
he was a brave man, and
we
artist that
he
he makes no
petty dishonesties of his
to
man
is
tells
us that
believe him.
apart, Boswell's Life
piece of self-revelation
an
but,
us Johnson bellow-
ing at the thought of death
Johnson
Boswell never forgets
impress us with the fact that

to
man
is
a master-
so honest as
effort to hide the
own
nature.
He

us
tells
how he won
229
the tolerance of John-
son and, indeed, made himself necessary
him by means
nifies
but
little,
for
to
This sig-
of skilful flattery.
Shakespeare
not
did
scruple to flatter Elizabeth and Pembroke,

the greater folk of the
moment.
We
are
most of us willing to flatter great men if

it gives them pleasure, but, unlike Boswell,
we do not subsequently explain the process
It reminds us of
at full length in a book.
Pepys taking careful note of his peccadilloes,
but Pepys did not always remember that he
Bos-
intended posterity to read his diary.
well wrote without thought of concealment,
handed
less
his portrait of
Johnson and
his
conscious portrait of himself to his
no
own
generation, and ever since has been regarded

as
a kind of thick-headed parasite for his
pains.
Boswell was not an intellectual
in the sense that
Johnson was
man
intellectual,
but he had a wonderful knowledge of
human
motives and an appreciation of Johnson that
brought out the latent genius in him, and
ended
by
making
expression
the
of
admiration more admirable than the

admired.
Johnson
is
as
his
man
dead as Garrick.
MONOLOGUES
230
Boswell
lives
with the great ones of English
The hero -worshipper has
literature.
outlived
the hero.
As a rule
tion
is
it is
gift
to
be feared that apprecia-
granted only to the young.
our green, unknowing days we used
In
to divide
books into masterpieces and miserable rubbish.
The
classification
is
convenient, but
minds wear out and we become wise,

the tendency is to find no more masterpieces.
Those were great nights when we used
to read each other's verses and congratulate
the world on its possession of our united
genius.
That is really the poet's hour, his
rich reward for years of unprofitable labour,
as our
when the poets of his own unripe age receive

his work with enthusiasm an enthusiasm
which
in
all
honesty and
shares himself.
advance
that he
is
his
own
all
Unhappily he
modesty he
is
sooner or later he wakes
paid in
to
find
worshipping before the shrine of

genius, and the shrine is empty.
That is why I am half pleased and half

melancholy when young men tell me that
Antony Starbright, aged twenty, is the
greatest poet since Keats.
If
they only
knew
231
my
hour was one of a group

of greatest poets who all wrote poems to
Pan and Hylas, when on summer nights that
that
too in
sometimes stretched far into summer morn-
we were all hero -worshippers

and we ourselves were the heroes.
ings
together
There is a box at the Strand end of

Waterloo Bridge which is always brimful of
the works of new poets, and I can never pass
it
without pausing
to
look at the
little
neatly-
bound volumes which say so little and mean

All the enthusiasms, all the illuso much.
sions of youth are there, printed with broad
margins and bound in imitation vellum.
turn the pages that brutal critics have not

troubled to cut, and bitterly lament the blindness that makes
it
impossible for
me
to
know
what the young men who wrote them really

wanted to say. But it pleases me to think
that each of those
ciative public,
who know
little
books has
its
appre-
some half-dozen young men
and can read the

greatness and pride of his youth between
the reticent lines of his work.
the
author
XXVII
POETS AND CRITICS
When
by the
ling
came across a book

Poet Laureate, entitled " The Brid-
a short time ago
of
Pegasus,"
alarmed me.
confess
the
that
title
do not want the present
I
winged horse.
should be sorry to see poor Pegasus munching gilded oats at a banquet of the Poetry
Society, nor do I wish to find his photograph
century
among
capture
to
the
the grinning
actresses
in
the illus-
But an examination of Mr.

book soon reassured me. He has
trated papers.
Austin's
He has
not bridled Pegasus.
ceeded in
not even suc-
harnessing Rosinante, but by a
natural error he has hung his bridle on to

a spotted
wooden
steed of great age, that
served perhaps to amuse

considerable
Austin's
poets
criticism
in
their
as
is
232
some
of our less
Mr.
infancy.
individual
as
his
POETS AND CRITICS

poetry, and far
more
stimulating.
think that any poet could read
Pegasus
of
ling
233
"
do not
The Brid-
without being roused
"
passionate anger.
It
though a village
as
is
to
schoolmaster had paid a week-end
to
visit
the foot of Parnassus, and had embodied his
miscomprehensions of what he had seen in

the
form
of a series of lectures to his apple-
Here you have the con-
cheeked pupils.
descension, the assertive ignorance, the oc-
smirking
casional
boys write on their
Byron
tion that
One
Remus.
It
irritating
day
some inquiry
between poets and

natural
for
critics.
critics
It is
to
dislike
the
selves
in
words
love
fit-
to
as
work
it
is
of aged
writings
sophisticated critics, for critics
who work
The
of course as
the
young and adventurous poets

poets
"
the relationship
dislike
to
true.
is
suggests the
it
into
since
review
to
Mr.
that
critic
of these statements
Bridling of Pegasus," but

ness of
little
Mr. Austin's asser-
them add
let
too late in the
is
Let the
the greatest English poet
most
the
is
slates
and
Milton,
since
Austin
is
humour.
of
all
of
for
and
men
support them-
on those mysterious crutches known

MONOLOGUES
234
which any new poet

worthy of the name promptly sends flying
with a spirt of his winged foot. This is
not to say that canons of art (tlie artillery
as
canons
of
art,
of the small bore?)
value
for
critics
to criticizing their
may
not have a certain
but poets,
when
they
fall
comrades, are usually con-
on their individual judgments

rather than to appeal to any universal theory
tent
to
rely
of greatness in poetry, and, considered dispassionately,
view that
it
would be easy
critics
select their
to
support the
canons of art
formed
receptive and
to justify the preferences that they
when
their minds were still

unhardened by the inhuman task of criticism. To take a handful of poets at random,
it seems
impossible to lay down any one
theory of poetry that will support the undeniable greatness of Herrick, Burns, Blake,
Keats, Browning, Swinburne, and Meredith,
may
and
it
who
writes as a critic and not as a poet
be noted that the Laureate
while treating of poetry from the academic

standpoint, does not dare this ultimate adventure.
in
He
classes,
is
and
content to
assure
us
arrange poetry
that
reflective
POETS AND CRITICS
235
poetry
is
greater than lyrical, and that epic
poetry
is
the greatest of
Even
we
if
assertions,
all.
are to accept these dogmatic
can imagine no sane reader of
poetry regulating his preferences by doctrine

of this kind.
To Mr. Austin
popularity of lyrical poetry
keen regret.
To me so
count
prejudice
in
healthy sign, since
it
these
the comparative
is
a matter for
far does personal
matters
it
suggests that those
is
who
read poetry to-day do so for pleasure rather

than from a sense of duty.
other reason,
But
if
for no
would mistrust Mr. Austin's
canons on account of the extraordinary con-
which they lead him. Probably

most foreigners would agree with Mr. Austin
that Byron is the greatest English poet since
Milton
but poetry is the one possession that
a nation cannot share with its fellows, and
the countrymen of Keats and Shelley, of
Browning and Swinburne, must perforce
keep the enjoyment of their rarer inheritance
clusions to
to
themselves.
Nor do
his
canons help Mr. Austin
to fare
on smaller points.
Thus when he
"
wrote that no poet of much account is ever
better
MONOLOGUES
236
obscure
"
he had clearly forgotten Browning,
Blake, and the Shakespeare of the Sonnets.
The
Sonnets
are
occasionally
because in them Shakespeare

very
and
intricate
subtle
is
obscure
expressing
emotions,
quite
beyond the range of ordinary lovers.

Browning is obscure because his mind was
an overcrowded museum in which his
thoughts could not turn round without knocking freakish ornaments and exotic images
off the shelves.
Blake was obscure, as
Wordsworth was often inane, through trusting too
is
much
not obscure
to
;
Great poetry
inspiration.
but the ranks of the great
poets supply exceptions to
Again, Mr. Austin finds
all
it
generalizations.
strange that two
such great poets as Dante and Milton should
from a total lack of humour. This

opens up a fruitful field of speculation, but
suffer
probably
this
deficiency
is
the rule rather
Coleridge, Wordsworth,
than the exception.
Keats, Shelley, Blake, Tennyson, and Swin-
burne
all
lacked
it,
though some of these
Browning
poets tried to be funny at times.
had
sense
of
doubted whether
humour, but
it
it
may
be
did his poetry any good.

POETS AND CRITICS
237
Shakespeare had enough humour for
men
of letters
but
lie liad
everything.
fifty
Mr.
Alfred Austin has not a sense of humour,
though he sometimes indulges a cumbrous

spirit of gaiety that recalls
his
moments
No,
if
you
Mr. Pecksniff in
of relaxation.
do not believe in canons of
will, of
art, save,
a vague and ineffective char-
acter that leave artists free to do
what they
Nevertheless, the school of criticism
like.
which Mr. Austin belongs being powerful

these days, I think it would be a goodlj^
task to prepare a list of aphorisms to hang
by the bedside of critics of poetry. Mine
would be something like this
1. A good critic is a man who likes good
work, and by dint of his enthusiasm is empowered to perform miracles, teaching the
blind to see and the deaf to hear.
2. There are two kinds of poetry, good
and bad.
Minor poetry is a phrase used
by incompetent critics who dare not oppose
their judgment to the possible contradiction
to
of posterity.
3.
all
"
To
artists
times and
who can
all
treat
them greatly
truths are equal.
... A
MONOLOGUES
238
poet of the
first
first
order raises
all
subjects to the
rank'' (Swinburne).
If the
4.
power and
poet's intellect gives
direction to his work, his emotions supply
the force that creates
With most men the
it.
emotions become exhausted or sophisticated

at
a comparatively early age.
poets have done their best
Hence most
work when they
were young.
The aphorism that poets are born and

not made is merely an untruthful expression
of the fact that not every one can become
5.
by taking pains.
a poet
It
excessive to say that the

artist is to create his
misfortune that most

to
do
6.
own
would
first
genius
artists
hardlj''
task of
;
it
be
everj'^
is
our
have neglected
this.
Poets
who
try to teach in song have
derived small benefit from their suffering.

7.
We
because
have
all
endured the
he must
be said for the
there
is
man who
sings
something
to
man who
sings because he
will
always approach
can.
8.
The wise
critic
poetry on his knees, even though he ends by

sitting
on
it.
POETS AND CRITICS

Bad poetry
9.
as
not nearly so harmful
bad criticism of poetry.

It would be possible
so on.
And
fill
is
239
number
of
without saving one

less flames.
pages with
critic
to
such things,
from the quench-
The only sane method by which
become a good critic of poetry is to love

poetry. That is why Professor Saintsbury's
History of English Prosody " seems to me
I think he has the most
to be a great book.
catholic appreciation of poetry that any man,
to
'*
not excluding the poets themselves, can ever
from the poet's

inevitable prejudices. The first volume maj^
be skimmed over advantageously by any one
not specially interested in prosody as a
but the second and third volumes
science
should be read and re-read by all lovers of
Such a critic may well
English poetry.
have achieved, and he
is
free
reconcile poets to criticism.
And
this brings
me
of the utility of critics.

that critics can be of
to the
It
vexed question
me
clear
service to
men
seems
little
to
of genius or even to artists of real ability,
but as middlemen between artists and the

general public they are, unhappily, neces-
MONOLOGUES
240
sary.
It is
often forgotten liow far
dependent on the
critics
multi-
is
is
it
tude of
read-
how many of the monstrous

new books are worth reading.
ing public to-day

to tell
tlie
Poetry
very badly treated by the Press in general
is no money in it, and the

newspapers prefer to devote their
literary columns to reviews of novels written
in batches of six by elderly unmarried ladies
between breakfast and lunch. But it must
because there
daily
be added that the bulk of the criticism of
new poetry
Press
pity
is
is
that does appear in the periodical
surprisingly well done.
that there
is
not
more
of
The only
it.
XXVIII
MONTJOIE
Mo'NTJoiE
tainous
lies in
district
mounThe
Eifel.
a deep valley of the
known
as
the
town is built on a bend of the river

Roer, which is really one long waterfall
from one end to the other, and is always
turning in its bed as if it were looking for
Like all mountain streams, it
a hairpin.
little
becomes
raging
torrent
in
winter -time
after a thaw, which perhaps accounts for my

impression that half the houses in the town
and that the other half

are climbing out with glistening walls and
waterweed in the crannies of their roofs.
Wherever the townsfolk go in the valley they
it
hear the breathless song of their river
rings in the ears of new-born babes, it calls
are falling into
it
after
the dying
On Sunday
through the closing gates.
nights,
when
16
the
young men
341
MONOLOGUES
242
have come home from the factories

to
meet their
girls,
who work
at
Aix
in the silk-
factories at Montjoie, the river absorbs the
sound of their mirth, and, since it is a

merry river, its voice is unchanged.
These silk-factories arc the last word in
commonplace industrial story. At one time

Montjoie was famous " throughout Europe,"
a
guide-book for
says the
cloth,
the manufacture of
and the town displays many
fine old
houses where the manufacturers lived in the
For over two hundred

and within the
of the valley ground became
years of their pride.

years
Montjoie
narrow
limits
flourished,
so scarce that the townsfolk built elaborate
make
little terraces on the precipiwhere they might grow their cabBut the railway came too late to
bages.
Montjoie, and the competition of manufactories more happily situated killed the cloth
trade, and for a while at least the kitchen
gardens on the mountain side must have been
walls to
tous
hills,
unnecessary.
a
little
of
its
Now
Montjoie has recovered
and the boys working all

Aix
but the fact remains that
silk
making
the week at
old prosperity, the girls
in fifty years
MONTJOIE
243
from three thousand

The silk manufacturers have bought the old factories and left
them idle to forestall possible competition.
the population has fallen
to
seventeen hundred.
It is to
this decline in its prosperity that
much
Montjoie owes
for during the last
of
picturesqueness,
its
hundred years
been worth anybody's while
and the
houses,
little
has not
it
new
build
to
town has crossed a
century of vile architecture unscathed.
have never been in any town that

old as this, even though
it
is
lit
felt
narrow
streets,
half-timbered
hills
above
little
it.
paved with cobbles, and

houses
so
by gas and
devout persons have built a hideous

chapel on one of the
over
projecting
Its
its
the
footway, carved sometimes with pious observations in Latin, and approached by sag-
ging steps adorned with elaborately-wrought

hand-rails, create an atmosphere of matterof-fact
more
which
unromantic antiquity which is far

impressive than the glamour with
artists
the past.
endow
their
conceptions
In the June sunlight there was
nothing mysterious about Montjoie
convinced
of
me
it
rather
that possibly the Middle Ages
MONOLOGUES
244
are not an invention of the historians.
By
day the young people were all at work and

the streets were given up to centenarians and
kittens, who would have looked very much
the same a few hundred years ago as they
did then, so that it was easy to give a handful of centuries back to Time and to play
my own ancestor. In half an hour

had forgotten wireless telegraphy, the
phonograph, googly bowling, and all our
valuable modern inventions, and was able
to walk through the streets with only a
at
being
casual eye for the queerness of the architecture.
But when night
falls
Montjoie
is
full
of
ghosts and shapes of the dead.
To
opened
my eyes to the possible poetry of slates, and
conquered my normal English ajsthetic prerevert to the houses, they
judice in favour of
chimneys the
on a new
waves.
slates
loaf, in
tiles.
first
Between the wide
are spread like butter
ambitious and tumultuous
They are local slates of a delicate

from the hills Montjoie re-
colour, so that
sembles a colony of brooding doves, and

is
easy to fancy that
if
it
one threw a stone
MONTJOIE
245
would be darkened
by flapping wings, and the valley would be
But it is
left
untenanted and desolate.
guarded by two ruined castles, one the mere
into their midst the sky
of a watch-tower,
shell
tiful
other a beau-
the
and imposing ruin that
will be a desir-
able residence for any reincarnated seigneur
by the time the State has finished spending

money on its restoration. In chivalrous days
this castle was besieged no less than six
times, but
now
by enormous
the hills are only garrisoned
longer than the
not so
fat
umbrella
The black ones are

brown ones, but they are
slugs.
the
tassels,
black slugs
the
are like silk
brown ones
are like
dates.
More
interesting to
tional ruins of castles
me
than the conven-
was
cloth factory, for, while
it
a large disused
is
natural that a
should be ruined, a factory in decay
castle
disturbs our trust in the permanence of our
own
was so large that the

little boys had become tired of breaking the
window-panes, and many of them were still
intact
but through the gaps it was possible
inventions.
It
to
see the looms standing idle under their
MONOLOGUES
246
coverlet of dust,
damp
the
engines grown hectic
and the
whitewash peeling from the walls in soapy
flakes.
On these walls the workgirls had
written their names and the names of their
lovers, and I wondered how many tragic
separations there must have been when cloth
no longer paid in Montjoie, and half the
inhabitants went elsewhere in search of
work. Unhappily I discovered this signifiin
the
mists
cant sepulchre in the
was labouring an
of the
river,
company
sesthetic
of a
man who
theory that
it
was
necessary to have visited Nuremberg in order

to
understand
Wagner, and disturbed
my
sentimental speculations with idle babblings
on music and architecture. I told him that

Wagner would have been far more interested
in the cloth factory than in Nuremberg, and
that a
man who
was capable only
could look at
which, of course,
tions,
it
unmoved
emotrue of most men.
of imitative artistic
is
made no convert, even though I

pointed out to him the oil -cans still standing where the engineers had put them down
But
where the
winter. There
for the last time, and the nails

girls
had hung
their coats in
MONTJOIE
moments when
are
hate
because
pictures,
fine
247
cathedrals
they
make
and
men
bUnd.
One evening
to
went up
look for ghosts.
driven
down from
to the factory alone
The cows were being

the hills with a pleasant
and the river was singing

huskily, as though the mist had given it a
sore throat.
As the darkness came on I
would not have been surprised if the deserted
buildings had throbbed into spectral life,
spinning cloth of dreams for the markets
of dead cities.
But they held mournfully
aloof from me and the world, like a Spanish
noise of bells,
grandee wrapped in a threadbare coat, until
woman came
outbuildings and told me
a
little
old
out of one of the

a story in
a sad
She had worked there as a young

and when the smash came those who
on the premises were allowed to stay
voice.
girl,
lived
but they had
gone one
by one, and now she was alone in the midst
of the great buildings that had filled her life
since she was twelve years old. It was hard
to believe that she was not one of the ghosts
whom I had been seeking, and I returned
there rent-free
all
MONOLOGUES
248
town
to the
guessed
though
feeling as
had nearly
its secret.
Germany, an hour and a

half by train from Aix la Chapelle and
within a day's walk of the Belgian frontier.
Montjoie
is
in
descended a precipice one
June
it
who
of
evening of
mad
Belgian
and found it waiting for me at

It had waited a thousand years,
architect,
the foot.
and
company
the
in
fine
will
shall
make
expectant of the
lie
still
his
it
own when
words
that writes these
is
fast
the
man
hand
once more,
after so brief a period of freedom, in fetters
The works
of incorruptible dust.
last
longer than
but a
tell
little
man
himself, though
And
longer.
of
if
man
it
be
these old houses
us only that our forefathers, like our-
selves, built shelters
wherein they could love
secure from the gusty winds and the cold

of the world,
we
are yet aware of a shy
conviction that these greying and furrowed
some deeper significance that

eludes our judgment, made hasty by the few-
stones possess
ness of our years.

"
speak
when
all
" If
these ruins
could
the guide-book says regretfully,
men know
that
they
are
never
MONTJOIE
though
silent,
we cannot
hear their message.
to
249
them
the past would
linger with
If
cease to trouble our hearts with
its
sweet
and poignant mutterings, we might succeed

in
mastering the present, in overcoming the
come.
reticence of the days to
down
into
Montjoie on a
fair
June, and after a fortnight
short as a sunny hour
climbed
evening of
fortnight as
climbed out of
it
back into a restless and unfinished world

and so it might be thought I had finished
;
with Montjoie and Montjoie had finished with
me.
but
At one time this might have been true
now
know
that
am
dead hours and shall escape from
no
tude
Like
more;.
thousand men, and one

still
in those
at the
the
in
courage
his
in
of
uneven
when they
Once
secret.
into
man
faces of the houses,
hour
sitting
steep,
men,
all
servi-
am
me wanders
streets,
looking
and waiting for

disclose
shall
dream
my
my
the slave of
their
found Time
a garden, and with a dreamer's

raised his shaggy eyebrows to peer
eyes.
kind as a dog's.
They were
as
gentle
and
Perhaps the magic charm
of old houses preserves the love and
com-
MONOLOGUES
250
radeship of the
lived
in
them.
men and women who have

Perhaps when my spirit
wanders by night in Montjoie it is cleansed

and quickened by the fellowship of the immortal dead.
XXIX
A SUMMER HOLIDAY
Day after day for thirty days the sun shone
on the windless and perspiring city, the city
that had complained so often of the cool, grey
tent of clouds that had screened it from the
heat of summer.
Night after night for
thirty nights the city lay in breathless torpor,
men who
while the feet of
could not sleep
echoed dully on the softening pavements, and

the
air
was troubled with the sound of

The aged
children crying in their dreams.
and the sick loosed their

let
life
window
pass,
listless fingers
and
and when he looked from his
the artist
saw
their dusty hearses
creeping along the burning street.

In
those
lethargy of
in
moments
instinct
was afflicted with a

mind and body against which,
days
of
he
consciousness,
struggled
in
vain.
251
his
creative
He would
sit
MONOLOGUES
252
hours
for
of
front
in
white
sheet
of
paper and at the end would start up
to
that
realize
in
mental wanderings
his
all
he had not shaped one coherent thought.
He would
kind
bed hour after hour in a

of dreamless stupor, and sometimes
in
lie
when he had
get
to
up,
at
made up
his
darkened
while
last
sky
the
mind
he
was dressing and he knew that the day

was over. On these occasions it gave him
an odd sensation to stand at the window
in his pyjamas and peep through the Veneblinds
tian
home from
men and women
the
at
sunny days of
of the
having been sent to

the
in
look
to
It
his
lie
down
he would
afternoon,
stealthily
reminded him
childhood, when,
work.
their
out
The
him
would
and
he
for an
lift
the
at
with blinking eyes.

sad,
going
the
hour
blind
busy world
recollection
stare
made
the
at
crumpled bed-clothes in disgust of his age.

It seemed as though the years had soiled
him
in their passing.
At this time
the
in
power
the
it
was
as
of creation
labour
of
if
;
his
it
thinking
mind had
exhausted
while
he
lost
itself
was
A SUMMER HOLIDAY
253
dimly conscious that he was not thinking

of
anything
misery
as
the
senses
as
at
result of
became
He went
He
all.
condition
extreme
achieved
and not
being
of
any mental process. His

dulled and untrustworthy.
moody walks without realany of the scents or sounds of the

streets,
and when he touched his body
with his hands it was so insentient that
he would dig his nails in to make sure
for
izing
was
numbness
of his intellect and his senses seemed to
make a break, or at least a weak link,
that
in
he
it
the
not
continuity
closed
of
eyes
his
This
dead.
his
to
existence.
When
examine his
con-
was aware of immense voids

where normally he would have found pulsing
sciousness he
blood
a
and
man
eloquent
with
rather
of the wine of
automaton,
but
and
treasures
life,
nerves.
From
more than
he became
vaguely
present
his
being
share
a sluggish
mournful for
discomforts.
lost
Now
and again, however, he would realize that

he was doing no work, and, before he
relapsed
weary
into
his
his
barren
age-long
mind
torpor,
with
would
efforts
at
MONOLOGUES
254
looking back at iiis

hundred thousand follies, he
knew that these only were lost days.
The thirty -first day came and still there
was no rain, so the artist abandoned his
work and fled to the sea. As he sat in
the train he saw that the fields were
scorched brown by the sun and the trees
but
were losing their withered leaves
London was already very far away. Once
the train ran past a burning heath and
the carriage was filled with the acrid
Afterwards,
creation.
with
life
its
scent
of
children
November
beating
at
He saw
bonfire.
the
edges
of
the
fire
with uprooted bushes, and a pall of smoke
But the
on the heavy air.
train ran on and brought him to the sea.
Like most men who work for love, he
had never thought of taking a holiday
whersince he had been his own master
ever he had gone in the world his work
had gone with him, and the emotions bred
up
borne
of
his
month
its
resolution
to
do
new
to
him.
were
concern
mind
saw
with
life
in
nothing
for
Freed
from
words and phrases,
his
and
he
greater
detail
A SUMMER HOLIDAY
was curiously conscious of
colours
of
sophisticated
Belgian
by
coast
for
his
with
the
row
side
stood
great
like
had
chosen
watering-place
little
and
the shapes
He
things.
255
on
a
the
holiday, where,
side
hotels
that
the
sea,
of
wall
tall
against
sand-dunes upheld the blue sky with
the
their
crests
Flemish
of
pale gold
like
the
hair of
The lemon-coloured
fisher-girls.
beach was inlaid with bathing-machines of

a
hundred hues, and below the dunes the

and dry
great black fishing-boats lay high
on the sands, the pennants of their weathercocks fluttering softly in the wind that blew
from the sea.
The shore was studded
with the figures of men and women, and
were trampling down the surf

with their brown feet. Other children were
flying kites, and the air was full of strange
the children
birds
that
that
plucked impatiently at the cord
bound them
to
earth, and,
succeeded in breaking
too
weak
Behind the
of
to
little
Western
canals
it,
make use
fell
of
when they
to the
their
ground,
freedom.
town lay the tranquil plains
Flanders,
fertile
land
of
and farms and windmills, and far
MONOLOGUES
256
off
on the horizon he could see the purple
towers of Bruges.
In
new mood
his
of
holiday-maker he
companions in the town

They were gay and cosmopolitan, and seemed to have been making
The grave faces of the
holiday for years.
looked
his
at
with interest.
fishermen contrasted oddly with this light-
Perhaps they were dreaming

of the long winter months, when the town
was their own and only good Flemish
heartedness.
was heard
in the reticent streets,
North Sea roared

breakwaters,
versational
that
French
of the visitors.
in
silent
to
groups,
talk
Flemish against the
murmured now
to
the
please
the
in
con-
children
The fishermen stood apart

waiting
The
for
the
tide
to
would have
with them, but he knew no
release their boats.

liked
in
when
artist
Flemish.
The red sun set into the sea, the laughing crowd split into families and went in
to dinner, and the artist was moved by
Every one
sudden sense of loneliness.
The
in the place seemed to be gregarious.
even inanimate
fishermen,
the
visitors,
a
A SUMMER HOLIDAY
objects, the hotels, the boats,
257
and the bathing-
machines, formed tliemselves natnrally into

flocks.
He
sliivered
and climbed down
to
make friends with tlie sea.

The tide came in rapidly on the gently
sloping sands, and when the tongue of a
ninth wave licked his boots he thought
tlie
beach
of
the
to
trusting
of
large
and
This sea was a tame beast that
amiable dog.
made
advances
the great sea-wall and the elaborate
breakwaters
appear
ridiculous.
It
hardly
overcome the sand -castles

that the children had left behind them to
guard the deserted beach, and in its gentle
approach it brought him shy presents of
fragile shells and bunches of seaweed like
babies' nosegays.
But it pressed him back
foot by foot, and presently the swart fishingboats hoisted their sails and crept out one by
one under the sky, already faintly powdered
with stars. An orchestra struck up a waltz
above him on the digue, and he saw that
the windows of the hotels were blazing with
light, and that the guests were dancing with
the shadows of the esplanade.
As yet he was content to taste the holiday
had the force
to
17
MONOLOGUES
258
spirit
timidly,
drink for
to
it.
anj'^
for
seemed
it
him strong
to
one wlio was not accustomed
A man may
not learn in a
moment
to
talk aloud to strangers, to substitute laugliter
under the
for thought, to dance
So the
patronize the sea.
on
the
of
fringe
encouragingly
to
kept himself
artist
and
crowd,
the
and
stars,
smiled
himself to prove that he
to
was making holiday.
would be pleasant,
he thought, after a month of unsuccessful
struggle, to be merged in this universal
unconsciousness.
These people could express themselves efficiently by doing nothing
at all
perhaps he could win the secret
It
of their joyous
in
a place
where even the sea was only a
blithelj''
self-satisfaction
He
insignificant tourist.
longing
its
own
When
of
every
to
the passionate
enjoy
life
for
sake.
the
seventh
waltz
turned
inland
stretched,
orchestra
he
left
along
monotonously
eventful fields.
In
artist
felt
enriching
The
this
with her mystery.
commenced
the
the
dancers
and
road
that
across
un-
dusty,
level,
night had not succeeded

dully
prosperous
The sparse
plain
trees did not
A SUMMER HOLIDAY
259
there
were no
bear themselves
giants,
as
change the cropped pasture-lands

Every dusty twig, every
into violet lakes.
mists to
sandy
blade
of
grass
light
of
by the
revealed
stood
grey
as
November day.
And then he came up to

of sheep that was grazing
a
its
great
flock
way
along
the wide grassy borders of the road.
He
heard their teeth tearing the tough grass,
and the barking of the sheep-dogs on the

Presently he overtook
skirts of the flock.
shepherds
with
their long poles
the three
They
something to him
and coats of undressed sheep-skin.
and cried
in Flemish, and following their gesture he
saw a red light high up in the sky.
The boys had sent up a fire-balloon from
the beach below the town, and now it
had dwindled to the size of a great red
pointed
aloft
star.
The
looked
artist
at
three shepherds, at the

all
the
lesser
hurried
back
writing.
He
in a
lights
to
the
new
sheep,
the
shamed
Then he
star that
of heaven.
his
at
hotel,
and
started
realized that in a life so short,
world that
at every turn of the
road
MONOLOGUES
260
could prove significant, there was no time
Below him on
esplanade the orchestra was tuning up
to
cease
from
effort.
the fourteenth waltz,

their
bows
disturbed
the gentle sea.
the
for
and the scrapings of

the
whispering
His holiday was over.
of
XXX
COMMERCIAL LITERATURE
This
age of improving literature.

Shaw,
Chesterton,
Galsworthy,
Kipling, and Masefield have already improved
an
is
Messrs.
us
considerably,
tinue
be.
do
to
so,
and
and
will
this
no
doubt conas
is
should
it
But since a changeless diet of lesson
books
unwholesome
is
we may
student,
the
for
allow ourselves
literary
now and
again to rest our minds with that kind of

literature
that leaves us
as imperfect as
it
French kickshaws are sweet to

after a surfeit of your funeral
baked meats, and it is probably true that
finds
us.
the
palate
the
demand
for
light
increases
fiction
our novelists grow more serious.
whether
my
should have enjoyed
of bulbs so
much
if I
had not
depressing masterpiece
261
as
doubt
catalogue
just read that
" Sister
Carrie."

MONOLOGUES
262
It
supplied
my mind
with a bridge whereby

autumn to spring without
from
from the fogs and east winds and
rainy, muggy nights of our English winter,
and fitly enough the cover was adorned with
a spring-like picture of a pretty Dutch girl
the real article, and not the creature in a
to
pass
suffering
striped petticoat that prances gracelessly at
Only the artist had not

given her a large enough mouth to satisfy
my craving for naturalism, for I have noticed
English music-halls.
that in the
girls
Low
Countries even the pretty
can make one bite of an apple.
The
photographs of flowers with which the book
was
were very satisfactory, for

the beauty of hyacinths and tulips and daffodils depends on their form rather than their
colour, and they lose little by being reproduced in black-and-white.
But even better than the photographs
was the letterpress, which had evidently
been written by a Dutchman with an equal
enthusiasm for flowers and the English
illustrated
tongue.
The merits
by
illustrated
sparrow
is
of his prose can only be
quotation
the
: " The ubiquitous
gardener's
most inveterate

263
enemy, for of good in the garden he does

little
or none, while of irreparable damage
he annually does much.
Sparrows
strip
standing the possibility of
much
of the beauty
being destroyed by these marauders,

indefensible
garden."
omit
to
In
crocuses
similar
our
Notwith-
yellow crocuses of their petals.
spirit
it
from
he
is
the
cries,
"
Can any one imagine what our gardens,

greenhouses, and conservatories would be
The
like in spring if we had no tulips?
.
dull corner
is
enlivened by their presence,
and the bright place is made still brighter."

Moreover, we can have " brilliant effects
without putting our hand into our pockets
to a
very serious depth."
How
humanly and wisely he writes

hyacinths
" In
kindly and
of miniature
comparison with the typical Dutch
hyacinth
it is
fair to say that the miniatures
are toys, and are not, therefore, worthy of
For one purpose they no

doubt have a substantial value, and that is
for children, who, while small themselves,
serious attention.
may
This
prefer a small rather than an adult bulb.

is
a phase of bulb -growing that might
MONOLOGUES
264
well be
much
accorded
greater encourage-
ment, for the production of really excellent

miniature hyacinths
of the
little
ones,
well within the powers
is
whose
interest in flowers is
beyond question increased when they can

watch the progress of their own nurslings."
With daffodils, as he reminds us, " there
is
We
a beautiful latitude in price."
pay
" thirty
novelty, or
guineas for some highly extolled
we can have
a thousand sound
sum
flowering bulbs for as small a
and a half guineas.
may
make
'
Yes, but
say.
in the Wild
can
if
Common
!
'
one
as
some one
planted in the grass
garden or the woodland they will
a lovely display."
stop
It is difficult to
quoting a man who can write of the leaves

of a plant " showing signs of going to rest,"
that "
make their
lovely appearance every year," and who can
describe a flower " amaranth red maroon
of hardy
stripes,
and
us leave
cissus,
spring flowers
all
tigered over with black."
him with
which
is
his
"
chaste Poet's Nar-
beloved of everybody.
Grow them by hundreds
Let
in the garden and

by thousands in the grass of the woodland,
and their beautiful flowers will never fatigue
the eye."
Incidentally
this
last
is
265
flower that
should recommend for the gardens of

In
the
course
charming
of
my
catalogue
critics.
wanderings in this
have found other
bulbs that should also appeal to the catholic

student
of
literature.
shall
search
his
garden next spring for the hyacinths named
Lord Macaulay, Charles Dickens, and

Voltaire, for Alfred Tennyson and Sir Walter
Scott their crocuses, and for John Davidson
daffodils.
His tulips must be none other
"
than your tall and stately Darwins," though
after
perhaps a partial exception might be made

favour
in
Moore.
made
of
named
those
In this
way
after
Thomas
flower-beds might be
as significant as a man's bookshelves.
It is
strange
how
poorly an English cata-
logue compares with these enthusiastic pages
from Holland. The home product is better

printed and the photographs are better reproduced, but the letterpress is pedestrian, and
lacking in that essential quality that the late
M. Synge called "joy." It cannot be

denied that the English tradesman has an
extraordinary contempt for considerations of
Mr.
J.
style.
The moment
Frenchman has any-
MONOLOGUES
266
thing to
sell
he coins a phrase about
nine times out of ten the phrase
it,
and
poetical.
is
During the recent heat-wave a man who sold
them
fans in the streets of Paris christened

the " little
which
north winds," a
flight
of fancy of
London street hawker is certainly

Nor does the catalogue of an
incapable.
English bulb importer remind

essay on gardens, as
it
me
of Bacon's
very easily might.
Nevertheless there are not wanting signs

to
cheer the student of commercial litera-
ture.
do
n,ot
newer
greatly care for the
kind of advertising that apes the impertinent

familiarities
of
journalism, but
deplorable
a
it
pleases
me
me
school
that
of
Messrs.
buy their
rose-bushes with a quotation from George
Whiteley should persuade
Herbert.
It is
to
even more delightful that the
Underground Railways of London should

invite me to visit Covent Garden or the
Imperial Institute by means of a quatrain
The application
of FitzGerald's " Omar."
may not be obvious to any one who has not
"
seen their subtle leaflet entitled " The Rose
indeed,
it
may
who have but
not be very clear

the
intention
of
to
this
those
and
similar
leaflets
Tube
the
is
should
approached
The man
excellent.
feel
267
flattered
at
in
being
in so cultured a fashion.
day when all our acknowledged

writers shall have become preachers or
philosophers, perhaps the young men with
a theory of beauty and no theory as to the
economic conditions of the poor will be permitted to employ their perverse gifts in the
In
the
They
preparation of catalogues.
very
well,
adjectives
forming
will
do
it
new unions between
and nouns, and ransacking their
souls to find the true colours and shapes of
The catalogue
things.
hardly exists to-day, but

its
appearance sooner or
there
irons
is
no reason why
should
not
be
as
artistic
form
certain to
make
an
it is
later.
For
instance,
a catalogue of fireas
artistically significant as a
emotionally
and
necklace of carved
would touch on the natures of

metals how some metals are able to resist
while others preserve a polish and
fire,
charm the eye. It would quote Mr. Max
Beerbohm's essay on fire, the raging animal
that we keep in cages in our houses, and
beads.
It
point
out
the
need
for
instruments
with
MONOLOGUES
268
which
awake and control and feed this

animal.
It would examine the characters
of men, how one man will want a poker like
a sword while another will want a poker
like
be.
It
to
ploughshare
would
such a poker there
if
liken the tongs to the
hands
of a miser, and the shovel to a beggar's
paw
would remind the

elderly that the fireguard round the nursery
fire is a lattice-window through which young
eyes can see half the wonders of fairyland
on winter nights, fireships and palaces of
thrust out for alms.
It
flame, lurid caverns inhabited by goblins with
red eyes and bodies

would be great fun
like that.
of smoke.
to
write
Really,
it
catalogue
XXXI
A
"
MONOLOGUE ON LOVE-SONGS
THINK the people who expect you to make

fine poetry out of motor-cars and the telephone and old age pensions are very foolish,
I
very foolish indeed.

it
It
never will be done.
never has been done,

All the great poetry
of the world has been concerned with birth
and love and death.

significant
They are the only
things
enough for so rare a medium of
expression, and, of course, they are not really
worn out
at all.
every hour.
It is
They are new every day,

not because of that that
people no longer read poetry."
He
stirred his glass with the circular turn
of the wrist that pulls the heavy grenadine
up
through
the
soda-water.
The
lovers
flocked along the Boulevard, walking two
two as
if
they were already bound.

269
by
MONOLOGUES
270
" Yes,
have read your poems,
thought they were very pretty.
and
Some
of
them seemed to me to have been felt I think

you must have been in love with something
or other when you wrote them.
But what
you were in love with whether it was a girl
or an idea of a girl, or yourself, or something that you had found in a book
really don't know
and that is my criticism
;
of nearly
all
the love-poems that have ever
I know that you speak

mouth and other bits and
pieces of her body it was a good day for
poets when they first thought of doing that
been written.
Oh,
of her lips and her
and that really has something to do with

love, though there is a set of infamous rascals
who pretend it hasn't. But it isn't all when
you sum up the emotional units that compose
a love-affair, you will find that it is only an
appreciable fraction of the whole.
It is
the
absence of the other elements that makes
your poetry
artificial."
You admit that it isn't all when you fill

up your poems with flowers and stars,
"
despair and desire, and eternity and things of

that sort.
The
necessity
is
disastrous, for
it
A MONOLOGUE ON LOVE-SONGS
271
makes your poems inhuman, and love is the

most human emotion we enjoy.
Yet when
the lovers come to you for news of your
passion you give them only a geographical
chart of your mistress, and a handful of
insignificant symbols.
What
the use of
is
these to Charles with his increased salary, or
They know
Molly with her new muff?

these things have very
all
What they want
love.
is
to
little
that
do with
the expression of
the poet's passion conveyed in terms that thej^
themselves
make
it
me
to
can
understand.
would not
the final test of poetry, but
that
it
seems
any really good love-poem should

to any intelligent lover
be comprehensible
.
"
without Lempriere, please
Of course you
sin
in
"
!
good company.
Swinburne's poems are often called

but their passion
a nation that
is
erotic,
purely intellectual, and
was dependent on the
first
series
Poems and Ballads for their knowledge of

would die of inanition. He talks to a
woman and a statue in exactly the same tone
of voice, and when we have become accustomed to the brilliance of his technique we
of
love
realize
that
he has read about love in a
MONOLOGUES
272
naughty Greek book.

Most of you young
poets end by creating the same impression,
except that
we
you have
feel as a rule that
read your Greek book by aid of a

"
is
What
ci'ib."
want, what every one else wants,
evidence that you were in love with a real
girl
in a real
world when
jôu
wrote your
poems. Then they become interesting, alive.

But the conventions that you have borrowed
from other poets give them the air of

academic exercises
they are pretty, ingenious, what you will, but jôu and your
:
large-eyed lady appear only as discomfited

ghosts
who have been
bitten
by some quaint
You must
mythological insect called love.
remember
in
love
at
everybody has been

one time or another, and that
that nearly
writers of love-poetry must be prepared to

face an extraordinary number of well-informed critics. Well, you poets make love
subtle,
remote,
world knows everything that

about
it.
while
mysterious,
Nowadays
love
is to
as
is
all
the
be known
compre-
hensible as the measles, as domesticated as
a cat.
We know
consequences.
its
causes,
What
are
its
we
symptoms,
to
think
its
when
you
tell
stine
us of starred heavens and amethy"
wings?
" Listen
It's
of criticism as
we
are
273
no good dismissing
mere
philistinism.
philistines or all poets.
all
say that your love
is
kind
this
In love
You
can't
purer or more sesthetic
than that of the shopboy, because you have

voluntarily
accepted
conception
the
universal god, shooting his
democratic blindness
of
arrows with a
to class restrictions.
In
your kisses are very like the kisses of

ordinary men.
It is not only poets who
appreciate the eyes and lips and bosoms of
their mistresses, and so far you are justified
effect
in regarding this as
love.
an important aspect of
But there are other aspects no
immediate which
less
you ignore because the
other poets ignore them."

"
Look out there under the trees where the

young men and women are walking up and
down in pairs. The atmosphere is almost
oppressive with love, but
it is
a love without
wings, without arrows, and with quick, keen

eyes.
If
you were attempting
to give a
prose
impression of that very pleasant parade,

don't
think
that
you would write about

18
MONOLOGUES
274
eternity or the petals of roses.
more
far
would be
write about the
the point to
to
It
bags the girls carry on their wrists.
little
In every one of them there
two or three
and a small powder-box with a look-
franc,
letters,
change for a
is
handkerchief,
lace
They look
ing-glass lid.
make
in the glass to
sure that they are pretty enough to meet their
me
For
lovers.
resemble one of those

the
same
things.
love -poem
little
Passion?
ought
bags and contain
But
is
only you young dreamers
wager the
my
friend.
who
try to
love-letters are passionate enough,

It
to
keep passion in a water-tight compartment,
away from
reality
it
the ordinary emotions of
is
life.
In
always mixed up with powder,
and five -franc pieces. To

think that in all your hundred love poems
"
you have not once spoken of money
" No, I'm not being cynical
there is an
lace handkerchiefs,
economic side
human
a
to love as there is to all
relationships.
woman much
yourself,
And
and
You
richer or
other
fall in love with
much poorer than
you'll realize that only too well.
the looking-glass element enters, too, not
only for the
woman
but also for the man.
275
Those young fellows out there are pleased

enough to be well dressed, and of course a
girl
in a new hat is not the girl one
met yesterday. A little extra peacockry is
one of the commonest symptoms of love
natural desire to look one's best if you prefer
it
but you haven't a word to say about it.
But when it is lighting-up time for glowworms the lanes are crowded with poets.
Have you ever seen a glow-worm? Ugly
beggars they are, as brittle as lizards.
little
For me a shop-assistant
in his
new brown
boots or a factory girl with her

hat
is
a far
more
love's livery as
and
find
it
striking spectacle
big
first
;
that
is
it is worn by human beings,

more convincing than your
armour or your nasty clinging draperies.

remember once seeing a telegraph-boy
I
and being
taken aback by the sight of his smooth young
talking to
face
a girl in the Strand,
blazing with
passion.
Now
the
significant thing about a telegraph -boy
only
is
his
you had had the same impression as I had, and had given birth to one of
your poems, you would have said nothing
about his uniform and would probably have
uniform, but
if
MONOLOGUES
276
called
him vaguely
youth,
the
trailing
hideous chains of a monstrous civilization.
With the best will in the world, your readers

could not have recaptured your impression.
They would not have seen what I saw the
:
flushed, eager face, the desperate, twitching
hands, leaping out of a wooden body,

straight
slate.
lines
like
child's
all
drawing on a
They would not have seen
the contrast
between his crisped fingers and his
inflexible
between his polished boots and his face

dabbled with splotches of colour and shades
belt,
of perspiration.
You
sacrifice all the
beauty
your impressions to the immediate beauty

of words or to conventional standards of
of
a^stheticism."
at
"That is why flesh-and-blood lovers laugh

you when, grown too old for poetry, you
turn critic and say that
poems have been

fact poets
love yet.
all
the possible love-
written.
As a matter of
have hardly started
A few
to write
about
phrases of Shakespeare's
on jealousy, a few fine moments of Robert

Browning odd how the most commonplace
of poet-lovers
the
knew more about
whole row of passionate singers
love than
a hand-
ful of old S;ongs,
beside?
left
treats of love
he
the poetry.
So does
who might have made
Coventry Patmore,
fine thing of the
when he
but
tried,
fails at
'
Burns, and what's
little
Meredith
277
Angel in the House
'
if
course of modern French novels had taught
him
between his real emotions

and the emotions he thought he ought to feel.
To-day there's A. E. Housman with his
I
may have forgotten
Shropshire Lad.'
to distinguish
something, but
seems
it
to
me
that that
is
the
only book of English love-poetry which an

intelligent woman would not find silly and
high-falutin.
disillusioned
love
is
And remember that if at the

end we come to believe that
feminine, the
women
men.
better than the
us
what
Sappho is
write,
to
!
ing
emotion
masculine
rather
than
always understand
If
they only
it
knew how
love -songs they would give

still
there, with all her yearn-
songs that the careless centuries have
mislaid."
"
What we
enough
to
all
want now
is
a poet big
throw overboard the conventional
knick-knacks, the
new
tight-laced metres, the
art
vocabulary, the
Birmingham
relics of
MONOLOGUES
278
dead ages with which you youngsters are

cumbered, lilce the White Knight in Alice
through the Looking-Glass.'
Of course it
'
Walt Whitman was a big man,

but he threw the poetry overboard as well,
and only the born -deaf and the mentally
deficient can call the American Rousseau a
isn't
poet.
easy.
..."
XXXII
In our experience
modern
do not
writers
shine in conversation as did,
if
we
are to
believe their contemporaries, the great

of the past.
Nowadays
the
men
great novelist
speaks dryly about copyright
and censor-
ship, the great poet talks about his dinner,
and
after
we must
"
an evening spent
fall
back
Talk and Talkers
on
" if
in their society
Stevenson's
we wish
to
essay
preserve
the conviction that conversation can be an

art.
Our modern Johnsons make whale-like

noises only in their articles, and our modern
Goldsmith but we have no modern Goldsmith would talk like poor Poll in recurring
To sparkle in
volumes of reminiscences.
the
mark
of literary
now
is
conversation
mediocrity, and our great men unpack their
279
MONOLOGUES
280
hearts in words in their notebooks and in

their private diaries written for publication.
Perhaps they are not so lavishly provided

with good things
as
their
illustrious
for-
and cannot afford to be generous

perhaps they are afraid of appearing
bears,
arrogant
sparkle
lesser
to
but
is
it
minds
that
day hero -worshipper must expect

hero
Possibly
reticent.
may
not
certain that the present-
if
to find his
washerwomen
could read shorthand they would find the

souls
of these
their cuffs
thrifty
giants
we who have
expressed on
spent an evening
in their unimpressive society can only say
that
we have heard no word
of them.
Of course there are rare exceptions, but

we fancy that few people would be found to
contend that this is an age of accomplished
we are not strangely inferior

to our ancestors, we must suppose that the
spirit that they expressed in talk now finds
talkers.
Yet,
if
Perhaps every other man

a mute and glorious Pepys, or it
another outlet.
we meet
may be
is
that the
works of
fiction
modern taste for writing

marks the thankless doom
of our lost conversationalists.
At
all
events,
in support of the theory that
men and women
upon a time they
write the things that once
would have been
281
with saying, an
satisfied
agreeable piece of evidence
under our
lies
hand.
form of three
takes the
It
books
who
red note-
fat
man
with the handwriting of a
filled
we should infer, on its

neatness.
He was a school-
prided himself,
almost painful
master, one of those luckless schoolmasters
who do
not
find
boys
wander, the dreariest of

of
unconnected notes
form
not
did
phrases
his
exiles,
through the
Throughout
wastes of school-life.
for
references
to
boys
lazy,
for
occasional
pupils
his
He
almost without exception gloomy.

his
mass
this
respect
his
beyond
extend
and
sympathetic,
are
finds
ill-mannered, snobbish, and
normally so untruthful that he repeatedly
makes
the fatal mistake of disbelieving their
assertions
when
Because of
this lack of justice the
him
Jeffries
the fact
they
happen
to
be
true.
boys called
behind his back, and he notes
without comment.
people
who do not
like
dently
passionately
fond
Yet, like
was
evi-
children,
and
boys, he
of
many
MONOLOGUES
282
sweetens his pages with strange Uttle notes of

"
ways.
their
butter
Babies eat their bread-and-
upside down, in order to taste
When
*'
butter."
tlie
children are sent to bed
make up their minds not to go to

when they are lying awake in bed
try to see how many they can count."
early they
sleep
they
"
When
it is
snowing the children walk along
with their tongues out

" Nelly
to
catch the flakes."
hoards her new pennies until they
are quite
brown and
spoiled
parable of the talents."
" I
this is the true
have
win the
and little
to
affections of children with sweets
presents.
Others can do
Against these
observation
oddity
in
we can only
on
boys
pupils
his
:
without this."
it
set
"
:
one human
There is an
Simmons played
truant
yesterdaj' to play schools with his cousins."

It
will be seen that
our schoolmaster cuts a
not unamiable figure in his note-books, in

spite of the fact that as a master
erred on the side of severity.
may
venture, a lonely sort of
he clearly
He
man
was,
we
separated
by a gulf of shyness, certainly disillusioned and certainly possessed

Probably his
of vague literary ambitions.
from
his fellows
note-books were intended
283
provide materials
to
some half-conceived masterpiece, for liere

and tliere we can see him striving after the
for
finished
Yet often enough he has
phrase.
down
merely jotted
the heads of his thought,
the
roughest outline of his impression, so
that
we who
Even when the sense
meaning.
feel
lack the key seek in vain for his
sometimes that a link
the writer
is clear,
is
it
we
missing between
" After
and the written word.
a certain age
very necessary that our
dreams should be good

ficial
is
to
cynicism that hardly
super-
eat," is a
fits
his character
And this " When

we found him in the snow his clothes and
when we
hair were stiff with frozen beer
lifted him it sounded as though his bones
as
we have
conceived
it.
were breaking
"
;
climax of a tale?
is it
a reminiscence or the
We
scan the next item on
the page for an answer, and find only the
How can I
down my neck?"
poignant cry,
blowing
form
"
As an
artistic
these note-books are perplexing.
The most coherent

note-book,
in
stop the barber
Paris
is
section, nearly a
whole
devoted to his notes of a holiday
but he has hardly
escaped the
MONOLOGUES
284
conventional discoveries that reward
there,
ever, his individuality crops up.
man
blind
in the street "
who
in-
all
howHe saw a
Here and
experienced travellers.
looked as
if
he saw strange sights in another world," and

a
drunken man
in a caf6
" as
before the bar
who
raised his hat
before an
He
altar."
examines the Monna Lisa, and decides that

she
is
not smiling, and allows the Venus to
convince him of the ugliness of

"
To
travel abroad," he
the houses of a
human arms.
notes, " is like visiting
number
of people
whom
know very well a trial

"The motor-cars pass this
one
does not
for a shy
man."
hotel like
he writes
a roaring wind,"
portrait of the proprietor

lip
gleams
like
conventionally
an astonishing
enough, and then gives us

"
:
His thick lower
wet cherry between his
There is a
and his beard."
picturesque touch about the grlsettes " strugmoustache
gling with
drunken
great bundles
lovers,"
impression that
"
the
in
linen
as
with
and then we come on an

lacks
The people
of
the
revealing
windy
heroes on Japanese prints."
streets
word
are like
Doubtless he
had seen something, but he has not

what he had seen.
told us
Very few of
concerned with
his notes are
literature, but evidently
285
he read a few French
He suggests
books while he was
that Dumas modelled the famous escape from
in Paris.
Chateau
the
on
d'lf
Casanova's
equally
famous escape from the prison of the Plombs,

and on Zola's " CEuvre " he writes " It would
seem that the clearer the artist's vision the
:
more
certain
he will never do
that
is
it
anything permanently satisfactory to

self,"
which goes
to
confirm the theory that
he himself has literary dreams.

of his
method
him-
It is
typical
that he follows this reflection
with the note, "To-day
saw
man whose
were so large that his

We
hands disappeared in them entirely."
waistcoat
pockets
are possibly wrong, but
it is
the impression that the
difiicult to
avoid
odd abruptness of
his journal reflected a certain mental inco-
herence.
from
On one
Isabelle
memorandum
page
on
the
him
happiness,
Charing Cross-road
jam and hot
cowardice " a
afraid of blows, yet his

set
find a quotation
Eberhardt on
that
smells of raspberry
paradox
we
vinegar, a
man may
moral cowardice
fighting with a stout face "
be
may
and
the
286
MONOLOGUES
extraordinary
comment,
because
There
cliallenge
is,
tlie
"
hates
luxury of
liis
me
grief."
a curious mental contrari-
too,
man
makes his character

difficult to grip.
It was not modesty that
"
led him to write
There are days on whicli
the lowness of the clouds incommodes me and
makes me feel cramped," yet a page later
we find him writing humbly " Ibsen says
that the majority is always wrong, but I must
try to remember that the minority is not
always right," and in a still darker mood,
" I would like to exchange all my thrills and
ness about the
that
passions for a
hope,
realized that he
poor
We
life
and without
man
was
without desire, without

regret."
in the
At
times
he
wrong minority,
have lingered over these note-books
partly because they are interesting in themselves
and partly because they supply a good
instance of the
harm people do themselves
in being reticent.
It is
clear that the writer
was a man with a serious turn of mind

coupled with an odd, individual outlook on
life, and failing the society of his likes he
expressed himself only in notes written for
his
own
at all.
287
eyes, which is no kind of expression

For lack of impulse from without,
such an impulse as we can
find in
all
good
our disillusioned schoolmaster waned
talk,
He hardly
even survives in his note-books, for, as we
have said, a large part of his notes are now
meaningless. He is like one of those misers
at the
in
end
to silent nothingness.
whose
coffers
the
impatient
nothing but withered leaves, the
do not
like
misers,
heirs
find
fairies,
who
having substituted the
sweepings of the forest for the sweepings

of the city.
little
In his lifetime he hoarded the
treasures of his
them out
crumble
to
to
win
dust
mind
interest,
and
all
are spoiled and brown.
instead of sending
and
his
now
his notes
new pennies
men than
Greater
he are making the same mistake.
Zbe resbam
press,
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED,
WOKING AND LONDON.
Deacidified using the
Bookkeeper process.
Magnesium Oxide
Treatment Date: July 2009
Neutralizing agent;
PreservationTechnologies
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{All rights reserved.)

THE DECAY OF THE ESSAY

THE TTKANNY OF THE UGLY

THE TRUE BOHEMIA

THE POET AND THE PEOPLE

PENSIONS FOR POETS

THE AGE OF DISENCHANTMENT

THE NEW SEX

THE POET WHO WAS

POETS AND CEITICS

THE DECAY OF THE ESSAY

to the general laxity

use the language they inherit,

words are apt

in the course of years

broadened and coarsened in their meaning.

them mean too much he makes

them mean too little.

our fountain-pens in vain

serve a kind of verbal aristocracy

no one any harm.

used to-day loosely

word " essay."

are rescued from periodical litera-

and so are Mr. Lucas's pleasant pilferings

Earle's characters, and the Roger de Coverley

and Swinburne's laudations of the

" essay "

wishes the word

arbitrary meaning, and this

say that the art of writing

the newspapers and republishing them in

people are trying to write like Charles

To me, essays are such

and rhapsodize and

narrate, but the reader

THE DECAY OF THE ESSAY

minds, tiiey reveal with a careless generosity

mind emotions and placid processes of

far as the hospitable writer has

dors open to his inquiring eyes.

For of all forms of artistic expression, this

might be described as the art of expression

hope, think too

think, these trivial virtues.

Perhaps there are other men

bad man could write

rather believe himself unique in his villainy.

quaUty that leads

might naturally be presumed that

that the true essayist is a

with a great loneliness.

those rarer beings

share and even

should also disclose

and these are the

merits with a high fairness, stretches, as

always lying in wait

to catch himself tripping

but he would not

THE DECAY OF THE ESSAY

balance-sheet for Judgment Day, and he