S
OMETHING in Fleet Street holds tight those who once come within its influence. The cerebellum of the world, the "grey matter" of the world's brain, lies somewhere thereabouts. The thoughts of our time issue thence, like the radiating spokes of a wheel, to all places of the earth. There you have touch of the throbbing pulse of the vast multitudes that live and breathe. Their ideas come from Fleet Street.
From the printing-press and the engraver's wood-block, the lithographic-stone, the etcher's plate, from book and magazine, periodical and pamphlet, from world-read newspaper.
From Fleet Street, the centre whence ideas flow outwards.
It is joyous to be in the flower-grown meads; it is sweet to be on the hill-top; delicious to feel the swell and the long roll of the hexameter of the seas; doubtless there is a wild rapture on the summit of the Himalayas; triumph in the heart of the African explorer at the river's source. But if oncethe mind has been dipped in Fleet Street, let the meads be never so sweet, the mountain-top never so exalted, still to Fleet Street the mind will return, because there is that other Mind, without whose sympathy even success is nothing—the Mind of the world.
I am, of course, thinking not only of the thoroughfare, Fleet Street, but of all that the printing-press means.
Alere was no leader of thought, but it was necessary to him to live and breathe in the atmosphere of thought—to feel the throb and swell around him—to be near the "grey matter" of the world's brain.
Once a man gets into Fleet Street he cannot get out. Flamma would not leave it for months of gilded idleness in any nobleman's mansion.
The flame must be fed. His name had some connection with the design of the Roman lamp on the splendid bindings of the books tooled in the House of Flamma.Alere Flammam—feed the flame. The flame of the mind must be fed.
Sad things happen on the stones of Fleet Street; if I could but get at it all to write the inside life of it, it would, indeed, be a book. Stone-cold poverty hovers about. The rich, living in the fool's paradise of money, think they know life, but they do not, for, as was said of the sea——
Only those who share its dangersComprehend its mystery.
Only those who have shared the struggle literallyfor bread—for a real, actual loaf—understand the dread realities of man's existence.
Let but a morsel of wood—a little splinter of deal, a curl of carpenter's shaving—lie in Fleet Street, and it draws to it the wretched human beasts as surely as the offal draws the beast of the desert to the camp. A morsel of wood in the streets that are paved with gold!
It is so valuable. Women snatch it up and roll it in their aprons, clasping it tightly, lest it should somehow disappear. Prowling about from street to street, mile after mile, they fill their aprons with these precious splinters of deal, for to those who are poor fuel is as life itself.
Even the wealthy, if they have once been ill, especially of blood-thinning diseases (as rheumatism), sometimes say they would rather go without food than coal. Rather emptiness than chill.
These women know where there are hoardings erected by builders, where shop-fronts are being rebuilt, where fires have taken place, where alterations are proceeding; they know them as the birds know the places where they are likely to find food, and visit them day by day for the scraps of wood and splinters that drop on the pavement.
Or they send their children, ragged urchins, battling for a knot of pine-wood.
The terror of frost to these creatures is great indeed. Frost is the King of Terrors to them—not Death; they sleep and live with death constantly,the dead frequently in the room with the living, and with the unborn that is near birth.
Alere's ten pounds helped them. The drunkard's wife knew that Flamma, the drinker, would certainly give her the silver in his pocket.
The ragged urchins, battling for a knot of pine-wood, knew that they could charm the pennies and the threepenny bits out of his waistcoat; the baked potatoes and the roasted chestnuts looked so nice on the street stove.
Wretched girls whose power of tempting had gone, and with it their means of subsistence, begged, and not in vain, of shaky Alere Flamma. There are many of these wretches in Fleet Street. There is no romance about them to attract the charity of the world.
Once a flower-girl, selling flowers without a licence in the street, was charged by the police. How this harshness to the flower-girl—the human representation of Flora—roused up sentiment in her behalf!
But not every starving girl has the fortune to rouse up sentiment and to be fed. Their faces disfigured with eruptions, their thin shoulders, their dry, disordered hair—hair never looks nice unless soft with its natural oil—their dingy complexions, their threadbare shawls, tempt no one. They cannot please, therefore they must starve.
The good turn from them with horror—Are they not sin made manifest? The trembling hand of Alere fed them.
Because the boys bawl do you suppose they are happy? It is curious that people should associate noise with a full stomach. The shoeblack boys, the boys that are gathered into institutions and training ships, are expected to bawl and shout their loudest at the annual fêtes when visitors are present. Your bishops and deans forthwith feel assured that their lives are consequently joyous.
Why then do they set fire to training ships? Why do they break out of reformatory institutions? Bawling is not necessarily happiness. Yet fatuous fools are content if only they can hear a good uproar of bawling.
I have never walked up Fleet Street and the Strand yet without seeing a starving woman and child. The children are indeed dreadful; they run unguarded and unwatched out of the side courts into the broader and more lively Strand—the ceaseless world pushes past—they play on the pavement unregarded. Hatless, shoeless, bound about with rags, their faces white and scarred with nameless disease, their eyes bleared, their hair dirty; little things, such as in happy homes are sometimes set on the table to see how they look.
Howcanpeople pass without seeing them?
Alere saw them, and his hand went to his waistcoat pocket.
The rich folk round about this great Babylon of Misery, where cruel Want sits on the Seven Hills—make a cartoon of that!—the rich folk whoreceive hundreds on the turn of a stock, who go to the Bank of England on dividend days—how easily the well-oiled doors swing open for them!—who dwell in ease and luxury at Sydenham, at Norwood, at Surbiton, at Streatham, at Brighton, at Seven-oaks, wherever there is pure air, have distinguished themselves lately in the giving of alms, ordained by the Lord whom they kneel before each Sunday, clad in silk, scarlet, and fine linen, in their cushioned pews.
They have established Homes for Lost Dogs and Homes for Lost Cats, neither of which are such nuisances as human beings.
In the dog institution they have set up an apparatus specially designed by one of the leading scientific men of the age. The dogs that are not claimed in a certain time, or that have become diseased—like the human nuisances—are put into this apparatus, into a comfortable sort of chamber, to gnaw their last bone. By-and-by, a scientific vapour enters the chamber, and breathing this, the animal falls calmly to death, painlessly poisoned in peace.
Seven thousand dogs were thus happily chloroformed "into eternity" in one season. Jubilant congratulations were exchanged at the success of the apparatus. Better than shooting, drowning, hanging, vivisection, or starvation!
Let a dog die in peace. Is not this an age of humanity indeed? To sell all you have and give to the poor was nothing compared to this. Wehave progressed since Anno Domini I. We know better how to do it now.
Alere did not seem to trouble himself much about the dogs; he saw so much of the human nuisances.
What a capital idea it would be to set up an apparatus like this in the workhouses and in conjunction with the hospitals!
Do you know, thoughtless, happy maiden, singing all the day, that one out of every five people who die in London, die in the workhouse or the hospital?
Eighty-two thousand people died in London in 1882, and of these, fourteen thousand expired in the workhouses, and six thousand in hospitals!
Are not these ghastly figures? By just setting up a few Apparatuses, see what an immense amount of suffering would be saved, and consider what a multitude of human nuisances would he "moved on!"
The poor have a saying that none live long after they have been in a certain hospital. "He's been in that hospital—he won't live long." They carry out such wonderful operations there—human vivisections, but strictly painless, of course, under chloroform—true Christian chopping-up—still the folk do not live long when they come out.
Why not set up the Apparatus? But a man must not die in peace. Starvation is for human nuisances.
These rich folk dwelling round about the greatBabylon of Misery, where Want sits on the Seven Hills, have also distinguished themselves by yet another invention. This is the organization of alms. Charity is so holy we will not leave it to chance—to the stray penny—we will organize it. The system is very simple: it is done by ticket. First you subscribe a few shillings to some organization, with its secretary, its clerks, its offices, board-room, and "machinery." For this you receive tickets.
If a disagreeable woman with a baby in her arms, or a ragged boy, or a maimed man asks you for a "copper," you hand him a ticket. This saves trouble and responsibility.
The beggar can take the ticket to the "office" and get his case "investigated." After an inquiry, and an adjournment for a week; another inquiry, and another adjournment for a week; a third inquiry, and a third adjournment, then, if he be of high moral character and highly recommended, he may get his dinner.
One great advantage is conspicuous in this system: by no possible means can you risk giving a penny to a man not of high moral character, though he be perishing of starvation.
If a man asks for bread, will ye give him a stone? Certainly not; give him a ticket.
They did not understand how to do things in Judea Anno Domini I.
This organization of charity saves such a lot of money: where people used to give away five pounds they now pay five shillings.
Nothing like saving money. And, besides, you walk about with a clear conscience. No matter how many maimed men, or disagreeable women, or ragged boys you see, you can stroll on comfortably and never think about them; your charity is organized.
If the German thinkers had not found out twenty years ago that there was no Devil, one would be inclined to ascribe this spurious, lying, false, and abominable mockery to the direct instigation of a Satan.
The organization of charity! The very nature of charity is spontaneousness.
You should have heard Alere lash out about this business; he called it charity suppression.
Have you ever seen London in the early winter morning, when the frost lies along the kerb, just melting as the fires are lit; cold, grey, bitter, stony London?
Whatevercanmorning seem like to the starved and chilly wretches who have slept on the floor, and wake up to frost in Fleet Street?
The pavements are covered with expectoration, indicating the chest diseases and misery that thousands are enduring. But I must not write too plainly; it would offend.
A
PRINTER in the office crawled under the bed of the machine to replace something—a nut that had dropped; it was not known that he was there; the crank came round and crushed him against the brickwork. The embrace of iron is death.
Alere fed his helpless children, and apprenticed them when they were old enough.
Ten pounds was enough for him—without ambition, and without business-avarice; ten pounds was enough for his Fleet Street life.
It was not only the actual money he gave away, but the kindness of the man. Have you ever noticed the boys who work in printing-offices?—their elbows seem so sharp and pointed, bony, and without flesh. Instead of the shirt-sleeve being turned up, it looks as if the pointed elbow had thrust its way through.
He always had something for them;—a plate of beef, soup, beer to be shared, apples, baked potatoes, now and then half-a-dozen mild cigars. Awful this, was it not? Printers' boyswillsmoke; theyhad better have Flamma's fine tobacco than the vile imitation they buy.
They always had a tale for him; either their mothers, or sisters, or some one was in trouble; Flamma was certain to do something, however little might be within his power. At least he went to see.
Had a man an income of a million he could not relieve the want of London; the wretch relieved to-day needs again to-morrow. But Alere went to see.
Ten pounds did much in the shaky hands of a man without ambition, and without business-avarice, who went to see the unfortunate.
His own palsied mother, at the verge of life, looked to Alere for all that the son can do for the parent. Other sons seemed more capable of such duty; yet it invariably fell upon Alere. He was the Man. And for those little luxuries and comforts that soothe the dull hours of trembling age she depended entirely upon him.
So you see the ten-pound notes that satisfied him were not all spent in drink.
But alas! once now and then the rats began to run up the wall in broad daylight, and foolish Alere, wise in this one thing, immediately began to pack his carpet-bag. He put in his collars, his slippers, his sketch-books and pencils, some of his engraving tools, and a few blocks of boxwood, his silver-mounted flute, and a book for Amaryllis. He packed his carpet-bag and hastened away to his Baden-Baden, to Coombe Oaks, his spa among theapple-bloom, the song of finches, and rustle of leaves.
They sat and talked in the round summer-house in Iden's garden, with the summer unfolding at their knees; Amaryllis, Amadis, Iden, and Flamma.
By Flamma's side there stood a great mug of the Goliath ale, and between his lips there was a long churchwarden pipe.
The Goliath ale was his mineral water; his gaseous, alkaline, chalybeate liquor; better by far than Kissingen, Homburg, Vichy; better by far than mud baths and hot springs. There is no medicine in nature, or made by man, like good ale. He who drinks ale is strong.
The bitter principle of the aromatic hops went to his nervous system, to the much-suffering liver, to the clogged and weary organs, bracing and stimulating, urging on, vitalizing anew.
The spirit drawn from the joyous barley warmed his heart; a cordial grown on the sunny hill-side, watered with dew and sweet rain, coloured by the light, a liquor of sunshine, potable sunbeam.
Age mingling hops and barley in that just and equitable proportion, no cunning of hand, no science can achieve, gave to it the vigour of years, the full manhood of strength.
There was in it an alchemic power analysis cannot define. The chemist analyzes, and he finds of ten parts, there are this and there are that, and the residue is "volatile principle," for which all the dictionaries of science have no explanation.
"Volatile principle"—there it is, that is the secret. That is the life of the thing; by no possible means can you obtain that volatile principle—that alchemic force—except contained in genuine old ale.
Only it must be genuine, and it must be old; such as Iden brewed.
The Idens had been famous for ale for generations.
By degrees Alere's hand grew less shaky; the glass ceased to chink against his teeth; the strong, good ale was setting his Fleet Street liver in order.
You have "liver," you have "dyspepsia," you have "kidneys," you have "abdominal glands," and the doctor tells you you must take bitters,i.e., quassia, buchu, gentian, cascarilla, calumba; aperients and diluents, podophyllin, taraxacum, salts; physic for the nerves and blood, quinine, iron, phosphorus; this is but the briefest outline of your draughts and preparations; add to it for various purposes, liquor arsenicalis, bromide of potassium, strychnia, belladonna.
Weary and disappointed, you turn to patent medicines—American and French patent physic is very popular now—and find the same things precisely under taking titles, enormously advertised.
It is a fact that nine out of ten of the medicines compounded are intended to produce exactly the same effects as are caused by a few glasses of good old ale. The objects are to set the great glands in motion, to regulate the stomach, brace the nerves, and act as a tonic and cordial; a little ether put into aid the digestion of the compound. This is precisely what good old ale does, and digests itself very comfortably. Above all things, it contains the volatile principle, which the prescriptions have not got.
Many of the compounds actually are beer, bittered with quassia instead of hops; made nauseous in order that you may have faith in them.
"Throw physic to the dogs," get a cask of the true Goliath, and "drenk un down to the therd hoop."
Long before Alere had got to the first hoop the rats ceased to run up the wall, his hand became less shaky, he began to play a very good knife and fork at the bacon and Iden's splendid potatoes; by-and-by he began to hum old German songs.
But you may ask, how doyouknow, you're not a doctor, you're a mere story-spinner, you're no authority? I reply that I am in a position to know much more than a doctor.
How can that be?
Because I have been a Patient. It is so much easier to be a doctor than a patient. The doctor imagines what his prescriptions are like and what they will do; he imagines, but the Patientknows.
S
OME noble physicians have tried the effect of drugs upon themselves in order to advance their art; for this they have received Gold Medals, and are alluded to as Benefactors of Mankind.
I have tried the effects of forty prescriptions upon My Person. With the various combinations, patent medicines, and so forth, the total would, I verily believe, reach eighty drugs.
Consequently, it is clear I ought to receive eighty gold medals. I am a Benefactor eighty times multiplied; the incarnation of virtue; a sort of Buddha, kiss my knees, ye slaves!
I have a complaisant feeling as I walk about that I have thus done more good than any man living.
I am still very ill.
The curious things an invalid is gravely recommended to try! One day I was sitting in that great cosmopolitan museum, the waiting-room at Charing Cross station, wearily glancing from time to time at the clock, and reckoning how long itwould be before I could get home. There is nothing so utterly tiring to the enfeebled as an interview with a London physician. So there I sat, huddled of a heap, quite knocked up, and, I suppose, must have coughed from time to time. By-and-by, a tall gentleman came across the room and sat down beside me. "I hope I don't intrude," said he, in American accents. "I was obliged to come and speak to you—you look bad. Ihateto hear anybody cough." He put an emphasis on hate, a long-drawn nasalhaate, hissing it out with unmeasured ferocity. "Ihaateto hear anybody cough. Now I should like to tell you how to cure it, if you don't mind."
"By all means—very interesting," I replied.
"I was bad at home, in the States," said he. "I was on my back four years with a cough. I couldn't do anything—couldn't help myself; four years, and I got down to eighty-seven pounds. That's a fact, I weighed eighty-seven pounds."
"Very little," I said, looking him over; he was tall and broad-shouldered, not very thick, a square-set man.
"I tried everything the doctors recommended—it was no use; they had to give me up. At last a man cured me; and how do you think he did it?"
"Can't think—should much like to know."
"Crude petroleum," said the American. "That was it. Crude petroleum! You take it just as it comes from the wells; not refined, mind. Justcrude. Ten drops on a bit of sugar three times a day, before meals. Taste it? No, not to speak of; you don't mind it after a little while. I had in a ten-gallon keg. I got well. I got up to two hundred and fifty pounds. That's true. I got too fat, had to check it. But I take the drops still, if I feel out of sorts. Guess I'm strong enough now. Been all over Europe."
I looked at him again; certainly, he did appear strong enough.
"But you Britishers won't try anything, I suppose, from the States, now."
I hastened to assure him I had no prejudice of that sort—if it would cure me, it might come from anywhere.
"You begin with five drops," he said, solemnly. "Or three, if you like, and work up to ten. It soon gets easy to take. You'll soon pick up. But I doubt if you'll get a keg of the crude oil in this country; you'll have to send over for it. Ihaateto hear anybody cough"—and so we parted.
He was so much in earnest, that if I had egged him on, I verily believe he would have got the keg for me himself. It seemed laughable at the time; but I don't laugh now. I almost think that good-natured American was right; he certainly meant well.
Crude petroleum! Could anything be more nauseous? But probably it acts as a kind of cod-liver oil. Sometimes I wish I had tried it. Likehim, I hate to hear anybody cough! Better take a ten-gallon keg of petroleum.
Alere's crude petroleum was the Goliath ale, and he had hardly begun to approach the first hoop, when, as I tell you, he was heard to hum old German songs; it was the volatile principle.
Songs about the Pope and the Sultan
But yet he's not a happy man,He must obey the Alcoran,He dares not touch one drop of wine,I'm glad the Sultan's lot's not mine.
Songs about the rat that dwelt in the cellar, and fed on butter till he raised a paunch that would have done credit to Luther; songs about a King in Thule and the cup his mistress gave him, a beautiful old song that, none like it—
He saw it fall, he watched it fill,And sink deep, deep into the main;Then sorrow o'er his eyelids fell,He never drank a drop again.
Or his thought slipped back to his school-days, and beating the seat in the summer-house with his hand for time, Alere ran on:—
Horum scorum suntivorum,Harum scarum divo,Tag-rag, merry derry, perriwig, and a hatband,Hic hoc horum genitivo—
To be said in one breath.
Oh, my Ella—my blue bella,A secula seculorum,If I have luck, sir, she's my uxor,O dies Benedictorum!
Or something about:
Sweet cowslips grace, the nominative case,And She's of the feminine gender.
Days of Valpy the Vulture, eating the schoolboy's heart out, Eton Latin grammar, accidence—donotpause, traveller, if you seehistomb!
"Play to me," said Amaryllis, and the Fleet-Street man put away his pipe, and took up his flute; he breathed soft and low—an excellent thing in a musician—delicious airs of Mozart chiefly.
The summer unfolded itself at their knees, the high buttercups of the meadow came to the very door, the apple-bloom poured itself out before them; music all of it, music in colour, in light, in flowers, in song of happy birds. The soothing flute strung together the flow of their thoughts, they were very silent, Amaryllis and Amadis Iden—almost hand in hand—listening to his cunning lips.
He ceased, and they were still silent, listening to their own hearts.
The starlings flew by every few minutes to their nests in the thatch of the old house, and out again to the meadow.
Alere showed how impossible it was to draw a bird in flight by the starling's wings. His wings beat up and down so swiftly that the eye had nottime to follow them completely; they formed a burr—an indistinct flutter; you are supposed to see the starling flying from you. The lifted tips were depressed so quickly that the impression of them in the raised position had not time to fade from the eye before a fresh impression arrived exhibiting them depressed to their furthest extent; you thus saw the wings in both positions, up and down, at once. A capital letter X may roughly represent his idea; the upper part answers to the wings lifted, the lower part to the wings down, and you see both together. Further, in actual fact, you see the wings in innumerable other positions between these two extremes; like the leaves of a book opened with your thumb quickly—as they do in legerdemain—almost as you see the spokes of a wheel run together as they revolve—a sort of burr.
To produce an image of a starling flying, you must draw all this.
The swift feathers are almost liquid; they leave a streak behind in the air like a meteor.
Thus the genial Goliath ale renewed the very blood in Alere's veins.
Amaryllis saw too that the deadly paleness of Amadis Iden's cheeks—absolute lack of blood—began to give way to the faintest colour, little more than the delicate pink of the apple-bloom, though he could take hardly a wine-glass of Goliath. If you threw a wine-glassful of the Goliath on the hearth it blazed up the chimney in the most livelymanner. Fire in it—downright fire! That is the test.
Amadis could scarcely venture on a wine-glassful, yet a faint pink began to steal into his face, and his white lips grew moist. He drank deeply of another cup.
L
ET me try," said Amadis, taking the handle of the churn from Jearje. The butter was obstinate, and would not come; it was eleven o'clock in the morning, and still there was the rattle of milk in the barrel, the sound of a liquid splashing over and over. By the sounds Mrs. Iden knew that the fairies were in the churn. Jearje had been turning for hours.
Amadis stooped to the iron handle, polished like silver by Jearje's rough hands—a sort of skin sand-paper—and with an effort made the heavy blue-painted barrel revolve on its axis.
Mrs. Iden, her sleeves up, looked from the dairy window into the court where the churn stood.
"Ah, it's no use your trying," she said, "you'll only tire yourself."
Jearje, glad to stand upright a minute, said, "First-rate, measter."
Amaryllis cried, "Take care; you'd better not, you'll hurt yourself."
"Aw!—aw!" laughed Bill Nye, who was sittingon a form by the wall under the dairy window. He was waiting to see Iden about the mowing. "Aw!—aw! Look 'ee thur, now!"
Heavily the blue barrel went round—thrice, four times, five times; the colour mounted into Amadis's cheeks, not so much from the labour as the unwonted stooping; his breath came harder; he had to desist, and go and sit down on the form beside Bill Nye.
"I wish you would not do it," said Amaryllis. "You know you're not strong yet." She spoke as if she had been his mother or his nurse, somewhat masterfully and reproachfully.
"I'm afraid I'm not," said poor Amadis. His chin fell and his face lengthened—his eyes grew larger—his temples pinched; disappointment wrung at his heart.
Convalescence is like walking in sacks; a short waddle and a fall.
"I can tell 'ee of a vine thing, measter," said Bill Nye, "as I knows on; you get a pint measure full of snails——"
"There, do hold your tongue, it's enough to make anyone ill to think of," said Amaryllis, angrily, and Bill was silent as to the cod-liver oil virtues of snails. Amaryllis went to fetch a glass of milk for Amadis.
A robin came into the court, and perching on the edge of a tub, fluttered his wings, cried "Check, check," "Anything for me this morning?" and so put his head on one side, languishing and persuasive.
"My sister, as was in a decline, used to have snail-oil rubbed into her back," said Luce, the maid, who had been standing in the doorway with a duster.
"A pretty state of things," cried Mrs. Hen, in a passion. "You standing there doing nothing, and it's butter-making morning, and everything behind, and you idling and talking,"—rushing out from the dairy, and following Luce, who retreated indoors.
"Hur'll catch it," said Bill Nye.
"Missis is ——" said Jearje, supplying the blank with a wink, and meaning in a temper this morning. "Missis," like all nervous people, was always in a fury about nothing when her mind was intent on an object; in this case, the butter.
"Here's eleven o'clock," she cried, in the sitting-room, pointing to the clock, "and the beds ain't made."
"I've made the beds," said stolid Luce.
"And the fire isn't dusted up."
"I've dusted up the fire."
"And you're a lazy slut"—pushing Luce about the room.
"I bean't a lazy slut."
"You haven't touched the mantelpiece; give me the duster!"—snatching it from her.
"He be done."
"All you can do is to stand and talk with the men. There's no water taken up stairs."
"That there be."
"You know you ought to be doing something;the lazy lot of people in this house; I never saw anything like it; there's Mr. Iden's other boots to be cleaned, and there's the parlour to be swept, and the path to be weeded, and the things to be taken over for washing, and the teapot ought to go in to Woolhorton, you know the lid's loose, and the children will be here in a minute for the scraps, and your master will be in to lunch, and there's not a soul to help me in the least," and so, flinging the duster at Luce, out she flew into the court, and thence into the kitchen, where she cut a great slice of bread and cheese, and drew a quart of ale, and took them out to Bill Nye.
"Aw, thank'ee m'm," said Bill, from the very depth of his chest, and set to work happily.
Next, she drew a mug for Jearje, who held it with one hand and sipped, while he turned with the other; his bread and cheese he ate in like manner, he could not wait till he had finished the churning.
"Verily, man is made up of impatience," said the angel Gabriel in the Koran, as you no doubt remember; Adam was made of clay (who was the sculptor's ghost that modelled him?) and when the breath of life was breathed into him, he rose on his arm and began to eat before his lower limbs were yet vivified. This is a fact. "Verily, man is made up of impatience." As the angel had never had a stomach or anything to sit upon, as the French say, he need not have made so unkind a remark; if he had had a stomach and a digestion like Bill Nye andJearje, it is certain he would never have wanted to be an angel.
Next, there were four cottage children now in the court, waiting for scraps.
Mrs. Iden, bustling to and fro like a whirlwind, swept the poor little things into the kitchen and filled two baskets for them with slices of bread and butter, squares of cheese, a beef bone, half a rabbit, a dish of cold potatoes, two bottles of beer from the barrel, odds and ends, and so swept them off again in a jiffy.
Mrs. Iden! Mrs. Iden! you ought to be ashamed of yourself, that is not the way to feed the poor. Whatcouldyou be thinking of, you ignorant farmer's wife!
You should go to London, Mrs. Iden, and join a Committee with duchesses and earlesses, and wives of rich City tradesfolk; much more important these than the duchesses, they will teach you manners. They will teach you how to feed the poor with the help of the Rev. Joseph Speechify, and the scientific Dr. Amœba Bacillus; Joe has Providence at his fingers' ends, and guides it in the right way; Bacillus knows everything to a particle; with Providence and Science together theymustdo it properly.
The scientific dinner for the poor must be composed of the principles of food in the right proportion: (1) Albuminates, (2) Hydro-Carbons, (3) Carbo-hydrates. Something juicy coming now!
The scientific dinner consists of haricot beans, orlentil soup, or oatmeal porridge, or vegetable pot-bouilli; say twopence a quart. They can get all the proteids out of that, and lift the requisite foot-tons.
No wasteful bread and butter, no scandalous cheese, no abominable beef bone, no wretched rabbit, no prodigal potatoes, above all, No immoral ale!
There, Mrs. Iden.
Go to the famous Henry Ward Beecher, that shining light and apostle, Mrs. Iden, and read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what he says:—
"A man who cannot live on bread is not fit to live. A family may live, laugh, love and be happy that eats bread in the morning with good water, and water and good bread at noon, and water and bread at night."
Does that sound like an echo of the voice that ceased on the Cross?
Guilty Mrs Iden, ignorant farmer's wife; hide your beef and ale, your rabbit and potatoes.
To duchesses and earlesses, and plump City ladies riding in carriages, and all such who eat and drink five times a day, and have six or eight courses at dinner, doubtless once now and then a meal of vegetable pot-bouilli, or oatmeal porridge, or lentil soup (three halfpence a pound lentils), or haricot beans and water would prove a scientifically wholesome thing.
But to those who exist all the week on hunches of dry bread, and not much of that, oatmeal porridge doesn't seem to come as a luxury. They wouldlike something juicy; good rumpsteak now, with plenty of rich gravy, broad slices from legs of mutton, and foaming mugs of ale. They need something to put fresh blood and warmth into them.
You sometimes hear people remark: "How strange it is—the poor never buy oatmeal, or lentils!"
Of course they don't; if by any chance they do get a shilling to spend, they like a mutton chop. They have enough of farinaceous fare.
What Mrs. Iden ought to have done had she been scientific, was to have given each of these poor hungry children a nicely printed little pamphlet, teaching them how to cook.
Instead of which, she set all their teeth going; infinitely wicked Mrs. Iden!
Y
OU must drink it all—every drop," said Amaryllis, masterfully, as Amadis lingered over the glass of milk she had brought him. He had but half finished it; she insisted, "Come, drink it all." Amadis made an effort, and obeyed.
But his heart was bitter as absinthe.
Everyone else was strong, and hardy, and manly; even the women were manly, they could eat and drink.
Rough-headed Jearje, at the churn, ate hard cheese, and drank ale, and turned the crank at the same time.
Round-headed Bill Nye sat on the form, happily munching cheese, oh so happily! Gabriel (of the Koran) would never believe how happily, sipping his tall quart-mug.
Mrs. Iden bustled to and fro, for all her fifty years, more energetic than all the hamlet put together.
Luce, the maid, had worked since six, and would go on hours longer.
Alere Flamma was smoking and sipping Goliath ale in the summer-house; he could eat, and drink, and walk about as a man should.
Amaryllis was as strong as a young lioness; he had seen her turn the heavy cheese-tub round as if it were a footstool.
He alone was weak, pale, contemptible; unable to eat strong meat; unable to drink strong drink; put down to sip milk as an infant; unable to walk farther than Plum Corner in the garden; unable to ride even; a mere shadow, a thing of contempt.
They told him he was better. There was just a trifle of pink in his face, and he could walk to Plum Corner in the garden without clinging to Amaryllis's arm, or staying to steady himself and get his balance more than three or four times. He had even ventured a little way up the meadow-path, but it made him giddy to stoop to pick a buttercup. They told him he was better; he could eat a very little more, and sip a wine-glassful of Goliath.
Better! What a mockery to a man who could once row, and ride, and shoot, and walk his thirty miles, and play his part in any sport you chose! It was absinthe to him.
He could not stoop to turn the churn—he had to sip milk in the presence of strong men drinking strong drink; to be despised; the very servant-maid talking of him as in a decline.
And before Amaryllis; before whom he wished to appear a man.
And full of ideas, too; he felt that he had ideas,that he could think, yet he could scarce set one foot safely before the other, not without considering first and feeling his way.
Rough-headed Jearje, without a thought, was as strong as the horses he led in the waggon.
Round-headed Bill Nye, without an idea, could mow all day in the heat of July.
He, with all his ideas, his ambitions, his exalted hopes, his worship of Amaryllis—he was nothing. Less than nothing—a shadow.
To despise oneself is more bitter than absinthe.
Let us go to Al Hariri once again, and hear what he says. The speaker has been very, very ill, but is better:—