Oh, tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest eachThat bright and fierce and fickle is the South,And dark and true and tender is the North!Oh, tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown;Say that I do but wanton in the South,But in the North, long since, my nest is made!
Oh, tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest eachThat bright and fierce and fickle is the South,And dark and true and tender is the North!Oh, tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown;Say that I do but wanton in the South,But in the North, long since, my nest is made!
Oh, tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest eachThat bright and fierce and fickle is the South,And dark and true and tender is the North!
Oh, tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,
And dark and true and tender is the North!
Oh, tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown;Say that I do but wanton in the South,But in the North, long since, my nest is made!
Oh, tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown;
Say that I do but wanton in the South,
But in the North, long since, my nest is made!
“My nest is made,” is the ultimatum of the lover,—the “nest” or the home being the natural centre of the circle of man’s ambition. A happy home is the best and surest safeguard against all evil; and where home is not happy, there the devil may freely enter and find his hands full. With women, and women only, this happiness in the home must find its foundation. They only are responsible; for no matter how wild and erring a man may be, if he can always rely on finding somewhere in the world a peaceful, well-ordered, andundishonouredhome, he will feel the saving grace of it sooner or later, and turn to it as the one bright beacon in a darkening wilderness. But if he knows that it is a mere hostelry,—that his wife has no pride in it,—that other men than himself have found the right to enter there,—that his servants mock him behind his back as a poor, weak, credulous fool, who has lost all claim to mastership or control, he grows to hate the very walls of the dwelling, and does his best to lose himself and his miseries in a whirlpool of dissipation and folly, which too often ends in premature breakdown and death.
One often wonders if the “smart” ladies whocast aside the quiet joys of home life, in exchange for a jostling “feed” at the Carlton or other similar resorts, have any idea of the opinion entertained of their conduct by that Great Majority, the People? The People,—without whom their favoured political candidates would stand no chance of election,—the People, without whose willing work, performed under the heavy strain of cruel and increasing competition, they would be unable to enjoy the costly luxuries they deem indispensable to their lives,—the People, who, standing in their millions outside “society” and its endless intrigues,—outside a complaisant or subsidized Press,—outside all, save God and the Right,—pass judgment on the events of the day, and entertain their own strong views thereon, which, though such views may not find any printed outlet, do nevertheless make themselves felt in various unmistakable ways. Latterly, there has been a great clamour about servants and the lack of them. It is quite true that many ladies find it difficult to secure servants, and that even when they do secure them, they often turn out badly, being of an untrained and incompetent class. But why is this? No doubt many causes work together to make up the sum of deficiency or inefficiency, but one reason can be given which is possibly entirely unsuspected. It is a reason which will no doubt astonish some, and awaken the tittering ridicule of many, but the fact remains unalterable, despite incredulity and denial. There is really no lack of competent domestic servants. On the contrary, there are plenty of respectable, willing, smart, well-instructed girls in the country, who would make what arecalled “treasures” in the way of housemaids, parlourmaids and lady’s-maids, but whose parents stubbornly refuse to let them enter any situation until they know something of the character of the mistress with whom they are expected to reside, and the general reputation of the house or “home” they are to enter. I could name dozens of cases where girls, on enquiry, have actually declined lucrative situations, and contented themselves with work at lower wages, rather than be known as “in service” with certain distinguished ladies. “My girl,” says a farmer’s wife, “is a clean, wholesome, steady lass; I’d rather keep her by me for a bit than see her mixing herself up with the fashionable folk, who are always getting into the divorce court.” This may be a bitter pill of information for the “smart set” to swallow; but there is no exaggeration in the statement that the working classes have very little respect left nowadays for the ladies of the “Upper Ten,” and many of the wives of honest farmers, mechanics and tradesmen would consider that they were voluntarily handing over their daughters to temptation and disgrace by allowing them to enter domestic service with certain society leaders, who, though bearing well-known names, are branded by equally well-known “easy virtue.”
Does any one at this time of day recall a certain chapter in the immortal story ofBleak House, by Charles Dickens, when Mr. Rouncewell, the iron-master, a mere tradesman in the opinion of that haughty old aristocrat, Sir Leicester Dedlock, desires to remove the pretty girl, Rosa, lady’s-maid to Lady Dedlock, at once from her situation, ifshe is to marry his son? An extract from this scene may not here be altogether out of place.
Lady Dedlock has enquired of the iron-master if the love-affair between her lady’s-maid and his son is still going on, and receives an answer in the affirmative.
“‘If you remember anything so unimportant,’ he says—‘which is not to be expected—you would recollect that my first thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining here.’“Dismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir Leicester is bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed down to him through such a family, or he really might have mistrusted their report of the iron-gentleman’s observation!“‘It is not necessary,’ observes my Lady, in her coldest manner, before he can do anything but breathe amazedly, ‘to enter into these matters on either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever to say against her; but she is so far insensible to her many advantages and her good fortune, that she is in love—or supposes she is, poor little fool—and unable to appreciate them.’“Sir Leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. He might have been sure that my Lady had the best grounds and reasons in support of her view. He entirely agrees with my Lady. The young woman had better go.“‘As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion when we were fatigued by this business,’ Lady Dedlock languidly proceeds,‘we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, and under present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had better go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her sent back to the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would you prefer?’“‘Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly——’“‘By all means.’“‘I should prefer the course which will the sooner relieve you of the encumbrance,and remove her from her present position.’“‘And to speak as plainly,’ she returns, with the same studied carelessness, ‘so should I. Do I understand that you will take her with you?’“The iron-gentleman makes an iron bow.* * * * *“‘Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock,’ says Mr. Rouncewell, after a pause of a few moments; ‘I beg to take my leave with an apology for having again troubled you. I can very well understand, I assure you, how very tiresome so small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I am doubtful on my dealing with it, it is onlybecause I did not at first quietly exert my influence to take my young friend here awaywithout troubling you at all. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the polite world.”
“‘If you remember anything so unimportant,’ he says—‘which is not to be expected—you would recollect that my first thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining here.’
“Dismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir Leicester is bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed down to him through such a family, or he really might have mistrusted their report of the iron-gentleman’s observation!
“‘It is not necessary,’ observes my Lady, in her coldest manner, before he can do anything but breathe amazedly, ‘to enter into these matters on either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever to say against her; but she is so far insensible to her many advantages and her good fortune, that she is in love—or supposes she is, poor little fool—and unable to appreciate them.’
“Sir Leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. He might have been sure that my Lady had the best grounds and reasons in support of her view. He entirely agrees with my Lady. The young woman had better go.
“‘As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion when we were fatigued by this business,’ Lady Dedlock languidly proceeds,‘we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, and under present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had better go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her sent back to the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would you prefer?’
“‘Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly——’
“‘By all means.’
“‘I should prefer the course which will the sooner relieve you of the encumbrance,and remove her from her present position.’
“‘And to speak as plainly,’ she returns, with the same studied carelessness, ‘so should I. Do I understand that you will take her with you?’
“The iron-gentleman makes an iron bow.
* * * * *
“‘Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock,’ says Mr. Rouncewell, after a pause of a few moments; ‘I beg to take my leave with an apology for having again troubled you. I can very well understand, I assure you, how very tiresome so small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I am doubtful on my dealing with it, it is onlybecause I did not at first quietly exert my influence to take my young friend here awaywithout troubling you at all. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the polite world.”
As a matter of fact, certain rumours against Lady Dedlock’s reputation, and hints as to her “past,” have come to the ears of the honest tradesman, and he prefers to remove his son’s betrothed wife from the contact of a possible perniciousinfluence. The very same thing is done scores of times over in many similar cases to-day.
No one knows the real character and disposition of the mistress of a home better than the servants she employs, and if she is honoured and loved by her domestics, she stands on surer ground than the praise or flattery of her fashionable friends. It is all a question of “home” again. A real home is a home to all connected with it. The very kitchen-maid employed in it, the boy who runs errands for the house; indeed every servant, from the lowest to the highest, should feel that their surroundings are truly “homelike,”—that things are well-ordered, peaceful and happy; that the presiding spirit of the place, the mistress, is contented with her life, and cheerfully interested in the welfare of all around her,—then “all things work together for good,” and the house becomes a bulwark against adversity, a harbour in storm, a “nest” indeed, where warmth, repose, and mutual trust and help make the days sweet and the nights calm. But where the mistress is scarcely ever at home,—when she prefers public restaurants to her own dining-room,—when with each change of the seasons she is gadding about somewhere, and avoiding home as much as possible, how is it to be expected that even servants will care to stay with her, or ever learn to admire and respect her? Peace and happiness are hers to possess in the natural and God-given ways of home life, if she chooses,—but if she turns aside from her real sovereignty, throws down her sceptre and plays with the sticks and straws of the “half-world,” she has only herself to blame if the end should prove but dire confusion and the bitterness of strife.
Apart altogether from the individual dignity and self-poise which are invariably lacking to the “vagrant,” or home despising human being, the decay of home life in England is a serious menace to the Empire’s future strength. If our coming race of men have been accustomed to see their mothers indulging in a kind of high-class public house feasting, combined with public house morals, and have learned from them an absolute indifference to home and home ties, they in their turn will do likewise and live as “vagrants,”—here, there and everywhere, rather than as well-established, self-respecting citizens and patriots, proud of their country, and proud of the right to defend their homes. Even as it is, there are not wanting signs of a general “wandering,” tendency, combined with morbid apathy and sickly inertia. “One place is as good as another,” says one section of society, and “anything is better than the English climate,” says another, preparing to pack off to Egypt or the Riviera at the first snap of winter. These opinions are an exact reversion of those expressed by our sturdy, patriotic forefathers, who made the glory of Great Britain. “There is no place like England” was their sworn conviction, and “no place like home” was the essence of their national sentiment. The English climate, too, was quite good enough for them, and they made the best of it. When will the “Smart Set” grasp the fact that the much-abused weather, whatever it may be, is pretty much the same all over Europe? The Riviera is no warmer than the Cornish coast, butcertesit is better provided with hotels, and—chiefest attraction of all—ithas a Gambling Hell. The delights of Monte Carlo and “Home,” are as far apart as the poles; and those who seek the one cannot be expected to appreciate the other. But such English women as are met at the foreign gambling-tables, season after season, may be looked upon as the deliberate destroyers of all that is best and strongest in our national life, in the sanctity of Home, and the beauty of home affections. The English Home used to be a model to the world;—with a few more scandalous divorce cases in high life, it will become a by-word for the mockery of nations. The following from the current Press is sufficiently instructive:
“The crowd of well-dressed women who daily throng the court during the hearing of the ... case and follow with such intense eagerness every incident in the dissection of a woman’s honour afford a remarkable object-lesson in contemporary social progress.“Ladies, richly garbed, who drive up in smart broughams, emblazoned carriages, and motor-cars, and are representative of the best known families in the land, fight and scramble for a seat, criticize the proceedings in a low monotone, and, without the smallest indication of a blush, balance every point made by counsel, and follow with keen apprehension the most suggestive evidence.“Others, no less intensely interested in the sordid details of divorce, come on foot—women of the great well-to-do middle-class, who have all their lives had the advantage of refined and educated surroundings. Some are old, with silveryhair; others are middle-aged women, who bring comely daughters still in their teens; others are in the first flush of womanhood; but they all crowd into the narrow court and struggle to get a glimpse of the chief actors in the drama, and listen to the testimony which would convict them of dishonour.”
“The crowd of well-dressed women who daily throng the court during the hearing of the ... case and follow with such intense eagerness every incident in the dissection of a woman’s honour afford a remarkable object-lesson in contemporary social progress.
“Ladies, richly garbed, who drive up in smart broughams, emblazoned carriages, and motor-cars, and are representative of the best known families in the land, fight and scramble for a seat, criticize the proceedings in a low monotone, and, without the smallest indication of a blush, balance every point made by counsel, and follow with keen apprehension the most suggestive evidence.
“Others, no less intensely interested in the sordid details of divorce, come on foot—women of the great well-to-do middle-class, who have all their lives had the advantage of refined and educated surroundings. Some are old, with silveryhair; others are middle-aged women, who bring comely daughters still in their teens; others are in the first flush of womanhood; but they all crowd into the narrow court and struggle to get a glimpse of the chief actors in the drama, and listen to the testimony which would convict them of dishonour.”
No one in their sober senses will call any of these women fit to rule their homes, or to be examples to their children. Unblushingly indecent, and unspeakably vulgar, their brazen effrontery and shameless interest in the revolting details of a revolting case, have shown them to be beyond the pale of all true womanhood, and utterly unfit to be the mothers of our future men, or guardians of the honour of home and family. There is no “railing” against society in this assertion; the plain facts speak for themselves.
The charm of home depends, of course, entirely on the upbringing and character of the inmates. Stupid and illiterate people make a dull fireside. Morbid faddists, always talking and thinking about themselves, put the fire out altogether. If I were asked my opinion as to the chief talent or gift for making a home happy, I should without a moment’s hesitation, reply, “Cheerfulness.” A cheerful spirit, always looking on the bright side, and determined to make the best of everything, is the choicest blessing and the brightest charm of home. People with a turn for grumbling should certainly live in hotels and dine at restaurants. They will never understand how to make, or to keep, a home as it should be. But, given a cheerful,equable, and active temperament, there is nothing sweeter, happier or safer for the human being than Home, and the life which centres within it, and the duties concerning it which demand our attention and care. There is no need for women to wander far afield for an outlet to their energies. Their work waits for them at their own doors, in the town or village where they reside. No end of useful, kind and neighbourly things are to hand for their doing,—every day can be filled, like a basket of flowers, full of good deeds and gentle words by every woman, poor or rich, who has either cottage or mansion which she can truly call “Home.” Home is a simple background, against which the star of womanhood shines brightest and best. The modern “gad-about” who suggests a composition of female chimpanzee and fashionable “Johnny” combined, is a kind of sexless creature for whom “Home” would only be a cage in the general menagerie. She (or It) would merely occupy the time in scrambling about from perch to perch, screaming on the slightest provocation, and snapping at such other similar neuter creatures who chanced to possess longer or more bushy tails. And it is a pity such an example should be thought worthy of imitation by any woman claiming to possess the advantage of human reason. But the Chimpanzee type of female is just now singularlyen evidence, having a habit of pushing to the front on all occasions, and performing such strange antics as call for public protest, and keep the grinding machinery of the law only too busy. The Press, too, pays an enormous amount of unnecessary attention to the performances of these more or less immodestanimals, so that it sometimes seems to our Continental neighbours as if we, as a nation, had no real women left, but only chimpanzees. There are, however, slight stirrings of a movement among the true “ladies” of England, those who stand more or less aloof from the “smart set,”—a movement indicative of “drawing the line somewhere.” It is possible that there may yet be a revival of “Home” and its various lost graces and dignities. We may even hear of doors that will not open to millionaires simplybecausethey are millionaires. Only the other day a very great lady said to her sister in my hearing: “No, I shall not ‘present’ my two girls at all. Society is perfectly demoralised, and I would rather the children remained out of it, so far as London is concerned. They are much happier in the country than in town, and much healthier, and I want to keep them so. Besides, they love their home!”
Herein is the saving grace of life,—to love one’s home. Love of home implies lovable people dwelling in the charmed circle,—tender hearts, quick to respond to every word of love, every whisper of confidence, every caress. The homeless man is the restless and unhappy man, for ever seeking what he cannot find. The homeless woman is still more to be pitied, being entirely and hopelessly out of her natural element. And the marked tendency which exists nowadays to avoid home life is wholly mischievous. Women complain that home is “dull,” “quiet,” “monotonous,” “lonely,” and blame it for all sorts of evils which exist only in themselves. If a woman cannot be a few hours alone without finding her house “dull,” her mindmust be on the verge of lunacy. The sense of being unable to endure one’s own company augurs ill for the moral equilibrium. To preserve good health and sound nerves, women should always make it a rule to be quite alone at least for a couple of hours in the course of each day. Let them take that space to think, to read, to rest, and mentally review their own thoughts, words and actions in the light of a quiet conscience-time of pause and meditation. Home is the best place so to rest and meditate,—and the hours that are spent in thinking how to make that home happier will never be wasted. It should be very seriously borne in mind that it is only in the home life that marriage can be proved successful or the reverse, and, to quote Mr. Lecky once more:
“A moral basis of sterling qualities is of capital importance. A true, honest and trustworthy nature, capable of self-sacrifice and self-restraint, should rank in the first line, and after that, a kindly, equable and contented temper, a power of sympathy, a habit of looking at the better and brighter side of men and things. Of intellectual qualities, judgment, tact and order, are perhaps the most valuable.... Grace and the charm of manner will retain their full attraction to the last. They brighten in innumerable ways the little things of life, and life is mainly made up of little things, exposed to petty frictions, and requiring small decisions and small sacrifices. Wide interests and large appreciations are in the marriage relation more important than any great constructive or creative talent, and the power to soothe, tosympathize, to counsel and to endure than the highest qualities of the hero or the saint. It is by this alone that the married life attains its full perfection.”
“A moral basis of sterling qualities is of capital importance. A true, honest and trustworthy nature, capable of self-sacrifice and self-restraint, should rank in the first line, and after that, a kindly, equable and contented temper, a power of sympathy, a habit of looking at the better and brighter side of men and things. Of intellectual qualities, judgment, tact and order, are perhaps the most valuable.... Grace and the charm of manner will retain their full attraction to the last. They brighten in innumerable ways the little things of life, and life is mainly made up of little things, exposed to petty frictions, and requiring small decisions and small sacrifices. Wide interests and large appreciations are in the marriage relation more important than any great constructive or creative talent, and the power to soothe, tosympathize, to counsel and to endure than the highest qualities of the hero or the saint. It is by this alone that the married life attains its full perfection.”
And when we hear, as we so often do, of the complete failure and deplorable disaster attending many marriages, let us look for the root of the evil at its foundation,—namely the decay of home life, the neglect and avoidance of home and home duties,—the indifference to, or scorn of home influence. For whenever any woman, rich or poor, high in rank or of humble estate, throws these aside, and turns her back on Home, her own natural, beautiful and thrice-blessed sphere of action, she performs what would be called the crazed act of a queen, who, called to highest sovereignty, casts away her crown, breaks her sceptre, tramples on her royal robes, and steps from her throne,down;—down into the dust of a saddened world’s contempt.
According to the latest views publicly expressed by both Christian and un-Christian clerics, it would appear that twentieth-century Society is not at one with Sunday. It no longer keeps the seventh day “holy.” It will not go to church. It declines to listen to dull sermons delivered by dull preachers. It openly expresses its general contempt for the collection-plate. It reads its ‘up-to-date’ books and magazines, and says: “The Sabbath is a Jewish institution. And though the spirit of the Jew pervades my whole composition and constitution, and though I borrow money of the Jew whenever I find it convenient, there is no reason why I should follow the Jew’s religious ritual. The New Testament lays no stress whatever upon the necessity of keeping the seventh day holy. On the contrary, it tells us that ‘the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’”
This is true enough. It is a difficult point to get over. And despite the fact that the sovereign rulers of the realm most strictly set the example to all their subjects of attending Divine service at least once on Sunday, this example is just the very one among the various leading patterns of life offered by the King and Queen which Society blandly sets aside with a smile. For,notwithstanding the constant painstaking production of exquisitely printed Prayer-books, elegantly bound in ivory, silver, morocco leather, and silk velvet, Society is not often seen nowadays with these little emblems of piety in its be-ringed and be-bangled hands. It prefers a pack of cards. Its ears are more attuned to the hissing rush of the motor than to the solemn sound of sacred psalmody; and the dust of the high-road, compounded with the oil-stench of the newest and fastest automobile, offers a more grateful odour to its nostrils than the perfume of virginal lilies on the altar of worship.Autres temps, autres mœurs!People who believe in nothing have no need of prayer. A social “set” that grabs all it can for itself without a thank-you to either God or devil is not moved to praise. Self and the Hour! That is the motto and watchword of Society to-day, and after Self and the Hour, what then? Why, the Deluge, of course! And, as happened in olden time, and will happen again, general drowning, stiflement, and silence.
There is certainly much to regret and deplore in the lack of serious thought, the neglect of piety, and the scant reverence for sacred things which, taken together, make up a spirit of callous indifferentism in our modern life, such as is likely to rob the nation in future of its backbone and nerve. It is a spirit which is gradually transforming the social community from thinking, feeling, reasonable human beings into a mere set of gambolling kangaroos, whose chief interest would seem to be centred in jumping over each other’s backs, or sitting on their haunches, grinning foolishly and waving their short fore-paws at one another withantic gestures of animal delight. They never get any “forrader,” as it were. They do nothing particularly useful. They are amused, annoyed, excited, or angry (according to their different qualities of kangaroo nature) when one jumps a little higher than the other, or waves its paws a little more attractively; but their sentiments are as temporary as their passions. There is nothing to be got out of them any way, but the jumping and the paw-waving. At the same time it is extremely doubtful as to whether taking them to church on Sundays would do them good, or bring them back to the human condition. Things are too far gone—the metamorphosis is too nearly accomplished. One day is the same as another to the Society kangaroo. All days are suitable to his or her “hop, skip, and a jump.” But shall there be no “worship”? What should a kangaroo worship? No “rest”? Why should a kangaroo rest? “Listen to the Reverend Mr. Soulcure’s sermon, and learn how to be good!” Ya-ah! One can hear the animal scream as he or she turns a somersault at the mere suggestion and scuttles away!
Society’s neglect of Sunday observance in these early days of the new century is due to many things, chiefest among these being the incapacity of the clergy to inspire interest in their hearers or to fix the attention of the general public. It is unfortunate that this should be so, but so it is. The ministers of religion fail to seize the problems of the time. They forget, or wilfully ignore, the discoveries of the age. Yet in these could be found endless subject-matter for the divinest arguments.Religion and science, viewed broadly, do not clash so much as they combine. To the devout and deeply studious mind, the marvels of science are the truths of religion made manifest. But this is what the clergy seem to miss persistently out of all their teaching and preaching. Take, for example, the text: “In My Father’s house there are many mansions.” What a noble discourse could be made hereon of some of the most sublime facts of science!—of the powers of the air, of the currents of light, of the magnificent movements of the stars in their courses, of the plenitude and glory of innumerable solar systems, all upheld and guided by the same Intelligent Force which equally upholds and guides the destinies of man! Unhappily for the world in general, and for the churches in particular, preachers who select texts from Scripture in order to extract therefrom some instructive lesson that shall be salutary for their congregations, do not always remember the symbolic or allegorical manner in which such texts were originally spoken or written. To many of them the “literal” meaning is alone apparent, and they see in the “many mansions” merely a glorified Park Lane or Piccadilly, adorned with rows of elegantly commonplace dwelling-houses built of solid gold. Their conceptions of the “Father’s house” are sadly limited. They cannot shake off the material from the spiritual, or get away from themselves sufficiently to understand or enter into the dumb craving of all human nature for help, for sympathy, for love—for sureness in its conceptions of God—such sureness as shall not run counter to the proved results of reason. For reason is as much the giftof God as speech, and to kill one’s intellectual aspiration in order, as some bigots would advise, to serve God more completely is the rankest blasphemy. The wilful refusal to use a great gift merely insults the Giver.
It is by obstinately declining to watch the branching-out, as it were, of the great tree of Christianity in forms which are not narrow or limited, but spacious and far-reaching, that the clergy have in a great measure lost much that they should have retained. Society has slipped altogether from their hold. Society sees for itself that too many clerics are either blatant or timorous. Some of them bully; others crawl. Some are all softness to the wealthy; all harshness to the poor. Others, again, devote themselves to the poor entirely, and neglect the wealthy, who are quite as much, if not more, in need of a “soul cure” as the most forlorn Lazarus that ever lay in the dust of the road of life. None of them seem able to cope with the great dark wave of infidelity and atheism which has swept over the modern world stealthily, but overwhelmingly, sucking many a struggling soul down into the depths of suicidal despair. And Society, making up its mind that it is neither edified nor entertained by going to church on Sunday, stays away, and turns Sunday generally to other uses. It is not particular as to what these uses are, provided they prove amusing. The old-fashioned notion of a “day of rest” or a “good” Sunday can be set aside with the church and the clergyman; the one desirable object of existence is “not to be bored.” The spectre of “boredom” is always gliding in at every modern function, like the ghostof Banquo at Macbeth’s feast. To pacify and quash this terrible bogie is the chief aim and end of all the social kangaroos. The Sunday’s observance used to be the bogie’s great “innings”; but, with an advance in manners and morals,nous avons changé tout cela! And Society spends its Sundays now in a fashion which, if its great-grandmamma of the early Victorian era could only see its ways and doings, would so shock the dear, virtuous old lady that she would yearn to whip it and shut it up in a room for years on bread and water. And there is no doubt that such a wholesome régime would do it a power of good!
At the present interesting period of English history, Sunday appears to be devoutly recognized among the Upper Ten as the great “bridge” day. It is quite the fashion—the “swagger” thing—to play bridge all and every Sunday, when and whenever possible. During the London “season,” the Thames serves as a picturesque setting for many of these seventh-day revelries. Little gambling-parties are organized “up the river,” and houses are taken from Saturday to Monday by noted ladies of the half-world, desirous of “rooking” young men, in the sweet seclusion of their “country cots by the flowing stream”—an ambition fully realized in the results of the Sunday’s steady play at bridge from noon till midnight. At a certain military centre not far from London, too, the Sunday “gaming” might possibly call for comment. It is privately carried on, of course, but—tell it not in Gath!—there is an officer’s wife—there are so many officers’ wives!—but this one in particular, more than the others,moves me to the presumption of a parody on the Immortal Bard, thus:
An officer’s wife had play-cards in her lap—And dealt and dealt. “What tricks!” quoth I!“They’re tricks, you bet!” the smiling cheat replied—“My husband is ‘on duty’ gone,And ‘green’ young subalterns are all my game,And till they’re drained of gold and silver, too,I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do!”
An officer’s wife had play-cards in her lap—And dealt and dealt. “What tricks!” quoth I!“They’re tricks, you bet!” the smiling cheat replied—“My husband is ‘on duty’ gone,And ‘green’ young subalterns are all my game,And till they’re drained of gold and silver, too,I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do!”
An officer’s wife had play-cards in her lap—And dealt and dealt. “What tricks!” quoth I!“They’re tricks, you bet!” the smiling cheat replied—“My husband is ‘on duty’ gone,And ‘green’ young subalterns are all my game,And till they’re drained of gold and silver, too,I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do!”
An officer’s wife had play-cards in her lap—
And dealt and dealt. “What tricks!” quoth I!
“They’re tricks, you bet!” the smiling cheat replied—
“My husband is ‘on duty’ gone,
And ‘green’ young subalterns are all my game,
And till they’re drained of gold and silver, too,
I’ll do, I’ll do, I’ll do!”
And she does “do.” She has found out the way to make those “green young subalterns” pay her bills and ruin themselves. It is a thoroughly up-to-date manner of spending the Sunday.
Country-house “week-end” parties are generally all bridge-parties. They are all carefully selected, with an eye to the main chance. The “play” generally begins on Saturday evening, and goes on all through Sunday up to midnight. One woman, notorious for her insensate love of gambling, lately took lessons in “cheating” at bridge before joining her country-house friends. She came away heavier in purse by five hundred pounds, but of that five hundred, one hundred and fifty had been won from a foolish little girl of eighteen, known to be the daughter of a very wealthy, but strict father. When the poor child was made to understand the extent of her losses at bridge, she was afraid to go home. So she purchased some laudanum “for the toothache,” and tried to poison herself by swallowing it. Fortunately, she was rescued before it was too late, and her Spartan “dad,” with tears of joy in his eyes, paid the money she had lost at cards thankfully, as a kind of ransomto Death. But she was never again allowed to visit at that “swagger” house where she had been “rooked” so unmercifully. And when we remember how fond Society is of bragging of its little philanthropies, its “bazaars” and carefully-calculated “charities,” we may, perhaps, wonder whether, among the list of good and noble deeds it declares itself capable of, it would set its face against bridge, and make “gambling-parties” once for all unfashionable and in “bad form”? This would be true philanthropy, and would be more productive of good than any amount of regular church attendance. For there is no doubt that very general sympathy is accorded to people who find that going to church is rather an irksome business. It is not as if they were often taught anything wonderfully inspiring or helpful there. They seldom have even the satisfaction of hearing the service read properly. The majority of the clergy are innocent of all elocutionary art. They read the finest passages of Scripture in the sing-song tone of a clerk detailing the items of a bill. It is a soothing style, and quickly induces sleep; but that is its only recommendation.
When not playing bridge, Society’s “Sunday observance” is motoring. Flashing and fizzling all over the place, it rushes here, there, and everywhere, creating infinite dust, smelling abominably, and looking uglier than the worst demons in Dante’s “Inferno.” Beauty certainly goes to the wall in a motor. The hideous masks, goggles, and caps which help to make up the woman motorist’s driving gear, are enough to scare the staunchest believer in the eternal attractiveness of the fair sex, while the general get-up of the men is on a parwith that of the professional stoker or engine-driver. Nevertheless, no reasonable woman ought to mind other women looking ugly if they like; while men, of course, are always men, and “masters of the planet,” whether dirty or clean. And no one should really object to the “motor craze,” seeing that it takes so many useless people out of one’s immediate horizon and scatters them far and wide over the surface of the earth. Society uses Sunday as a special day for this “scattering,” and perhaps it is doing itself no very great harm. It is getting fresh air, which it needs; it is “going the pace,” which, in its fevered condition of living fast, so as to die more quickly, is natural to it; and it is seeing persons and places it never saw before in the way of country nooks and old-fashioned roadside inns, and rustic people, who stare at it with unfeigned amusement, and wonder “what the world’s a’-comin’ to!” Possibly it learns more in a motor drive through the heart of rural England than many sermons in church could teach it. The only thing one would venture to suggest is that in passing its Sundays in this fashion, Society should respect the Sundays of those who still elect to keep the seventh day as a day of rest. Fashionable motorists might avoid dashing recklessly through groups of country people who are peacefully wending their way to and from church. They might “slow down.” They might take thoughtful heed of the little children who play unguardedly about in many a village street. They might have some little consideration for the uncertain steps of feeble and old persons who are perchance blind or deaf, and who neither see the “motor”nor hear the warning blast of its discordant horn. In brief, it would not hurt Society to spend its Sundays with more thought for others than Itself. For the bulk and mass of the British people—the people whoareGreat Britain—still adhere to the sacred and blessed institution of a “day of rest,” even if it be not a day of sermons. To thousands upon thousands of toiling men and women, Sunday is still a veritable God’s day, and we may thank God for it! Nay, more; we should do our very best to keep it as “holy” as we can, if not by listening to sermons, at least by a pause in our worldly concerns, wherein we may put a stop on the wheels of work and consider within ourselves as to how and why we are working. Sunday is a day when we should ask Nature to speak to us and teach us such things as may only be mastered in silence and solitude—when the book of poems, the beautiful prose idyll, or the tender romance, may be our companion in summer under the trees, or in winter by a bright fire—and when we may stand, as it were, for a moment and take breath on the threshold of another week, bracing our energies to meet with whatever that week may hold in store for us, whether joy or sorrow. Few nations, however, view Sunday in this light. On the Continent it has long been a day of mere frivolous pleasure—and in America I know not what it is, never having experienced it. But the British Sunday, apart from all the mockery and innuendo heaped upon it by the wits and satirists of the present time and of bygone years, used to be a strong and spiritually saving force in the national existence. Dinner-parties, with a string band in attendance, and aParisian singer of the “café chantant” to entertain the company afterwards, were once unknown in England on a Sunday. But such “Sabbath” entertainments are quite ordinary now. The private house copies the public restaurant—more’s the pity!
Nevertheless, though Society’s Sunday has degenerated into a day of gambling, guzzling, and motoring in Great Britain, it is well to remember that Society in itself is so limited as to be a mere bubble on the waters of life—froth and scum, as it were, that rises to the top, merely to be skimmed off and thrown aside in any serious national crisis. The People are the life and blood of the nation, and to them Sunday remains still a “day of rest,” though, perhaps, not so much as in old time a day of religion. And that it is not so much a day of religion is because so many preachers have failed in their mission. They have lost grip. There is no cause whatever for their so losing it, save such as lies within themselves. There has been no diminution in the outflow of truth from the sources of Divine instruction, but rather an increase. The wonders of the universe have been unfolded in every direction by the Creator to His creature. There is everything for the minister of God to say. Yet how little is said! “Feed my sheep!” was the command of the Master. But the sheep have cropped all the old ways of thought down to the bare ground, and their inefficient shepherds now know not where to lead them, though their Lord’s command is as imperative as ever. So the flock, being hungry, have broken down the fences of tradition, and are scampering away in disorder tofresh fields and pastures new. Society may be, and is, undoubtedly to blame for its lax manner of treating religion and religious observances; but, with all its faults, it is not so blameworthy as those teachers of the Christian faith, whose lack of attention to its needs and perplexities help to make it the heaven-scorning, God-denying, heart-sore, weary, and always dissatisfied thing it is. Society’s Sunday is merely a reflex of Society’s own immediate mood—the mood of killing time at all costs, even to the degradation of its own honour, for want of something better to do!
There are two trite sayings in common use with us all—one is: “Circumstances alter cases,” which is English; the other is: “Autres temps, autres mœurs,” which is French. But there lacks any similar epigrammatic expression to convey the complete and curious change of meaning, which by a certain occult literary process becomes gradually attached to quite ordinary words of our daily speech. “Strong,” for instance, used to mean strength. It means it still, I believe, in the gymnasium. But in very choice literary circles it means “unclean.” This is strange, but true. For some time past the gentle and credulous public has remained in childlike doubt as to what was really implied by a “strong” book. The gentle and credulous public has been under the impression that the word “strong” used by the guides, philosophers, and friends who review current fiction in the daily Press, meant a powerful style, a vigorous grip, a brilliant way of telling a captivating and noble story. But they have, by slow and painful degrees, found out their mistake in this direction, and they know now that a “strong” book means a nasty subjectindelicately treated. Whereupon they are beginning to “sheer off” any book labelled by the inner critical faculty as “strong.” This must be admitted as a most unfortunate fact for those who are bending all their energies upon the writing of “strong” books, and who are wasting their powers on discussing what they euphoniously term “delicate and burning subjects”; but it is a hopeful and blessed sign of increasing education and widening intellectual perception in the masses, who will soon by their sturdy common sense win a position which is not to be “frighted with false fire.” Congratulating the proprietors ofGreat Thoughtson its thousandth number, the sapientWestminster Gazettelately chortled forth the following lines: “A career such as our contemporary has enjoyed, shows that the taste for good reading is wider than some would have us believe. We wishGreat Thoughtscontinued success.” O wise judge! O learned judge! The public taste for good reading is only questioned when writers whom Thou dislikest are read by the base million!
“Art,” says a certain M.A., “if it be genuine and sincere, tends ever to the lofty and the beautiful. There is no rule of art more important than the sense of modesty. Vice grows not a little by immodesty of thought.” True. And immodesty of thought fulfils its mission in the “strong” book, which alone succeeds in winning the applause of that “Exclusive Set of Degenerates” known as the E.S.D. under the Masonic Scriptural sign ofIshbosheth(laying particular emphasis on the syllable between the “Ish” and the “eth,”) who manage to obtain temporary posts on the ever-changefultwirling treadmill of the daily press. The Ishbosheth singular is the man who praises the “strong” book—the Ishbosheth in the plural are the Exclusive Set who are sworn to put down Virtue and extol Vice. Hence the “strong” cult, also the “virile.” This last excellent and expressive word has become seriously maltreated in the hands of the Ishbosheth, and is now made answerable for many sins which it did not originally represent. “Virile” is from the Latinvirilis, a male—virility is the state and characteristic of the adult male. Applied to certain books, however, by the Ishbosheth it will be found by the discerning public to mean coarse—rough—with a literary “style” obtained by sprinkling several pages of prose with the lowest tavern-oaths, together with the name of God, pronounced “Gawd.” Anything written in that fashion is at once pronounced “virile” and commands wide admiration from the Ishbosheth, particularly if it should be a story in which women are depicted at the lowest kickable depth of drab-ism to which men can drag them, while men are represented as the suffering victims of their wickedness. This peculiar kind of turncoat morality was, according to Genesis, instituted by Adam in his cowardly utterance: “The woman tempted me,” as an excuse for his own base greed; and it has apparently continued to sprout forth in various of his descendants ever since that time, especially in the community of the Ishbosheth. “Virility,” therefore, being the state and characteristic of the adult male, or the adult Adam, means, according to the Ishbosheth, men’s proper scorn for the sex of their mothers, and anegotistical delight in themselves, united to a barbarous rejoicing in bad language and abandoned morals. It does not mean this in decent every-day life, of course; but it does in books—such books as are praised by the Ishbosheth.
“I don’t want one of your ‘strong’ books,” said a customer at one of the circulating libraries the other day. “Give me something I can read to my wife without being ashamed.” This puts the case in a nutshell. No clean-minded man can read the modern “strong” book praised by the Ishbosheth and feel quite safe, or even quite manly in his wife’s presence. He will find himself before he knows it mumbling something about the gross and fleshly temptations of a deformed gentleman with short legs; or he will grow hot-faced and awkward over the narrative of a betrayed milkmaid who enters into all the precise details of her wrongs with a more than pernicious gusto. It is true that he will probably chance upon no worse or more revolting circumstances of human life than are dished up for the general Improvement of Public Morals in our halfpenny dailies; but he will realize, if he be a man of sense, that whereas the divorce court and police cases in the newspaper are very soon forgotten, the impression of a “strong” book, particularly if the “strong” parts are elaborately and excruciatingly insisted upon, lasts, and sometimes leaves tracks of indelible mischief on minds which, but for its loathsome influence, would have remained upright and innocent. Thought creates action. An idea is the mainspring of an epoch. Therefore the corrupters of thought are responsible for corrupt deeds in anindividual or a nation. From a noble thought—from a selfless pure ideal—what great actions spring! Herein should the responsibility of Literature be realized. The Ishbosheth, with their “strong” books, have their criminal part in the visible putrescence of a certain section of society known as the “swagger set.” Perhaps no more forcible illustration of the repulsion exercised by nature itself to spiritual and literary disease could be furnished than by the death of the French “realist” Zola. Capable of fine artistic work, he prostituted his powers to the lowest grade of thought. From the dust-hole of the frail world’s ignorance and crime he selected his olla-podrida of dirty scrapings, potato-peelings, candle-ends, rank fat, and cabbage water, and set them all to seethe in the fire of his brain, till they emitted noxious poison, and suffocating vapours calculated to choke the channels of every aspiring mind and idealistic soul. Nature revenged herself upon him by permitting him to be likewise asphyxiated—only in the most prosy and “realistic” manner. It was one of those terribly grim jests which she is fond of playing off on those who blaspheme her sacred altars. A certain literary aspirant hovering on the verge of the circle of the Ishbosheth, complained the other day of a great omission in the biography of one of his dead comrades of the pen. “They should have mentioned,” he said, “that he allowed his body toswarm with vermin!” This is true Ishbosheth art. Suppress the fact that the dead man had good in him, that he might have been famous had he lived, that he had some notably strong points in his character, butdon’tforget,for Heaven’s sake, to mention the “vermin”! For the Ishbosheth “cult” see nothing in a sunset, but much in a flea.
Hence when we read the criticism of a “strong” book, over the signature of one of the Ishbosheth, we know what to expect. All the bad, low, villainous and soiled side of sickly or insane human nature will be in it, and nothing of the healthful or sound. For, to be vicious is to be ill—to commit crime is to be mentally deformed—and the “strong” book of the Ishbosheth only deals with phases of sickness and lunacy. There are other “strong” books in the world, thank Heaven—strong books which treat strongly of noble examples of human life, love and endeavour—books like those of Scott and Dickens and Brontë and Eliot—books which make the world all the better for reading them. But they are not books admired of the Ishbosheth. And as the Ishbosheth have their centres in the current press, they are not praised in the newspapers. Binding as the union of the Printers is all over the world, I suppose they cannot take arms against the Ishbosheth and decline to print anything under this Masonic sign? If they could, what a purification there would be—what a clean, refreshing world of books—and perhaps of men and women! No more vicious heroes with short legs; no more painfully-injured milkmaids; no more “twins,” earthly or heavenly—while possibly a newVillettemight bud and blossom forth—anotherFortunes of Nigel, another brilliantVanity Fair—and books which contain wit without nastiness, tenderness without erotics, simplicity without affectation, and good English without slang, mightonce again give glory to literature. But this millennium will not be till the “strong” book of the Ishbosheth ceases to find a publisher, and the Ishbosheth themselves are seen in their true colours, and fully recognized by the public to be no more than they are—a mere group of low sensualists, who haunt Fleet Street bars and restaurants, and who out of that sodden daily and nightly experience get a few temporary jobs on the Press, and “pose” as a cult and censorship of art. And fortunately the very phrase “strong book” has become so much their own that it has now only to be used in order to warn off the public from mere pot-house opinion.
Great Poets discover themselves. Little Poets have to be “discovered” by somebody else. Otherwise they would live and die in the shadow of decent obscurity, unheard, unseen, unknown. And it is seriously open to question whether their so living and dying would not be an advantage to society in the abating of a certain measure of boredom. Looking back upon the motley crowd of Little Poets who had their day of “discovery” and “boom” at the very period when the thunderous voice of the Muse at her grandest was shaking the air through the inspired lips of Byron, Shelley and Keats, and noting to what dusty oblivion their little names and lesser works are now relegated without regret, it is difficult to understand why they were ever dragged from the respectable retirement of common-place mediocrity by their critic-contemporaries. Byron was scorned, Shelley neglected, and Keats killed by these same critics;—neither of the three were “discovered” or “made.” Their creation was not of man, but of their own innate God-given genius, and, according to the usual fate attending such divine things, the fastidious humandilettanteof their day would have none of them. He set up his own verse-making Mumbo-Jumbo;and one Pye was Laureate. Pye was Laureate,—yet Byron lived, and there was a reigning monarch in England, strange as these assorted facts will seem to all intellectual posterity. For a monarch’s word,—even a prince’s word,—must always carry a certain weight of influence, and one asks wonderingly how, under such circumstances, that word came to be left unsaid? No voice from the Throne called the three greatest geniuses of the era to receive any honour due to their rare gifts and quality. On the contrary they were cast out as unvalued rubbish from their native land, and the Little Poets had their way. Pye continued to write maudlin rhymes unmolested, never dreaming that the only memory we should keep of him or of his twaddle, would be the one scathing line of the banished Byron:
Better to err with Pope than shine with Pye!
And feeble penny whistles played trumpery tunes to the languid votaries of “cultchaw” in those days, and pennywhistle verse was voted “classic” and supreme; but ever and anon the Nation turned a listening ear across the seas and caught the music made by its outlawed singers,—music it valued even then, and treasures now among its priceless and imperishable glories. For the Nation knows what true Poetry is,—and no “discoverer” will ever force it to accept a tallow candle for a star.
The gulf between Great Poets and Little is a wide one,—wider than that which yawned between Lazarus in heaven and Dives in hell. The Great Poet is moved by an inspiration which he himselfcannot analyse, and in which neither the desire of money nor the latent hope of fame have the chiefest part. He sings simply because he must sing. He does not labour at it, piecing his thoughts and words together with the tardy and tame patience of a worker in mosaics, for though such exact execution be admirable in mosaic-work, it is dull and lifeless in poetry. Colour, fire, music, passion, and intense, glowing vitality are the heritage of the Great Poet; and when the torrent of unpremeditated love-song, battle-chant, dirge and prophecy pours from his lips, the tired world slackens its pace to listen, and listening, silently crowns him Laureate in its heart of hearts, regardless of Prime Minister or Court Chamberlain. But the Little Poet is not able so to win attention; he cannot sing thus “wildly well” because he lacks original voice. He can only trim a sorry pipe of reed and play weak echoes thereon; derivative twists of thought and borrowed fancies caught up from the greater songs already ringing through the centuries. And when he first begins piping in this lilliputian fashion he is generally very miserable. He pipes “for pence; Ay me, how few!” Nobody listens; people are too much engrossed with their own concerns to care about echoes. Their attention can only be secured by singing them new songs that will stir their pulses to new delights. The too-tootling of the Little Poet, therefore, would never be noticed at all, even by way of derision, unless he went down on all-fours and begged somebody to “discover” him. The “discoverer” in most cases is a Superannuated-literary-gentleman, who has tried his own handat poetry and failed ignominiously. Incapacity to do any good work of one’s own frequently creates a thirsty desire to criticize the work of other people; thus, in the intervals of his impotent rage at the success of the deserving, the Superannuated, resolved to push himself into notice somehow, takes to “discovering” Little Poets. It is his poor last bid for fame; a final forlorn effort to get his half-ounce of talent to the front by tacking it on to some new name which he thinks (and he is quite alone in the idea) may by the merest chance in the world, like a second-rate horse, win a doubtful race. To admire any Great Poet who may happen to exist among us, is no part of the Superannuated’s programme. He ignores Great Poets generally, fearing lest the mere mention of their names should eclipse his dwarfish nurslings.
Now the public, mistakenly called fools, are perfectly aware of the Superannuated. They see his signature affixed to many of the Little Poets Booms, and ask each other with smiling tolerance, “What has he done?” Nothing. “Oh! Then how does he know?” Ah, that is his secret! He thinks he knows; and he wants you, excellent Fool-Public, to believe he thinks he knows! And, under the pleasing delusion that you always have your Fool’s Cap on, and never take it off under any circumstances, he “discovers” Mr. Podgers for you. Who is Mr. Podgers? A poet. If we are to credit the Superannuated, he is “a new star on the literary horizon, of the first magnitude.” The “first magnitude”!—the public shakes its caps and bells in amused scepticism. Another Shelley? Another Byron? These were of the “firstmagnitude,” and shall we thank a bounteous heaven for one more such as these? No, no, nothing of the sort, says the Superannuated with indignation, for it is high time you put this sort of Shelley-Byron stuff behind you. Mr. Swinburne has distinctly said that “Byron was no poet.” Learn wisdom, therefore, and turn from Byron to Podgers. He has written a little book, has Podgers, for which those who desire to possess it must pay a sum out of all proportion to its size. What shall we find in this so-little book? Anything to make our hearts beat in more healthful and harmonious tune? No. Nothing of this in Podgers. Nothing, in fact, of any kind in Podgers which we have not heard before. There are a few lines that we remember as derived from Wordsworth, and one stanza seems to us like a carefully transposed bit of Tennyson;—but for anything absolutely new in thought or in treatment we search in vain. Unless we make exception for a set of verses which are a tribute to the art of Log-Rolling, namely Podgers’s “Ode” to Podgers’s favouring critic. We confess this to be somewhat of a novelty, and we begin to pity Podgers. He must have fallen very low to write (and publish) an “Ode” to the Superannuated, his chief flatterer on the Press, and he must be very short-sighted if he imagines that action is a millstonewithouta hole in it. And so, despite the loud eulogies of the Superannuated (who is naturally proud to be made the subject of any “Ode” however feeble) we do not purchase Podgers’s book, though it is urged upon us as being a “limited” edition. But the Superannuated is not herein baffled. If, he says, if you are so asinine, so crass,so dull and dense of comprehension as to reject this marvellous, this classic Podgers, what say you to Stodgers? Stodgers is a “young” poet (forty-five last birthday), entirely free from “manner” and manners. He has resorted to the last and lowest method employed by Little Poets for obtaining temporary notoriety, namely,—outraging decency. Coarseness and blasphemy are the prevailing themes of his verse, but to the Superannuated these grave blemishes constitute “power.” A “strong” line is a lewd line; a “masterful” stanza contains a prurient suggestion. It suits the purpose of the Superannuated to compare his two “discoveries,” Podgers and Stodgers, and to work them against each other in those quarters of the Press he controls, like the “toy millers” one buys for children. It is a case of “Podgers come up and Stodgers come down,” as fits his humour and digestion. Meanwhile the vital test of the whole matter is that notwithstanding all this energetic “hawking about” of the Little Poets by the Superannuated, neither Podgers nor Stodgerssell. Everything is done to secure for them this desired result; unavailingly. And it is not as if they came out in a “common” way, Podgers and Stodgers. No publishing-firm with a simple name such as Messrs. Smith or Brown would suit the Little Poets. They must come out singularly, and apart from others. So they elect a publisher who, as it were, puts up a sign, as though he were a Tavern. “Published at the Dragon’s Mouth” or “At the Sign of the Flagon” would seem to be more convincing than “Published by Messrs. So and So.” Now Podgers’s little book has a fanciful title-page stating that itis published at the “Goose and Gridiron.” Stodgers, we find, bursts upon the world at “The Blue Boar.” There is something very delusive about all this. A flavour of ale and mulled wine creeps insidiously into the air, and we are moved to yearn for good warm drinks, whereas we only get indifferent cold verse. Now if the proprietors of the “Goose and Gridiron” and the “Blue Boar” would only sell inspiring liquids instead of uninspired rhymes, how their trade would improve! No longer would they bend, lean and furrowed, over their account-books—no longer would they have to scheme and puzzle over the “making” of Little Poets; because it must not be imagined that the Superannuated “discoverer” is the only one concerned in the business. “Goose and Gridiron” and “Blue Boar” have to deal in many small tricks of trade to compass it. Of course it is understood that the Little Poets get no money out of their productions. What they stipulate for with “Blue Boar” and likewise with “Goose and Gridiron” is a “hearing.” This “hearing” is obtained variously. Podgers got it in this way, as followeth: His verses, which had appeared from time to time in Sunday papers and magazines, were issued in a “limited edition.” Such “limited edition” was at once dispersed among booksellers in different parts of the country “on sale or return,” and while thus doubtfully awaiting purchasers, “Goose and Gridiron” tipped the trade-wink and perhaps something else more substantial besides, to the Superannuated,—who straightway seized his pen and wrote: “We hear that the first edition of Mr. Podgers’s poems is exhausted, and that original copies are already at a premium.” This done, and“passed” through many papers, the publisher followed it up with an advertisement to the effect that “The first edition of Mr. Podgers’s poems being exhausted, a Second will be ready in a few days.” And here, it may as well be said for the rectitude of “Goose and Gridiron,” things came to a standstill. Because the Little Poets seldom get beyond a second edition. When Podgers’s first editions came back unsold from the provinces (as they did), attempts were made to dispose of them at fancy prices as a last resource,—such attempts naturally ending in disaster. The times are too hard, and people have too much to do with their money to part with any of it for first editions of Podgers or Stodgers. The public is a very shrewd one, moreover, and is not to be “taken in” by gnat-rhymers dancing up and down for an hour in the “discoverer’s” artificial sunbeams. And the Superannuated, in his eager desire to assert himself as an oracular personage, forgets one very important fact, and this is, that being a Nobody he cannot be accepted as warrant for a Somebody. The public is not his child; he cannot whip it into admiring Mr. Podgers, or coerce its judgment respecting Mr. Stodgers. Its ways are wilful, and it has a ridiculous habit (considering what a Fool the critic imagines it to be) of preferring its own opinion to that of the Superannuated. It is capable, it thinks, what with Compulsory Education and the rest of it, of making its own choice. And on the whole it prefers the Great Poet,—the man who scorns to be “discovered” by an inferior intellect, and who makes his own way independently and with a grand indifference to the squabbling ofLog-rollers. He is not “made”; he forms part of the country’s blood and life; he chants the national thought in haunting rhythm as did the prophet bards of old; he, careless of “pence,” praise or fame, does so mix himself with his land’s history, that he becomes, as it were the very voice of the age in which he lives, and the Superannuated may ignore him as he will, he cannot get him out of the nation’s heart when he has once got in. But of the feeble, absurdly conceited tribe of Little Poets who come jostling one upon another nowadays in such a puling crowd, piping out their wretchedly small personalities in versed pessimism or coarse metaphor,—men “made” by the Tavern-publisher and the Superannuated Failure;—we have had enough of these, and more than enough. Too much good paper, good ink and good binding are wasted on their totally undesired productions. Life with us now is lived at too hard and too difficult a pace for any one to need poetry that isonlyverse. Hearts break every day in the truest sense of that sentimental phrase; brains reel into insanity and the darkness of suicide; and it is no Little Poet’s personal pangs about “pence” and such trifles, that can, like David’s harp of old, soothe or dismiss the dark spirit brooding over the latter-day Saul. It is the Great Poet we care for, whose singing-soul mystically comprehends our unuttered thoughts of love or glory; who chants not only his pains, but ours; not his joy, so much as the whole world’s joy. Such a man needs no “discoverer” to prove his existence; he is self-evident. When we grow so purblind as to need a still blinder Mole to point us out thesun, then, but not till then shall we require the assistance of the Superannuated to “discover” what we understand by a Poet. At present we are actively conscious both of the orb of day, and the true quality of genius; and though the Poet we choose for ourselves and silently acknowledge as worthy of all honour, may not be, and seldom is, the recommended favourite of a clique, we are fully aware of him, and show our love and appreciation by setting his book among our household gods. No “limited edition” will suffice for such a man; we need to have his poems singing about us wherever we go. For the oft-repeated truth is to-day as true as ever,—that the Great Poet is “born,” and never has been and never will be “made.”