Qotdrnrn ljvtrgvi SOCIAL SILHOUETTES SOCIAL SILHOUETTES BY GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL AUTHOR Oo "COLLICTIONS AND RECOLLZCTIONS " " Suck is the world. Understand it, despise it, lov it; cheerfully hold on thy way through it, with thy eyes on higher loadstars." CARLYLE, Count Caffgliostro. LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., i5 WATERLOO PLACE go06 [All righs resrvsd] Printed by BALLANTYNK HANson 6 Co At the Ballantyne Press TO THOMAS, LORD RIBBLESDALE IN MEMORY OF THE DAYS WHEN I EDITED "THE HARROVIAN" AND HE WAS A VALUED CONTRIBUTOR CONTENTS CHAP. I. THE SCHOOLBOY.. II. THE SCHOOLMASTER III. THE OXFORD DON.. IV. THE OXFORD UNDERGRADUATE V. THE B.A....... VI. THE CANDIDATE FOR ORDERS VII. THE CURATE... VIII. THE COUNTRY PARSON. IX. THE TOWN PARSON X. THE BISHOP... XI. THE PAINFUL PREACHER XII. THE POPULAR PREACHER XIII. THE JOURNALIST.. XIV. THE FADDIST.. XV. THE SOLDIER... XVI. THE DOCTOR... XVII. THE ELDEST SON.. XVIII. THE CANDIDATE FOR PARLIAMENT XIX. THE HAPPY CANDIDATE XX. THE MIDDLE-AGED M.P. XXI. THE LABOUR-MEMBER. XXII. THE WHIG... XXIII. THE PARTY HACK.. XXIV. THE OFFICIAL M.P.. vii PAGE I S.. 24 30 S37 S43 S49... 56. 62. 68 S74. 80 S.. 89 S95. 02. o8 S I14. 120. 29 S.. 138 S144. 150. 157. 64 viii CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XXV. THE AUTHOR... 170 XXVI. THE AUTHORESS...... 177 XXVII. THE BUSY IDLER..... 184 XXVIII. THE CLUB-MAN...... 191 XXIX. THE DINER-OUT....... 198 XXX. THE DINNER-GIVER...... 204 XXXI. THE INVALID....... 211 XXXII. THE SQUIRE....... 218 XXXIII. THE PLUTOCRAT..... 224 XXXIV. THE ELECTION-AGENT..... 231 XXXV. THE CARPET-BAGGER..... 238 XXXVI. THE DISINHERITED KNIGHT.... 245 XXXVII. THE VICTOR....... 252 XXXVIII. THE QUIDNUNC....... 260 XXXIX. THE COLLECTOR...... 267 XL. THE CITY MAN....... 27 XLI. THE PHILANTHROPIST..... 283 XLII. THE PROFESSIONAL PHILANTHROPIST.. 290 XLIII. THE TOADY....... 298 XLIV. THE BUCK........ 305 XLV. THE WORLDLING...... 312 XLVI. L'ENVOI....... 321 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES CHAPTER I THE SCHOOLBOY "THE Child is Father of the Man," as Wordsworth remarks in a line which, if it were not embedded in a poem, might easily be taken for prose. And a gallery of Social Silhouettes cannot begin more conveniently than with a study of the Schoolboy In a mass of discordant and mutually destructive criticisms on Mr. Vachell's school-story, "The Hill," by far the wisest was that of the Times, which said that boys are so odd and so incalculable that no one can safely affirm what they will or will not say or do. They are what Mr. Chadband called "human boys," and that is about as much as can be safely predicated of them as a race. It is possible that there may be found among them such dirty little beasts as "Stalky and Co." or such blameless bores as "holy and happy Edwin Russell" in "Eric"; such bumptious boors as Tom Tulliver, the sort of boy who is commonly spoken of as being "very fond of animals-that is, very fond of A 2 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES throwing stones at them"; or such self-conscious prigs as Kenelm Chillingly, who asked his mamma if she was not sometimes overwhelmed by a sense of her own identity. "After all, Dr. Vaughan," said an indulgent father when his hirsute son of nineteen had committed some more than usually monstrous act-" after all, we must remember that boys will be boys." "Undoubtedly," replied the suave Doctor; " but they shall not, with my consent, be vicious men." Do different Schools produce different types of character? The answer is best given in an apologue from Oxford. A lady, arriving late at a College Concert and finding no vacant chair, was met by three stewards, reared respectively at Eton, Winchester, and Rugby (or, as some editions read, Harrow). The Eton man made a thousand apologies, could not conceive how such a mishap had occurred, implored her to wait a moment, and was quite sure that there would be a vacant seat directly. The Wykehamist said never a word, but went out and fetched a chair. The Rugbeian (or Harrovian) sat down on the chair which the Wykehamist had fetched. This, indeed, may be an allegory; but it conveys a substantial truth. " Every school should make the most of that which is its characteristic. Eton should continue to cultivate taste." And so it does, together with a keen sense of beauty and fitness, charming manners, and seemly dress. Where Eton leads Radley follows, and the resemblance between the pro THE SCHOOLBOY3 3 ducts of the two is so close as to deceive the very elect. "Harrow may be more clever, Rugby may make more row; But we'll swing for ever, Steady from stroke to bow; And nothing in life shall sever The chain that is round us now." So sang the Poet Laureate of Eton in his famous Boating Song. It is true that the Sons of the Hill have fondly imagined that their special characteristic was a peculiar blend of strenuousness with sentiment-the culture of the emotions as incentives to high effort. Ever since Dr. Arnold's day moral earnestness has been supposed to be the ideal of Rugby. But the judgments of the poets are final; so Harrovians must put up with the doubtful praise of comparative cleverness, and "Old Rugs" with the undoubted reproach of superior rowdiness. There is no need to trace these special characteristics in fuller detail. Let us now disregard sub-divisions and consider the Schoolboy as a whole. First and foremost, it must always be borne in mind that he is the product of an unnatural system. He is a "sport," or variety of the human animal, artificially produced by studied violation of natural law, and, as Gibbon says, "outraged Nature will have her revenges." We take children of nine or ten, drag them away from all the refining and sanctifying influences 4 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES of home and parents and brothers and sisters, and keep them, through the ten most impressionable years of life, herded together in barracks under a system of unreasonable restraints and not more reasonable indulgences. The product of this hazardous experiment is the English Schoolboy. How well we know him and his curiouslyassorted qualities! He is physically brave, but morally timid, or, as some one said, he is not morally brave enough to be physically a coward. He has no respect for weakness or adversity. He worships strength and success and athletic skill with a dog-like and rather contemptible devotion. He is the bond-slave of tradition, convention, and commonplace. He has absolutely no sense of humour, and the only objects which excite his laughter are physical infirmities, athletic failures, and departures from the ways to which he is accustomed. At a Coronation the King's Scholars of Westminster have a prescriptive right to acclaim the Sovereign as he enters the nave of the Abbey. At the rehearsals in June 1902, they mounted to the organ-loft and yelled "Vivat Rex Edwardus" with the traditionally English pronunciation. The present Dean, on whom the organization of the great ceremonial chiefly devolved, suggested that it might be better to use the ecclesiastical or Continental method of pronouncing; but the Captain of the School replied with becoming gravity, "No, sir; we have said 'Vivat' for three hundred years, and we can't begin saying ' Vee va' now." It may THE SCHOOLBOY 5 be conceded that there is something impressive in this obedience to a tradition of three centuries; but the ordinary schoolboy submits just as blindly to a tradition of five years. "I think that is new," said the present writer to a Harrow boy, with reference to some detail of school-costume. "No, sir," replied the urchin; "it has been so ever since I have been in the School." Further enquiry elicited (not without a struggle) the fact that it was the urchin's first term. Of course the normal Schoolboy despises intellectual excellence; or, at any rate, he feels it due to convention to profess that he does, while perhaps in his caitiff heart he really admires and envies it. But he really and ex anirno despises and detests the quality which, if his ethical standard were not entirely debased, he ought most to admire-the dogged and unsuccessful diligence of a stupid and conscientious boy. " He's a Swat, and a Skew too " is the final word of contemptuous condemnation, as I~t comes rolling to me on the wave of memory. Is the Schoolboy cruel? To answer "Yes" would be too railing an accusation. But undoubtedly a taste for cruelty is an ugly feature of a certain period in boy-life, and those who display it most markedly do not of necessity turn out cruel men in after life. Again, the immemorial tradition of English Schools recognizes certain forms of physical hardship as salutary, and the partition which di~ides these from cruelty is perilously thin. To the unsophisticated mind, it 6 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES looks like cruelty to compel a delicate child to play a game which hurts him, or to inflict stripes upon him because a bigger boy's tea-kettle doesn't boil. But all these long-sanctioned austerities still flourish in perennial vigour. The British Parent loves to have it so, and the British Schoolmaster is always ready with his bland assurance that all is for the best in the best of all possible schools. The only marvel is that the British Schoolboy, engendered by such a system and nurtured among such traditions, is half such a good fellow as he often is. Before now I have been accused of calumniating the system of our Public Schools and the type of boy which it produces; but really there is no justice in the accusation. As a matter of fact, the system which I have attacked is that of the Boarding School generally, not that of the Public School in particular Once granted that it is right for us to send our "bleating progeny," from the sanctities and safeguards of the home, to the changes and chances of life in a barrack a hundred miles away, I fully admit that Eton or Winchester is infinitely preferable to Crichton House, where Dr. Grimstone rules, or Lycurgus House Academy, Peckham, of which Mr. Bottles was the most distinguished product. In brief, I regard the system of the Public School as the method by which the ingrained evils of the Boarding School are lowered to their irreducible minimum. THE SCHOOLBOY7 7 Let me enumerate the best traits which are to be found in the mixed life and character of a Public School. The better sort of Public Schoolboy is a gentleman. He is free from all taint of snobbishness. He does not (though his master sometimes does) "meanly admire mean things." He is notoriously indifferent-even hostile-to the claims of birth and rank. Mr. Leveson-Gower, in his delightful book of "1Bygone Years," writes as follows about social distinctions at Eton:-"1 There is a wellknown story about my friend the late Lord Bwho on his first arrival at Eton was asked his name, and answered, I'I am Viscount W-, and I shall be Marquis of B.' Upon which he received two kicks, one for the Viscount and the other for the Marquis. This story may not be true, but at any rate it illustrates the fact that at Eton if a boy boasted of his social advantages he wvould have cause to repent it." The better sort of Public Schoolboy is wholly free from the base vice of money-worship. Mr Gladstone left it on record that at the Eton of his own day " no boy was ever estimated either more or less because he had much money to spend. It added nothing to him if he had much; it took nothing from him if he had little." And what was then true of Eton boys as a class is still certainly true of the better sort of Public Schoolboy wherever his lot is cast. He values money just in so far as it enables him to get a better racquet or more 8 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES strawberries and cream-or even, and this is no touch of fancy, to buy little comforts for some sick cottager or servant, or to help a broken-down tramp on the road. He spends his money perhaps rather foolishly and rashly while he has it; certainly he does not save it. When it is gone, he puts up cheerfully with his loss; and most assuredly he does not estimate his school-fellows by the greater or less amount of it which they may possess. In brief, the better sort of Public Schoolboy is as indifferent to money as an Oxford Undergraduate, and one cannot say more. Again, there is, deep down in the heart of a Public School, a large and often unsuspected fund of chivalry. This may sound absolutely inconsistent with what I said before about the schoolboy's contempt for weakness; but the contradiction is only apparent. An odious and immemorial tradition regards weakness as contemptible, makes a "little boy's exercise ancillary to a big boy's amusement," and teaches that every conceivable hardship "does the little beggar good." But this is tradition only; and, though tradition is balefully strong, some forces are stronger still. The heart and conscience of better boyhood dislikes cruelty and tyranny. A well-conditioned boy often pities weakness more than he dares to show. Moral cowardice makes him ashamed to reveal his nobler instincts. And here, if anywhere in the governance of a school, a Head Master who is worth his salt (let alone ~5000 a year) will THE SCHOOLBOY9 9 make his influence felt. He will bring the hidden fund of chivalry to light, and so cultivate the public opinion of his boys that weakness is no longer despised and oppressed, but helped and encouraged and gallantly defended against superior force. "1John Verney looked down upon the delicately-tinted face, the small, regular, girlish features, the red, quivering mouth. Suddenly he grasped that this was an appeal from weakness to 'strength, and that he, no older and but a little bigger than the other, had strength to sparestrength to shoulder burdens other than his own." As with chivalry, so also with romance, poetry, imagination, love of literature, even the sense of humour. The tradition of a school lis, opposed to all alike. It has come down from time immemorial that the "right thing" for a Public Schoolboy is to be prosaic, literal, business-like in play, conventional in language and action, and to hate books. To make a joke to a young schoolboy is a deadly insult. He glares sullenly at the joker, calls him a beastly fool, and threatens physical violence if the joke goes further. Now all this a capable schoolmaster may correct, if he cannot abolish., It was Dr. Farrar's great gift that he could make dull and ignorant boys feel ashamed of their ignorance and anxious to learn. Who ever fell under "Billy Johnson's" spell and failed to learn the idealism and the romance which underlie the life of a Public School? To laugh at one's master is the perennial joy of youth; to Io0 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES laugh with him-to laugh at really happy jests admirably delivered-was the less usual lot of Harrow boys listening to Dr. Butler. But the portraiture of the Public Schoolboy, if it is to be true to life, must show some more definite lines and some richer colours than these. Friendship in its best and highest sense-the deep, self-sacrificing, perhaps unspoken devotion of two boys equal in age, powers, and opportunitiesis the heart's blood of a Public School. And religion itself, the crown and climax of all that is lovely in human character, has often flourished with a strong though unostentatious growth in the Playing Fields and under the Spire. That no one should condemn my portrait as exaggerated, let me cite from a published essay by my friend Canon MacColl a human document of pathetic interest. Lord John Boteville Thynne was the second son of the fourth Marquis of Bath. He was born in 1867, went to Eton in 188o, and thence into the 9th Lancers. Just before his twentieth birthday he was killed by a fall, his horse stumbling on a tram-rail in York, where his regiment was stationed. The day before his fatal accident he had spent an hour in hospital, reading to and comforting a soldier of his troop who was seriously ill. The trooper only survived him for a few hours, his death being accelerated by the shock of the sad news. " In beauty of person and loveliness of character," says Canon MacColl, " John Thynne was the most attractive youth I ever saw." Two traits of his THE SCHOOLBOY I I I character may now be related which his modesty would have concealed. (W His experience at Eton impressed him with the urgent need of creating a public opinion among schoolboys in favour of morality. "1A boy, he said, who was known to have told a lie was disgraced. Was it not possible, then, to make schoolboys feel that any violation of morality was also disgraceful? Would it be practicable to start Guilds of Purity in all our Public Schools? His beautiful face was aglow with enthusiasm as he spoke. Some people, pitifully ignorant of the noble side of human nature, are apt to associate moral virtue in men with unmanliness or constitutional defects. John Thynne was as brave and manly as he was pure in heart and affectionate in disposition-a good rider and devoted to athletic sports and outdoor exercise." (2) Not long before his untimely death John Thynne asked an elder friend, "1with the engaging diffidence of one who was afraid of being thought better than he was," whether the friend would do him a favour. Ever since his father had given him a regular allowance he had laid aside a tenth part for religious and charitable uses. Would his friend take charge of this tithe and dispense it? Perhaps it might help some poor fellow through the University "1When I come of age," he said, "11the tenth of my income will be really worth something." The friend adds.-I" He made me promise to keep these plans secret even from his nearest relations; but I think that I do not 12 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES violate the spirit of my promise by revealing them now." If Eton produced such a character as this only once in a hundred years, it would go far towards redeeming the system of our Public Schools from some just, and also some unjust, reproaches. P.S.-While these pages were passing through the press, I noticed this instructive case in the Police Reports"At Eastbourne A. B. was summoned for assaulting a boy named Carey, nine years of age. The defendant and his two sisters were rowing in a boat when a number of stones were thrown in their direction by some lads ashore, among whom was Carey. The defendant landed, caught Carey, and threw him into the sea. The defendant's father asked the Bench to bear in mind that he was captain of a large Public School he had just left. He had been taught it to be his duty to punish boys on the spur of the moment. The Chairman told the defendant he had narrowly escaped being charged with manslaughter; he must pay a fine of ~I and costs." CHAPTER II THE SCHOOLMASTER THE late Lord Houghton had never been a schoolboy, but he took an interest in the sayings and doings of school-life akin to that which an untravelled Londoner might take in the story of Arctic or Antarctic discovery. He accumulated, if I remember aright, some hundred books about schools and schoolboys and schoolmasters. Wellremembered faces from that scholastic gallery seem to shine down on me as I write. I see Mr. Squeers with his "First Class in English Spelling and Philosophy"; Mr. Creakle at breakfast, with the cane, the newspaper, and the buttered toast on the table; and Dr. Blimber with his bluecoated butler, and his ample rhetoric about the Early Romans. Thackeray, too, gave us some pleasant pictures of schoolmasters,1 such as were Dr. Birch and the Head Master of Grey Friars, and Mr. Anstey Guthrie drew the more modern sort, with consummate skill, in his Dr. Grimstone. It is easy to make fun of Dean Farrar's passionate sentimentalism and chromatic style, but "Eric," with its portraits of Mr. Rose and Mr. Gordon, still 1 Mrs. Richmond Ritchie has told us that the awful Miss Pinkerton was drawn from the master of Thackeray's first school at Chiswick. 13 14 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES holds its own, though a forgetful generation has lost sight of " Basil the Schoolboy" and his friend " Dear Dibbins " (who always wore black trousers because they were more recherchd than colours), and of the gentleman who examined them in Thucydides. The Schoolmaster is the theme of our present meditations. Let us note some of his characteristics. I. The modern Schoolmaster is keen. I am well aware that a certain number of men adopt the Schoolmaster's profession simply for want of a better. Their academical qualification is enough, and they wish to make money and marry early. Probably no other profession offers so good an opening to beginners. Even men who become Schoolmasters from this motive catch keenness from their worthier colleagues; and, if they cannot feel it, at least they simulate it. A profession of indifference to the school and its interests would be thought bad form. So the modern Schoolmaster invariably is, or seems to be, keen about his boys and all their concerns-work and play, health and morals, history and prospects. 2. The modern Schoolmaster is amiable. The tradition of roughness and hardship in dealing with boys has perished, and only the most unfledged and amateurish masters attempt "scores" and sarcasms. In some instances, of course, the pendulum has swung to the opposite extreme, and the Master is, as "C. S. C." might say, "oppressively bland and fond." There is a peculiar THE SCHOOLMASTER 15 intonation of the words "My boy," which can be assumed officially like the cap and gown, and laid aside, with an obvious sense of relief, when Dr. Birch's Young Friends have shuffled out of the drawing-room. But all this, though perhaps a little artificial, is a vast improvement on the oldfashioned brutality; and the great majority of modern Schoolmasters are really, as well as professedly, fond of and kind to their boys. 3. The modern Schoolmaster worships the Moloch of Athleticism. Very likely he is himself a good athlete; a hero at "Rugger"; a "Blue," or an " International." Not long ago, when I was visiting a Public School, I noticed an aggressively muscular gentleman, something like a dragoon in a B.A. gown. In reply to my enquiries, a boy by my side murmured-" Oh, that's Bumpstead, the new Cricket-Master." What would Dr Arnold have said to a " cricket-master"? How would Eric have fared in the hands of such a pedagogue? And how good it would have been for Stalky and Co. to fall into his grasp! But, even where a Schoolmaster has no athletic prowess of his own, he fully realizes that the athletes are both the most hubristic and the most influential members of the school. So he cultivates his own convenience when he gives way to their turbulence, and he hugs to his soul the amazing delusion that he is also serving the best interests of the school, because the most athletic boys are also the most virtuous. 16 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES 4. After the Athletes, but very far after them, come the Scholars. A famous cricketer who, as boy and master, spent all his life at Eton, told the Public School Commission in 1862 that the fact that a boy was known to be the best scholar at Eton would not do him any harm, provided he was sufficiently good at games. And this tradition seems to have spread to all schools and seminaries of sound knowledge and religious education. The etymological idea of school as oXoX3o, the place of repose from boisterous activity, has made way for the grander conception of a vast arena where physical perfections can be displayed to the greatest advantage, and where the anaemic bookworm must hide his diminished head while the triumphant procession of the "Bloods" marches majestically past him. 5. Are Schoolmasters snobs? Do they, that is, "meanly admire mean things " and mean people? The answer must be carefully pondered. Thackeray had a keen nose for the taint of snobbishness, and he knew the characteristic foibles of the Schoolmaster; but, if I remember right, his Schoolmasters are not snobs. They flog the nobly born and the others with equal and indiscriminating vigour. An Eton man, the most pungent of living critics, has said that "the University Don, especially if he be a Radical, has an inexplicable delight in pupils with handles to their names; but Eton masters are too well acquainted with the commodity to appraise it THE SCHOOLMASTER '7 above its value." A few years ago lordlings were as plentiful at Westminster and Harrow as at Eton. Winchester still gathered its pupils from the great families of the West; and even Rugby (though Vivian Grey esteemed it "so devilish blackguard") could show such names as Craven and Lyttelton and Douglas; but during the last five-and-twenty years Eton has been absorbing more and more of what are commonly called "1 the Great Families of England." To-day it has nearly monopolized them. A few of the old names still survive in the schools which "Society" has deserted; and, if a Schoolmaster gloats over these survivals with a rather undignified rapture, it is charitable to surmise that he is inspired by the historic sense, and not by the base passion which Thackeray denounced. 6. The modern Schoolmaster is a reformer He lives, indeed, in the narrowest groove, and in an atmosphere dominated to an inconceivable degree by traditions not old enough to be venerable. The older Schoolmaster, whatever his political opinion might be, was in all matters touching his profession the most immovable of conservatives. But here the lapse of years has brought a notable change. The Schoolmaster of the present day longs passionately to be Modern. He is even desperately anxious to keep in touch with the movement of the world. He regards as the gravest of misfortunes the reproach of being fossilized and out of date. Hence Reforms B i8 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES all round; and the general tendency and drift of these reforms is beyond question beneficial. Probably every year as it passes leaves the Schoolmasters of England wiser and more capable men than it found them. And what is true of themselves is naturally true of their administration. The system of the Boarding School may be inherently and incurably bad-I pronounce no opinion,-but it seems to be about as firmly established as any other institution of our national life, and the tide of Reform has swept away every evil which is not by its nature ineradicable. 7. One may be a very good reformer oneself and yet dislike other people's reforms. In that case we call them " fads," and stigmatize their authors as 1" Faddists." The plain man, the man of the world, the man in the street-not least the British Parent-has a holy horror of a Fad. When the Head Mastership of Eton was last vacant we were assured by those who ought to know that no Faddist need apply; and that to clothe the Eton boys in Jaeger, to feed them on pulse, or to abolish the Beagles were ideals equally and indefinitely removed from the sphere of actuality. Well, the man in the street was wrong for once. Mr. Lyttelton was elected; and a reformer whose reforms run to the very edge of fanaticism is at the head of the strongest and most intractable institution in the educational world. The history of Mr. Lyttelton's election cannot be made known, but it may at least be safely surmised that his THE SCHOOLMASTER 19 success was not procured by the surrender of his most serious convictions. The Lytteltons are not built that way. Eton has at length got a reforming Head Master; but one great reform, repeatedly urged on her, she has once again refused to make. She has declined to have a lay Head Master. She has chosen a man who is a priest in every fibre of his being. The notion that education is in some sense a function of the priestly office has come down to modern England with other "enchantments of the Middle Age." It was natural enough at a time when the clergy were the sole depositories of learning, and it expressed itself in such foundations as Winchester and Eton-colleges of priests charged with the duty of performing divine service and of educating a certain number of boys in grammar, plain-song, and the fear of God. Even that great revival and diffusion of culture which we call almost indifferently the Reformation and the Renaissance did not destroy, though to some extent it modified, the mediaeval conception of education. Queen Elizabeth's "College of St. Peter, Westminster," is in its constitution a copy of the Colleges of "St. Mary Winton" and "Blessed Mary of Eton," and the statute of the Edwardian and Elizabeth grammar-schools, such as John Lyon's "Free Grammar Schole at Harrowe-on-theHill," always required that the Schoolmaster should be in Holy Orders. The canon of 1603 decrees that " no man shall teach either in public school 20 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES or private house, but such as shall be allowed by the bishop of the diocese, being found meet as well for his learning and dexterity in teaching as for sober and honest conversation, and also for right understanding of God's true religion." But, though the tradition that education is an ecclesiastical function still survived, as years went on it was modified in practice. The work of teaching was separated from the work of preaching. In the older schools, or, more strictly, "colleges," the Provost or Warden, assisted by the Fellows and chaplains, celebrated the Holy Communion, conducted the daily and weekly services, and periodically preached sermons, which, by their inaudibility and inapplicability, enabled many generations of Wykehamists and Etonians to make merry with their friends. The work of teaching and the work of flogging-those curiously-related functions-were entrusted to a "scholemaster" or "I archididaskalos," or "magister informator." In such schools as Harrow and Rugby, which had no collegiate constitution and no school-chapel, the Head Master and his assistants were teachers only. They had no opportunity of preaching to the boys, who were marched on Sundays to the Parish Church, and endured more or less impatiently the ordinary ministrations of the parochial clergy. The system of education was still in the technical sense "religious," but the function of teaching had been separated from that of preaching. In 1820 a School-Chapel was built at Rugby, and THE SCHOOLMASTER 21 a chaplain appointed. Dr. Arnold, soon after his election to the Head Mastership in 1828, got himself made chaplain in order to secure the opportunity of preaching to the boys. "1The business of a Schoolmaster," he said, "no less than that of a parish minister, is the cure of souls." This theory of the Schoolmaster's office was a return to the mediaeval idea, and the practical convenience of combining the teacher's with the preacher's office recommended the plan to other schools. In 1839 a School-Chapel was built at Harrow, and the boys were withdrawn, at first partially and then completely, from the Parish Church. Dr. Vaughan, himself trained by Arnold, regarded it as a matter of the highest importance to the religious life of a school that the Head Master should be the chief officiant in its public worship, and also its habitual preacher. His schoolsermons, following those of Arnold and Moberly, and followed in turn by Temple and Butler and Farrar, did much to establish the notion that a Head Master must be a clergyman, and that, when a vacancy occurs in the high places of education, no layman need apply. Has this notion any grounds in reason or experience? An Act of Parliament has thrown headmasterships open to laymen, but Governing Bodies refuse to elect them. Why? Let it be granted that a Schoolmaster should have the opportunity of addressing his boys on religious topics. He has that opportunity abundantly whenever he chooses SOCIAL SILHOUETTES 22 to call them together. But, say the lovers of the established order, a sermon in chapel, reinforced by the aesthetic and historic charms of the building, has more effect than a " pi jaw" in a schoolroom. Granted again; but in these days, when bishops habitually license laymen to speak in consecrated buildings, it surely would be easy for a lay Head Master to obtain a licence and preach to his heart's content. A chaplain in Holy Orders would of course be required for the services of the chapel and the altar; and it is to be borne in mind that in the administration of Sacraments it is desirable to concentrate the attention of the worshippers on the act done rather than on the person doing it. Outside chapel a lay Head Master or a lay Assistant Master, if he be a really religious man, is to the full as effective as a clergyman, and infinitely more effective than a man who has become a clergyman in order to qualify himself for a professional prize. The best set of Confirmation-questions ever composed at Eton was the handiwork of William Johnson, a layman whom most men called an Agnostic. One of the most truly and effectively religious Schoolmasters of the present day is a layman whose conscientious refusal to seek Holy Orders has robbed him of richly-earned promotion. When a Governing Body are fortunate enough to find a Schoolmaster who combines the secular qualifications for his office with a vocation to Holy Orders already realized and obeyed, they THE SCHOOLMASTER 2 23 do well to elect him, and happily there are such instances, though their number is not great., But the spectacle of a man of middle age seeking Ordination concurrently with a Head Mastership does not conduce to edification. The motive may be sincere enough, but the act is palpably liable to misconstruction. It is not fair on the schoolmasters themselves thus to set snares for their consciences. And the effect on the religious education of the schools is seldom beneficial. These belated and professional ordinations generally issue in what Matthew Arnold called a "vague religiosity." The flaccid undenominationalism which too often passes for religious teaching in school-pulpits stands in sharp contrast with the dogmatic precision of the Catechism and the Creeds; and boys who perceive discrepancy will not be slow to impute insincerity., Dogma should be taught, and rites which imply dogma should be celebrated, by men who believe in dogma. Men who disbelieve in it should not be debarred by that disbelief from the chief prizes of their profession, nor yet induced to squeeze their consciences into dogmatic formulas. The present religion of the Public Schools is very dear at the price, when that price is the exclusion of the best men from the highest places. CHAPTER III THE OXFORD DON THE late Mr. W. E. Forster, after meeting a fastidious Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, at a London dinner-party, exclaimed with some contempt"Wherever one met that man one never could mistake him for anything but an Oxford Don." This cursory characterization by a very nonacademical mind may perhaps witness to a certain intellectual or social aroma common to the fine flower of both Universities. I have sniffed it so exclusively on the banks of the Isis that I hesitate to meddle with the fauna and flora of the Cam; but I am assured by men who have explored the banks of both those streams that the Don is really very much the same creature at Oxford and at Cambridge, though different terminologies may be used to express his nature, function, and environment. In the terminology of a sister-University an Oxford man might very easily go astray, and I therefore prefer to describe the Don as I know him among the "dreaming spires,"-in the Common-rooms and Parks of Oxford. The Don's leading characteristic is that he takes 24 THE OXFORD DON 25 himself and his position and duties very seriously. The newly-elected head of a large college found himself the rejoicing father of a fine boy, and wrote in ecstasy to the editor of a London newspaper requesting that an event so epoch-making might be made the subject of a leading article. The editor, who loved irony, wrote back that such high themes were above his poor powers, and the Master, or Provost, or whatever he was, must write his own article. The happy father took him at his word. The article came by return of post, and the editor had to print it, and has never again tried the ironic method with the head of a college. Quite recently a Don of more human type told his friends that he must soon resign his post. He said, with excellent self -knowledge, "I am really no longer fit for it, for I can no longer take the undergraduates seriously I cannot get up any great indignation over their offences, or any great enthusiasm over their virtues." But of indignation and enthusiasm the ordinary Don is wholly compact. He runs laboriously with the Boat, and seeks to acquire influence by taking virtuous undergraduates for walks, and preaches sternly to the intemperate and the idle from the impressive text--"Spartam nactus es; hanc exorna." Not a doubt disturbs his conviction that he and his compeers and their world and its interests are the most important people and things in the universe of created being. 26 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Like the Schoolmaster, the Don is keen, or, as he would prefer to say, strenuous. The oldfashioned type of Don, who was supposed to loll in Olympian ease, surrounded by luxuries, and remote from the cares and strifes of men, has ceased to exist. Indeed, there is reason to suppose that he never had a real existence, but was merely an idea or concept of what a Don might be, formed by those who would have liked to be Dons but had failed of their desires. "He has all the worst instincts of a Don, without the requisite ability," was harshly said of a rather unnecessarily dignified M.A. who went on residing in Oxford, no one exactly knew why. Then again the Don who ensued culture, who gathered fritillaries in the meadows, and nailed blue-and-white plates to his wall, and drank hock out of Bohemian glasses, has perished. He was killed by "Patience," and, though the opera may be revived, the central character is no longer recognizable in academic circles. The Don of the present day is even painfully strenuous, alert, vigorous, and active. If he has been an athlete in his undergraduate days, he excites himself over his college boat or cricket-team, makes patriotic speeches at bump-suppers, and tries to buy a precarious popularity by asking Blues to dinner. If he is more a man of mind than of muscle, he lives in and for his pupils. If you go to see him in his rooms, an awkward-looking youth in slippers and spectacles is established in THE OXFORD DON 27 the best armchair; and if you ask him to dine with you at seven, he rushes off at 8.30 because he has got "men coming." Perhaps he is political, and then he is offensively Imperialist; plays at being a volunteer, is deep in academical caucuses, and circulates manifestoes which, as Lord Beaconsfield once said of similar productions, produce really less effect than chalking the walls. The Social Don is a clearly-marked and curious type, more modest perhaps, but in his quiet way not less strenuous, than his athletic or tuitional colleague. " Commemoration " draws him out into the garish day. You may see him dancing quadrilles in a Masonic apron, or even (if he has ceased to be a Don and is now a Bishop) whirling in a waltz, with his pectoral cross bobbing up and down on his purple bosom. All through the academical year he delights in the respectable dissipations of Norham Gardens and the Banbury Road, and in his vacations is often to be found diffusing culture at the tea-tables of Tyburnia and South Kensington. The same strenuousness animates all the Don's intellectual pursuits. Whichever way his intellect tends, he follows that way with immense earnestness. If he is a "Greats man," he believes with all his heart and soul that he is above the possibility of contradiction. The attitude of the Metaphysical Don to the mere man of Theology or History closely resembles that of Mr. Squeers to the enquiring parent:"Philosophy's the chap for me. If a parent ask 28 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES "a question in the classical, commercial, or mathematical line, says I gravely, 'Why, sir, in the first place, are you a philosopher?' 'No, Mr. Squeers,' he says, 'I ain't.' 'Then, sir,' says I, 'I am sorry for you, for I shan't be able to explain it.' Naturally the parent goes away and wishes he was a philosopher, and, equally naturally, thinks I'm one." This haughty attitude of the Metaphysical Don is apt to cow his brother Don, the man of Codices or Charters, who has just discovered in the Bodleian a tavern-bill of the last Nonjuring Bishop, or is "chewing the cud of erudite mistake about Cush or Misraim." But the Historical Don or the Theological Don is resolved that his own line of research shall not be lightly esteemed, and he in turn avenges himself on the Scientific Don. Nothing is more remarkable in modern Oxford than the modest bearing of Physical Science when confronted with the arrogance of unproveable philosophies. And then, again, the modern Don brings his strenuousness into the sphere of Religion. The placid Agnosticism of a calmer day has yielded on one side to a passionate negation, on another to an eager and polemical pietism. Only last week I heard a pathetic reproach levelled at a newly-elected Don: "He is a sharp fellow, but an aggressive Christian." The words gave food for thought. Thirty years ago the aggressiveness of Oxford was of a different type. In those days THE OXFORD DON 29 Matthew Arnold wrote:-" With Swinburne the favourite poet of the young men at Oxford and Cambridge, and Huxley pounding away at the intelligent working-man, there is indeed much necessity for methods of insight and moderation." The methods of insight and moderation had their day. Every one became candid and liberal and tolerant. Sacerdotalists played at textual criticism and flirted with physical science. Every one professed to see a great deal of good in every one else's theory, and nobody seemed to think that anything in heaven or earth was worth the trouble of a fight. But all this is changed. Strenuousness is again in fashion. The Sceptical Don, and the Critical Don, and the Negative Don all have had their fling and put their best energies into their propaganda; while the adherents of the ancient faith-marks evince at least equal vigour. They no longer butter their opponents, or give credit for good motives, or attempt to arrive at truth by professing diametrically opposite opinions on each contested point. Nowadays academical people, to whatever camp they belong, hold their opinions tenaciously, proclaim them insistently, and denounce their opponents as either intellectually or morally deficient. "They could not say I was a fool," said Mandell Creighton, "so they said I must be a knave." To that happy temper of mind Oxford seems to have returned. CHAPTER IV THE OXFORD UNDERGRADUATE I WONDER if my accomplished friend Mr. Walter Sichel remembers, amid his sterner labours in history and biography, that free rendering of the famous 7roXXA -a Sevd with which in his impetuous youth he charmed his schoolfellows at Harrow. One strophe may aptly serve as the motto of our present study"Our universe is strange; Nought in it more so than the Undergraduate. He knows by varied art to change The hoary Don's unflinching hate; With mild, persuasive commonplace He thaws full soon the wintriest face." My avocations have lately led me much into the society of Oxford undergraduates, and I find that in all essential respects they are pretty much what they were thirty years ago. Almost all the old classifications hold good. There is the Reading Man; by which I mean the man who reads seriously and with a set purpose, who grinds hard for several hours a day, secures his First in Mods and his First in Greats, perhaps a University prize or 30 THE OXFORD UNDERGRADUATE 31 scholarship, and eventually becomes a Fellow of his College. He is exactly what he was in my youth-a little monotonous and uninteresting, but admirable, exemplary, and worthy of observation, because ten years hence he will be one of those who are shaping the character and mind of the University. Next in importance, and easily first in prominence and popularity, is the Athletic Undergraduate-the man of muscle and sinew, the " Blue" triply crowned with fame, or the milder " Half-Blue," with his pale glories of cycling or lawn-tennis. " Have you ever seen Bill Sikes stripped?" loudly demanded an admiring understudy when the physical excellences of a great athlete were extolled. " Seen him stripped? " replied his friend. "Why, of course I have. I've seen him rowing often enough." "Ah, but I mean really stripped-without a rag on him. He had the rooms next mine, and I tell you he's a picture." The Sporting Undergraduate, the man who hunts and plays polo and shoots at Bagley or Wytham, is perhaps as prominent as the athlete, but he is distinctly less popular Ostlers glory in his poloponies and flymen point him out to their admiring fares. But the ordinary undergraduate has no pleasure in the strength of a horse. His delight is in human backs and thighs, and thews and sinews, and I think I can detect a wholesome notion lurking in the recesses of his mind that an undergraduate ought to take his pastime in SOCIAL SILHOUETTES pursuits which all undergraduates can share. A rich man ought not to flaunt his riches. Then there is the Social Undergraduate, and of him there are two species. There is the comparatively humble sort, the drab moth of the social world, who takes his pleasure at the teatables of the married dons and cultivates the society of the "residential" population which has lately spread itself over the district towards Summertown. He instructs the daughters of the local clergy in the art of sculling, and endangers the life of his tutor's wife in a punt on the Cherwell. The more vivid species of social butterfly-the " Purple Emperor," who motors over to luncheon at Nuneham or "dines at Blenheim twice a week," -is still found as of yore in the richest abundance at Christ Church; but Magdalen and New College know him also, and it may be that Balliol still treasures the great tradition that to toady a young aristocrat is not snobbery but patriotism, inasmuch as he will one day exercise an influence on our national life. A member of the Conservative Government was once at great pains to explain why he and his friend Lord Curzon had not done as well in the Schools as Mr. Asquith and Lord Milner. He dismissed all base suggestions of intellectual inferiority and explained it thus: "You see we were the eldest sons of peers, and we were so much asked out in the County that it interfered with our reading." In my time it would have been inevitable in THE OXFORD UNDERGRADUATE 33 connexion with the Social Undergraduate to cite the Dressy Undergraduate. He wore beautiful suits and patent-leather boots. Till mid-day on Sunday (and, if he was a Ritualist, on Ascension Day) he wore a frock-coat and a silk hat. If he was an aesthete, he wore ties of strange, sad colours -brickdust-red and peacock-blue and sage-green. If he was rich, he kept a valet and had varnished boots and a good deal of jewellery In the darkest secrecy let it be recorded that I have seen stays round an undergraduate's waist. But all these things have vanished like last year's snows. Mr. Gladstone said, after his last visit to Oxford, that he had not seen a single undergraduate whom he could not have dressed from top to toe for ~5. To-day the necessary outlay would be very far less. I relate what I lately saw-an undergraduate in a coloured shirt and Norfolk jacket and bedroom slippers, with his head bare and his gown tied round his neck, going to lecture on a bicycle. Comment, as they say, is superfluous. I hardly know where I ought to place the Political Undergraduate. He represents a crossclassification. He may be a reading man or a social man, conceivably a sportsman, but not an athlete-unless, indeed, in those glorious moments of exuberance when the athlete generously offers to smash the skull of a blooming Radical. But C 34 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES this is not serious politics, and the Political Undergraduate is as serious as a Don. He prepares his speeches for the " Pam " or the Canning with scrupulous care. He aspires to the presidency of the Union, and is never so happy as when he can get Mr. Taper, M.P., or Lord Decimus Tite-Barnacle to come down and make a speech on the question of the moment. As I write there recurs to memory a quaint scene which occurred in the Corn Exchange of Oxford in January 1878. Mr. Gladstone was receiving an address from the local Liberal Association, and an intensely political undergraduate of Tory principles, who had secreted himself under the gallery, just as Mr. Gladstone rose to speak emitted a feeble hiss. A Radical workman turned upon the interrupter with a harsh admonition. "Look 'ere, you in the yaller coat. If you can't be'ave yourself I'll 'ave you out in two twos." The political undergraduate subsided into quiescence, murmuring in a pensive undertone, "The mob ought to be shot down, but till they are I shall hold my tongue." The Religious Undergraduate shall have no ridicule from me, for a disciple of Matthew Arnold recognizes that for undergraduates religion is, as it is for the rest of us, the most beautiful and the most beneficent thing in the world. In spite of all that has come and gone, Oxford is still religious. The root of the matter is still there, even as it was THE OXFORD UNDERGRADUATE 35 in the old times before us, ere yet "the Palmerworm" (as Dr. Liddon called Lord Selborne's Commission) had eaten up what the locusts of the earlier Commission had left, in the way of academical ecclesiasticism. And while the substance is the same, even the forms of the undergraduate's religion have varied very little in thirty years. If he is Evangelical, he still preaches or is preached to at the Martyrs' Memorial. If he is a Ritualist, his due feet never fail to carry him to High Mass at St. Barnabas's. True it is that some subtle refinements have of late years appeared. The intellectual Christian flirts with the Higher Criticism at the Pusey House, and the rigid adherent of "Prayer-book religion" as taught by Mr Percy Dearmer finds his soul satisfied at SS. Philip and James. But in the main the religion of Oxford is what it was, and gains from its exquisite surroundings there a charm and a persuasiveness which elsewhere it sometimes lacks. And now, in conclusion, a word about the Model Undergraduate. He is, as he always was, the best of all good fellows, and the pleasantest company in the world. He neither reads nor rows too hard. He " smatters," as Hudibras would say, Greek philosophy or Latin literature, German ballads or French plays. Perhaps he sings, perhaps he plays the piano; very likely he rides and will lend a horse to a friend. If he plays Bridge, he neither 36 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES craves to win nor picks a quarrel if he loses. He is gentle and clean-living, merry, sympathetic,. and appreciative. He takes his full share of pleasure in " this world of opportunity and wonder," but never forgets that the truest joys are those of intellect and spirit. In three words, he is a "Typical Oxford Man," and that, as Mr. Gladstone said, is the highest praise which it is possible to bestow. CHAPTER V THE B.A. OF Lady Beaconsfield her distinguished husband once observed, " She is an excellent creature, but she never can remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans." When I review the order in which these slight Sketches have been produced, I feel that a hostile critic might condemn me as similarly lacking the chronological sense. I have discussed in a rather irregular sequence Schoolmasters and Dons of various types, and Schoolboys and Undergraduates as these have fashioned them. Broadly speaking, I have dealt with English Education, its principles, methods, and subjects. Now let us say a word about its products. Let the B.A. stand as the type, and let us trace his mental history His earliest years were spent, with his sisters, under the care of an expensive governess-none of your old-fashioned ladies nurtured on Mrs. Markham or Miss Mangnall, but rather a Cornelia Blimber who has graduated from Newnham, or a Miss Wirt brought up to date. "'The modern languages,' said Miss Wirt modestly, 'French, German, Spanish, and Italian, Latin and the rudiments of Greek if desired-English of 37 38 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES course; the practice of Elocution, Geography and Astronomy and the Use of the Globes, Algebra (but only as far as quadratic equations), Ancient and Modern History no one can be without; Botany, Geology, and Mineralogy I consider as amusements.'" Lady Lyttelton, who was governess to Queen Victoria's eldest children, declared that when the present King was taken from her mild sway and placed under tutors and governors he never passed the door of his sisters' schoolroom without softly murmuring, "Ah, those happy days!" Let us hope that a similar ejaculation bursts from the lips of our typical boy when, at the age of nine or ten, he is torn from Miss Wirt's care and pitchforked into the Private School. There, at an annual charge of two hundred pounds (the only extras being, as at Vivian Grey's academy, "Pure Milk and the Guitar "), he remains till he has struck thirteen, and then the Public School receives him, and, unless something untoward occurs, retains him till he is eighteen or nineteen-perhaps, if he is a good cricketer and the Head Master wishes to curry favour with the athletic world, till he is on the verge of twenty. "Schools, unless discipline were doubly strong, Detain their adolescent charge too long. The stout, tall captain, whose superior size The minor heroes view with envious eyes, Becomes their pattern, upon whom they fix Their whole attention, and ape all his tricks." T'he "stout, tall captain," when decency forbids THE B.A. to class him any longer as a boy, makes his way to Oxford or Cambridge, and, to his infinite advantage, finds himself, for a season, nothing and nobody. He may presently emerge again into athletic fame, or there may be a going softly all his academical days, which is of better augury for his success, and even more conspicuously for his agreeableness, in after-life. If he happens to have been born with a genuine interest in the things of the intellect and the spirit, of course the University stimulates and disciplines that interest; but the majority of undergraduates, are born without it, and on them the University produces only a social effect. Intellectual effect it has none. "Oxford and Cambridge," wrote Matthew Arnold, "are hauts lycees, and, though invaluable in their way as places where the youth of the upper class prolong to a very great age, and under some very admirable influences, their school education, they are still, in fact, schools, and do not carry education beyond the stage of general and school education. The examination for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, which we place at the end of our three years' University course, is merely the Abiturientenexamen of Germany, the Ipreuve du baccalaur/at of France, placed in both those countries at the entrance to University studies, instead of, as with us, at their close." The same keen critic of our educational system had, we know, two contemporaries at Oxford who became respectively Lord Lumpington and the 40 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Rev. Esau Hittall. Both had been trained in the " grand old fortifying classical curriculum" of our Public Schools; both had been submitted to the discipline of Greek and Latin, not for the sake of anything contained in Greek or Latin literature, but in order that they might be braced by the "Mental Gymnastics" of classical education. "Were the minds of Lord Lumpington and Mr. Hittall much braced by their mental gymnastics? " asked the carping foreigner. "Well," replied Mr. Arnold, "during their three years at Oxford they were so much occupied with Ballingdon and hunting that there was no great opportunity to judge. But, for my own part, I have always thought that their both getting their degree at last with flying colours, after three weeks of a famous coach for fast men, four nights without going to bed, and an incredible consumption of wet towels, strong cigars, and brandy-and-water, was one of the most astonishing feats of mental gymnastics I ever heard of." And now our "Youth of the Upper Class," following in the path hallowed by the steps of Lumpington and Hittall, and having "prolonged to a very great age" his school-education, is twenty-three and a B.A. The blissful period in which he could justify his existence by merely being a delightful companion is over. Now he has to face the awful necessity of doing something, or at least of pretending to do it. The world is all before him where to choose, unless he happens to TH E B.A.4 41 be the eldest son of a rich man, and then his path is chosen for him. A great deal of sport and an equal amount of society, with a little dabbling in Politics or County Council thrown in, will amply suffice to occupy the years which must elapse before he comes into the paternal kingdom. We cannot all be Eldest Sons in any technical or satisfactory sense - although I remember a callow youth at Oxford who said, with some dignity, "You fellows are younger sons; I am an eldest son." And so indeed he was, for he was the eldest of fourteen, and his father was a Perpetual Curate in Northumberland. It is only too true that there are a good many younger sons in the world-" The Little Brothers of the Rich," as some one called them,-a body quite as deserving as the Little Sisters of the Poor, and much more numerous. And even supposing that the Younger Son has what is called a modest competence, social prejudices require that he should profess to do something. So he eats his dinners at the Temple, or goes for a voyage round the world, or plays a little with some of those lighter forms of literature which are at once less exhausting than work, and more respectable than idleness. But for a large proportion of men who have taken their B.A., there always is the odious necessity of not only pretending to work but of actually working, and working in a way which will procure, if not actually their daily bread, certainly the butter and the jam 42 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES which Oxford or Cambridge has taught them to appreciate. In this dire strait what is our B.A. to do? It is too late for the Army. There is no visible opening in commerce. The Bar is overstocked. He is too honest a fellow to seek Holy Orders without vocation. His modest pass-degree will not qualify him even to succeed Mr. Feeder, B.A., as classical assistant to Dr. Blimber. If he goes to a "MudSchool," lured by the distant prospect of a landagency, he will have to pay, and it is necessary for him to be paid. Even electrical engineering must be taught, and farming in Manitoba requires capital. Literature, indeed, is, as we are told, a Republic, and Journalism presents an Open Door. But the citizens of the Republic are not always hospitable to strangers, and the open door has an awkward knack of banging back in one's face. Alas! poor B.A. Have twenty years of the most expensive education in the world brought you to this pass? CHAPTER VI THE CANDIDATE FOR ORDERS WHEN I am pitying the unhappy plight of the Indeterminate B.A., I have in mind the case, by no means imaginary, of the man, not very well off yet not absolutely penniless, who goes up to the University with the vague expectation that he will there discover something to do with his life, and, after three or four years of strenuous idleness, finds himself still at a loose end; perhaps with some of his money spent, certainly with a good many expensive tastes acquired, and probably with a confirmed distaste for what he calls "1drudgery " and humbler mortals call work. The case is really rather pathetic, and the prospect gloomy unless the opportune "1girl with a bit of money " turns up, and then all may still be well. So we will not reason further of the Indeterminate B.A., but will pass on to the more usual case of the sensible youth who, as soon as he goes up to the University or even sooner, lays down his ground-plan of life (or acquiesces in that laid down by his parents), and b~ecomes a student of Lincoln's Inn, or attends the Regius Professor's Lectures on the Sixth Nerve, or subjects himself to the austere discipline of 43 44 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES "Wren's" with a view to administering our Indian Empire. The first of these three species developes into the Barrister about the time that he takes his degree; and the Barrister, actual or incipient, I am inclined to leave alone. The type is too well known to need further illustration. It is extraordinarily free from variation, and remains exactly what it was in those distant days when Mr. Fitzroy Timmins, of the Northern Circuit ("an Oxford man and very polite"), gave the famous "Little Dinner" in Lilliput Street. Of the newer type of Doctor I shall have something to say later on, for in that instance the variation is so remarkable as to demand separate treatment. The Indian Civil Servant swims out of my ken as soon as he has passed his: examination, and does not return into it until he is jaundiced and uninteresting. Thus three main types of Determinate B.A. are for the present disposed of, and I am free to concentrate my attention on one with which I am peculiarly familiar. " I had no idea that you were such an expert in clerical zoology," said Lord Beaconsfield to Dean Wellesley; and I might make some humble claims to original research in the same vast and interesting field. The B.A. who means to take Holy Orders is the subject of my present meditations, and here the variation which the years have brought is remarkable indeed. We may presume that all fiction which deals with its own time is more or less a THE CANDIDATE FOR ORDERS 45 reflection of character and conduct as actually existing at that time; and, if this be so, the types of young men intending to take Holy Orders which were drawn by Charles Kingsley and F. E. Paget and Dr. Farrar must have had some relation to the actual life of the world. Kingsley in " Alton Locke" made his characters live in the years of Revolution 1845-8. He knew very well what Cambridge was, what undergraduates were, and what sort of clergymen they made. He prided himself on the fidelity with which he drew from life, and the result is George Locke, Alton's cousin, who is represented as an honest fellow enough, though a little unawakened, and this is the way in which he discourses of his intended profession:"It isn't one out of ten who's ever entered a school, or a cottage even except to light a cigar, before he goes into the church; and as for the examination, that's all humbug; any man can cram it all up in a month, and, thanks to King's College, I knew all I wanted to know before I went to Cambridge. And I shall be three-and-twenty by Trinity Sunday, and then in I go, neck or nothing. Only the confounded bore is that this Bishop of London won't give one a title-won't let any man into his diocese-who has not been ordained two years; and so I shall be shoved down into some pokey little country curacy, without a chance of making play before the world, or getting myself known at all. Horrid bore, isn't it? " As Kingsley knew Cambridge, so Paget knew 46 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Oxford. He was, if not exactly the Sweet Singer, at least the Humorous Novelist, of the Tractarian Movement. "The Owlet" was published in 1857, and Silvanus Urban presumably represents the type of character which necessitated the creation of Cuddesden College as a place of probation between Oxford and Ordination. Urban looked forward to being ordained and married about the same time. He had a comfortable fortune, so he instructed his solicitor to buy him the Next Presentation to some "good living with a small population in a hunting country." He designed to wed Lady Selina St. Blazey, daughter of Lord and Lady Eddystone; but the Trinity Ordination occurred, as such things will do, at the very height of the London season, and an additional hardship was that the Bishop of Bumbledom, instead of ordaining at St. James's, Piccadilly, or St. George's, Hanover Square, "must needs bring all the candidates down to Bumbledom Castle and exercise his horrid hospitality there; and this just the very week of Lady Daffadown's breakfast at Richmond and of the Bazaar on behalf of Unprotected Females, at which Lady Eddystone was to have a stall." However, there fortunately was a Fancy Ball at Dorsetshire House on the Monday after the ordination, so that Urban got off by the express train, and reached London in time for the Fancy Ball, where he threw himself and his Next Presentation to Snugstead Flory at Lady Selina's feet. THE CANDIDATE FOR ORDERS 47 In "Julian Home," which belongs to the same period as "The Owlet," we return to Cambridge, and here an even more amazing picture of the Candidate for Orders is offered to our view. Dr. Farrar had, as we all know, his own heightened and coloured way of putting things, but his fiction was invariably founded on fact, and he was probably describing what he had seen when he drew the hideous character of the backsliding Puritan Hazlet, who professes to regard the sordid debauchery of Barnwall as a suitable preparation for Holy Orders. "It takes a great deal to abash a mind like Hazlet's. He said that he was going to be a clergyman, and that it was necessary for him to see something of life, or he would never acquire the requisite experience." After so loathsome a touch as that, it is a relief to turn to the measured and dignified sarcasm of Dr. Vaughan, who, preaching in 1869, aimed a shaft at " men who choose the ministry because there is a family-living waiting for them, or because they think they can make that profession-that and no other-compatible with indolence and self-indulgence; or because they imagine that a scantier talent and a more idle use of it can in that one calling be made to suffice." Something at least of the same tendency as that which the great Cambridge preacher then condemned must have been present also in the Oxford of the 'sixties, when Dr. Liddon said to his undergraduate hearers at St. Mary's: "Does the text bid you seek Holy 48 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Orders? That question must be answered by every man in the sanctuary of his own soul. Alas for those who press to the steps of the sanctuary only that they may keep a Fellowship or please a parent! Alas for those who bring to the service of the altar a sceptical intellect or an impure heart! These must earn for the Church of God a sure legacy of confusion and weakness, and for themselves, too probably, a forfeiture of endless peace." All these extracts-and they might be indefinitely extended -point unmistakably to the existence fifty or even forty years ago of a type of candidate for Holy Orders which has utterly disappeared. I should doubt if there is a single man now preparing himself for the clerical career who regards the Christian Ministry as simply a profession. If he exists, he lies very low, and, for shame's sake if for no worthier motive, simulates an ardour which he does not feel. The influences which have so profoundly modified this type, and the results in which they have issued, I discuss in another chapter. CHAPTER VII THE CURATE "A CURATE:"-wrote Sydney Smith in 1822 -"1there is something which excites compassion in the very name of a Curate! A learned man in a hovel, with sermons and saucepans, lexicons and bacon, Hebrew books and ragged children; good and patient; a comforter and a preacher; the first and purest pauper of the hamlet.." When I was drawing the Candidate for Orders as he was half a century ago, I was contrasting him with the modern type. Here is another study in contrasts. Could anything be more curiously unlike the modern Curate than the character described under that designation by Sydney Smith? Let us take it point by point. "There is something which excites compassion in the very name of a Curate." One must be tender -hearted indeed -even morbidly so -if one were moved to compassionate the modern Curate. He is almost offensively prosperousyoung, strong, healthy, active, boisterously cheerful, aggressively "breezy." His very appearance checks the stream of compassion at its source. One cannot pity a fellow-creature whio looks so 49 D 50 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES well pleased with himself and his world. And here let it be noted that the expert in clerical zoology has long seen that the Curate is developing into a type recognizable by the eye. He no longer looks like a Wesleyan minister, a Roman Seminarist, a juvenile butler, or a cavalry officer. He is a smart, clean, well-set-up youth, with face closely shaved and hair cut short. He no longer wears, except on occasions of state, a decayed "topper" and a long coat with buttons as numerous as the Articles of the Church of England. In his daily avocation he wears a short, round jacket, a silver watch-chain crossing his waistcoat, dark trousers turned up at the bottoms, serviceable shooting-boots, and a black straw hat. He has an air, indescribable but unmistakable, of having lived an out-of-door life, and, even though his present lot be cast in a slum, he looks as if he only required a few weeks' training to regain the physical trim in which he left Oxford or Cambridge. Here again is a contrast more recent than that drawn from Sydney Smith's description. Thirty years ago an all-too-graphic writer in the Daily Telegraph said of the High Church Curate: "We are accustomed to think of such as a rather limp individual, tender-eyed as Leah, with a falsetto voice perpetually monotoning on G, strongly ascetic, and severe on all the pomps and vanities of this wicked world." If the writer of that curious sentence is still alive, I should like to introduce him to some curates of my acquaintance. Two or THE CURATE 5i three years ago a strapping youth, fresh from the glories of the "Rugger" Team at Oxford, found himself curate in a populous parish. His district lay in an artisans' quarter, where he soon made himself much at home; but he soon perceived that the working men, though kind, were a little contemptuous, apparently (like the writer in the Daily Telegraph) regarding a curate as something less than a man. Nettled by this condescending tone, and hearing that there was a "Rugger" Club in the parish, the Curate casually enquired whether the club would play a Team of Parsons. The local athletes cheerfully replied that it would be a little holiday to them-they would do it on their heads. The fateful fixture was, therefore, appointed; and on the given day the Curate appeared at the head of a team composed of Internationals, Blues, and men who had played for their colleges. The fight began in good earnest. Each team was on its mettle, animated by professional pride. When a curate was collared, humorous cries of "1 Break his neck, and then he won't be able to preach on Sunday!" were raised by the local supporters; but the tune was soon changed. The curates, many of whom had never met before, were now playing into one another's hands, and presently were chivying the artisans round and round the ground, amid the lurid ejaculations of the mob. The match ended in a victory, almost too one-sided to be sportsmanlike, for the Cloth, and from that day forward 52 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES the working men of Upper Peddlington have respected the Church as they never respected it before. But from this digression we must return to Sydney Smith's description of the Curate. "A learned man in a hovel, with sermons and saucepans, lexicons and bacon, Hebrew books and ragged children." Here the contrast between ancient and modern types is not so wholly favourable to the modern. "A learned man." Will my athletic young friends permit me to suggest that very few indeed of their number are entitled to the praise of learning, and that not many of them have even that smattering acquaintance with books and culture which used to be thought inseparable from a University training? The learned men who take Holy Orders generally find their way into academical or quasiacademical positions. They get Clerical Fellowships, or they become lecturers at Theological Colleges or assistants at the Pusey House. Perhaps they attach themselves to Bishops or Deans, or flirt with some form of subdued monasticism. They do not become curates. The Curate-and of course I am speaking of the type, not of the individual-the Curate knows nothing. The annals of Henley lie pat to his tongue, and he is deep in the lore of inter-University competitions. He is steeped in the traditions of W. G. Grace, and says his prayers before a photograph of C. B. Fry. But there his general knowledge ends; and as to THE CURATE 53 his special and professional knowledge, it would be impertinent for a layman to enquire too closely. In brief, the modern Curate is not a learned man, and he does not live in a "hovel," but in a cosy room furnished with armchairs and walled with photographs of athletic teams and Ritualistic churches. "Sermons and saucepans" were enumerated by Sydney Smith among the Curate's simple furnishings. Sermons belong to all time, but the modern Curate scorns a manuscript, so the evidences of his toil are not visible; and saucepans are replaced in his case by tobacco-jars. "Lexicons and bacon, Hebrew books and ragged children." The modern Curate likes his morning rasher as well as another; he earns it honestly, and relishes it keenly For lexicons he has little use, and as to Hebrew books, they would be about as serviceable to him as his bats and bicycles would have been to his forerunner. But it is when we come to "ragged children" that the height of incongruity is reached. It is strange indeed to think of a time when to be surrounded by " ragged children " was a characteristic mark or note of the British Curate. The modern Curate is not married. He is by no means a vowed celibate; he is sustained amid the arduous labours of Confirmation-classes and school-excursions, choir-practices and parochial gatherings by the proud ambition of some day having a parish of his own, a wife, and ~25o a year. On this modest income he eventually marries, and the 54 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES result is that melancholy poverty of the Established Clergy which is the chief blot on the scutcheon of the Church of England. But as long as he is a curate he remains unmarried. The District Visitor or the President of the Girls' Club has, indeed, long since marked him for her own; but at present he knows not her design, and, regardless of his doom, the little victim plays. Perhaps he inhabits an upper chamber in a Gothic Clergy-house; perhaps he has "digs" (as he would have called them at Oxford) in a neat brick house in a jerry-built row- He does not, as a rule, seek his sphere of work in the "hamlet" where Sydney Smith's Curate exhibited his virtues. The best curates tend steadily and increasingly to the large towns. But, whatever be his dwelling, he lives in it a free, jovial, and independent life. He works extremely hard, and plays not less strenuously on the proper occasion. He is not much of an orator, but delivers good common-sense and sound theology from the pulpit. He has no finikin love of ceremonial minutiae, but enjoys the dignified and intelligible worship with which the English Church surrounds the altar. He is indefatigable in visiting the old and sick; friendly with the able-bodied; gentle and playful with the "kids" in the school; and the leading spirit in any harmless recreation which may be going forward in the parish. At night, when the day's work is done and he is sharing with his brother-curate the TH E CURATE 55 mild delights of pipes and cocoa, he finds an enjoyment not, lightly to be esteemed in criticizing his -,vicar, to whom, however, he is genuinely loyal. He is, in fine, a characteristic product of the English Public School and University, with a top-dressing of Cuddesdon or Ely; and, though other churches may boast a more learned or a more ascetic clergy, Christendom does not contain a more thoroughly good fellow than the British Curate, CHAPTER VIII THE COUNTRY PARSON WHEN Wilkins Micawber, of impecunious but delightful memory, proposed to serve Mr. Uriah Heep, attorney-at-law, in the capacity of confidential clerk, he thus summarized his professional qualifications. " I have already some acquaintance with the Law, as a defendant on civil process, and I shall immediately apply myself to the Commentaries of one of the most eminent and remarkable of our English jurists. I believe it is unnecessary to add that I allude to Mr. Justice Blackstone." If Mr. Micawber's studies carried him so far as part ii. of Book IV. he may perhaps have noticed the following dissertation on the proper title of the Parish Priest: "The Rector (or Governor) of a church is properly called 'a parson '--persona ecclesia. That is, one that hath full possession of all the rights of a parochial church. He is called 'parson' because by his person the Church, which is an invisible body, is represented; and this appellation (however it may be depreciated by familiar, clownish, and indiscriminate use) is the most legal, most bene56 THE COUNTRY PARSON 57 ficial, and most honourable title which a parish priest can enjoy." Fortified by this high authority, I propose to discuss the Beneficed Clergy under the head of "Parsons." Later on I shall have something to say, Chaucer-wise, about the "pore Persoun of a toun"; but now I am concerned with another Chaucerian creation-the "pore Persoun dwellyng uppon land," the "Country Parson" of George Herbert's fancy, the "Country Clergyman " of more modern parlance. Forty years ago, when agricultural prices were still high and glebes paid well, a country clergyman-the famous "S. G. O."1-thus described his brother-clerics. He is picturing an ecclesiastical procession in the very early days of Ritualism, and his picture has a terrible verisimilitude."The clergy never size well; it is evident on the face of the thing that they are not up in this sort of work. As they pass, do the lookers-on feel as men would feel who beheld their priests engaged in some solemn religious demonstration? Are they so many Spiritual Fathers, the confessors and directors of the people?... No; they are for the most part recognised in a very different way-owners of pony-traps, or even, perhaps, a brougham; the fortunate possessors of glebes; heads of families; the lesser powers of country parishes; So-and-so, lately married; this one said to be about to marry So-and-so's daughter, or lately refused by her; there is one great as I The Rev. Lord Sydney Godolphin Osborne (1808-1889). 58 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES a farmer, another famous as an antiquary, the man who gives such long prices for old oak chairs. Then there goes the man who wins prizes for flowers, walking with another who is great on the subject of bees. Then there is the man who will never let the farmers alone, and that other who, all thought, would be the next Archdeaconand so on to the last curate. The men are only clergymen after all, doing a kind of holiday demonstration; excellent fellows, most of them, with their families making a great part of the staple of the pleasant social life of their respective localities, and, as such, more or less respected." This is, if not exactly a poetical, at least a comfortable, idyll of clerical life in rural districts-the clergyman mixing freely in local society; farming his own glebe, or letting it at a satisfactory rent; driving his own pony-trap, rich enough to give long prices for curiosities, leisured enough to spend time on bee-keeping- altogether a prosperous, popular, and easy-going man. But, in the forty years which have elapsed since "S. G. O." described the clerical procession, the conditions of clerical life in the country have been completely revolutionized-in one direction conspicuously for the better, in another tragically for the worse. The improvement of course consists in the infinitely higher standard of clerical duty. The Hunting Parson is extinct-he went out with good old Jack Russell of Swymbridge; the Shoot THE COUNTRY PARSON 59 ing Parson is comparatively rare, and the Curate who spends his life in lawn-tennis has no existence outside Punch. The great religious revival which sprang from Oxford in 1833 has penetrated the remotest corners of the country; and in the large majority of cases the Country Parson is as earnest a priest and as diligent a pastor as his brother in the town. But there is another side to the picture. The elevation in the standard of clerical duty has been pathetically, and one might almost say unjustly, accompanied by the most terrible fall in clerical emolument. Agricultural depression has almost destroyed the income from glebe and tithe. The comfortable vicarage of "S. G. O.'s" vision, with its carriage-horses and garden and its "old oak chairs," has been replaced by a condition of things which painfully recalls Hooker's lament over the "Corroding Cares of a Country Parsonage." The vast discrepancy between the few rich livings in England and the immense number of poor ones has long been a reproach to the Church; and, when the ratio between income and duty is taken into account, the reproach becomes a scandal. I have heard a Bishop say that one winter afternoon he arrived unexpectedly at the door of a vicarage in the Fens. He rang at the door, but could make no one hear, and was turning away from the house when a bedroom window was opened, and the Vicar called from above, "I will be down in a minute, my Lord." Pre 60 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES sently he opened the door, and thus frankly apologized for having kept his diocesan waiting: "I am a bachelor. I can't afford even one servant; and in winter, when the day's work is done, I generally go to bed about sunset so as to save the cost of coal and candle." The present Bishop of Lincoln has expressed the conviction that the only method by which the country clergy of his diocese can be saved from destruction is the amalgamation of the smaller benefices. There lie before me as I write the petitions, in each case authenticated by the archdeacon and a magistrate, of more than a hundred applicants for relief from a clerical charity ~9o a year is the income of a benefice in Herefordshire, ~95 in Glamorganshire, ~87 in Huntingdonshire, ~92 in Flintshire, ~52 in Merionethshire, '~96 in Norfolk. ~0oo is a large income in any part of Wales; ~150 a good average in England. And out of these exiguous funds patriarchal families must be supported. " Six children wholly dependent," writes one poor parson; "five," another; "seven," a third; "eight," a fourth; "eight, and one partly," a fifth. And, in addition to these usual troubles of small means and large families, a vast number of the clergy have additional and special burdens to bear. "Petitioner has widowed mother and sister dependent on him." "One son is an invalid." " Petitioner is incapacitated for clerical duty." THE COUNTRY PARSON 6! "Petitioner and his wife chronic invalids." "Petitioner's wife and daughters all down with typhoid." "11Petitioner must undergo operation for cataract." "Petitioner suffers from angina pectoris." "Petitioner and wife both ill, and maintain an aged father; one son in an asylum, wholly dependent." Such are the conditions of life in the ministry of a Church which enjoys a secured and acknowledged income of nearly six millions, and of which the chief pastor has ~15,000oo a year, the finest house in London, and an agreeable residence at Canterbury. CHAPTER IX THE TOWN PARSON IN discussing the "Pore Persoun of a Toun" I shall defy the shade of Mr. justice Blackstone and use the word "1Parson " in its "1clownish and familiar sense," as meaning a clergyman, whether beneficed or not. I leave out of sight the opulent rectors of city churches and the popular preachers of the West End, where the liberality of the flock makes good the deficiencies of the endowment. I have in view the huge mass of parochial clergy who bear the burden and do the work of the Church in the poor and populous districts of Central, East, and South London. And here it is to be remembered that in a "1slum parish " the distinction between Vicar and Curate is far less clearly marked than in the country or the West End of London. I remember a village near my home in the South Midlands where a very dignified "'Squarson" of the old school asked a cottager's wife if her child had been baptized. The young mother, who had a proper sense of what belongs to the Powers that Be, diffidently made answer, " Well, sir, I shouldn't like to say as much as that, but your young man came and did what he could." 62 THE TOWN PARSON 63 That is a misconception of the ministerial function which would never occur in a slum-parish. There the tripartite order of Bishop, Rector, and Curate is unknown. All the staff are priests (with perhaps the exception of a very raw deacon who is learning his business), and the Vicar is not an autocrat or a "boss," but simply a First among Equals, or, if he is considerably older than his colleagues, a father and a referee. So close is this identification of the whole staff in an East End parish that the children do not often know the clergy apart. To the infant mind the shaved, pale faces crowned with birettas, and the spare, active figures draped in cassocks, seem all one; and a gutter-urchin will come scurrying up to young Jones, just ordained from Ely, with rapturous cries of "I see yer, Father Smith," whereas Father Smith is a staid vicar of twenty years' standing. But names do not matter, for all the Clergy are the children's friends. The Town Parson of the type which. I am now considering dwells usually in a Clergy-house. To occupy lodgings in a slum is a gloomy and insalubrious lot; but the Clergy-house is commodious, airy, and sociable. As a rule, this Town Parson is a bachelor. As I said before, this does not imply that he is a celibate by conviction; but he realizes that the Married Parson in a slum is as grotesquely out of place as the bachelor in the country parsonage, and that a brood of clerical infants reared in Shoreditch or Rotherhithe would 64 64 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES only too probably illustrate in their own persons that degeneracy of the race over which physicists and publicists just now make such ado. And now let us picture our Parson's life and day, and paint them against the background of his earlier experiences. He comes from a more or less comfortable home, for a parent who is badly off can scarcely afford to train his son for Holy Orders. He has been educated at a Public School and a University, and up to his twenty-fourth year has been accustomed to a life of strenuous idleness, living almost entirely out of doors, and indulged to the top of his bent in every form of athletic exercise. If-a rarer case -he has cared more for books than for games, he has read them among the delicious surroundings of College gardens and University libraries; he has been master of his own time; and, in his own way, has been just as idle and self-indulgent as his more muscular brother in the Boat or the Eleven. Now all this is changed, with a sudden reverse which tries the heart and nerve of the strongest. From Sunday to Sunday our Town Parson scarcely sees a blue sky or tastes a breath of country air. A young priest of my acquaintance, just appointed to a mission-church in Poplar, by way of making the best of a bad situation said cheerfully to one of his flock, "What a fine breeze you get from the river here! I declare I can almost smell the sea." But this bright optimism only elicited the depressed rejoinder, (Ah! I THE TOWN PARSON 65 shouldn't wonder if you did, sir. We get a lot of shocking smells in Poplar." Our Parson rises early-to the lay mind it would seem unnecessarily so. Day by day, summer and winter, he is in church by six or seven-at times of ecclesiastical pressure by four or five. Then he gobbles his breakfast, blows his pipe, and rushes to the school, where he instils as much dogma as the infant mind is capable of receiving and the Kenyon-Slaney Clause will allow him to impart. Then come two hours of what is by courtesy termed "theological reading," and really consists in the careful preparation, with the aid of commentaries, concordances, and tobacco, of the toonumerous sermons, addresses, and Bible-lessons, which the modern Parson, irrespective of all natural qualification, is expected to deliver. Then comes dinner-not, as a rule, a luxurious feast, for the housekeeper of a Clergy-house is generally chosen for age, misfortune, and church-going habits rather than for culinary skill; then a lounge, a chat, another pipe; and then a long afternoon of that indefatigable house-to-house visitation which is the peculiar strength of the Church's system and the foundation of her popularity in poor districts. Then tea, then more visiting, designed to catch the men who are at work in the afternoon; and all the innumerable clubs, classes, and guild-meetings which form the social side of a clergyman's work. To leave the Word of God and serve billiard-tables is a E 66 66 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES necessity too often imposed upon the Town Parson; and it is just in this department of his work that a popular curate, fresh from Oxford or Cambridge, has so great a pull. As a rule his lay f riends stick to him in his new surroundings, and once or twice a week barristers leave their briefs, and officers their mess-rooms, and young sparks of fashion their balls and operas in order to lend a hand in social and educational work to a clerical "1pal " with whom, two or three years ago, they shared the fun of Bullingdon, or Vincent's, or the A.D.C. Hours in London are late-everything begins about an hour after its appointed time, and ends accordingly. It is past eleven by the time that our Parson gets back to his room and the delights of cocoa, tobacco, and talk with a brother-cleric of congenial tastes. Midnight strikes and the demands of to-morrow morning loom. But it is hard to curtail the only hours of the day which are left free for social enjoyment and safe from parochial interruption. And so the Parson burns the candle, in a literal sense, at both ends, and if he breaks down, breaks down, in my experience, much oftener from want of sleep than from excess of work or deficiency of food. "1The Church is worse than a Highwayman," bitterly said a worn-out priest of my acquaintance. "The Highwayman only said, 'Your money -or your life;' the Church says, 'Your money and your life,' and, by Jove, she gets them." THE TOWN PARSON 67 Such are some of the trials of the Town Parson's lot. What are his rewards? Let the following letter, received by Mr. Gladstone when Prime Minister, suggest the answer:" SIR,-Doubtless you do not often get a letter from a Working Man on the subject of clerical appointments, but as I here you have got to find a minister for to fill Mr. - 's place allow me to ask you to just go some sunday afternoon and here our little Curate Mr. - he is a good earnest little man and a genuine little Fellow got no humbug about him but a sound Churchman is an Extempor preacher and deserves promotion. Nobody knows I am writing this to you and it is not a matter of Kiss and go by faviour, but simply asking you to take a run over and then put him a step higher he deserves it. Now do go over and here him before you make a choise. We working men will be sory to loose him but we think he ought not to be missed promotion as he is a good fellow." CHAPTER X THE BISHOP WHEN the Ecclesiastical Commission was beginning to lay violent hands on the property of the Deans and Chapters, Sydney Smith wrote to Archdeacon Singleton: "1It is a long time since you heard from me, and in the meantime the poor Church of England has been trembling, from the Bishop who sitteth upon the throne to the Curate who rideth upon the hackney horse." For "1hackney horse " read "1Dunlop tyre " and the sentence will do as well now as when it was penned in 1838. Only here we turn it upside down, and, having discussed the Curate, we rise to more exalted themes and analyse the Bishop. Here let it be ea gerly admitted that the type has improved. One hundred and ten years ago the jaundiced eye of William Cowper thus regarded a clergyman thirsty for preferment, a Bishop in the making: "The wretch shall rise, and be the thing on earth Least qualified in honour, learning, worth, To occupy a sacred, awful post, In which the best and worthiest tremble most. The Royal Letters are a thing of courseA King, that would, might recommend his horse, 68 THE BISHOP 69 And Deans, no doubt, and Chapters with one voice, As bound in duty, would confirm the choice. Behold your bishop I well he plays his partChristian in name, and infidel in heart, Ghostly in office, earthly in his plan, A slave at Court, elsewhere a lady's man. Yet Providence that seems concerned t' exempt The hallowed Bench from absolute contempt, In spite of all the wrigglers into place, Still keeps a seat or two for worth and grace; And therefore 'tis that, though the sight be rare, We sometimes see a Lowth or Bagot there." For "Lowth or Bagot" read "Gore or Talbot" and the historic continuity of the English Episcopate is admirably exemplified. Forty years later a Canon of St. Paul's-a forerunner of our Newbolts and our Hollands-wrote: "Bishops live in high places with high people, or with little people who depend upon them. They hear only one sort of conversation, and avoid bold, reckless men, as a lady veils herself from rough breezes." Those words were written sixty years ago, but the testimony remains true, and "bold, reckless men " who talk of abuses and reforms seldom have an opportunity of breathing their thoughts into episcopal ears. The present writer is known as a friend of the "Inferior Clergy." In the austere refectories of Gothic Clergy-houses he is a frequent guest. He shares the cold beef and pewter-pot of the curate's lodging. Through the fumes of our after-dinner pipe we meditate upon the Church as it is and 70 70 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES as it might be. We think how nice we should look in a purple cassock, what public - spirited use we could make of a Palace, and how unselfishly we should spend our ~/5000 a year. We constantly study that last wonderful series of papers on "Church Difficulties," published by the S.P.C.K., which seeks to persuade the London artisans that their highest interests would suffer if the Archbishop of Canterbury drew less than ~15,o0o a year. We shed tears of respectful sympathy over that touching tale of harsh exaction patiently endured which "1A Diocesan Bishop " contributed to the series. We admire when we read that it cost his lordship ~62500 to settle himself comfortably in his new house, and wonder if we could have done it more cheaply We are interested to learn that the most hideous of all known costumes, the episcopal "Magpie," costs ~ioo0, and we fancy that Mrs. Bishop could have stitched together something more comely at less cost. Hospitality to the tune of ~62000 a year rather staggers us, for our own modest housekeeping assures us that a great deal of bread and cheese and beer and mutton can be procured for a very moderate figure. About the expenses incidental to such patriarchal appendages as wives and chi ldren-ball -gowns for the girls and cigars for the boys-we do not presume to dogmatize; and we are quite prepared to believe the "Diocesan Bishop" when he assures us that "stables are almost a necessity, and in THE BISHOP 71 some respects a saving." So we had all schooled ourselves into a very proper state of mind; we had persuaded ourselves that things are well as they are, and that " Purple, Palaces, Patronage, Profit, and Power" (as Sydney Smith enumerated them) were not only very nice for those who enjoyed them, but were, in some mysterious way never quite explained, inextricably involved in the well-being of our Apostolic Church. But events have been happening within the last two years or so which have tended to disturb this optimistic calm. We hear disturbing rumours about the newer Bishops. We are told that they are beginning to set their faces against the solemn plausibilities which have accumulated round their office. They are trying to act, when Bishops, on the principles which they professed when Priests. They are trying to illustrate Christian Socialism by practical life-not merely by reading The Commonwealth and subscribing to the C.S.U., lamenting that there is no money for Old-age Pensions because it has been spent on the South African War, or ingeminating "Temperance Reform" while they support a political party enslaved to the liquor-trade. The newer Bishops are trying to get rid of " palatial residences" and to live in modest houses in accessible places, where they can see and be seen by the clergy and laity. The all-conquering parlour-maid is routing the purple retinue which in other days opened a bishop's front door and ushered the trembling curate into 72 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES the episcopal study. The tram and the bicycle are replacing that stable which the "Diocesan Bishop" found such a saving. "The stair-carpets at Farnham Castle are measured by miles," moaned Bishop Thorold. "My episcopal income goes in Pelargoniums," murmured Bishop Stubbs. "It takes ten chaps to keep this place in order," cried a more vernacular prelate, as he surveyed his lawns. But, if the levelling example of some recent Bishops " catches on," all these will soon be voices of an unreturning past. Farewell to Lambeth, with its Guard-room, and Fulham, with its pleasure-grounds, and Farnham, with its deer-park, and Wells, with its moated garden. We have been taught that these things endeared the Church to the toiling masses and cheered the laborious curate in his dingy lodging. But if the rash career of episcopal innovation is to go unchecked, they will not long survive. Instead of them, we shall see square, commodious houses of red brick, with "gravelled sweeps" and stunted laurels. A buttony boy will discharge the functions of the stately gate-porter, and a neat damsel in a white cap will carve the episcopal sirloin and pour the foaming lemonade; and where, not many years ago, the Prince-Bishop rolled from his castle to the parish church in a coach-and-four, his successor will trudge through the mud, or scale the knife-board of the 'bus, bearing in his own apostolic hands the sacred appliances of mitre or " magpie." THE BISHOP 73 And when these things come to pass, they will be only the outward signs of more momentous change. In 1843, Dr. Hook, of Leeds, the greatest parish priest in the Church of England, as Mr. Gladstone called him, wrote thus to Bishop Wilberforce: "We want not proud lords, haughty spiritual peers, to be our bishops. Offer four thousand out of their five thousand a year for the education of the people, and call upon the more wealthy of the other clergy to do the same, and a fund is at once provided. Let Farnham Castle and Winchester House and Ripon Palace be sold, and we shall have funds to establish other bishoprics. Let the Church do something like this, and then the Church will live in the hearts of the people, who now detest her.... You see I am almost a Radical, for I do not see why our bishops should not become poor as Ambrose or Augustine, that they make the people really rich." Those who remember the most popular prelate in Society will have no difficulty in believing that this suggestion met with a very chilling response. CHAPTER XI THE PAINFUL PREACHER THE phrase is Elizabethan, and, rightly understood, not invidious. An eminent physician1 (highly to be honoured for the number of Board-School children whom he rescued from overwork and blindness) would perhaps use it in a different sense, for he has recently had his righteous soul vexed by the Foolishness of Preaching. He uttered his complaint at Congresses and Institutes, and when rebuked by indignant clergymen he only reaffirmed that "the Silly Sermon is still a painful fact." "Are Sermons Silly?" would have been an excellently appropriate topic for discussion during the "Silly Season"; fit to rank with "Is Marriage a Failure? " "Ought we to eat meat? " and even with the grand and all-embracing simplicity of "What is Wrong?" We have already traced the Preacher through the earlier stages of his development as Schoolboy and Undergraduate. Bishop Thirlwall composed sermons (which were afterwards published) in his seventh year. Charles Kingsley preached from the nursery table at ten. Dr. Liddon, ere yet he had 1 Sir James Crichton-Browne. 74 THE PAINFUL PREACHER 75 gone to school, composed the most heart-searching discourses, and inscribed them, with touching devotion, to his maiden aunt. But such instances of homiletic precocity are, for good or for evil, rare; and we may safely assume that, even of those who look towards Holy Orders as their work in life, the large majority reach their twenty-second or twenty-third year in virginal innocence of the art of sermon-composing. In enumerating a clergyman's qualifications, Frederick Robertson reckoned, by a pleasing paradox, "that knowledge of evil which comes, not of contact with it, but of repulsion from it." An undergraduate's knowledge of sermons is generally of the same description. A sense of the unseemly absurdity involved in dragging an untaught youth from the River, the Cinder-track, or the A.D.C., and placing him in a tower above the heads of a mixed company of people old enough to be his grandparents, with instructions to correct, exhort, and teach them for twenty minutes twice every Sunday, has at length dawned on the mind of the English Episcopate. Bishops nowadays urge candidates for Orders to spend a year at a Theological College, where they may acquire, at any rate, the elements of theology, the technical rules for composing a written address, and the rudiments of voice-production. Thus equipped, our B.A. is ordained Deacon, and becomes a curate, perhaps one of several, perhaps single-handed, under an incumbent who may or may not be willing to take the main share of the 76 76 SOCIAL SILHOUETITES week's sermons. And now our curate's troubles begin-now is the trial of the budding Preacher, and now is the righteous soul of Sir J. CrichtonBrowne (and of others like him) vexed by the Foolishness of Preaching. I too have shared the affliction; but suffer me, as a dutiful son of the Church of England, to point out that herein the Church itself is blameless. I turn to my Prayerbook (which, excepting the Bible, is the last book which an ordinary Englishman ever reads), and I look at the promises which the Church, by the mouth of the Bishop, demands from the youth who comes to be ordained Deacon: "BISHOP: It appertaineth to the Office of a Deacon, in the church where he shall be appointed to serve, to assist the Priest in Divine Service, and specially when he ministereth the Holy Communion, and to help him in the distribution thereof, and to read Holy Scriptures and Homilies in the church, and to instruct the youth in the Catechism; in the absence of the Priest, to baptize infants, and to preach, if he be admitted thereto by the Bishop. Will you do this gladly and willingly? "ANSWER: I will do so, by the help of God." Now it will be observed that this promise binds the Deacon to very little in the way of preaching. He is to read the Bible in church, and Homilies (which are not of his own composing), and to catechize; and then, as a kind of extra duty, to preach if the THE PAINFUL PREACHER 77 Bishop licenses him to do so. Unfortunately, his Bishop always licenses him, and the supposed necessities of parochial work require him, to preach. Some of the more reasonable Bishops direct that during the year of his diaconate the newly-ordained curate shall preach only once a month, so that he may have some margin of time for study; but too often that passion for incessant sermon-hearing which characterizes English religion constrains the wretched youth to preach once or twice every week. The year of his diaconate elapses. His theological education is now considered complete. He passes the Bishop's final examination, is raised to the Priesthood, and then, with the proud consciousness that he can never again be subjected to examination, even though he lives to be a hundred, " Leaps the wild stream, and revels to be free." In plain prose, all limitations on his preaching are removed, and henceforward, for the term of his natural life, he will preach twice every Sunday, and certainly once, and probably oftener, during the week. No wonder that the Foolishness of Preaching is still, as in St. Paul's time, a recognized reality -no wonder that too often the preacher is "painful" in the invidious sense. But here again I must protest that the Church of England is free from blame. The appetite for preaching is a product of Puritanism, which, having substituted for the beauty of Divine 78 78 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Worship what Matthew Arnold called "the most dismal performance ever invented by man," turned to Preaching in sheer despair for the needed element of brightness and interest in its public devotions. The passion for sermons-imported, as I believe, from Geneva-struck deep root in our national character. We think ourselves aggrieved unless we have a considerable sermon both at morning and at evening service on Sunday, and never think of going to a week-day service unless the praying is to be followed by preaching, To this base passion of our fallen nature the clergy pander even shamefully. In season and out of season, they preach and preach and preach; although the large majority of themn have, from the necessities of the case, very little to say, and, if they had, could not say it. It is the tyranny of the Puritan tradition that cries aloud for sermons, and the incessancy of the demand makes the Foolishness of Preaching. Yet once again the Church is blameless. The Church does not demand, does not even suggest, a sermon at morning or evening prayer. The only sermon which the Church of England knows is the sermon appointed to be delivered, after the Creed and before the Offertory, in the service of the Holy Communion. Thus the Church sanctions only one sermon on each Sunday, and even then provides that the clergyman, if he prefers it, may read an authorized homily. One Sermon on the Sunday. That is the Church's rule. But we THE, PAINFUL PREACHER 7 79 require at least two, often three, and sometimes two in the week as well. The clergy are weak enough to comply with our demand; but the resulting Foolishness of Preaching is our fault and not theirs. Among the worst offenders in this way of unauthorized preaching are the Bishops, who insist, in defiance of rubrics, on interpolating into the Service for Confirmation two long and generally rather feeble sermons, which, though thinly disguised under the name of "Charges," still display the true characteristics of Preaching. If only the clergy would harden their hearts to defy our morbid appetites and would return to the Church's rule of one sermon for each Sunday and no more, the preaching power of the Church's ministry would be abundantly adequate to the moderate demand made upon it, and the Sermon would resume its modest place as an adjunct to Divine Worship, instead of, as now, monopolizing the interest and the attention. After all said and done, the Church's object in gathering Christians together on the first day of the week is worship, and worship is not preaching. A good sermon may incite to worship and may help it. A bad sermon may arouse the worst passions of churchgoing nature. But the best sermon which was ever preached on earth is no substitute for "the Lord's Service on the Lord's Day." Vidimus ste/lam Ejus in oriente, et venimus adorare Eum. CHAPTER XII THE POPULAR PREACHER THE " Popular Preacher " was a favourite figure in Victorian fiction and satire, but the type seems to have undergone profound modifications. The Preacher is still with us, and as popular as ever; but it is difficult to trace a resemblance to his prototypes as drawn with pen by Dickens, with pencil by Leech, and with both pen and pencil by Thackeray. In all those presentments of the Popular Preacher, physical and sartorial attributes play leading parts. Dickens, describing the fascinating curate, says that he "parted his hair in the centre of his forehead in the form of a Norman arch, wore a brilliant of the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand (which he always applied to the left cheek when he read prayers), and had a deep, sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity." Charles Honeyman passed through some theological vicissitudes, but after he had taken to Puseyism he "diffused an odour of Millefleurs as he passed from the pew to the vestry and took his place at the desk. His scarf was trimmed down to be as narrow as your neckcloth, and hung loose and straight over the back; the ephod was 8o THE POPULAR PREACHER cut straight and as close and short as might be, with a little trimming of lace to the narrow sleeves and a slight arabesque of tape round the edge of the surplice." The Rev. L. Oriel, the pet clergyman of "Our Street," was distinguished by "the immense height of his forehead, the rigid asceticism of his surplice, and the twang with which he intoned the service." Kingsley's friend, Mr. O'Blareway, the popular preacher of Steamingbath, was discovered, after he had married the opulent widow, to be " not quite so young as he appeared, his graces being principally owing to a Brutus wig." Lord Beaconsfield's ideal Ritualist, Mr. Smyllie, who was Private Chaplain to Lothair, was "attended by acolytes and censed by thurifers, while his ecclesiastical wardrobe furnished him with many-coloured garments suited to every season of the year and every festival of the Church." Apart from these characteristics of feature and garb, the Popular Preachers of fiction were always in delicate health. It was either a morbid trait in the public feeling of the time, or at least a well-recognized convention, to regard bodily sickness in a clergyman as contributing largely to his spiritual efficiency. Dickens is careful to describe his popular curate as suffering from a consumptive catarrh. Mr. Sherrick, when multiplying the attractions of Lady Whittlesea's restored chapel, instructed Charles Honeyman to cough during the Prayers. "The women like a consumptive parson, F 82 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Sir" Young Oriel at Mrs. Chauntry's party heaves a deep sigh and reels, moaning-" I took a little water and a parched pea after Matins. To-morrow is a flesh-day, and I shall be better then." Another characteristic of the Popular Preacher in fiction is that he is frankly and secularly avaricious. He lets the cellars under his chapel for wine-vaults. His daily study is to "suit the Gospel to the aristocracy-" His mental eye is always fixed on his pew-rents. His theology and ritual vary with the varying demands of the pew-renting public. And, lest the writer of fiction should be accused of sordid misrepresentation, Archbishop Magee, when the Popular Preacher of the Octagon Chapel at Bath, thus communed with a spiritual brother: "I am, I fear, a fixture here for life, fishing always in my little glass bowl of an Octagon for such gold and silver fishes as can be coaxed into it." And ten years later he wrote to the same confidant: "As to promotion, I am trying to put it out of my head, and to settle down contentedly to ~300 a year and six children." Now all these characteristics of the Popular Preacher have entirely and simultaneously disappeared. There are plenty of Popular Preachers in London, and they preach all manner of theologies and appeal to the most widely different audiences. But no one cares a rap about their personal appearance-the way they part their hair, THE POPULAR PREACHER 83 or the texture of their surplices, or the colour of their stoles. Then the Popular Preachers of to-day are physically robust. It is not thought the least interesting to cough, or swoon, or cling to the gas-jet over the pulpit for support. A Popular Preacher who is a little out of sorts conceals the infirmity as pluckily as though he were a soldier or an actor. A change seems to have passed over the appetite of church-goers, and doctrine is no longer rendered more acceptable by hectic or cardiac accompaniments. Once again, the Popular Preacher is, so far as a critic can judge, perfectly indifferent to money. He does not, as far as I can see, "tune the pulpit" to suit his audience. I have known preachers in very "aristocratic" churches who did not conceal their Radicalism; preachers who were on excellent terms with scientific men, and yet openly denounced vivisection; preachers who thundered against the iniquities of the moneymarket over rows of open-handed stockbrokers. I wish I could add that I remember one who denounced the South African War to a congregation packed with Imperialists and Jingoes; but in this matter my experience resembles that of Mr. Silvester Horne and Mr. Mudie Smith.1 Having so far described my Popular Preacher by negatives, let me proceed to a more positive characterization. How does the Popular Preacher emerge? In other words, how does he become popular? There are two roads to the position of I These gentlemen stated that the Church encouraged the War. 84 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Popular Preacher-the one parochial, the other academic. The Popular Preacher who has been parochially bred is rather a rare bird. The conditions of a curate's life-already sufficiently indicated in these pages-do not conduce to successful preaching. And, even though the curate had the gifts of Chrysostom or Gregory Nazianzen, he would emerge with difficulty from the parochial system. The one deep conviction held in common by all incumbents--High, Low, and Broad-is that young men want keeping in their proper places, and that the natural sphere for the curate's activity is the Children's Service on Sunday afternoon or the lecture for District Visitors and maid-servants on Wednesday evening. If these ministrations can be performed at some distant District Church or obscure Mission Chapel, so much the better for the mental peace of the incumbent, who loves neither novelty in doctrine nor competition in popularity. Now and then-once or twice in twenty years-a curate breaks his low estate's invidious bar and secures recognition as a Popular Preacher. The greatest preacher in London at this moment has been a curate at St. Alban's, Holborn, for more than forty years. But in the large majority of cases a man has no chance of making his preaching power known until he has a pulpit of his own. When, by whatever methods, he has attained to that desired eminence, a little circle gathers round him; pushes, praises, and puffs him on every conceivable occasion. So THE POPULAR PREACHER 85 the ex-curate must exchange obscurity and irresponsibility for a conspicuous position and a duty which tries to the uttermost the stuff of which he is made. But this method of approaching the position of " Popular Preacher " answers admirably well, as the history of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, and Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, and St. Michael's, Chester Square, during the last thirty years sufficiently attests. I have hardly ever known a religious power so strong and so enduring as that which was exercised by the present Bishop of St. Andrews over the beliefs and lives of his Belgravian congregation between 187o and 188o. But the more usual road to Popularity as a Preacher is academic. The Canonries of St. Paul's and the Abbey, and such independent posts as the Mastership of the Temple and the Preachership of Lincoln's Inn, generally go to persons of more or less academical fame. A young clergyman, with a good degree, an easy Fellowship, and not very much to do in college, has an excellent opportunity of learning to preach. Perhaps he attaches himself to a Bishop; perhaps his bosom friend is a Cabinet Minister's son; perhaps he publishes a little book of nambypamby theology and dedicates it to a great personage-" the sort of book," said Dr. Liddon of a volume inscribed by a disciple to Bishop Westcott-" the sort of book which a Little Fog writes and inscribes to the Great Fog." But, 1 The Right Rev. G. HI. Wilkinson. 86 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES let the method be what it will, the academical preacher sooner or later gets access to a London pulpit, and then, if he has the real gift, he is fairly launched on his career as Popular Preacher. And now comes the interesting comparison between the parochially-bred and the academically-bred preacher. What is the difference? What is the similarity? At first the academical gentleman is a little more inclined to air his culture. He gives us views about readings and manuscripts; diffuses himself over the history of the Roman Empire, and goes to Plato for the solution of the problems which beset modern society. But all this passes off in time. The learned gentleman discards his culture, partly because it begins to bore his hearers; partly because his unlearned neighbour can do it as well with the aid of two cribs, a "handbook" and a "skeleton"; and partly-the best reason of all-because he is in earnest about his work, and quickly realizes that burdened hearts and troubled consciences want more effective relief than can be supplied by the topography of Asia Minor or the speculations of the Gnostics. The characteristic which all the Popular Preachers of the day have in common is earnestness. They speak as men speak who are convinced of what they say, and therefore they never lack congregations. There is very little in their preaching to catch the itching ear. The Bishop of Birmingham THE POPULAR PREACHER 87 was perhaps the most popular preacher in London when he was Canon of Westminster, and his deficiencies in the way of literary style were actually ludicrous. Canon Newbolt reads polished periods from reams of manuscript. Dr. Holland has an art of manipulating the English tongue which is all his own. But, taking them as a whole, the Popular Preachers care almost as little for oratorical form as for the arrangement of their hair or the cut of their surplices. They preach with the vigour, the explicitness, and the earnestness of men who are pleading their hardest for truth and purity and righteousness. The Popular Preacher of to-day by no means confines himself to dogma, but takes a wide and liberal survey of human life. A youth fresh from Oxford was dragged by an enthusiastic friend to hear a famous preacher at the West End. It was Trinity Sunday, and the preacher chose the special subject of the day. After service the Oxford youth, deep in the theology of the Pusey House, confessed some disappointment; to which his friend replied, "Well, yes, it was unlucky. You see that isn't exactly - 's subject. But last Sunday, he was simply splendid-on Motoring." All that the novelists saw and satirized--vanity, effeminacy, sickliness, avarice, and pose-has disappeared. The Popular Preacher has shed all his external attributes, but he remains a visible fact in the life of modern London. What is the explanation? It is simply the old, old story. The troubles of 88 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES the human soul are much the same in one age as in another, and the word which throws a light, however misty or broken, over the unseen realities will never lack its hearers. It is for that reason that Arthur Ingram, Bishop of London, is the most popular preacher in the Church of England. CHAPTER XIII THE JOURNALIST A NONCONFORMIST minister, who renounced his ministry and took to journalism, told me that the motive of his change was that he desired to "Ipreach to a wider congregation." That cacoethes piradicandi-that earnest desire to exhort, reprove, instruct, and edify-has determined many a journalistic career. It is a desire which manifests itself early, and when once it has rooted itself in the mental system it grows with the growth and strengthens with the strength-like that "fell disease"~ of which the poet wrote. I have just been turning over some volumes of a monthly journal conducted by the boys of a great Public School. Of course the columns devoted to news contain a vast deal of athletic intelligence, together with some very scanty references to scholarships and prizes; but the editorial columns are profoundly didactic. Each article is headed, and I take some of the headings at random-" Brbr, " Secular Education," "1 Ecclesiastical Patronage," "Degeneration," "1Papal Infallibility," "1Irish Land Laws," "1Military Organization," "The Rival Claims of Literature and Science." On each of these 89 90 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES rather massive themes the very young Lions of the editorial staff roar impressively. Some of the articles are really quite good, and urge an intensely conservative view of society and politics with point and cogency. But the striking characteristic of all the articles, good and bad alike, is Seriousness. The writers are evidently impressed by the profound importance of the topics which they handle, and do their utmost to win the assent of their school-fellows, even when the topics, such as Patronage and Infallibility, lie a good way off the beaten track of schoolboys' interests. I feel convinced that some of the writers will develop into Journalists. They will go to Oxford or Cambridge, dabble in Essay Societies, speak at the Union, write for University and College magazines, perhaps even try their 'prentice-hands in the columns of the local press; and when they have got their degrees they will try, through the good offices of parents or friends-an uncle who holds a large share in the paper, or a sister who is on affectionate terms with the editor's wife -to annex themselves to some organ of light and leading; and then, once launched, they will begin to preach in good earnest. A Journalist of this type once said to me, with all imaginable gravity, "1 should, I confess, resent any change which interfered with my position as chief opinionformer in the neighbourhood of "-Leeds or Plymouth, or whatever was the name of his town. The man who wishes to preach to a wide congre THE JOURNALIST 91 gation and regards the newspaper as his natural and appropriate pulpit is the Journalist by Vocation. Only two years ago a boy in the Sixth Form of a Public School said, in reply to the usual question "What are you going to do?" "I shall put in four years at Balliol, and then I shall join the staff of the Times." There spoke the Journalist by Vocation. But if some of us become Journalists because we feel irresistibly attracted to the profession, some of us do the same because we can do nothing else. The late Master of Trinity,' preaching in Trinity Chapel on the Parable of the Talents to a congregation which thinks itself the most intellectual in the world, began his discourse by saying, " It would be out of place to expatiate on the wholly exceptional case of those persons who have five, or even two, talents. I shall therefore confine myself to the more ordinary case of those who have One Talent." Well, that one talent is the total capital with which most of us leave the University, and there are some who fancy that their exiguous stock can be turned to better advantage in journalism than in any other field. Then again there is a class which may be said to have not one talent but a fraction of a talentnot a gift for journalism as a whole, but for some special subdivision of the craft. Thus one can describe a boat-race, another a procession, a third a scene in the House. One can be "Mainly 1 W. H. Thompson. 92 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES wrong about People" at home, and another has a mysterious correspondent at the Vatican or the Kremlin. We all know that within the last thirty years fame and fortune have been built up on descriptions of the personal appearance of M.P.'s, and humorous delineations of such incidents as A. sitting on his hat or B. blowing his nose with a red silk handkerchief. This is Specialized Journalism, and it has its reward. "Society Journalism" is also special. It may be done from the outside, by an ingenious collation of snippets from " London Letters" and "Ladies' Columns"; only then it is apt to lack both actuality and freshness. It may be done from the inside; but then the unfortunate result too often is that the writer is detected, disliked, and dropped; and then he has to join his shivering brethren outside. "Ah," said Matthew Arnold, with his sweetest smile, to a youth who had just got an article into a Society Journal of great renown, 1" I hear you have become one of --'s hired Stabbers." The Stabber deserves his fate; but it is hard on Tom Garbage, after he has done his best to write amiably, to get his knuckles rapped for writing at all. I remember an occasion, in the period of Mr Gladstone's profoundest unpopularity-circiter 1887-when a Tory, who had been on friendly terms with him in his prosperity, asked him to dinner, but in a cautious and Nicodemus-like manner. Tom Garbage had the honour of being invited to the party, and, THE JOURNALIST 93 inebriated with glory (though with nothing else), announced in his column that, notwithstanding political disagreements, the Liberal leader had dined with his old friend. Poor Tom never crossed the threshold of the "old friend's" house again. Highly special, too, is Sporting Journalism, and it is most distinctively marked by the reluctance, strong in all journalists but strongest in Sporting Journalists, to call anything by its proper and simple name. To the Sporting Journalist a boatrace or a cricket-match is "The Battle of the Blues," Lord's is "the green-sward in St. John's Wood," the Derby is "The National Carnival." "The willow," "the leather," "the sticks," "the pig-skin," "the woods," and "the haling-way" disguise with playful art bats and balls and stumps and bowls and saddles and towing-paths; and a crew which rows from Cambridge to Ely is said, in mouth-filling phrase, to "travel to the Cathedral City" For the fine flower of this jargon, blooming in a poetic parterre, the reader is referred to Mr. Quiller Couch's " Ballad of the Jubilee Cup." Another highly specialized form of journalism is the Ecclesiastical, and in this department it may be remarked that a complete and manly ignorance is regarded as no disqualification for the work. Rather it seems to stimulate journalistic activity by opening up the richest possibilities of fancy and conjecture. It is increasingly the fashion for secular papers to describe religious 94 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES services, and a perusal of these descriptions leads one to suppose that the writers have never entered a church except in pursuit of their business. Being true Britons, they realize the importance of Preaching. They quite understand what a sermon is, and they report it with more or less intelligent care-especially if they can get a loan of the manuscript. But of what goes before or after the sermon-the nature of the service celebrated, the meaning of the forms and ceremonies observed, the point and purpose and compass of the whole proceeding-they write as lucidly as a Board-School child might have written about the historical and liturgical aspects of the Coronation. Not long ago a daily paper, describing the Three Hours' Service on Good Friday at St. Alban's, Holborn, remarked, with immense significance, "No incense was used "-which is much the same as saying, in a description of a funeral, "There were no wedding-favours." Another paper, of which I am a devoted reader, describing the Bishop of London's Advent Ordination at St. Paul's, gave a full report of the sermon, and wrote with palpitating sympathy about the pale faces and solemn eyes and snowy surplices of the candidates for Orders, and ended thus: "The procession was closed by the Bishop in his cope and mitre, the only incongruous figure in the scene." To describe the ordaining Bishop as " incongruous " at his ordination is surely a fine touch of Specialized Journalism. CHAPTER XIV THE FADDIST WE have spoken of the Preacher in the pulpit and the Preacher in the newspaper. There remains another type, the Preacher on the Platform-the Man of Causes,-in more invidious phrase, "The Faddist." "Poor fellow," said the dying Arminius of Matthew Arnold, "he had a soft head,' but I valued his heart." The circumstances of my life have made me acquainted with a vast number of people to whom that dichotomy would apply; and my more worldly friends have not hesitated to insinuate it against myself, when they have traced my wandering footsteps from platform to platform, and have heard me pleading with equal passion for all (or nearly all) the Fads. In one respect, and one only, the Faddist resembles the Barrister. "Time writes no wrinkle on his azure brow." In more prosaic phrase, the lapse of years, and even of generations, makes little or no difference in the outward man. It was a profound distress to Charles Kingsley that in the early days of the 95 96 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Co-operative Movement, when a clean-shaven lip and chin were still regarded as the indispensable badges of a rational Englishman, he was constantly associated with bearded men; and, at a time when the Roast Beef of Old England still held its bad eminence, his fellow-workers lived on pickles and pancakes. One day, at an important deputation to a Minister of State, a leading Cooperator appeared in a straw hat and blue plush gloves. "As if," said Kingsley in the bitterness of his soul-" as if we shall not be abused enough for what we must say and do, without being saddled with mischievous nonsense of this kind." To control the operations of commerce is beyond even the power of the Faddists, and blue plush gloves are, I believe, no longer procurable. If they were, I know full well that my comrades of the Platform would wear them; and as it is, I constantly find myself cheek by jowl with the lineal descendants of Mr Quale, who co-operated with Mrs. Jellyby in her African labours, and launched the project of teaching the natives to turn pianoforte-legs and establish an export trade. He was "a loquacious young man, with large shining knobs for temples, and his hair all brushed to the back of his head." I spend many fruitful hours in the company of such as Mr. Quale. It is obviously impossible, when we are discussing the Faddist, to ignore the female element, for womenkind supply the whole audience at the gatherings of the Faddists, and not seldom over THE FADDIST 97 flow the platform. An occasional male, peeping in furtively at the back of the hall or gazing down from the top gallery, seems to anticipate the fate of those who profaned the mysteries of Bona Dea, and swiftly disappears. The chairman smiles seraphically on the assemblage. Mrs. Jellyby and Mrs. Pardiggle are seated on his right; on his left is young Mr. Quale, pallid and tremulous with suppressed oration, and in front of the platform a grey-black sea of waterproof spreads, wave behind wave, to the remotest recesses of the hall. For a man to criticize women's dress is to court destruction. It must therefore suffice to say that a woman addicted to "Causes" can be recognized among a thousand; and when she is assembled in force her gleaming glasses and her uncompromising hat--sometimes her uncovered and closely-cropped head--afflict with a kind of stage-fright the most hardened orators of the platform. Of "Causes," as the enthusiasts call them"Fads," as their detractors say,-Modern England has a glorious variety, and I cultivate friendly relations with the advocates of all. " I have looked in the face of the Bore, The voice of the Simple I know; I have welcomed the Muff to my door, I have sat by the side of the Slow." And the curious part of it is that they are all exactly like one another. Each man--I need G 98 98 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES not add each woman-believes with his whole heart and soul and mind and strength that in his particular Cause and no other is involved the real prosperity of the human race. This is the faith which removes mountains; which fills collecting-plates; which fortifies us against the dog-days' torrid glare and November's damp and fog; which keeps our spirits cheerful even with half-filled rooms and irresponsive audiences. "Was it a large meeting?" "Well, no; the hall wasn't much more than a quarter full, and there was a good deal of room in the gallery." "Then perhaps it was influential?" "Well, I should say it was chiefly composed of maiden ladies and servant-girls. The curate looked in for a minute, but went out. No; I couldn't exactly call it influential, but it was a good meeting. There was a nice tone about it. It will help the Cause. I am very glad I came." Often indeed have I heard this cheerful note from the lips of a devoted Faddist whom no failure could daunt and no discouragement depress. The Faddist has a single eye to his fad, and Heaven forbid that I should say he has a double tongue. But it is undoubtedly true that the zeal of his Cause sometimes consumes his sense of accuracy, and that he says and writes a good many things which will not bear a too close criticism. Among all the Fads or Causes, there is none which appeals to me more forcibly than the movement against Vivisection; but I THE FADDIST 99 was a little aghast when a devoted servant of that Cause told me that some appalling statements, which had been put into my hands without reference or verification, were "what we term 'Platformi Facts.'" This new and distinct order of Fact roams at large over the platforms of all the "Causes." Exaggeration is their bane. Opposition to scientific cruelty is not strengthened by the reiterated declaration that every humane man must wear vegetarian boots. The FoodFaddist may distend himself with cheese and nuts, but he injures his Cause when he insists that beef-steaks tend directly to homicide. The Temperance-Faddist has, Heaven knows, a wide enough and a sad enough field to work in, without affirming that the Publican is licensed by the State to rob and murder the community. Then, again, as regards the woman's right to a Parliamentary vote-but here my constitutional timidity stays my hand. Time would fail me to tell of religious Causes and their champions-the Missionary Cause, the Church Reform Cause, the Christian Social Union Cause, and fifty other like unto them. All have their leaders, their platform, their literature, their friends; not seldom a journal devoted to their interests, often a "local habitation"-a hall or club where the adherents can foregather-and a "name" of greater or less brilliancy at the head of the List of Members. As, year in, year out, I watch these incessant 1O0 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES labours for absolutely unselfish ends-for Mr. Quale takes neither fee nor reward and Mrs. Pardiggle subscribes handsomely to the fund-I profess that I have nothing but respect for the Fads which the world despises, and for the Faddists who are so oddly dressed. If only their scattered energies could be combined into one organized movement for Social Reform, surely the world might be bettered. The isolations and detachments of all efforts for good make the chief strength of banded and cohesive evil. But just as I pen these words comes a budget of sorry news for those who, like myself, love the Causes. We had formed the highest expectations of the new Head Master of Eton. We believed him to be a Faddist of the purest dye. As soon as his strenuous rule began, there was to be an end of convention and commonplace. The Eton Beagles were to be abolished; the Eton boys were to be clothed in neat suits of Jaeger; "monkey-food" was to be their diet, the pure brook their beverage, and the balcony their sleeping-place. But all these heroic attempts to introduce our future Dukes and Premiers to the charms of the Simple Life prove to have been nothing more substantial than creations of the Faddists' fancy. The Eton boys are still to wear tall hats and round jackets and white waistcoats; still they are to devour legs of sheep and oxen; still to know "that poor creature, small beer"; still to sleep in cupboard-bedsteads; and THE FADDIST 1io still to take some portion of their pleasure in blood-sports. Oh! Canon Lyttelton, " Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare." On that article, at any rate, of the humanitarian creed I confess myself an irreclaimable Faddist. CHAPTER XV THE SOLDIER WE have been discussing various types of professional life and the changes which time has brought to them. We have spoken of the Schoolmaster, the Don, the Bishop, the Town Clergyman, and the Country Clergyman. We have left the Barrister on one side as being essentially unchanged by time or circumstance. Nullum tempus occurrit causidico. To-day I turn to another branch of professional life in which time has brought changes quite as marked as those of the clerical or the medical type. I am not thinking of the " scum of the earth," as the Duke of Wellington politely called the men who won his victories for him, but of that fine flower of English manhood, the "officer and gentleman." The alterations in this type are obvious enough to any one who recalls the fiction of thirty, forty, or fifty years ago. I cite Thackeray as my first witness. Colonel Newcome is indeed a most lovable character, but in drawing him Thackeray's pencil was guided by private affection. His typical soldier is not Colonel Newcome but Major Pendennis or Sir George Tufto. 102 THE SOLDIER10 103 "Selfish, brutal, passionate, and a glutton, too incorrigibly idle and dull for any trade but this, in which he has distinguished himself publicly as a good and gallant officer and privately for riding races, drinking port... and fighting duels. When he dies the Times will have a quarter of a column about his services and battles; four lines of print will be required to describe his titles and orders alone; and the earth will cover one of the wickedest and dullest old wretches that ever strutted over it." Then there was Lieutenant-Colonel Snobley the dragoon, who wore "1japanned boots and moustaches, lisped, drawled, and left the r-'s out of his words, and was always flourishing about, and smoothing his lacquered whiskers with a huge flaming bandanna that filled the room with a stifling odour of musk." Or take again Henry Kingsley's "1gigantic cavalry officer with three hundred pounds' worth of fripperies upon him," who began all his sentences by saying "1 Raw." Or, nearer our own time, take Quida's imaginary Life-guardsman, "1always rather more luxuriously housed than a young duchess," who laved his manly limbs in a bath filled entirely with scent, "11in which he splashed about like a Newfoundland dog in a pond." Or, yet once more, the ideal Grenadier (in flannels), whom another accomplished authoress described as "1a man dressed all in virgin white, like a lily, a dibutante, or a cricketer." Soldiers of this type, and of other types closely x104 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES related to it, prevail universally in mid-Victorian fiction, and it is not denied that they once existed in real life. Indeed, some scattered and belated survivals of the type are still to be recognized soon after Easter at Tattersall's or Sandown. The "Spring Captain," or officer of an inferior regiment-the Micky Brand of Miss Broughton's " Joan,"-who comes up to London for a week's amusement, with his flowing!moustache, tight trousers, and cover-coat - survives to remind a forgetful generation of an order which has passed away. A young mother once said to the present writer, "I am obliged to begin thinking of my boy's profession, for I consider that even an eldest son ought to have something to do. The profession which I should have liked for him is the army; but, then, in the army there's always the risk of war" Poor young mother! It is only too true. " There is always the risk of war," and it is a risk which, whatever terrors it inspires in the hearts of family and friends, has an irresistible fascination for the soldier himself. The one characteristic which the modern soldier has in common with his predecessor is bravery. The most spiteful satirists never ventured to represent the English officer as a coward. Even Thackeray, perhaps the most anti-military of all our fiction writers, concedes that "the high-born Grig rode into the entrenchments at Sobraon as gallantly as Corporal Wallop, the ex-ploughboy." THE SOLDIER Io5 Bravery, then, is the characteristic of the soldier in all ages, but in every other respect the change is absolute. The modern soldier is keen about his profession, in times of peace as well as on active service. It is no longer the fashion among soldiers to deride military knowledge, or scoff at scientific soldiering, or ridicule a subaltern who reads. The Germans have taught us better than that; for English soldiers have learnt, though they took some time in learning it, that the German triumph of 1870 was a triumph of culture. Men like Lord Wolseley and Sir Frederick Maurice and Sir Neville Lyttelton know the theory of their profession as well as they know its practice, and its history as well as its theory; and it is pleasant as well as just to add the Duke of Connaught to the list. And, as in the chief places of the army, so in the lower. Apart from the odious necessities of endless examination, young soldiers show a real zeal for military knowledge. It is no longer "swagger" to affect ignorance or to treat the regiment as a Social Club. Autumn manoeuvres at home and abroad, lectures on tactics, books on military history, even the dreariest disquisitions at the United Service Institute on gunnery or fieldkit, attract the young soldier of the period, who regards his profession as the serious business of his life. But this is only one change out of many. Another is the marked increase of human sympathy and fellowship between officers and men, io6 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES accompanied-immensely to the credit of all concerned-by discipline just as accurate and inflexible as in the good old days when five hundred lashes was the recognized punishment for insubordination on parade. It may surprise a milder generation to learn that as recently as 1846 a private of Hussars was flogged to death at Hounslow Barracks. In the present day every detail of the Private Soldier's life-religion and morals, health and exercise, food and clothing, education and recreation-is the subject of his officer's constant and personal care. The wholesome influences thus brought to bear act and react upon all ranks and grades, and life in the army is at once a more scientific and a more human business than would have been considered possible thirty or even twenty years ago. These changes in the military type have been accompanied by a marked diminution in outward "'pomp and circumstance." The splendour of uniform, even on state occasions, has palpably declined. Major Ponto would no longer have to pay -347 for young Wellesley Ponto's outfit, and the successors of Lieutenant Hornby in "u Ravenshoe" no longer " come pranking into the yard with two hundred pounds' worth of trappings on them." So also in private life. The officer whom satirists drew was always splendidly dressed, oiled and curled and scented and jewelled. Nowadays the soldier is markedly free from magnificence and ostentation. Dif THE SOLDIER 0o7 ferent regiments produce different types. The Guards are scrupulously well dressed but sedulously inconspicuous, and even in the Guards there are subdivisions. I remember to have heard a Grenadier say, with chilly friendliness, of a contemporary in the Coldstreams, that he was "not a bad fellow, but rather Coldstreamy." The Rifle Brigade cultivate an austere simplicity of garb, and the Gunners carry simplicity to the point of untidiness. The Cavalry Regiments, from the Blues downwards, retain a little more of the old flamboyancy; and the Cavalryman's way of walking, if nothing else, marks him out from the rest of mankind. The late Cardinal Howard, Edward Henry Howard (1829-1892), began life as a cornet in the 2nd Life Guards, and all who ever saw him sailing up St. Peter's at a Papal pomp must have recognized the "cavalry roll" beneath the scarlet robes of a Prince of the Church. CHAPTER XVI THE DOCTOR Quantum mutatus ab illo AEsculapio - vast indeed is the difference between the doctor who takes our temperature to-day and the doctor whom Dickens drew. The change, indeed, is not so noticeable on the higher rungs of the professional ladder. In Harley Street and Grosvenor Street and Brook Street, where dwell the Medical Baronet and the F.R.S., solemn plausibility still holds its own. The great Sir Tumley Snuffin, who supervised the nervous system of Mrs. Wittitterly; Dr Parker Peps, who fruitlessly incited poor Mrs. Dombey to make an effort; the genial Dr Jobling, who was Medical Officer to the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Insurance Company; the anonymous physician who was called in to Little Nell when she fainted, and left the company transported with "admiration of that wisdom which tallied so closely with their own "-these all have their descendants and representatives in the Faculty of to-day. "I seek to impose a yoke upon you that you may be truly free" was the aphorism, of almost Pauline dignity, with which an oracle of Cavendish Square 1o8 THE DOCTOR10 log dissuaded a dyspeptic patient from eating curried lobster at breakfast. The great men of the profession maintain the grand manner and impressive devices of the past. Still they roll to our door in the landau and pair; still they pay the timely compliment to the Family Practitioner, Mr. Pilkins, when they meet in consultation ("No one better qualified, I am sure," said Dr. Parker Peps, graciously. "1Oh! " murmured the Family Practitioner. "Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley." "11You are good enough," returned Dr. Parker Peps, "1to say so "). Still they recommend a diet at once light and nutritious; still they prescribe change of air, gentle exercise, a complete freedom from anxiety, and a winter in the South of France. Still they assure us that there is no appearance of danger, and, when the patient dies, murmur, with Ahe most magnificent gravity, "Of course, after what I said at my last visit, this catastrophe has not taken you by surprise." All this goes on every day as it has gone on from immemorial time, and will go on as long as human nature is subject to illness and amenable to humbug. But it is on the lower rungs of the professional ladder that the great change is seen. You might ransack the lecture-rooms of "1Bart's " and "11Mary's" and never light on a kinsman, however collateral, of Bob Sawyer, or Ben Allen, or Jack Hopkins. You might knock at every brass-plated door in Westminster or Southwark IIO SOCIAL SILHOUETTES and never evoke the ghost of Dr Haggage, who attended the birth of Little Dorrit in " the dirtiest white trowsers conceivable by mortal man, carpet slippers, and no visible linen." And, as in London, so also in the provinces. Gone for ever are the days when Mrs. Major Ponto regarded it as a high concession to allow that "one may ask one's medical man to one's table, certainly"-when the unexpected invitation to Mrs. Proudie's evening party first taught "old Scalpen, the retired apothecary and tooth-drawer, to regard himself as belonging to the higher orders of Barchester." All those cognate views of the Medical Profession as something morally and socially ignominious belong to an unreturning past. The young Medico of the present day is a pleasant youth of gentlemanlike manners, with a moustache, frock coat, and patent-leather boots; or, when he is off duty, a pink shirt, a particoloured suit, and tan shoes. As likely as not, he is a graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, and has brought away with him from the University what are called "nice tastes." He collects prints or china, paints in water-colours, or sings in a choir, and takes his blameless recreation at golf or lawn-tennis. Often he is a vigorous athlete; takes down a cricket-team to play his college, or represents his hospital against the "Spurs" or the "Wolves." Not seldom he is a sportsman; decorates his lodgings with the antlers of a stag which he has shot in Sutherland or helped to TH E DOCTOR I I I I hunt on Exmoor; seeks his pastime in the September stubbles, or even steals a day among his friends' pheasants after the fateful First of October has recalled the medical world to London. As soon as he is qualified (and by some mysterious hocus-pocus any stripling who has just scraped through his last examination is now called "Doctor") he seeks an appointment as House Physician or House Surgeon in a Hospital. If he is a youth of a calculating turn, he does not marry a nurse, charm she never so wisely; but, as soon as his appointment expires, joins himself to two like-minded friends, and the trio take a little house in some medical quarter, furnish it prettily, engage a decent cook, and live for five or ten years on a happy combination of hope, credit, and paternal cash. They dine out a good deal in medical houses, dance with the daughters of the heads of the profession, and wisely cultivate the social openings which home or school or college may have given them. There is nothing squalid, nothing derogatory, nothing Bohemian about all this. Not for our budding doctors are the joys of beer and All-Fours which delighted Dr Haggage, the pork chops and brandy on which Bob Sawyer feasted, or the "stunning gin-punch " which Sam Huxter proffered to Arthur Pendennis. They are smart, well-mannered, and well-educated young men. They know a good glass of champagne, and entertain prettily at fashionable restaurants. They frequent the opera 112 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES and criticize Mr. G. B. Shaw's plays, and they learn before they are thirty to practise that dignified self-restraint and that mysterious air of knowing a great deal more than they choose to say, which form so important a part of their professional equipment. And so, as the years glide on, the practice imperceptibly but really increases. The young doctor's intimate friends, indeed, expect to be doctored for nothing; but each patient whom, for Clifton's or Caius's sake, he has so tended goes all round the town saying in return that the doctor is the best chap in the world and a rattling good man at his job. This report, industriously circulated by a son in the army or a nephew at the Bar, soon makes its impression on the home. "Dr Parker Peps is getting very tiresome. He won't go out at night and won't leave his dinner, and always is out of London on Sunday." Or else, "Sir Tumley Snuffin is really too extortionate. He was attending me for a cold, and he asked my eldest girl how she was and charged two guineas for attending her. I shall certainly try some one cheaper, and Jack says he knows a capital young doctor who will look after the whole household for half a guinea a visit." And so our friend the young doctor makes his mark. He is not so busy as to be obliged to scamp his work, nor so rich as to be indifferent to the art of pleasing his patients. He comes early and late, on Sundays and on week-days; THE DOCTOR "13 cultivates a pleasant "bedside manner," is gravely attentive when there is serious illness to be dealt with, and tactfully sympathetic to all our whims and crotchets. His appearance, his voice, his social stamp, his liberal education, all stand him in good stead and deepen the favourable impression which his moderate charges first created. He becomes the friend as well as the adviser of one family after another; always increasing his circle of influence; scoring few failures and many recoveries; and so gradually establishing his name and fame. Then, rather suddenly, as I am informed, the money begins to flow in. The partnership is broken up. The Brass Plate bears one name alone. Presently it is transferred to a larger house; and then a judicious alliance with the only daughter of Sir Grosvenor Le Draughte brings with it ~30,ooo as well as the reversion of that eminent man's practice. "I am thinking," says Sir Grosvenor to his old patient the Dowager Lady Kew, "of laying down the burden of professional care and retiring to my roses. Of course it is not for me to dictate, but I think you would find something attractive in my son-inlaw, Dr. Pilkins; and he certainly is a thoroughly competent physician." H CHAPTER XVII THE ELDEST SON LET us hark back a little. Earlier in these pages we were discussing Public Schools and Universities, the life lived in them, and the results which they produce. We traced the development of the young Englishman of the upper classes from the round jacket and wide collar of the Fourth Form to the long-sleeved gown and furry hood of the bourgeoning B.A. We compassionated the sorry lot of the academic loafer who drifts through Oxford or Cambridge, takes his undistinguished degree, and then has to face the world with no particular vocation, qualification, or equipment. We drew by way of contrast the sedulous youth who chooses his career and works for it, and by the time he leaves the University is well on the road to Holy Orders, or the Bar, or Medicine, or Schoolmastering. Now we are to consider a more privileged type--the young man of great possessions, the youth who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the heir to entailed acres and accumulated Consols-in brief, THE ELDEST SON, whom no capitals are large enough to express with adequate 114 THE ELDEST SON "115 magnificence. It is, perhaps, only in a rather narrow circle that the phrase "Eldest Son" is habitually used to express a kind of profession-a well-recognized position, prospect, and function in life. I believe that I mentioned in a previous chapter the affecting instance of a very raw undergraduate, the eldest of fourteen children of a Perpetual Curate, who, when this jargon of "eldest son" and "younger son" first fell on his ears, exclaimed with modest pride, "I am an eldest "son"-as indeed, poor youth, he was. But for ears more experienced in the language of the world the phrase " an Eldest Son" has a definite and delightful meaning. As long ago as 1848 the young Matthew Arnold was misled by the voices of Revolution into writing thus "The hour of the hereditary peerage and Eldest Sonship and immense properties has, I am convinced, as Lamartine would say, struck." Amiable insanity! Sweet but baseless illusion! In these fifty and odd years many a fateful hour has struck on the dial of time, many a faith has failed, many an institution has collapsed. But the "hereditary peerage and Eldest Sonship and immense properties" flourish now as they flourished then; and the end is not yet. The divinity which doth hedge an Eldest Son begins at the cradle, or before it. The bare fact that he is a son-not an interloping and undesirable daughter-adds zest to the parental devotion. Like the infant Lord Farintosh, "he has but to SOCIAL SILHOUETTES roar, and his mother and nurses are as much frightened as though they had heard a Libyan lion." As soon as the Eldest Son can walk and speak he begins to realize who he is and what he is to be. "When Papa dies all this will be mine," said an amiable infant to his younger brothers and sisters as he surveyed the terraces of Proudflesh Park. "I shall let you girls live here, and I shall make Willie the Clergyman." Nurses and maids, butlers and footmen, grooms and keepers, all conspire to encourage in the heir-apparent this graceful sense of his position and his rights. If his parents are so misguided as to bring him up at home with a Private Tutor, his arrogance soon becomes unbearable; but, in the vast majority of instances, people are sensible enough to send their Eldest Son to school before the ambubaiarurn collegia of home have had time to spoil him utterly. It must be admitted that Sydney Smith, whose experience related to Winchester in the second half of the eighteenth century, seems to have doubted the efficacy of the prescription. "A Public School is thought to be the best cure for the insolence of the youthful aristocracy. This insolence, however, is not a little increased by the homage of masters, and would soon meet with its natural check in the world. There can be no occasion to bring five hundred boys together to teach a young nobleman that proper demeanour which he would learn so much better THE ELDEST SON Ii7 from the first English gentleman whom he might think proper to insult." Commenting on this curious passage, one of the keenest of living critics, himself an Etonian, says: "As to the ' homage of masters,' I do not believe in it. The University Don, especially if he be a Radical, has an inexplicable delight in pupils with handles to their names; but Eton masters, at all events, are too well acquainted with the commodity to appraise it above its value. Eton is thoroughly democratic, and a little rough handling is not a bad thing when bestowed upon 'Some tenth transmitter of a foolish face.'" From the Public School our Eldest Son proceeds perhaps to the Army, perhaps to the University, or perhaps travels round the world as a preparation for the legislative duties which a loyal county or an amenable borough will soon invite him to undertake. As to what befalls him in the regiment it is not for a mere civilian to speculate -only it may have struck the outsider who perused the account of recent disturbances in the Guards that a very special interest was displayed in the case of certain heirs-apparent who had been subjected to discipline; and, according to all reports, the claims of Eldest Sonship received marked consideration in the South African War Of the Universities I may speak more confidently, and there the devotion of a Don to an Eldest Son resembles that of a dog to a man; it is really I 18 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES touching in its simple self-abasement. "Rank is a fact," chirped a well-remembered Head of a famous College; and by that simple axiom he justified a servility which disgusted even its recipients. "Our duty is to acquire a salutary influence over those who one day will rule this country." This again was a maxim of tutorial conduct which covered the most nauseous toadyism. But all these forms of social homage culminate on the day when the Eldest Son comes of age. The celebration of "Lothair's" majority, though Lord Beaconsfield contrived to make it read like a Comedy of High Life, was really a transcript from the local press. Church and State, Bishops and Clergy, Mayors and Corporations, grateful tenants and dazzled neighbours-all the grades and classes of the social hierarchy -prostrate themselves before the Eldest Son in transports of joy at his kindness in having consented to live for twenty-one years on this unworthy globe. When the late Lord Bute came of age the Municipality of Cardiff went in procession to Cardiff Castle, leading in their triumphal train a goat which had been carefully instructed to do its part in glorifying the hero of the hour. It had been taught with infinite labour to spell out of a set of ivory letters the word B-U-T-E; and this the sagacious animal did, amid the loyal plaudits of the company. But the second stage of the performance was less successful. It was announced THE ELDEST SON 119 that the goat would indicate with unerring hoof the figures-200,ooo-which, applied to pounds, were understood to represent the hero's income. Eager eyes were fixed on the performance, and the witnesses were prepared to applaud with equal zeal the beast's sagacity and the man's opulence; but, whether as a protest against human snobbishness, or through a failure of memory, or from mere cussedness, the goat stopped at 200. Nor would the most urgent persuasions induce him to advance beyond that very modest figure. It needed but the alteration of a single word to make Cowper's eulogy beautifully applicable"Charmed with the sight, 'The world,' I cried, " Shall hear of this thy deed; My goat shall mortify the pride Of man's superior breed."' CHAPTER XVIII THE CANDIDATE FOR PARLIAMENT A PAINFULLY high-minded tutor at a Public School was bidding good-bye to a departing pupil who had been a good deal fonder of play than of work. After some conscientious reminders of shortcomings in the way of Iambics and Latin Prose, the tutor said. "However, we will let bygones be bygones; only, now that you are leaving us, pray remember in after-life that you cannot be happy as long as you are idle." "Well, sir," replied the graceless youth, "at any rate I can try " And for some five or six years he was as good as his word, succeeded beyond his best expectations, and had what he himself would have called "a cheery time." The youth in question belonged to that very numerous class who are sufficiently well-off to live without a profession and not rich enough to stand simply on their possessions or their expectations. In short, they are not ELDEST SONS in the full sense of capital letters, and therefore Society expects them at least to make a pretence of doing something. Besides, if they are good fellows they feel honestly ashamed of ostentatious 120 THE CANDIDATE FOR PARLIAMENT 1121 idleness, and therefore are compelled to look about for a career which shall combine the maximum of apparent energy with the minimum of actual effort. To a young gentleman of this type the career of a Parliamentary Candidate is admirably adapted. Let us reckon up the requisite qualifications. First and foremost, he must be ready to put down a thousand pounds for necessary expenses, and a good deal more if he means to contest a county; and he must be prepared to meet a daily stream of exactions from Registration Agents, Athletic Clubs, and Dissenting Chapels. But towards these unpleasant and too often unprofitable outlays assistance is sometimes forthcoming from Central Associations, local Bigwigs, or good-natured relations. It is not, indeed, necessary but highly desirable that the Candidate should have a handle to his name. Mr. Gladstone was accustomed to aver that a Lord was worth a hundred of a Commoner in any competition for a popular vote, and it was a true though a humiliating testimony Lord Magnus Charters, other things being equal, is an infinitely stronger candidate than Mr Percy Popjoy. However, in the imperfect condition of our social system we cannot all have titles, even by buying them; so the young gentleman who seeks a Parliamentary career often has to go before the electorate in the unadorned simplicity of his baptismal and paternal names. To have a very ordinary name is distinctly a hindrance, and lends 122 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES itself to tiresome jokes about "The Only Jones" and the like. "Smith for Ever" is no rallyingcry, nor does "Vote for Brown and Empire" quicken the patriotic pulse. But again, on the other hand, a youth who is cursed with an odd name, such as Juggins, or Churchyard, or Snooke, or Rabbits, had better change it by Royal Licence or else keep his money in his pocket. It is sheer waste of time and cash to go electioneering with a ludicrous surname. It is obvious that to be a good speaker-to have a melodious and far-reaching voice, a distinct enunciation, and a fluency of words-is a strong qualification; but it is neither so necessary nor so irresistible as the inexpert might suppose. I have known a torrential orator, who was ready to harangue at a moment's notice on any conceivable topic, and could have filled the Albert Hall without raising his voice, fail signally and dismally as a Radical Candidate, because he was always untidy, and not seldom dirty. We cannot all be clever, but we can all be clean; and if we are wise we shall make ourselves not only clean but smart before we go olectioneering. A few years ago Liberal politicians were weak enough to imagine that the really telling equipment for a democratic constituency consisted of a Norfolk jacket, a Scotch bonnet, and agricultural boots. Nay, I remember one who went canvassing in knickerbockers, scarlet stockings, and a jockeycap. If, in addition to these aberrations of garb, THE CANDIDATE FOR PARLIAMENT 123 the Candidate took a room in a slum, laid his own fire, and lived on sardines and cocoa, he fondly deemed himself irresistible. As a matter of fact, the constituents either detected that he was "trying it on with them " and loathed him accordingly, or else they simply contemned him as a harmless imbecile who played with politics as he might have played with a penny squirt. "'Arry Gushby puttin' up? What, 'im as lives at Buggins's Rents, close agin the Docks? Why, oo's a-goin' to vote for 'im? Gentleman, is 'e? And lives at Buggins's Rents! Why, 'e must be barmy, an' 'is friends ought to look after 'im." In some such derogatory formula as this a democratic elector of an East End constituency summarized the qualifications and prospects of a Fabian and a scholar who had consecrated his All to the service of the commonweal. Not so did the Radical Candidates of old time comport themselves. By far the most successful demagogue who ever found his way into Parliament and remained a Radical was Thomas Slingsby Duncombe (1796-1861), M.P. for Finsbury from 1834 till his death. And this was his appearance and method of appealing to his audience as described (with another name) by a young reporter called Charles Dickens. The scene is a public meeting in support of a Bill in Parliament, and a "grievous gentleman" has moved the resolution in a pathetic speech:"Then a dashing politician (who had been at 124 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Crockford's all night and who looked something the worse about the eyes in consequence) came forward to tell his fellow-countrymen what a speech he meant to make in favour of the Petition whenever it should be presented, and how desperately he meant to taunt Parliament if they rejected the Bill. After announcing this determination the gentleman grew jocular; and, as patent boots, lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a fur coat-collar assist jokes materially, there was immense laughter and much cheering, and, moreover, such a brilliant display of ladies' pockethandkerchiefs as threw the grievous gentleman quite into the shade." Well, here again the type has altered in its outward form, though its inner essence remains unchanged. The modern Candidate for Parliament does not wear "lemon-coloured kid gloves" or a "fur coat-collar," but if he is a wise youth he takes great pains with his appearance. I have known Candidates who hoped to carry all before them by aping the airs of Vikings and tossing a tawny mane back from their foreheads; but such performances only elicit cries of "Paddy-roosky" or " Keep your 'air on," and the performer is left at the bottom of the poll. The wise Candidate has his hair cut short and neatly brushed. A well-fitting frock coat creates a favourable impression, and a flower in the button-hole conduces to success. Of course a shiny tall hat is constitutionally indispensable. In every trifle of dress THE CANDIDATE FOR PARLIAMENT 125 and equipage and "turnout" generally, the Candidate should be as smart as his resources allowand certainly not least if he is wooing a Democracy. Good manners are even more important than good clothes. A pleasant smile covers a multitude of political sins, and a Candidate who remembers the names of his supporters without prompting and does not enquire after their deceased relations is sure of a deserved popularity. Above all, the Candidate must place his whole time at the service of the constituency. Of course he must attend political meetings in every village or ward, as the case may be. He must be equally ready to open the Wesleyan Bazaar and to give prizes at the Church Sunday School. He must be able to kick-off at a football match, sing a solo at a smoking concert, play cribbage with Ancient Buffaloes, and drink port wine which bears a trade-mark on the bottle. And all this must be done, not with the gloomy air of a perfunctory penance, but as if the Candidate really liked it-and so, as a matter of fact, he generally does. More than a hundred years ago, that sound Whig, William Cowper, described the incursion of Mr. William Wyndham Grenville, Tory Candidate for Bucks, when he came canvassing to the tranquil town of Olney. Perhaps my readers will thank me for sending them back to the most perfect book of letters in the English language. 126 126 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES " We were sitting yesterday after dinner, the two ladies and myself, very composedly and without the least apprehension of any intrusion in our snug parlour, when, to our unspeakable surprize, a mob appeared before the window, a smart rap was heard at the door, the boys halloo'd, and the maid announced Mr. Grenville. In a minute the yard, the kitchen, and the parlour were filled. Mr. G., advancing towards me, shook me by the hand with a degree of cordiality that was extremely seducing. As soon as he and as many as could find chairs were seated he began to open the intent of his visit. I told him I had no vote,.... Thus ended the conference. Mr G. squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, and withdrew. He kissed likewise the maid in the kitchen, and seemed upon the whole a most loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman. He is very young, genteel, and handsome.. a This town seems to be much at his service, and, if he be equally successful throughout the county, he will undoubtedly gain his election." And gain his election he did, coming in at the head of the poll; and in due course became Prime Minister of England. I do not venture to anticipate quite such splendid fortunes for our Candidate, however successful he may be in his first contest; but then, on the other hand, he does not have to win his way through quite such formidable obstacles as those which beset THE CANDIDATE FOR PARLIAMENT 127 young William Grenville when first he contested Bucks. The locus classicus for kissing as part of the electioneering campaign is, of course, the Eatanswill Election, which may be assumed to have occurred about 1832. But the practice survived that memorable contest for at least twenty years. In July, 1852, Matthew Arnold wrote: " I have been electioneering in North Lincolnshire, where there is a sharp contest, and been much amused by talking to the farmers, and seeing how absolutely necessary all the electioneering humbug of shaking hands, clapping on the back, kissing wives and children, still is with these people." So we see that these osculatory requirements tend to diminish with the rolling years. In 1784 the Candidate had to kiss the " maid in the kitchen." In 1832 Mr. Slumkey "kissed 'em all" at Eatanswill. In 1852 Mr. R. Christopher and Mr. Banks-Stanhope kissed the "wives and children" of North Lincolnshire; and as recently as 188o the present writer has risked the infection of measles or scarlatina by embracing the infants of a now disfranchised borough. To-day, I believe, the Candidate finds himself relieved from any form of this terrible necessity. It is all of a piece with the refining process which has transformed electioneering. We no longer kiss, but smile. We no longer bribe, but only subscribe. We no longer call our opponent opprobrious names, but merely express a polite dissent from the theories of our excellent friend-"if he will 128 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES allow me to call him so." In fine, all the methods are changed, but the principle remains intact, and in 1905, just as in 1784, to be "1'young, genteel, and handsome" is the readiest way to the top of the poll. CHAPTER XIX THE HAPPY CANDIDATE THE Candidate, as I described him in the last chapter, may, without discourtesy, be designated the Common Candidate. A rarer variety of the type is the Happy Candidate. There is a Wordsworthian flavour about the title; and, indeed, the Happy Warrior, as Wordsworth drew him, is not a more exhilarating object than the Happy Candidate. The Happy Candidate, as I conceive him-the right man in the right place, the round man in the round hole-is connected by birth and ancestry with the seat which he contests. His forefathers have lived in the County for two or three centuries. Again and again, as the family history shows, they have served as Knights of the Shire. "Welbore and the Constitution" or "Proudflesh and Liberty" are historic war-cries which have rallied the freeholders from immemorial times. "Who killed the Quaker?" was the salutation which for two hundred years greeted every member of the Cowper family who showed his nose on the hustings at Hertford, and the answer T29 I 130 130 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES is to be found in one of the most interesting of the State Trials. But, as the Happy Candidate beautifully says, smiling and bowing, when allusions are made to these historical antecedents, "Those who on famous ancestry enlarge Produce their debt instead of their discharge," and the Candidate, if he is to be truly happy, must have qualifications of his own. His father (who very likely occupied the seat in early days) has trained his son for the business of politics. He has impressed upon him from his youth up that, although the free rights of constituencies must be respected, and no one may in these days call a seat-as the Duke of Newcastle called Newark"his own," still old association counts for much. After all said and done, people prefer a gentleman. They like to know where their candidate comes from, and whether he has a root in the soil; and, other things being equal, neighbourship counts for something in elections as well as in other transactions of life. Thus the Happy Candidate is, as Burke said of the Duke of Bedford, "swaddled and rocked and dandled into a legislator," and his way is made straight before his face. He was born at the Castle or the Hall. The older electors can remember his christening, and have traced his rise and progress from the stage of donkey-panniers to that of knickerbockers, a pony, and a gun. He THE HAPPY CANDIDATE 131 has played cricket with the village team, gone batfowling with the keeper's boys and caught rats with the farmer's son. From his Public School he has returned at holiday seasons "grown out of all knowledge," promoted from a pony to a hunter, and an envied partner at the Tenants' Ball. As he emerges from Schoolboy into Undergraduate, the process of popularization developes. He sings in the choir or plays the banjo at the village concert, makes a genial speech at the Harvest Home, and begins to be talked about as a possible candidate for the County Council. It is not to be imagined that the close scrutiny of neighbours, high and low, can be continued for twenty years without discovering the faults of character which may lurk under the most prepossessing exterior. If the youth destined for politics is known in the tradition of the village as a bully or a screw; if he loses his temper with the beaters or swears at the groom or the golf-caddie; if he habitually gives coppers where others give silver; if he forgets to thank a labourer who opens the gate for him, or keeps his hat on his head when he goes into a cottage; the offence, though not audibly resented, will be remembered and avenged. Not such is the habit of the Happy Candidate. Perhaps by nature, perhaps by design, perhaps by a just combination of both, he is void of offence. He grows up amiable, courteous, cheerful, and "forthcoming" in his manner to all sorts and conditions. His " Thank 132 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES you" and "Good morning" have a friendly ring, and when he gives a tip or a Christmas-box he makes it seem rather a token of good-will than a dole or a bribe. And so the bright years succeed one another; he increases in popular favour; the old people see the good qualities of his forefathers reproduced; the young people look forward to a time when he will have come into his kingdom and when his friendship will be of some substantial value. Good accounts of him make their way from Eton or Harrow, Trinity or Christ Church, and his slightest success, whether in scholarship or athletics, is made the most of in the Parish Magazine and thence copied into the county paper. He comes of age. The County rallies round him. His appearance is prepossessing; and the amiable emotion with which he returns thanks for the Silver Salver or the Ormolu Clock draws tears from hardened eyes. His parents are at great pains to make it clear that they hope he will not marry "just yet"; that he must see the world a little before he settles down, and will, they trust, find some way of turning whatever powers he has to good account. By this device the friendly regard of the County is secured, for he is "anybody's game," and it will not be the County's fault if he looks elsewhere for a wife. But in the meanwhile Sir John Proudflesh is getting tired of the House of Commons; his health is not what it was, and he must look THE HAPPY CANDIDATE 133 about for a successor. Or else old Mr. Welbore has exhausted the patience of the Borough, and the wirepullers see no small advantage to be sucked from the eldest son of the great house. Lord Beaconsfield alienated the support of his neighbours at Wycombe because, when he changed his quarters from Hughenden to London, he used to take the cold meat with him, instead of leaving it for local consumption. The father of the Happy Candidate is wiser in his generation, for he knows that these misplaced economies have a unique power of alienating votes. Open-handedness has always been the tradition of the Castle, and its advantages are reaped when the time comes for choosing the Candidate. It were long to tell how the wirepullers pull and the caucus-mongers caucus; how political principles and commercial advantages are weighed and balanced; how every one who has got an axe to grind or a job to perpetrate calculates his chances and resolves in favour of the candidature which will best serve his ends. These preliminaries adjusted, the popular youth who is to be the Happy Candidate is invited to attend a meeting of the Political Association and to expound his views; and, after returning satisfactory answers to questions about agricultural rates or municipal gasworks, he is cordially and unanimously invited to contest the County or the Borough. And now our Candidate is happy indeed 134 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES happier than he has ever been since he got his "flannels" at Harrow or was put into the Eton crew-happier, probably, than he will ever be again. He is, say, just twenty-three; passably well-looking; very nicely dressed. He is sufficiently fluent to speak without embarrassment, and sufficiently well informed to face the heckler without trembling. And he is, as Major Pendennis says, sur ses terres. He has just returned from a canvassing ride round the constituency, for in Loamshire we rather dread the motor as new-fangled, and reserve it for election -times. To-day the Happy Candidate pulls up his horse as he reaches the summit of Breakheart Hill, and gazes complacently over the landscape. His eye reaches across twenty miles of rich grass land, and every acre pays rent to his father. Just below him are the red walls or grey towers of the house where his forefathers have lived and died ever since Henry VIII. turned the monks adrift. Close by is the Village Church where he was christened and confirmed. In that cover he shot his first pheasant; in the grassy hollow just below the wood he saw his first fox killed, and received the disgusting baptism of blood. In a word, the Happy Candidate is at home. He has no enemies, plenty of friends, and, if he is a good fellow, a good speaker, and a good sportsman, an enthusiastic band of workers and supporters. A beneficent fate has assigned him exactly the part in life which he is best fitted to THE HAPPY CANDIDATE '3 135 play; and the Carpet-bagger, who is imported at the last moment, by the opposite party, flees before his face. And now the great development has taken place. The Candidate is Candidate no more (till the next election), but a full - fledged and rejoicing M.P. There is probably no happier day in a young man's life than that on which he marches into the House of Commons, no longer the victim of arbitrary policemen, the butt of supercilious officials, but a member of the Commons' House of Parliament, part and parcel of the public life of England. Once sworn and seated, what does the M.P. do? He flies into the Lobby or the Library, and writes, on paper stamped with the Royal Arms and the legend "House of Commons," to the being whom he holds dearest in the world. This tender duty done, the M.P. sets off on a tour of inspection through the byways and purlieus of the House. He feels exactly as he felt during his first days at Eton or Harrow, painfully conscious of ignorance, desperately anxious to conceal it, and eagerly on the look-out for a more experienced friend who will initiate him into what he wants to know and yet not mortify his new-born pride. In the Chamber itself he chooses his seat with circumspection. Whatever be the station which he selects, he occupies it day and night; barely quitting it for his dinner, and "sitting," to use a homely simile, "like a hen." If he is of a 136 136 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES temper at once enquiring and shy, he takes a modest place in the back row of seats or in the gallery, from which coign of vantage he can survey the whole House, and decide at leisure the precise station which will suit him best. If we are staunch and pledged supporters of the Government-nephew to some one in office, or connected with a business which a Minister can materially assist, or merely anxious to be thought wise and statesmanlike and moderate-we sit immediately behind the Front Bench, "with our knees," as an Irish M.P. once said, "in the Prime Minister's back," and cheer him in an audible tone at effective moments. If, on the other hand, we are more adventurously inclined; if we wish to annoy our elders, and stir the dry bones of our Party, and make to ourselves a name as the Rising Hopes of Scientific Collectivism or Tory Democracy; we are careful to plant ourselves below the Gangway, for we have already learnt that the structural interval which separates one half of the House from the other has a symbolic meaning of the highest value. Then we sit with a little band of congenial spirits, who, as Lord Beaconsfield disagreeably said, "dine together and think they are a political party"; and then we practise that kind of guerilla warfare against the veterans of our own side which is so unspeakably disagreeable to the Whips and Wirepullers. We do not rebel too openly, for our constituencies would not stand it. We do not vote against the Government on THE HAPPY CANDIDATE 3 a critical division, lest, like some young Radicals in 1894, we should be compelled to rescind our votes. But we wait till we know that our Leaders are sure of a majority, and then we make a pretty show of juvenile independence; assume a fine air of conscientious disagreement; elicit cheers from the Opposition; and secure for our future speeches the "Ear of the House "- a priceless possession which is seldom acquired by unswerving devotion to the interests of the Front Bench. CHAPTER XX THE MIDDLE-AGED M.P. By this title I signify, not the man who enters the House of Commons young and becomes middle-aged there, but him who is already middleaged when he enters it. "Roughly, that is to say, I mean" (as a well-remembered tutor of Balliol used to guard himself) no man makes a Parliamentary success who goes into Parliament in middle life. If any gainsayer murmurs, "11Look at Chamberlain," I reply that there are exceptions to all rules, physical, mental, and moral. Exce~ptio pro bat regu lam. Whichever way you prefer to translate pro bat the sense is equally good. The instance, almost if not quite unique, of Mr. Chamberlain's Parliamentary success goes far to establish my general contention that if a man wishes to be a conspicuous figure in the House of Commons he must begin the business young. It is not necessary, or even possible, to trace in detail the Young M.P.'s career. "Reins lie loose, and the ways lead random"; one cannot the least guess what line he will take. Perhaps he will set his face steadily towards Office, and in that case the course of his 138 THE MIDDLE-AGED M.P. 139 development is familiar enough to all who have followed the earlier careers of Lord Curzon or Mr. Brodrick or Mr. Arnold-Forster or Mr. Austen Chamberlain. If he is successful, he blossoms in due time into a Minister of State, and the Minister of State is too majestic and too complex a type to be discussed in a parenthesis. If he is unsuccessful, he becomes a Candid Friend; is peevish and "disgruntled" (to use a hideous but expressive word of which Mr. T P. O'Connor is fond); cheers his dark hours by venting sarcasms on the party which has undervalued him, and comports himself "like a continual dropping on a very rainy day." Perhaps, he merely looks round him for a Parliament or two, finds the House dull, or the life unhealthy, or the constituency exacting, or the claims of home imperious, and retires into the private life from which he ought never to have emerged. Of this type probably was Thackeray's friend, Mr. Jawkins, who was "fond of beginning a speech to you by saying, 'When I was in the House, I,' &c.-in fact, he sat for Skittlebury for three weeks in the First Reformed Parliament, and was unseated for bribery." So we will not further consider the Young M.P. or trace his wild way, whither that leads him; but concentrate our attention on that much more baffling personage, the man who enters Parliament for the first time in middle life. Why in the world does he go there? It cannot be with the hope of making money, for presum 140 140 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES ably he is pretty well off or he could not face the expenses, and a few of the shabby directorships, to which alone an untitled M.P. can aspire, will not balance his subscriptions to the local Flower-Shows and Cricket-Clubs. He cannot hope for fame, which, according to Lord Beaconsfield, is the only intelligible motive for entering Parliament; for, unless he is most perversely foolish, he must realize that his oratory will never be reported except in the Little Peddlington Gazette, while in the House itself he will be a Vote and nothing more. F~r Office he is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, hopelessly unfit. Mr. Gladstone, in the distant days before he knew Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Henry Fowler, used to say that it was as hopeless for a man not educated in Parliamentary life to acquire the mental habits necessary for high office as for a "blacksmith to lead the ballet at the Opera." Does our Middle-aged M.P. desire Parliament for the social advantages which it will bring him and his family? Well, if so, this is a little more intelligible, and yet how painfully uncertain! Within the limits of his own constituency, indeed, the M.P. has a kind of social prominence, and even sometimes a fictitious precedence. If Royalty visits the county town, the M.P. is on the platform with the Mayor, the Bishop, and the High Sheriff of the county. He opens the Bazaar for the Restoration of the Parish Church on the second day (the first has been assigned to the THE MIDDLE-AGED M.P. 141 Lord-Lieutenant), and, even though his antecedent principles have been those of the strictest Puritanism, he figures in the high places of the local Racecourse. All this is very gratifying as far as it goes; but the M.P.'s wife and daughters desire to shine in the more conspicuous empyrean of London, and there success is more incalculable. Lord Beacdnsfield understood this part of the political business better than most men, and here is his account of these social transactions:"'That dreadful Mr. Trenchard! You know the reason why he has ratted? An invitation to Lansdowne House for himself and his wife!' "'That Trenchard is going to Lansdowne House is very likely. I have met him there half a dozen times. He is intimate with the Lansdownes, and lives in the same county. But he has a horror of fine ladies, and there is nothing in the world he avoids more than what you call Society.' "'Well, I think I will still ask him for Wednesday. If Society is not his object, what is?' "'Ah! there is a great question for you to ponder over. This is a lesson for you fine ladies, who think you can govern the world by what you call "Social Influences "-asking people once or twice a year to an inconvenient crowd in your house; now haughtily smirking, and now impertinently staring at them; and flattering yourselves all the while that to have the occasional privilege of entering your saloons and the periodical experience of your insolent recognition is to 142 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES be a reward for great exertions, or, if necessary, an inducement to infamous tergiversation."' In spite of this iconoclastic sentence, " Social Influences" still count for much in politics, as the wirepullers of the Primrose League and the Liberal Social Council are well aware. But perhaps our M.P. wants neither money nor fame, neither office nor eminence. In spite of the cynics and the satirists, it is at least possible that he enters Parliament from motives purely disinterested. He believes that a seat in the House is a kind of pulpit from which he can deliver with effect some politic or economic doctrine in which he believes. He wishes to promote the cause of Peace, or Temperance, or Social Morality. He honestly respects his political leader, and considers it an honour and a satisfaction to support him. He is, and perhaps has been from boyhood, a devoted member of his political party. He has fought for it, worked for it, endured insult and abuse for it, and has spent money on it which he could ill afford to lose. In a word, he enters Parliament for the Cause; and whether his time in Parliament is long or short, he always looks back to it as to the Golden Age. "Not Heaven itself upon the past has power, But what has been has been, and I have had my hour." Yes, he has had his hour-when, by the goodwill of his rural neighbours or his fellow-townsmen, he represented the political principles in which THE MIDDLE-AGED M.P. 143 he and they believed, on the most illustrious stage accessible to an English citizen. In truth, although we may be a little inclined to make fun of his seriousness and his self-importance, the Middleaged M.P. is the backbone of his party. As a rule, his services are unrecognized and unrewarded; but it must be admitted that he sometimes "founds a family," and dies a Baronet. CHAPTER XXI THE LABOUR-MEMBER Now, just when the Trade Unions Congress has been in session, and when every publicist is speculating on the amount and kind of influence which will be exercised by Labour in the House of Commons, an estimate of the men who will exercise it is not out of place. In dealing, whether by way of praise or of blame, with personal characteristics, it behoves one to walk warily; and, in order that I may keep myself void of all offence, I shall discuss types rather than persons, and shall sedulously abstain from the use of proper names. If I violate my promise the instant I have made it, and name, with high honour and admiration, my friend Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P., I must be pardoned on the score of senile egotism; for my earliest associations with Mr. Burt made an indelible and in some ways a ludicrous impression on my youthful mind. Mr. Burt's predecessor in the representation of Morpeth was Sir George Grey (1799-1882), grandfather of the present Sir Edward Grey, and a perfect representative of those aristocratic Whigs who ruled England, as by Divine Right, during 1 This chapter was written some months before the General Election of 1906. 144 THE LABOUR-MEMBER T45 the first thirty years of Queen Victoria's reign. A Whig sate unchallenged for Morpeth from 1832 to 1874. All the Whigs were friends, and most of them relations. They took a kindly interest in one another's families; and, when an aged Whig thought of retiring from Parliament, he looked about for a younger Whig to take his place. Tories might sneer about the "Sacred Circle of the Great-Grand-Motherhood," and envious Radicals might murmur against this dynastic sway; but it was a very comfortable arrangement for the Whigs, and the other people-including the constituents-did not matter I myself am a Whig born and bred; and it fell out that, when I was a boy at Harrow, I won a prize for an Essay on Parliamentary Oratory. One of the "Young Lions of the Daily Telegraph" was present, in the way of business, at the Speechday on which this essay was crowned, and he filled up his column for next morning's paper with some "magnificent roaring," as Matthew Arnold called it, about the youthful author, his historic name, and his Parliamentary future. This unexpected eulogy brought my poor essay into greater prominence than generally befalls a schoolboy's exercise; it fell under the notice of Sir George Grey, who, full of Whiggery and kindliness, designated the essayist as his successor at Morpeth. He said that he was getting old; that he should not stand many more contests; but the electors at Morpeth were absolutely loyal K 146 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES to him, and that they would choose any candidate whom he might recommend. Here was a rosy prospect. The essayist had only to complete his time at Harrow, spend four years more or less profitably at Oxford, and then step into an absolutely safe seat and keep it for life. But alas for the vanity of human hopes and the knock-kneed calculations of Parliamentary managers! Just a year after this delightful plan was broached, the Liberals of Morpeth notified to their respected representative that he had better retire at the next Dissolution, and that they had chosen a working miner-Thomas Burt by name-as the next Liberal candidate. Mr. Gladstone, confined to bed by a bad cold, dissolved the Parliament of i868 in a fit of temper. Sir George Grey retired into private life, and Morpeth secured in my friend Mr. Burt one of the most capable representatives and one of the truest gentlemen whom I have had the happiness to encounter in public life. So much for the Father of the Labour Party in Parliament. When I come to describe the Family, I take refuge in generalizations. In former days I have known, on both sides of the House, the Labour-Member who had made money, and enjoyed it, wore a velvet-collar and drank champagne. Though he had climbed into the House by the ladder of Labour, he soon forgot his method of access, and became absorbed in one or other of the political parties. I rather fancy THE LABOUR-MEMBER i47 that this type has disappeared, and I cannot profess to deplore it. Then there was the LabourMember who relied on his oratorical powers, and he often had a considerable experience of electioneering rebuffs before he learned that electors require something more than flummery. A democrat of this type once attempted to storm a pocket-borough where the electors, like some whom Gibbon knew, "were commonly of the same opinion as" the noble lord who owned their houses. To these the candidate addressed himself in his most demagogic vein - "Working men of Little Peddlington, I am a working man like yourselves. If you return me, I will serve you with voice and vote; but I (with immensely sarcastic emphasis)Ican't send you game or blankets, seed-potatoes in spring or coals at Christmas." Whereupon a cruel voice interjected from the gallery. "Then you won't do here, old chap. You'd better try somewhere else." The orator, who, after all, was a sensible fellow, took the hint, and he sits for the borough of Buncombe to this hour. A striking contrast to the type which I have just described is the Silent Labour-Member. There are plenty of such men, but few people realize them. They are quiet, thoughtful, intelligent men; knowing thoroughly what they profess to know, very impatient of pretentious ignorance, and excellently qualified to expose it; yet condemned by some painful self-mistrust, or by an incapacity to catch the ear of the House, to sit session after session 148 148 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES in unrecognized silence, while the noisy, fluent men with big voices and boundless self-esteem pose, and are accepted, as the inspired Oracles of Labour. But now and then a constituency is lucky enough to secure a representative who combines a voice with a head and a heart, and then the combination is irresistible. The House of Commons always listens to a man who speaks, however haltingly, out of his own experience. The dullest subjects are tolerated if the man who is expounding them is unmistakably imparting knowledge and not airing vanity; and the more remote the experience, the more cordial the hearing. A Labour M.P. who can describe, from his own knowledge, the miseries of overcrowding, scanty work, adulterated food, and defective sanitation may rely on an audience as sympathetic and interest as keen as Gladstone or Bright ever commanded. If, in addition to having something to say, the Member knows how to say it, the effect of course is heightened. In days gone by the Labour-Member's style inclined too much to flapdoodle and fustian, and to those commodities the House is never kind. But of late years popular orators have acquired a more direct and unpretentious method; they have cast off some of that deadly earnestness about things indifferent which used to tear their passion to tatters; and, in at least one or two instances, they have learned to season their appeals to humanity and justice with the saving salt of genuine humour. It will THE LABOUR-MEMBER 149 not, I hope, be thought an impertinence if I add that in point of dignified, orderly, and courteous behaviour the Labour-Members of all types and sorts set an example which the best-born men in Parliament would do well, but sometimes forget, to follow. Some of my best friends in public and political life have been Labour M.P.'s and those who return them. I rejoice in the prospect that their number will be greatly increased in the next Parliament, and I earnestly hope that they will bring all the pressure which they can command to bear on any Administration which plays false to the cause of Labour. But yet I would venture to submit that loyalty to Labour is not the all-in-all of politics, and that a Labour candidate who intends to support a Tory Government cannot, in reason or conscience, appeal for the votes 'of men whose Liberalism is as dear to them as life itself. CHAPTER XXII THE WHIG FROM the Labour-Member to the Whig is an abrupt transition. Yet with both I have had intimate relations, and they have this much in common, that both are rare. The most salient difference is that the Whig is tending rapidly towards extinction; whereas the Labour-Member is multiplying and increasing at a rate which seems to assure him a commanding influence in the next House of Commons. Of the LabourMember we have already spoken; let us spend a few minutes in investigating the Whig before he goes hence and is no more seen. In order to discuss the subject with scientific.accuracy, it would be necessary to plunge into Scottish etymology, to ransack Hume, to revive the shadowy memories of the Meal-Tub Plot, and to re-enact the Revolution of 1688. But in the narrow limits of a chapter one cannot afford thus to "begin with the Deluge," and it will serve our purpose if we choose as our startingpoint the year I712, when John, first Earl Gower, took to wife Lady Evelyn Pierrepont and became the progenitor of all the Gowers, CavenISO THE WHIG i5i dishes, Howards, Grosvenors, Campbells, and Russells who walk on the face of the earth. So widely ramified were the descendants of this Lord Gower, and yet so closely allied by marriage, that when Lord John Russell became Prime Minister in 1846 he was publicly charged with having formed a Government of his own relations; and, like Lord Salisbury in 1900, he found it better not to reply to the charge. Mr. Gladstone once laid it down that "a man not born a Liberal may become a Liberal, but to be a Whig he must be a born Whig," and he cited Lord Macaulay as,an almost unique exception; he certainly might have added Sir William Harcourt, and perhaps Lord Rosebery Of Macaulay, Mr. Gladstone said that, though born a Tory, he had so assimilated the spirit of the Whigs that he "constantly presented the aspect of that well-marked class of politicians." Well-marked. I pause on the phrase, and proceed to examine' the marks by which a Whig may or might be distinguished from other political types. For an unflattering estimate we cannot do better than turn to Lord Beaconsfield, who, ere yet he had determined whether it would pay best to be a Radical or a Tory, had some unpleasant contact with Whiggery as represented in the politics of High Wycombe. This is his description of the ideal Whig--"a haughty Peer, proud of his order, prouder of his party, freezing with arrogant reserve and condescending polite 152 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES ness," and, taking the Whig party as a whole, the Carpet-bagger of 1832-the Prime Minister of 1868-described them not inaptly. No people on earth had less sympathy with the idea of political or social Equality They were, to borrow a phrase of Mr. Gladstone's from another connexion, "innate and confirmed Inequalitarians." But, though the great Whigs hated Equality, they loved Freedom. Nothing in political history is finer than the courageous consistency with which they led and fostered the cause of civil liberty at a time when such a course meant Royal disfavour, social ostracism, and perpetual exclusion from profit and power. The men of 1832 were worthy descendants of the men of 1688. It was, I suppose, partly on account of this hereditary connexion with the movement which dethroned James II. and established Parliamentary government, that the Whigs regarded themselves as in a special sense the guardians of "The Constitution" (which they always pronounced, like Major Pendennis, "Constitootion"). The aged dukes who cowered over the fire at Brooks's, the wide-acred squires who toasted "The Principles of 1688" at the Fox Club, believed that their judgment on a question of constitutional propriety was final. I can well remember the wrath which shook their palsied frames when the Conservatives first began to call themselves the Constitutional Party. " Mind," said a Whig father to his son, "however Radical THE WHIG'5 153 your Address is, you must say that you come forward on the Constitutional side. Your ancestors helped to make the Constitution under which we have the happiness to live, and the d-d Tories have been trying for two hundred years to unmake it." That "1Constitutional " note was heard in every utterance of the Whigs. Sir Theodore Martin in his "1Life of the Prince Consort " darkened counsel by words without knowledge about the relations between the Crown and the Cabinet (and was riddled by the letters of "1Verax "), and the Whigs said, "' 1Bon Gaultier's' Ballads were very good fun, but he doesn't understand the Constitution." Lord Beaconsfield's unpardonable offence was that he was trying to obliterate Lord Melbourne's lessons of Constitutional government from the Royal mind and to substitute the fantasies of an Oriental despotism. At the crisis of Easter, 188o, when the Liberal party was chafing at the long delay in calling Mr. Gladstone to the Sovereign's counsels, the Whigs were loud in praise of Her Majesty's Constitutional exactness in sending first for Lord Hartington and then for Lord Granville. In a word, the Constitution, as established in i688 and developed by a century and a half of Parliamentary government, was the supreme object of Whig worship, and the slightest departure from it was both heresy and treason. The Constitution of 1688 was essentially tolerant in the sphere of religion, and the Whigs were i54 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES sincere friends to religious freedom both in thought and practice. They would all have made Sydney Smith's motto their own--"Pull down no man's altar; punish no man's prayer." But in religion, as well as in politics and social life, they were Inequalitarians. The Church of England as by law established was an institution on which they set prodigious store, and, though they would not for the world have compelled any one to conform or have persecuted him for not conforming, still they were strong advocates for the principle of Establishment. Not that their view of the Church was a very exalted one. To them it was practically a subdivision of the Home Department for the promotion of morals, and as absolutely subject to Parliament as any Court of Justice or Board of Administration. The idea of the Church as a spiritual society, with rights, powers, and duties irrespective of anything that law can give or take away, was abhorrent to the Whigs. They were friendly enough to episcopal palaces and spiritual peerages, to purple coats and mitred coaches; but they ridiculed the Church's claim to a separate life and a divine commission, and did their best to repress it when expressed in action. An eminent Whig peer once said to the present writer: "I am utterly opposed to Disestablishment, and I will tell you why. As long as the Church is established we can kick the parsons. But once disestablish it and, begad! they will kick us." This THE WHIG'5 1155 is the Whig doctrine of Church and State in a nutshell. The Whigs were always a cultured class, according to the standard of culture in their day. They prided themselves on openness of mind, and readiness to move with the times in all speculations which did not threaten the Idol set up in 1688. Thus they were early and eager converts to Political Economy, and one of their characteristics was a tendency to regard that highly disputable science as a new revelation from Sinai. They fastened on some parrot-like phrase, such as "11Freedom of Contract," and interjected it in every civil controversy, as though it contained the clue to all social and political perplexities. This it was which made the Whigs, as a class, so hopelessly obstructive on all those questions of agrarian or urban reform where Humanity comes into conflict with Privilege-the interests of the Tenant with the interests of the Landlord. Again, the Whigs thought it due to their character as Political Economists to be bitterly hostile to all attempts, however tentative, in the direction of Collectivism. The Whig doctrine would limit the function of the State to the preservation of life and property and the enforcement of contracts. All that pertains to the moral and material betterment of the helpless masses the Whigs would serenely abandon to the operation of economic law. "Tell me," said Cardinal Manning to a politician of this type, "how long it takes your 156 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES law of Demand and Supply to work out in a given case of a labourer and his labour, and I will tell you how long it takes one of my poor Irishmen down in Rotherhithe to starve." In casting my eye over the foregoing paragraphs I see that I have persistently spoken of the Whigs in the past tense. The tense expresses the fact. The individual Whig, though rare, still exists; but the Whig Party has perished. Some few Whigs, like Lord Spencer and Mr. Robert Spencer, Sir Edward Grey, and one or two of the Russells, have followed their Whiggish tradition to its natural development in live and active Liberalism. The large majority have been swallowed up by Toryism, into which a good many of them descended by the treacherous path of Liberal Unionism. Quite lately two or three have been recalled to a sense of their danger by the insult offered to Political Economy in the name of Fiscal Reform. But, whether transformed into Toryism or Liberalism, Whiggery as a political party has ceased to be. It has died, not indeed unhonoured, but unwept. It had lived its life and had done its work. As long as it led the van of Progress and Freedom, it had a unique glory and a distinctive mission. As soon as it abandoned that function of leadership, it ceased to have any proper reason for existing. CHAPTER XXIII THE PARTY HACK OUR last two types-the Labour-Member and the Whig-have, among marked diversities, this much in common, that neither of them is a Party Hack. It was, indeed, a characteristic of the true-bred Whig (at any rate after Mr. Gladstone had begun to lead the Liberal party) that the Whips could never depend upon his vote, and that at a critical moment in the battle of debate he would turn round and fire his blunderbuss straight in his leader's face. His favourite theme was a protest, in season and out of season, against the theory that a Member of Parliament is a "Delegate." His special pose was that of a manly independence, and he belonged by instinct to that most repellent of all sects, "The Society of Candid Friends." Of course the Labour-Member does not even profess allegiance to a political party. He is returned in the interests of Labour, and, whatever measures seem most conducive to the objects which Labour has at heart, those he will support, whether the Front Bench smile on them or frown. Such men are the despair of the local Caucus and break the hearts of Whips. 157 158 i SOCIAL SILHOUETTES The Party Hack is a very different kind of politician; and, since a serene impartiality is the note of these silhouettes, let me hasten to say that he may be either a Liberal or a Conservative. He is perhaps more often found on the Conservative side, because the Liberal party, by its very essence and genius, encourages independent thought, and in politics independent thought sometimes, though not always, issues in independent action. Lord Beaconsfield, who knew the House of Commons so well that his Parliamentary portraits have a perennial value, described the Party Hack of days gone by in terms so accurate that even now they scarcely need amendment. "There was the true political adventurer, who with dull desperation had stuck at nothing, had never neglected a three-lined Whip, had been present at every division, never spoke when he was asked to be silent, and was always ready on any subject when they wanted him to open his mouth; who had treated his leaders with servility, even behind their backs, and was happy for the day if a Secretary of State nodded to him; and who had not only discountenanced discontent in the party, but had regularly reported in strict confidence every instance of insubordination which came to his knowledge." Yet, when a change is made in the Administration and the offices are reshuffled, this true type of the Party Hack finds himself left out in the cold, and realizes all too late that "being a slave and a sneak was an in THE PARTY HACK 159 sufficient qualification for office." And then, the mordant satirist of Parliamentary life adds, with a touch of unctuous compassion, "Poor fellow! half the industry he had wasted on his cheerless craft might have made his fortune in some decent trade." The Party Hack enters Parliament from various motives and by the most mysterious means. If he is young and ambitious, he may, like the gentleman whom Lord Beaconsfield described, have an eye to office, and in the present day he has a better chance of success than in that remote period when Family and Connexion counted for so much in Parliamentary arrangement. Perhaps he has some financial interest to serve-has put some money in a dock, or a brewery, or an electric trust, and thinks that as an M.P. he will have profitable opportunities of lobbying and logrolling. Perhaps, like Diotrephes, he loveth to have the pre-eminence in his native place, and looks forward to the day when, in recognition of his skill in piloting a water-bill or a railwayscheme, the statue of "Joseph Buggins, Esq., M.P. for this Borough" will occupy a commanding situation in the Market Square or on the Quay. Perhaps he is a journalist; wires a daily Letter, full of personalities and flimflams, to the New York Sewer and knows that the House of Commons is the hotbed of social gossip. Perhaps-and this is no imaginary case-he seeks to enrich himself by matrimonial means, and believes i6o SOCIAL SILHOUETTES that the prospect of being invited to evening parties in Downing Street or Belgrave Square will attract the young lady with a little money. As his motives for entering Parliament are various, so are his methods of entering it mysterious. Brown, Jones, and Robinson are three substantial citizens of Drumble. All are good men and true, all are pretty well off, all are terribly respectable, all are fond of talking, and all have their axes to grind. And yet Brown gets himself selected as the candidate for East Drumble at the next election, and Jones and Robinson are left lamenting, to grind their axes as well as they may on the municipal, instead of the Parliamentary, grindstone. Why Brown is preferred is a mystery, and, if you want to have it solved, you must ask the families of Jones and Robinson. A manly pride restrains those good men from themselves belittling their successful rival; but Mrs. Jones and the Misses Robinson are under no such restrictions. From them you will learn that Brown owes his success to the fact that he is the Brewer's Friend; or that he spends his money in the Borough, instead of dealing at Harrods' or the Stores; or that he has lent money to the principal wirepuller and hinted at repayment in case he was not selected by the Caucus So, again, when the election has taken place and the Selected Candidate has become the Elected Member, similar theories of his success are widely current. The Solicitors' Firm to which Brown TH E PARTY HACK belongs had a good deal to do with the new Register. For six months before the election Brown was singing comic songs at Friendly Leads in the lowest pothouses. On the eve of the Poll Brown went round the slums, promising every voter he met a quart of ale directly after the Declaration and a fat goose at Christmas. Which of these stories is true, or whether any of them is or all of them are, it is not for me to decide. I only know that Brown finds his way into the House of Commons and becomes a Party Hack. To keep his seat is the supreme object of his existence, and he knows well enough that political parties are, as a rule, unforgiving. You are returned as a Liberal or as a Conservative, and, if you wobble or rat or play the Candid Friend, you are only too likely to find yourself cast at the next election. It is impossible to please all sections of your constituents (even though, like a friend of my own, you subscribe equally to the Liberation Society and the Church Defence Institution, on the ground that both societies circulate valuable information on a disputed point); and, as you cannot please all, the best way is to follow your Leader, even though he leads you into the most uncomfortable places. Then, however displeasing your votes may have been to the Temperance Party or "1the Trade," the employers or the artisans, you can always say, in reply to hecklers at the annual meeting of the Association, " Well, gentlemen, you returned me as a follower of Mr L 162 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Balfour (or Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman), and my best reply to my critics is to say that I HAVE STUCK TO HIM THROUGH THICK AND THIN."-(Loud applause, during which the Hon. Member resumed his seat.) "Vote for Lord Beaconsfield and the Empire" was a popular and non-committing cry in 188o. "Chamberlain and Three Acres and a Cow" rent the skies in 1885. "Gladstone and the Union of Hearts" in 1886 was rather a damp squib, and was soon replaced by the wiser vagueness of " Gladstone and no Crotchets" and u We'll all go solid for the Grand Old Man." The worst of these unqualified professions of loyalty to Leaders whose counsels we do not share is that they sometimes land us in unlookedfor dangers. Lord Shaftesbury wrote in 1884, "When Gladstone runs down a steep place, his majority, like the pigs in Scripture, but hoping for a better issue, will go with him, roaring in grunts of exultation." The prophecy was made good exactly a year later, when the Party Hack on the Liberal side had suddenly to become enthusiastic in favour of Home Rule, which down to that time he had been taught to denounce and decry. But, after all, he fared no worse than the Party Hack on the Tory side, who in 1867 had been forced to embrace a democratic extension of the suffrage because Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli had resolved to strengthen their precarious hold on office by "Dishing the Whigs." In Parliamentary life the way of the transgressor THE PARTY HACK 163 is hard, but it is sometimes glorious. Mr. Gladstone, when a young Tory Minister, resigned office sooner than be party to an ecclesiastical policy which he had denounced. Mr. Bright twice over broke from his party in order to defy the national passion for unrighteous war. Mr. Chamberlain risked all to defeat Home Rule; Mr. Cowen and Mr. Forster, to defy the Caucus. The way of the Party Hack is not glorious, but neither is it hard. It is comfortable and easygoing; and, though ignominious, it is safe. CHAPTER XXIV THE OFFICIAL M.P. OUR collection of Parliamentary Silhouettes would be glaringly incomplete if we were to omit the Official M.P. This type is quite distinct. Many are called to Parliamentary life, but few chosen for office. Most M.P.'s never think of it. Of course the notion of attaining it is one among the many different motives which impel men to enter the House of Commons; but it is the motive of comparatively few, and even of those few the majority are foredoomed to disappointment. It is one of the ironies of Parliamentary life that many men, apparently well qualified for the function of governance, spend all their days in irresponsibility and free-lanceship; whereas others, even conspicuously deficient in resource, initiative, and decision, are.forced almost against their will into the highest posts of administration. "Nature intended me for a grazier," said Lord Althorp, who steered the Reform Bill of 1832, "and fate has made me a statesman." An eminent politician still living, though no longer in the House of Commons, was driven almost by main force into public life, in the desperate hope that it might 164 THE OFFICIAL M.P. wean him from gambling, and, when he showed signs of a tendency to return to his former pursuits, he was kept steady by the offer of a place in the Cabinet. Of contemporary statesmen who owe their official stations to anything in the world except capacity it would be invidious to speak in detail. But, when one sees a man of high position and great estate-a man, as the phrase is, with a heavy stake in the country-neglecting his proper business, and sacrificing his leisure and forsaking his home, in order to bury himself in the pigeon-holes and despatch-boxes of the Postoffice or the Education Department, one is driven to ask, "Is this man's motive Patriotism or Pomposity?-a self-sacrificing desire to serve the State, or an insane conviction that he is indispensable to the public weal?" However, after all said and done, the men who have official greatness thrust upon them are comparatively few; the majority of office-holders have achieved it, and that by no shady or ambiguous arts, but by consistent purpose, careful training, and hard work in the House and in the constituencies. The young M.P. who means office gets up his facts; if possible makes some one subject his own; exercises tact and discretion about the times and circumstances in which he will address the House. He does not flog the dead horse of some threadbare contention, or discharge a bottled oration on a jaded House just when every one is howling for a division. To his political Leader 166 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES he shows a sincere but self-respecting loyalty; to his brother-members, on both sides, courtesy, geniality, and good temper; and to the Whips a friendly independence which makes them careful not to take liberties with him or his vote. In fine, he takes his M.P-ship as seriously as he would take any other profession; works steadily towards a definite end; and, if he has luck and patience, sooner or later attains it. Seventy years have passed since Sir Robert Peel was "summoned from Rome to govern England," and the scene which Lord Beaconsfield described in " Coningsby " will be reproduced with absolute fidelity as soon as King Edward VII. lays his commands on Lord Spencer or Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. The scene is laid at a political party, and these were some of the guests. They were"Middle-aged aspirants who had lost their seats, but flattered themselves that they had done something for the party in the interval by spending nothing but their breath in fighting hopeless boroughs, or publishing pamphlets which really produced less effect than chalking the walls. Light as air and proud as a young peacock tripped a gentleman who had contrived to keep his seat in a Parliament where he had done nothing, but thought that an Under-Secretaryship was now secure, especially as he was the son of a noble lord who had also in a public capacity plundered and blundered in the good old days. The only grave countenance that was THE OFFICIAL M.P. 167 occasionally ushered into the room belonged to some individual whose destiny was not in doubt, and who was already practising the official air that was in future to repress the familiarity of his former fellow-strugglers." When once our aspirant to office has attained his desire, he must be prepared to live laborious days, and nights as well. As he goes to bed dogtired, he probably rises late; and, as soon as breakfast is over, he must hurry to his office. There he grinds for three hours, settling departmental business, preparing answers to be given in the House of Commons, and directing the replies to an illimitable mass of official correspondence. At two he must be in his place in the House; and, although the unofficial butterfly flits hither and thither as the fancy for work or pleasure takes him, the official bee must ply his daily task either in the House itself or in some secret chamber in its purlieus. The beneficent institution of the "week-end," imported by Mr. Balfour from Lancashire, saves the statesman of the present day from physical destruction; but for five days in the week he works as hard as it is possible for a man to work, amid surroundings which are sometimes exciting, often tedious, and never salubrious. When he lays his head on his blameless pillow, any time after i A.M., he may go to sleep with the comfortable consciousness that he has done a fair day's work for a not exorbitant remuneration. 168 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Remuneration, in the sense of salary, is not the sole or the chief reward of official service. Lord Beaconsfield once said, in a letter to a friend of my own, that what really made high office agreeable was the possession of unshared knowledge, and the amusement to be derived from the ignorant chatter of those among whom you move. Mr. Gladstone, who also loved office, took, as was natural, a loftier view of it. " The desire for office," he said, "is the desire of ardent minds for a larger space and scope within which to serve the country, and for access to the command of that powerful machinery for information and practice which the public departments supply." But there are lesser rewards, in the way of recognition and station and a kind of social pre-eminence, which are not without their attractions for the official mind. The Bellows-Menders' Company (with which Thackeray, disguised as "Mr. Spec," dined on a memorable occasion) still exists, though it bears another name, and the Secretary of the Tape and Sealing-wax Office is never unrepresented in the administrative hierarchy. At the hospitable board of the Bellows-Menders, the Secretary of that admirable office returned thanks for the toast of His Majesty's Ministers. He was, he said, but a humble-the humblest-member of that body. The suffrages which his colleagues had received from the nation were gratifying, but the most gratifying testimonial of all was the approval of the Bellows-Menders' Company. TIHE OFFICIAL M.P. I69 (Immense applause.) Yes, among the most enlightened of the mighty Corporations of the City, the most enlightened was the BellowsMenders. Yes, he might say, in consonance with their felicitous motto and in defiance of their traducers, Afflavit veritas et dissipati sunt.(Enormous applause.) Yes, the thanks and pride that were boiling with emotion in his breast trembled to find utterance on his lips. Yes, the proudest moment of his life, the crown of his ambition, the meed of his early hopes and struggles and aspirations, was at that moment won in the approbation of the Bellows-Menders. In the distant year 1883 the humble individual who pens these lines found himself making something very like that peroration. CHAPTER XXV THE AUTHOR HORACE WALPOLE wrote, with reference to one of the young sprigs of quality to whom he played the part of literary sponsor, " He thinks nothing so charming as Authors, and to be one." The second part of the sentence need not be controverted. Authorship, even on the humblest scale, has undeniable charms. Not long ago, I was present at a literary banquet, where a good deal of flummery was uttered by after-dinner speakers about the glories of Literature, the splendours of Fame, and the baseness of Lucre. We were all a good deal impressed by these fine sentiments, and began to think that authors must be the most highsouled set of men in the world; when we were suddenly recalled to reality and common-sense by a vigorous oration from Mr. Zangwill. He said that he had lately met a lady who, on hearing his name, exclaimed, " Oh! Mr. Zangwill, I admire the 'Children of the Ghetto' so much that I have read it six times." " Madam," I replied, " I would rather you had bought six copies." Granted that we have even a tenth part of Mr. Zangwill's skill and success, we may agree with 170 THE AUTHOR 171 Horace Walpole's young friend that there is nothing so charming as to be an author; but "nothing so charming as authors" is a judgment which seems to spring from very immature experience. It was said of the Banker-Poet, Samuel Rogers, that he was prodigal in what he valued least, which was money; and niggardly in what he valued most, which was praise. The jealousies and hatreds of literary men are proverbial, and some great authors, feeling it idle to blink the fact, have turned it to good account in their writings. Mr. St. Barbe in "Endymion," when he found that he had not been made a Baronet, loudly professed his contempt for the honour which had not been bestowed. "Not that I wanted their baronetcy Nothing would have tempted me to accept one. But there is Gushy; he, I know, would have liked it. I must say I feel for Gushy; his books only selling half what they did, and then thrown over in this insolent manner!" But though I think that "nothing so charming as authors" is too sweeping an assertion, I gladly admit that some authors are, and have been, among the most delightful of mankind. The accomplished Mrs. Blimber protested that, if she could have known Cicero and talked with him in his retirement at Tusculum, she would have died contented; and so I feel that, if I could have known Sir Walter Scott and have roamed with him through any of the scenes over which he 172 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES threw the enchantments of his genius, I should have tasted the highest perfection of human companionship. And even if we leave the Giantsthe great creators and masters of Literature-on one side, we may find excellent company among men of more modest fame. "Gentlemen," said Matthew Arnold to the Income Tax Commissioners, who tried to assess his profits from literature at 0Iooo a year, "you see before you what you have often heard of-an unpopular author." The appeal had the immediate effect of reducing the assessment from ~Iooo to. '2oo; and the Commissioners had the opportunity of seeing what a charming person an unpopular author can be. The Popular Author is not always so pleasant. If the popularity has come with a bound or a boom, our fallen nature is apt to become unbearably vain-glorious. There is a solemnity about the Successful Author, a gravity, an abiding sense of solitary greatness, which lies upon his immediate circle "Heavy as frost and deep almost as life." The Successful Author is not content with his balance at the bank, his favourable reviews, his recognition in society. All these joys are justly his; but he takes an unhallowed delight in explaining to all who will give ear the circumstances under which he first realized his giftthe event which supplied him with his plot, the THE AUTHOR I73 names and addresses of the people whom he has used for characters, and the methods by which his masterpiece was evolved. All these morbid symptoms are exaggerated in the case of the " One-book Author," if that phrase may be permitted. "Single-speech Hamilton" bore that title in honour of the one good speech which he ever delivered, although he made a great number of bad ones; and the "One-book Author" may have attained half-a-dozen failures, but is classed and differentiated by his one success. In his case the social pressure is extreme indeed, and it is generally exercised by his wife or family. " Papa was sitting in that arbour when he got the first idea for his great scientific romance, ' The Loves of the Earwigs.'" Or, "This is the table at which my husband wrote his wonderful scene where the curate goes mad on discovering that Bishop Lightfoot mistook the whereabouts of Galatia." Mr. Anstey Guthrie has ruefully remarked that these are days of theological fiction, metaphysical romance, and novels with a purpose; and the dealers in those wares are the worst offenders in the way of egotism and pomposity. The Mechanical Author, though comical, is harmless. Anthony Trollope was at the head of this department, and -e had powers which, one would think, might have made him independent of mechanical arts. There are more imitators of his method than the novel-reading public sus 174 '74 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES pects; but his powers are not so easily reproduced. The Mechanical Author maps out his year and his days with mathematical precision. In 1906 he will produce a Novel, a "Curtainraiser," two Short Stories, and a Guide-book to Kamschatka. For the Novel he will allow six months; for the Curtain-raiser three; the Guidebook will occupy his autumn holiday, and the Short Stories will be knocked off at Easter and Whitsuntide. His apparatus consists of a Typewriting Machine, a Dictionary of Quotations, and a Notebook. Into the last-named receptacle facts of all sorts and sizes are diligently pressed; and the Mechanical Author, with the most delicious solemnity, parades in his next chapter the information which he has just acquired. "Who," he asks, "1can ever forget? "-some incident of which he himself only heard for the first time last night at the Savile Club. "1Few," he writes in pensive strain, "lare they who can recall the genial personality of "-some departed worthy about whom anecdotes were retailed yesterday at Mrs. Leo Hunter's luncheon-table. This indiscriminate and unguarded use of the notebook is not without its perils. There was once an accomplished man of letters to whom tales of conscientious rabbits and intellectual cockatoos were dear. He lived in the neighbourhood of a large school, and some of the urchins whom he kindly entertained discovered his amiable gullibility. Henceforward, THE AUTHOR I75 whenever they were short of cash, they stood and spoke thus with themselves: "Let's go and pitch a yarn into old -. Shall it be your sister's cat this time, or my governor's retriever? " These preliminaries adjusted, our young friends hastened to the Author's house and communicated some new and startling fact in natural history. This was gladly received, carefully entered in the notebook, and shortly afterwards reproduced in print. Meanwhile the boys had jam and sausages for tea, and the principal narrator went back to school with half-a-crown in his pocket. Sir George Cornewall Lewis in his forgotten essay on "The Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion" traces the word "authority" to the Latin auctor, and says that "an auctor meant the creator or originator of anything. Hence any person who determines our belief is called an auctor. As writers, particularly of history, were the authorities for facts, auctor came to mean a writer." Little did the country clergymen and suburban spinsters who revelled in the Grandmother's disquisitions on the intelligence of the lower animals dream of the real "authority" for what they read. Though, indeed, Mr.- was the writer, and a voluminous and sententious one, it was really the boys of Mudport Grammar School who were the "authorities for facts," and therefore, according to Sir G. C. Lewis, the true Authors of the wondrous tales. Early in life they had found their way into the ranks of that great profession 176 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES which ranges from Herodotus and Shakespeare to Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Mr. George R. Sims; and they shared the conviction of Horace Walpole's young friend, that "there is nothing so charming as Authors, and to be one." When Matthew Arnold saw "in the frontispiece to one of Mr. Hepworth Dixon's numerous but wellmerited editions, the manly and animated features of the immortal Guide to Mormonism," he " could not help exclaiming with pride, 'I too am an Author! " It always seemed to me that the perfection of artistic flattery was attained when Lord Beaconsfield, addressing Queen Victoria, bracketed his Sovereign with himself in the terse but pregnant phrase "we authors." CHAPTER XXVI THE AUTHORESS ELLEN TEMPLE was born at Upper Tooting. She believed herself to have been a cousin of the last Duke of Buckingham, who was dead, and could neither confirm nor deny; and also of an eminent prelate, who was alive, but repudiated the relationship with characteristic vigour Undaunted by this rebuff, and encouraged by the panegyrics of the Head Mistress of the local High School, Ellen early assumed the airs of a celebrity, and transmuted her baptismal name into Elaine. From schoolroom-days she dabbled in literature. The name of " Elaine Temple" must be familiar to all readers of the Upper Tooting Parochial Magazine, and it is not unknown to serious students of the Commonwealth. That journal doubled its circulation as long as "TVe Creed and the Creche: a Plea for Denominational Education," was running in its columns, and the "Reflections of a RoadScraper" were reprinted in a volume which the reviewers called "dainty." Flushed by these triumphs, Elaine Temple insisted on retaining her maiden name when she married Sam Trotter, the bank-manager, and for some twenty years 177 M 178 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Mr. and Mrs. Temple-Trotter lived a busy but unexciting life in the seclusion of Shepherd's Bush. This period-to which Mrs. Temple-Trotter now refers as "that dear, quiet time before my Lifework had claimed me "-was marked by a series of publications, mainly educational: "A Classbook of Conchology," "Jurisprudence for the Kindergarten," and an historical series of " Lives of the Deans of Bocking." These, and such as these, had been for many years the innocuous and rather unremunerative labours of Elaine TempleTrotter, when lo! in the maturity of her powers, she plunged suddenly into a line of fiction which her friends called "subversive," and forsook the traditions of Mrs. Markham and Mrs. Sherwood for those of Aphra Behn and Georges Sand. The subversive book was called, all simply, "Sarah Smithers," and it depicted the mental struggles of a young lady who, having been brought up in a parsonage, and having taught in a Sunday School, unfortunately became acquainted with a fascinating but dissolute philosopher. This gentleman, who had deep-set eyes, a Napoleonic chin, and "too-full, red lips," addressed all his powers to the task, only too easy as the event proved, of undermining Sarah's principles. Once emancipated from the fettering superstitions of her youth, Sarah, with startling suddenness, became a missionary of Subversion, and devoted her life to the work of undermining the superstition of Marriage. While still in the prime of THE AUTHORESS 179 life she died of jaundice and jealousy when she discovered that her philosopher had clandestinely married his cook. The success of "Sarah Smithers" was instantaneous and terrific. All the Thinkers and the Souls said that it was epoch-making, and that no selfrespecting woman who aspired to culture would henceforth be seen with a wedding-ring. The book sold like wildfire, and was instantly followed by a Sequel in which the philosopher was dramatically punished for his departure from principle. The cook-wife became a Ritualist; her morbid religiosity drove the philosopher to drink, and he expired with a brandy-bottle in his hand, ingeminating with parched lips, "Why did I forsake my Smithers? " The Sequel sold even better than the original book. Sam Trotter invested the profits to excellent advantage; and at the beginning of this year Elaine Temple-Trotter and her husband migrated from the suburban shade of Shepherd's Bush to the full-blown splendour of Clanricarde Gardens. Their house-warming was conducted on an entirely novel principle. Eating and drinking are commonplace. Dancing is frivolous; and even the long-suffering of Bayswater will not endure a "1 conversazione." What was to be done? A sudden flash of inspiration revealed the answer. Mrs. Temple-Trotter announced that, on Wednesday afternoons in March she would give Readings from "Sarah Smithers" and its Sequel. Some 180 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES of her closest friends had never read the books, and welcomed the opportunity of acquiring at least a nodding acquaintance with them. Serious devotees, who had read them, longed to hear them illustrated by the living voice and eye. There was a curiously mixed feeling as of going to church and at the same time doing something naughty. The drawing-rooms in Clanricarde Gardens had not yet been furnished. The walls were still covered by a watered white paper-no longer very white-with gilt foliations. There was not much fire; but, per contra, no air; and yet, again, a good deal of draught. Closelyserried rows of small cane chairs were crowded by Souls and Thinkers. Sam Trotter, in a new frock-coat, received the guests. The male part of the audience, unable to obtain seats, leaned against the window of the back drawing-room; and the awe-struck silence of the gathering was only broken by the guffaws of Mrs. TempleTrotter's Undergraduate brother, as he demanded of the butler on the stairs what sort of show this was going to be, and how long he would be expected to stick it. At that moment, amid an expectant scuffle of feet and a vibration of silk attire, Mrs. TempleTrotter walked firmly into the front drawingroom and established herself on a packing-case covered with an "art fabric" from Liberty's. She is a lady of a certain age and a certain height, with tawny hair dragged ruthlessly back THE AUTHORESS 181 from an intellectual brow, gold pince-nez, and, to borrow a feature from a recent novel of high repute, "a highly distinguished chin." Without a word of preface she began. First Selection-" Sarah Smithers in the Sunday School." Second Selection - "Sarah Smithers meets the Philosopher." Third Selection-" What the Philosopher said in the Summerhouse." Fourth Selection-" Free Love in Camden Town." (Ten minutes interval.) The Fourth Selection was the famous chapter where all the district-visitors elope with the choirmen, and, driven out of the church by the narrow-minded bigotry of the Incumbent, establish themselves as a missionary community among the Railway Servants of the Midland Company The passage where Sarah Smithers offers to reclaim the drunken stoker by uniting her lot with his was declaimed by Mrs. Temple-Trotter with extraordinary effect, and Mrs. Siddons might have envied the tone in which she uttered the stoker's final " Garn!" After such a tumult of emotion, the ten minutes interval was very welcome. Many sought relief in tears, and loud was the buzz of long pent-up enthusiasm. "Wasn't it really splendid?" "Shefelt every word she said." "Oh, and she made me feel it, too." 182 182 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES "What a power that is!" P "I believe it's hypnotic." "Of course you know it's her own stor-y?" "Is it really? That makes it much more interesting." "ItYes, the Philosopher was really her own grandfather!t" "ItNot really? How awful to have one's principles shaken by one's grandfather!1" "t'I suppose he was a Radical. Of course that would account f or everything." "11But sh! sh! the Second Part is just going to begin. I wouldn't miss the next scene on any account." "11Sh! sh! sh! We glance at our programme and seeFifth Selection-" The Crisis." Sixth Selection-" The Catastrophe." But the Undergraduate's power of "'sticking it" is exhausted. "1It's about time to do a guy," he exclaims; so he hurls himself tumultuously downstairs. The less hardy spirits, awed by Sam Trotter's reproachful eye, huddle together in the back drawing-room, under a hollow pretence of giving up the best places which we have monopolized so long, and with a secret conviction that the back-stairs must be somewhere handy. As I lay down my pen and review the foregoing narrative, I feel rather aghast at the levity with THE AUTHORESS 183 which I have treated a serious theme. My only comfort is in the conviction that Mrs. TempleTrotter will never cast her learned eye over my frivolous page, and will go to the grave in the cheerful though mistaken conviction that " Sarah Smithers " has placed the relation of the sexes on a permanently altered basis. From authoresses of a less didactic turn-Miss Broughton and Miss Cholmondeley and Mrs. Felkin, and Lady RidleyI feel that I have nothing to dread. CHAPTER XXVII THE BUSY IDLER I ADMIT that the phrase is, as our grammatical friends would say, an Oxymoron, but I know no other which would describe the type. If it were not a point of literary honour to eschew the epithets which Shakespeare applies to the cat, I should apply them to the man whom I have in my mind's eye. Veiling them in synonyms, I would say that he is not only innocuous but essential; he does a great deal in an unobtrusive way, and many good works would languish if they lacked him. Of course his most prominent characteristic is the fact that he has no profession. Here in England we are to some extent - though not nearly so much as our American cousins-in bondage to the Professional idea. There is a vague notion afloat that unless a man can write himself Clergyman, Barrister, Doctor, Soldier, Merchant, or the like, he must be what schoolboys inelegantly call a "Waster." Even that haziest of all descriptions "Something in the City" is deemed more honorific than the frank admission that one is, professionally speaking, nothing. Of course, in 184 THE BUSY IDLER x85 so far as this sentiment is an inarticulate assertion of the doctrine that no man has a right to cumber the earth in idleness and self-indulgence, it is morally sound; but its practical defect is that it leaves out of sight all work which is not professional. Unless a man is paid for what he does, his neighbours persist in thinking that he does nothing. Now, that this is true of a great many non-professional men-athletes and aesthetes, sportsmen, travellers, haunters of clubs, "Men about Town"-I fully admit, but it is conspicuously untrue of that worthy type which I have designated "The Busy Idler." Let me try to describe him. Of course he has a little money. The qualification is essential to the part; but the nicely-calculated less or more does not signify. We will therefore assume that his income is IIooo a year, more or less; not enough to create the deceitfulness of riches, but quite enough to keep him in decency and comfort without professional effort. Perhaps in his hot youth he was called to the Bar, but he hastens to assure you that he never practised. If he dabbles in journalism, it is only to describe a Drawing-Room Meeting or to puff some Institution to which he is devoted. He generally belongs to a good family, was educated at a Public School and a University, and has been more or less "in Society" ever since he came to live in London after taking his degree. Of course he is a bachelor, the claims of husband 186 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES hood and fatherhood would clash fatally with the line of life which he pursues. But he has a kind of domestic instinct which shows itself in his way of living. He does not, as a rule, inhabit Chambers or Lodgings or Flats. Perhaps he did so just after he came up to London, but he soon grew tired of that "unchartered freedom" and sought more homelike quarters. He has,a little house in the purlieus of Belgravia or in far South Kensington-the sort of house which Mr. Lenville would have described as " pernicious snug." It is full of bric-a-brac and pottery, water-colour drawings, framed photographs, and invitation-cards-for the Busy Idler has one foot on the sea of Philanthropy and one on the solid shore of dinner-giving Society. He has three servants, of undeniable respectability, who watch over his health and comfort with scrupulous care. His one spare bedroom is generally occupied, either by a nephew passing through London on his way to school, or by a clerical friend from the country who wants to attend the May Meetings at Exeter Hall or to see Mr. Percy Dreamer's latest achievements in Ecclesiastical Millinery. For our Busy Idler is essentially clerical in his instincts and sympathies. As Bertie Stanhope told the astonished Bishop of Barchester, he "once had thoughts of being a bishop himself-that is, a parson-a parson first, you know, and a bishop afterwards." That plan of life was soon laid aside. Perhaps his health THE BUSY IDLER 187 was not quite up to parochial requirements; perhaps he disliked getting up early; perhaps he felt that he would cut a sorry figure in the pulpit; perhaps he had a constitutional objection to cottages and sicknesses and smells and microbes. Whatever was the reason, he abandoned his clerical ambitions; but, being a really good fellow, he has compounded with his conscience by working indefatigably for his clerical friends. There is no limit to his unpaid activities. If his lot is cast in a parish where organization is the strong point, he is Churchwarden, Sidesman, or School-Manager; Captain of the Boys' Athletic Teams, or President of the Saturday night "Men's Social." If ceremonial is what interests him most, he is Crucifer or Thurifer or Server; flashes about the church in a scarlet cassock, or totters under a banner of fabulous dimensions. He teaches in a Sunday School or a Night-School, bosses the parochial Temperance Guild, or holds a Bible Class for Working Men. In an age when clergymen are increasingly'tempted to leave the Word of God and serve billiard-tables, he takes the management of the Men's Club into his own hands, collects subscriptions vigorously, lays them out prudently, and organizes all the social work of the parish. But his activities extend far beyond parochial boundaries. He is on the Boards of half-a-dozen Hospitals, regularly visits the Wards, inspects 188 SOCIAL. SILHOUETTES the food-supply, and makes rigorous inquisition into the sanitary arrangements. He is on the Committee of the Orphanage, the Refuge, and the Penitentiary, and never misses a meeting. He is an Associate of one of the larger Sisterhoods, is hand-in-glove with Mother Margaretta and Sister Mary Jane, and is an unfailing attendant at the Annual Festival at Clewer or East Grinstead. He must be kept carefully distinct from the Faddist, whom we discussed before, for the Busy Idler is essentially a man of convention and propriety. Like the Parish Clerk in the epitaph"He keeps the pious path his fathers trod, And loves Established ways of serving God." There is nothing odd in his dress. He does not wear blue plush gloves or a slouch hat, but nicely-creased trousers and buttoned boots. He is for the orthodox practice whether in religion or in medicine, works whole-heartedly with the Vicar and the Doctor, and sets his face against all quackery, whether spiritual, moral, or physical. In these respects he is clearly marked off from the Faddist; but, for all that, he often finds his way on to the platform. He is not, as a rule, much of an orator, and is put up last to second a vote of thanks to the Chairman; but he may be relied on to drop a sovereign into the plate, and that is a form of support which outweighs much eloquence. At a Draw THE BUSY IDLER ing-room Meeting he is specially at home. The Mission Church of St. Simeon Stylites, East Wapping, is more than usually out of funds. The Missioner is anxious to enlist the sympathy and the cheque-books of the West End, and for that purpose a Drawing - room Meeting in Belgravia or May Fair must be organized. Who is to do the work? The Missioner suddenly remembers that he was at Charterhouse or Magdalen with the Busy Idler, and pounces on him with alacrity. "Now, my dear chap, you have nothing on earth to do. I think you might undertake this job to help an old friend "-and the Busy Idler gladly consents. He persuades his aunt, the Dowager Lady Kew, to lend her drawing-room and provide tea and coffee. He draws up the form of invitation, and sends out five hundred cards at his own expense. The meeting is announced for 3.30; but an hour before that time he is on the ground, posing that water-bottle and glass without which no Drawing-room Meeting is valid, arranging the chairs, distributing literature, and welcoming with eager smile the earlier arrivals. "Do come this way. I can get you a capital seat. Do you prefer the fire or the window? How nice of you to come! It is such a pity it is so wet. But I think we shall have a good meeting. The Duchess of Pimlico promised to come, and the two Miss Yellowboys never fail, and they are much more liberal than the Duchess; only pray Igo SOCIAL SILHOUETTES don't say I said so. Do you know the Missioner -Bumpstead? He is such a good fellow! He deserves all we can do for him; and St. Simeon's is such an awful slum. Who is going to take the chair? The Bishop of Brompton. Oh, here he comes. So kind of you to come, Bishop! Now I think we can begin "-and so on, and so forth. The flood of philanthropic oratory flows for an hour, a chinking of cups and an agreeable smell of coffee suggest more mundane thoughts. The Stingy and the Cunning begin to slip away, as they hope, unobserved; but the Busy Idler is beforehand with them, and is on guard at the drawing-room door with a soupplate in his hand. An hour later he has counted the collection and handed it or its equivalent to the rejoicing Missioner, and then flies off to snatch a hasty dinner before going to preside over the Quarterly Concert of the Drum and Fife Band. Thus the Busy Idler passes his day His life is one long Drawing-room Meeting, varied by Boards, Councils, Committees, Clubs, Concerts, and Church Services. The lesson which he teaches to a megalomaniac age is "the sublimity of small tasks well performed." CHAPTER XXVIII THE CLUB-MAN STRANGE as it may seem to the austere student of Sociology, there are men who live and move and have their being in Clubs. In Club-land their day begins, in Club-land it is spent, in Clubland it closes. Their interests in life are Clubinterests, their occupations are Club-occupations, their hopes and fears and anxieties and ambitions are engendered by the air of Clubs and are bounded by the area in which Clubdom reigns. In earlier days I had a friend, who lived under the parental roof in Belgravia until he had nearly reached middle - age. His parents lived long, but they could not live for ever, and eventually the home was broken up. Not long afterwards I met my friend walking dejectedly along Piccadilly, and paused to say a few sympathetic words on his recent bereavement. He replied with unfeigned emotion: "Yes, indeed. It makes a tremendous difference in life-greater than one would have thought possible. You see, I used to begin my day at the Bachelors', and work along Piccadilly, and down St. James's Street, and along Pall Mall, till I ended at the 191 192 192 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Travellers', in time for tea. Now that I have rooms in Pall Mall, I have to begin at the Travellers' and end at the Bachelors', and the change is enormous. However, I suppose one will get used to it in time." The "Pall Mall Guide to the House of Commons" (while yet the present Duke of Devonshire sat in that assembly) remarked, with a kind of demure playfulness, that "1Lord Hartington has only eight clubs." Let us take pattern by this high exemplar, and assume that our typical Club-man has the same number First and foremost, he has a Political Club. If he happens to belong to a strongly political family, Whig or Tory, he probably finds his way, while still quite young, into Brooks's or the Carlton. If his politics are more personal than hereditary, he may choose between the Reform or the Devonshire, the junior Canlton, the Conservative, the Constitutional, or St. Stephen's. And here let it be remarked in passing that a young gentleman who attaches himself to the Conservative party will find that he has a far larger choice in the way of Clubs than is open to the nascent Liberal. Club-land is Conservative as the sea is salt. Whatever his politics, the Club-man probably has two political clubs; he habitually uses the more comfortable of the two, but occasionally visits the other by way of showing a friendly interest in the affairs of the Party. Then, of course, he has some Social Clubs, in THE CLUB-MAN I93 which, unless he is abnormally fond of political chit-chat, he finds himself more at home than at the headquarters of Liberalism or Conservativism. If he is young and frivolous, he may be found at the Cocoa Tree, which, though the oldest club in London, is, by a curious paradox, the chosen haunt of callow youth. If he is not quite so young as he once was but wishes to keep the air of juvenility, you may see him in the historic bow-window of White's or at the not less commanding corner whence the Bachelors survey society. If he is a person of high consideration, he may belong to the Marlborough and drink his five-o'clock-tea at the next table to an Illustrious Personage. If he has any relations with the Foreign Office or the Diplomatic Service, he may rub shoulders with Ambassadors at the elegant St. James's. Since the days when Major Pendennis breakfasted at "Bays's," and stirred Glowry, the Scotch surgeon, to impotent jealousy by the sight of his invitation-cards, no one has eaten his morning meal at a club; and for the idle hours of the forenoon and afternoon one club will serve pretty nearly as well as another. But where is the Club-man to dine? This is a vital question, and must be faced gravely and answered decisively before he chooses his evening club. To reply first by negatives, he will not dine at the Athenaeum, where all the arts and sciences are understood except Gastronomy; N 194 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES nor, as a rule, will he frequent a Political Club at the dinner-hour. To dine at Brooks's has been likened to dining at a Duke's house with the Duke lying dead upstairs; and the Carlton and the Reform are apt to be overcrowded by a sudden influx of hungry M.P.'s just released from a division. If the Club-man is fortunate enough to have got into the Travellers' (and he must have been very young and unknown when he succeeded), he may dine there very pleasantly If he loves to season his repast with talk of bullocks and foxes, rents and runs, he will get an excellent meal at Boodles'. If his idea of happiness at dinner is tranquil comfort, he will find it realized at Arthur's. The presence of femininity is, by some mysterious law, incompatible with the full and easy play of the gastronomic instinct; the solitude and solemnity of a clubdinner best befit the sacred importance of the meal. It has, I believe, been remarked by some profound observer of human life that there is, sooner or later, an end to all things; and even dinner, the purest of all pleasures, cannot last for ever. Sooner or later our Club-man has finished his coffee, his Kummel, and his cigar. For a few delicious moments be toys in thought with "the rich relics of a well-spent hour"; and then, "serenely full," he asks himself where he is to spend the evening, and, if he is in the humour for cheerful society, he could not do THE CLUB-MAN 195 better than drop in at the Turf. Some livelier haunts near St. James's Place it were perilous to name. Of course, if our Club-man is a Club-man and something more-if he has a profession, a pursuit, or a hobby,-he will probably join a club which has its special and distinctive character. If he is an old soldier, he is eligible for "The Senior," and may make free with the Duke of Wellington's dry sherry and Dugald Stewart's still drier library. If he is a young soldier, he may choose between the Army and Navy, the Naval and Military, the Cavalry if he is a cavalier, and the Guards if he is a "gravelgrinder." If he loves the drama, he may choose the Garrick; if whist, the Baldwin or the Portland. If he rejoices in the associations of Cam or Isis, he can join the United University, where Mr. Gladstone's ghost still walks; or the Oxford and Cambridge, where Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman may be encountered in the body. If he enjoys the society of schoolmasters, he will find it at the New University; if he is a "littery gent," the Savile will welcome him to a house which once belonged to a Rothschild. There is, in fine, no limit to the possibilities of experience and enjoyment which Club-land offers to the Club-man. To the neophyte it is "a world of opportunity and wonder"; to the old stager it is the lotus-land of his destination and his rest. But to the man in the middle term of 196 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES existence, old enough to be critical and not old enough to be lethargic, Club-land is a sphere of varied and beneficent activity. Our Club-man serves on the Committee of the Carlton or is one of the "Managers" of Brooks's. He meets the chef in secret conclave, keeps the steward up to the mark, and shares with the butler the awful secrets of the cellar. At Clubs where reading is the fashion he pervades the Library, directs the attention of the Librarian to members who talk, and arouses from slumber those who snore. He is a tremendous authority on ventilation and sanitation, he keeps a watchful eye on the waiters' liveries, and his advice is taken before the Coffee-room is repainted or new kamptulicon is laid down in the basement. Perhaps he is an active propagandist in the cause of the Club, catches desirable youths at Trinity or Magdalen, Sandhurst or the Temple; pilots them through the perils of the Ballot, and gives cheerful dinners to introduce them to their fellow Club-men. Or, just for the sake of variety, he may choose another line-organize the blackballing contingent, and keep the Club unspotted by the morally, racially, or professionally undesirable. Let no one pity the Club-man. He has what we all profess to desire more than gold or silver -an opportunity in which his peculiar gifts can be used to the best advantage. If his sphere of influence seems a trifle circumscribed it can THE CLUB-MAN 197 easily be enlarged, for, when he has drained the delights of all existing Clubs, he can always found a new one, and to found a New Club is a constructive effort which adequately represents and rewards the labour of a lifetime. CHAPTER XXIX THE DINER-OUT HERE are the pleasures of antithesis; for the Club-man is essentially a diner-in. The Club is his ark, his sanctuary, and his home. He loves its staid tranquillity and its silent decorum. He likes to choose his dinner, and, having once chosen it, he would rather eat it alone than share it with unappreciative friends. So he dines in solitary state, while "John brings the pickles and Thomas hurries up with the Harvey sauce; Peter comes tumbling with the water-jug over James, who bears the glittering canisters with bread." The Diner-out orders his life on very different lines. He starts on his career in London with the manly resolve that he will, as a rule, dine at other people's expense, and this resolve is easier of fulfilment than those who have never made the experiment might deem possible. The intending Diner-out serves his apprenticeship, so to speak, in the houses of his relations. We will assume for the moment that his home is in the country He comes up to London from Oxford or Cambridge, intending perhaps to follow some profession, perhaps to live on the paternal allow-. 198 THE DINER-OUT 199 ance; in either case dinner is a necessity; and, by a natural instinct, he turns to his relations for the supply of his need. He dines in rapid succession with the head of his family, with the opulent banker who married his cousin, and with his maiden aunt, who arranges a little party expressly to launch him. At each dinner he makes new acquaintances, and he diligently pursues his advantages. He meets at a ball the young lady whom he took in to dinner the night before; asks her to dance, but does not pester her if she is engaged; takes her mother to supper, and helps them to get their carriage. Human nature is amenable to small politenesses, and two or three of these attentions produce an invitation to dinner. So a fourth house is added to our young friend's dining-list, and, encouraged by success, he extends his plan of campaign. Perhaps he encounters a father and mother superabundantly blessed with marriageable daughters, and in such homes a plausible and well-connected young man, even though not of great possessions, is always welcome. Perhaps he falls in with some professional dinner-giver, who is glad to know of some one not too proud to fill a place left vacant at the last moment. Perhaps-and this is the best opening of all-he is introduced to some opulent dowager who still likes to entertain, but has rather outlived her contemporary friends and her social renown. To a superannuated hostess of this kind the young Diner-out is indeed a gift 200 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES from Hermes; for new blood is essential to social success, and a youth who will really bestir himself to be pleasant and amusing is worth his weight in gold. From our infancy we have been taught, in a distich of sound sense though imperfect rhyme and rhythm, that " Little Tommy Tucker Sings for his supper." And the young Diner-out brings all his accomplishments to bear on the task of consolidating his position. The envious St. Barbe in "Endymion" says of his more successful brother-clerk Seymour Hicks-" He dines with Lord CinquePorts! It is positively revolting. But the things he does to get asked! Sings, rants, conjures, ventriloquizes, stands on his head." And young Mr. Thomas Tucker, at least in the earlier stages of his dining career, is forced to rely a good deal on similar arts. All this, however, is only apprenticeship, and of course the length of the preparatory stage is modified by the greater or less skill and aptitude of the apprentice. If he is worth his social salt, he soon gets to be recognized, and even courted, on his own merits, and not merely,because he is a nephew of Lord Wimpole's or first cousin to the Harley-Bakers. An Illustrious Lady, once presenting a young gentleman to Queen Victoria, described him as "nephew to dear Aunt Cambridge's lady," and the young Diner-out soon THE DINER-OUT 201 becomes justly impatient of a condition in which he is only known by these genealogical indications. If he has got his wits about him, he soon establishes a footing of his own. Perhaps, to use Hudibras's phrase, he "smatters French" or German, and then he is a treasure in houses where a foreign guest has to be entertained and the host's vocabulary does not get much beyond "Oui, oui." Perhaps he knows something about books or pictures; perhaps he dabbles in things theatrical; perhaps he sings in a choir or is interested in Oxford House, and therefore fits in so well if the Bishop of London happens to be dining. Whatever his speciality is, it can be turned to good account. Then again Politics affords a tremendous scope for the Diner-out; political life depends a good deal on dining; only, in this case young Tucker must make up his mind about the party to which he means to belong, for political dinner-givers are peculiarly vindictive, and to be seen at a house of the wrong complexion is fatal. Soon after the " Home Rule Split" of 1886 a Liberal statesman told me, with tears in his voice, that it had disastrously affected his dining-out. "If," he said, "it were merely that the Unionists severed all connexion with us, I should not complain. But there is a section of them who will dine with us but won't ask us to dine with them. That I call base." In the summer of 1878, just after Lord Beaconsfield's triumphant return from Berlin, Mr Glad 202 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES stone's social unpopularity was extreme. A distracted hostess was going round a London party saying in the most pathetic tone, "Gladstone is coming to dine with me next week, and I can't get a soul to meet him." Then suddenly espying young Tucker, and justly assuming that he would not let his politics interfere with his dinner, she said abruptly, "Will you come?" and was beyond measure grateful when that callow youth replied that he didn't the least mind meeting the Liberal leader. But it was a decisive act on Tucker's part. In Mr. Gladstone's own phrase, he had burnt his boats and broken his bridges; thenceforward he must dine with Liberals or with Neutrals. The Tories preferred his room to his company But now we will suppose that the Diner-out has firmly established his position in the world. Henceforward he is as a man whom dinnergiving people, for some mysterious reason or combination of reasons, must invite. Thus the way is made clear before his face, and he sails over summer seas. His writing-table is littered, or his looking-glass framed, with the legible signs of his social triumph. There are large cards inviting to hecatombs in the Palaces of Park Lane, and insinuating notes from young hostesses cumbered by the cares of unaccustomed hospitality. The wise Diner-out is apt to shrink from the more pretentious hospitalities, and to cultivate the circles where his presence is really considered a THE DINER-OUT 203 boon. He constantly bears in mind the wisest saying of the wise Prince Consort-" Things always taste best in small houses." He sets his face like a flint against long invitations, for he knows only too well that, just after he has promised to dine six weeks hence with Colonel and Mrs. Welbore or old Lord Gruncher, something much more attractive will turn up at three days' notice. Nor is the Diner-out altogether governed by selfish motives. He has not sat at other men's mahoganies for twenty years without acquiring a certain notion of what makes a dinner "go" and what gorgonizes it into petrifaction; and he knows that the experience thus acquired may really be of some use to his young friends the Fitz-Roy Timminses, when they begin giving dinners in Lilliput Street. To a lady who said that she could not attempt dinner-giving because she had lived long out of London and knew nobody to invite, Sydney Smith, at the height of his social fame, replied: " I will dine with you twice a week, and, when people know that, you will find no difficulty about getting them to your house." It is not every Diner-out who can venture on so high-handed an exercise of the social prerogative; but if Tommy Tucker joins the profession young and sticks to it sedulously he may be in a position to make or mar a dinner before he is five-and-forty In social England, as in Imperial France, there is a carrizre ouverte aux tale/ds. CHAPTER XXX THE DINNER-GIVER MR. BRANCEPETH in "Lothair" is one of Lord Beaconsfield's most finished portraits. The picture was drawn by the hand of a master, and the original was so well known that all the world could see and admire the accuracy of the delineation: " Mr. Brancepeth was celebrated for his dinners, and still more for his guests. He was a grave young man. It was supposed that he was always meditating over the arrangement of his menus or the skilful means by which he could assemble together the right persons to partake of them. Mr Brancepeth had attained the highest celebrity in his peculiar career. To dine with Mr. Brancepeth was a social incident that was mentioned. Royalty had consecrated his banquets, and a youth of note was scarcely a graduate of Society who had not been his guest. ' I like Brancepeth,' said St. Aldegonde. 'I like a man who can do only one thing, but does that well.'" When that "one thing" is a thing so profoundly important as dinner-giving, the doer of it must not be dismissed in a paragraph. Indeed, so 304 THE DINNER-GIVER 205 to dismiss him were not only ungracious but impossible; for he has as many forms as Proteus, and it is the combination of them all that makes the typical Dinner-giver. First let us rule out what I may call the Commercial Dinner-giver-the man who, Bismarcklike, says Do ut des,-whose whole conception of dinner-giving is comprised in the terse phrase "Cutlet for cutlet." There are such men, and plenty of them; but they are not worth dining with. The man who entertains twenty-four people at a banquet because he has dined with twelve of them already and hopes to dine with the other twelve soon is not a host to be trusted. The same commercial instinct which governs his invitations is only too likely to make itself felt in his cook's wages and his wine-merchant's bill. The man who makes the sacred rite of dinner a matter of barter or exchange is no safe Amphitryon. Almost as much to be suspected is the Dinnergiver with an Object-the man who entertains from a motive, even though that motive were the most laudable on earth. Of course the Political Dinner-giver is a heinous offender in this respect. In his loyal anxiety to make young Jawkins acquainted with his political leader, Lord Decimus Tite-Barnacle, or to patch up a reconciliation between William Buffy and Augustus Stiltstalking, he crowds his dining-room to suffocation, labours to give the conversation 206 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES a profitable turn, and is fatally apt to forget that the first object of Dinner is Dining. People, again, who, to use a homely phrase, "are on the make" cannot be trusted as Dinnergivers. They may have the best chef in London, their walls may blaze with Romneys, and they may spend fabulous sums on their champagne and their orchids; but they are far too much occupied with the social strategy of the evening to be efficient hosts. In truth, the path of the Dinner-giver "on the make" is beset with perils and perplexities, and the arts to which he has recourse are so curious that they may well engross his entire mind. Mr. Cobden, sitting on a Parliamentary Committee and examining Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, on the question of official salaries, elicited the reply that, in Lord John's opinion, they were none too large. With quiet persistence, Cobden rejoined, "I can quite understand, Lord John, that your official position involves you in a great many expenses. But don't you find that you are much more frequently invited to dinner-parties than you were before you were Prime Minister? And does not that circumstance equalize matters? " Lord John replied that it had not occurred to him to strike the balance; and he might have added that he dined with his friends whether he was in office or in opposition, and did not enquire into the subsidence of the weekly books. And here a change is to be noted. In days gone by, THE DINNER-GIVER20 207 people dined only with their friends. But in this respect Society has undergone a change. The Dinner-giver "1on the make " comes up to London with his million, more or less honestly acquired; buys a mansion, and begins to entertain. The simplest of all beginnings is to trump up some excuse for inviting a Great Man. If he declines you are no worse off than you were before. If he accepts, you build up your party on his promised presence. "1Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (or Mr. Chamberlain, or Mr. Balfour or whoever the notable may be) is dining with us on Wednesday. We are asking a few intimate friends to meet him, and should be so glad if you would join us." So the trap is baited; so the snare is spread. For one who refuses, two accept; and in three days you have arranged a company of whom not one would have consented to darken your doors if you had not secured the Great Man. But the blanching anxiety involved in planning and executing a manceuvre like this is fatal to that light-heartedness which is essential to a successful host. To entertain successfully, the host must have what the hymn so beautifully calls "A heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathize." And that is impossible when one is anxiously watching to see whether the Great Man is behaving civilly to his fellow-guests. Our social success 208 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES would be dreadfully imperilled if the Lion of the Evening only growled and tossed his mane at the assembled jackals. "But turn we from these bold, bad men," who defile hospitality with calculation, and entertain, not for love of their guests, but for some such base object as economy or politics or social aspiration. The real Dinner-giver is the man who, to use Sydney Smith's phrase, "welcomes his guests with that honest joy which warms more than dinner or wine"; who invites us because he likes us, and, having invited us, studies to give us the best dinner within his compass. It is currently said in clerical circles that the sermon which costs the preacher nothing is worth exactly what it costs; and, turning to the lighter life of Gastronomy, I would say that, if a dinner is to be really good, the host must (like Mr. Brancepeth) put his whole heart into the work of preparing it. He must ponder thoughtfully over the Bill of Fare, not relying on his cook's advice, for she will wish to produce strange and untried dishes for her own glorification. Rather should he tell her exactly what she does best, and in what points she can improve herself and what she must avoid. He should reckon the amount of whitebait or asparagus which will be required, being very careful to leave a worthy margin in case of second demands. As to wine, the rule is symplicity itself. Buy the best you can afford. THE DINNER-GIVER 209 Never economize in wine. If you only give one dinner a year, give the best. Champagne is not necessary, though, alone of all created wines, it fulfils the ideal of making glad the heart of man. But good champagne is expensive, and no man has a right to grumble if you give him sound claret, or the still wines of Moselle, which combine salubrity with cheapness, and, as Mr. Finching, the wine-merchant in "Little Dorrit," said, are "weak but palatable." Though I insist so strongly on the sacred duty of care in arranging the Bill of Fare and choosing the wine, and though I think that trouble is well bestowed on the temperature of the dining-room, the flowers, and the waiting, I think that anxiety about choosing guests is quite unnecessary. You ask a dozen of the pleasantest people you know, and fling them together in a kind of social hotch-potch. At first they may be a little stiff, but "Turtle makes all men equal," as Lord Beaconsfield said, and good wine makes the dumb to speak. Presently a pleasant murmur of conversation begins to circle round your board; in ten minutes every one is talking at once, and illustrating Lord Houghton's proverb that " out of the abundance of the mouth the heart speaketh." The host, having set the ball rolling, can now begin to think of his own dinner. The butler, if he is worth his salt, sees to it that his master has a second help of mullet and is not fobbed off with a drumstick. Every 0 210 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES one is cheerful, every one is comfortable, every one is on good terms with himself; and, when the party breaks up, the man who has dined with you for the first time says to his companion in the hansom, "What a good chap our host is! Did you eat that lobster-curry?" Even so Mr. St. Barbe, after dining with the Neuchatels, declared that he felt a new and strange sensation about his heart: " If it isn't indigestion, I think it must be gratitude." CHAPTER XXXI THE INVALID SUFFERING is sacred, and the real Invalid is no fit subject for critical analysis. We salute the high example of patient endurance; and marvel, and pass on. For our present purpose the Invalid signifies either the man who is really well and plays at being ill, or who is really a little ill and pretends to be very much worse than he is. In either case, he makes his health his profession, and is what our forefathers called a valetudinarian. The word is inconveniently long, but the thing is the type which we are to consider. Whoever first coined the phrase "He (or she) enjoys bad health" hit, by a happy Malapropism, the exact truth. The first Lord Lytton, who was fond of oracular sentences, once pronounced that "money is character." It might be at least as wisely said that health is occupation, and to some people a thoroughly enjoyable one. Once let the subject of health take firm possession of the mind, and no other occupation is necessary or even possible. It claims all day and all night for its own, and grasps the soul with what Chalmers finely called "the expulsive power of 211 212 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES a new affection." Literature and art and politics and social chit-chat are dismissed from our thoughts, and are replaced by systems of drainage and rules of diet, hygienic underclothing, and boiled milk. Every meal is a new and startling combination of minced beef and hot water, or cheese and nuts, according as we choose to follow one system or its rival. The day begins with a cup of cocoa in which a dash of Price's Glycerine has been substituted for sugar. Gymnastic contortions take the place of exercise. Massage, electricity, and medicated baths supply us with recreation. We dine on grape-nut cutlets, and after dinner sit for three minutes in a hip-bath of cold water As our sleep is a little precarious, we calm our nerves by playing Patience after dinner or having the Times read to us, and retire early to rest, in company with a hop-pillow, a cup of Benger, and a teaspoonful of bromide. If we should chance to wake in the night, there are cocoanibs and a plasmon biscuit within easy reach of our bedside. Such is the Invalid's day, at least in its main outline and general principles, but of course it admits of infinite variation. Some are never well except at Brighton or Torquay, some cannot breathe comfortably outside London, some swear by Biarritz and some by North Berwick; but whatever be the place that suits the Invalid, it is bound also to suit his family. For there THE INVALID 213 can only be one Invalid, in the full and constitutional sense, in one house, and by his (or her) pleasure all domestic life is regulated. All social obligations are abrogated by the Royal Prerogative of the Invalid. Lord Montfort in "Endymion" used to excuse himself from whatever was tedious and tiresome by saying, "You know my wretched state"; but that, says Lord Beaconsfield, was what "nobody exactly did know, particularly as Lord Montfort was sometimes seen wading in streams breast-high while throwing his skilful line over the rushing waters." The domestic circle of the Invalid is perfectly inured to this discipline, and the casual visitor is expected to be equally complaisant. "I am afraid you found it very hot at dinner. Papa has neuritis, and cannot bear an open window." ", I ought to warn you that the drawing-room is rather cold. Mamma always feels faint if the thermometer is above 40." " I am afraid I must ask you not to poke the fire in your bedroom, and to shut your door very quietly, for my wife always goes to bed at nine, and the least sound destroys her sleep for the night." 1 No, we never go abroad, and very seldom even get a glimpse of London, for my husband dislikes travelling. He finds that the train always gives him migraine. He is such a devoted father that he can't bear the girls out of his sight, and of course I can never leave him for an hour, so we don't get away from home very much." 214 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES All the routine of life is regulated by the same considerations. If the Invalid takes a walk, it must be on a dead level, for hills fatigue him. If he drives, he must change his seat in the carriage every ten minutes, lest the east wind should vex his throat. If he pays a call, he must keep his greatcoat on, for he catches cold so easily- If you offer him five-o'clock-tea, he will demand izsistently whether it has stood for more than three minutes, and, shrinking in horror from the proffered muffin, will nibble with explanatory apologies a gingerbread-nut made from a recipe of Sir Tumley Snuffin. If he goes to a play, it must be a matin&e, for an evening performance would interfere fatally with dinner, and on all matters of meals the Invalid's laws are as those of the Medes and Persians. If he goes to church, he must sit near the door, lest a paroxysm of claustrophobia should suddenly interfere with his devotions. In travelling, he must have the seat nearest the window (to get air), with his back to the engine (to avoid dust), and, in all those petty but animated disputes which arise over the question of the shut or open window, he carries the day by the tranquil dignity with which he says, "I am sorry to be so tiresome, but I am an Invalid." It belongs, if not to the essence, yet certainly to the perfection, of the type that the Invalid should have a shadow or a satellite-a being whose whole existence is borrowed and derivative, THE INVALID 215 or who is content to revolve round the central luminary. Mr. Wititterly in "Nicholas Nickleby" stands for all time as the model Husband in Attendance, taking an honest pride in his wife's infirmities. "She is Sir Tumley Snuffin's favourite patient, and is the first person who took the new medicine which is supposed to have destroyed a family at Kensington Gravel-pits." The Wife in Attendance-" poor wretch," as good Sam Pepys called Mrs. Pepys--is a common object of the seashore. An invalid brother often contrives to fag his sisters very satisfactorily, and I have known cases where an invalid sister has effectually turned the tables. The lonely Invalid, bachelor or spinster, is badly off in this respect. If a woman, she is forced to rely on a "Lady Companion," as the phrase was in Miss Crawley's days, or, in more modern parlance, a "Private Secretary," who, approaching her task in a professional spirit, naturally won't put up with quite so much nonsense as those who are tied and bound by the chain of relationship. If a man, he is forced to rely on his valet-" Muggins is a very superior fellow, quite above his class. He understands a great deal about illness, and can take a temperature as well as I can." Alas for the bachelor Invalid who gives himself over to a nurse! Hushed in grim repose, she expects her evening prey, and too frequently secures it. The relations of the Invalid to the doctor would fill 216 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES a volume, but, roughly, they may be divided into two main classes. There is the relation in which the doctor enslaves the patient to a minute system of life and diet, and there is the relation in which the patient exhibits a will of his own, and the doctor can only accommodate his science to the human element in the problem. " With me," cries the robust Invalid, "all health is a matter of digestion. I have found by experience that Dressed Crab suits me. If Snuffin says it don't, Snuffin's a fool. I am perfectly willing to take his physic, but he shall not interfere with my diet." Most curious of all is the influence exercised by invalidishness on friendship. Indeed the way of the Invalid's friend is hard. If he doesn't sympathize enough, he is called selfish; if he sympathizes too much, he depresses the patient; if he says cheerfully, " I'm glad to see you looking so well," he only gets snubbed for his pains; and, if he were so indiscreet as to say, " By Jove, you look bad!", he would never enter the house again. In days gone by I knew an Invalid who combined in high perfection all the attributes of the type. He was rich, indolent, selfish, and imperious. His family were his slaves. Nurses and servants quivered when he sneezed, and even the doctors (who lived on him), knowing the hot competition in the profession, deemed it inexpedient to prescribe what he disliked. But, THE INVALID27 217 strange to relate, his friends fell off like autumn leaves. At last he was left with one friend only, and that of a rather subservient type. One day the toady was sitting by the Invalid's sofa, and in a transport of friendship laid his hand on the patient's leg. Next morning he received a letter to this effect. "Dear -, I must tell you that I was surprised by the thoughtlessness- I will not call it by a harsher name-which you showed this morning. i think you knew that I have long suffered from varicose veins, and that rough touch of yours might have terminated my life. I must decline any further visits from you, but this untoward incident will make no difference to the ~6200 which I have left you in my will." Surely this was worthy to be included among those Partings of Friends which have turned the course of history. CHAPTER XXXII THE SQUIRE To pass from the Invalid to the Squire is to enjoy the pleasure of swift and sudden contrast. The Squire is never ill. Nay, more-the mere suggestion of illness or delicacy in another rouses all his manly scorn. "That fellow Millikin is always seedy-but what can you expect? He eats four meals a day, takes no exercise, and is always drugging himself. If he would eat about half what he does, chuck his physic-bottles away, and hunt three days a week, he would be perfectly fit. I told him so the other day, straight,"-and you may risk a bet that the Squire will wind up his terse allocution with an apocryphal saying which he attributes to Lord Palmerston-" There's nothing so good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse." Meanwhile the wretched Millikin is incessantly urged by his doctor to avoid cold and fatigue, to use a generous diet, and to take a tonic three times a day and a sedative draught at bed-time. He obeys his medical adviser with scrupulous fidelity, but the mere sight of his obedience moves the Squire to incoherent wrath. "I don't want all that ~i8 THE SQUIRE 219 messing about; why does Millikin? You may depend on it that it's partly laziness and partly nerves-and I believe there's a good deal of humbug mixed up with it." Thus the Squire. And these vigorous utterances about his neighbour's health are only part of his all-round dogmatism. The Squire must never be contradicted. He is accustomed to have his own way, to prescribe other people's ways for them, and to speak his mind without let or hindrance. When I analyse a Squire, I do not enquire too nicely into details of station or income. He may be a peer of ancient lineage but small estate. He may be, like all Miss Braddon's heroes, a baronet. He may be a country gentleman undecorated with titles, in which case he will probably tell you that his grandfather refused a peerage. The essential characteristic of the type is that he lives on his hereditary acres, never goes to London, and is surrounded by a little court to whom his word is law. The exercise of authority, even on the smallest scale, is dear to his soul, and subserviency is the air he breathes. "Superiors? Death! And equals? What a curse! But an inferior, not dependent, worse I" The Squire lives in a substantial house of dark red brick with facings of white stone, set in what he calls a park and his detractors meadowland. The amount of his income is, as I said 220 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES just now, immaterial to his character. It may range from ~5000 a year in good times to ~3ooo in bad; but greater or less makes no difference to his resolute self-esteem. Of course in these sad days of agricultural depression he is not so well off as he would like to be, and he girds incessantly at the stockbroker who has bought the neighbouring estate and his brother-squire who has a slum-property in the adjacent town; but, richer or poorer, he is the Squire, and is hedged by a divinity before which the parish quails. The Squire, like the Czar, exercises a paternal despotism alike over Church, State, and domestic life. If he is patron of the living, the appointment of a new vicar gives full scope for the exercise of his most majestic qualities. " I put the fellow through his facings," he says, "and let him know pretty plainly the sort of thing I expect in my parson. No Socialistic folly-no setting class against class or encouraging the labourers to think they are badly off. I've tied him up pretty tight, I can tell you, and I think he knows on which side his bread is buttered." Or perhaps the living belongs to another patron, and the Squire, much to his disgust, is forced to entrust his soul to a pastor chosen for him. "Do you know what the Bishop has done? Stuck a full-blown Ritualist in my parish. The fellow bedizens himself in all the colours of the rainbow, and actually turns his back on me when he says the Creed. Well, you may be THE SQUIRE 221 sure I have given him a bit of my mind, and I told him plainly that, if he can't do the service properly, I'll do it myself in an empty coachhouse. These young chaps from Oxford want keeping in their proper place." On education the Squire is equally decisive. A fine specimen of the race who lived not a hundred miles from Aylesbury once exclaimed in a burst of generous passion, " I wish the last d d pen was burnt and the fool who invented writing had his head in a chaff-cutting machine." That stout opponent of progress is no longer with us in the flesh, but his spirit survives. Broadly speaking, the Squire dislikes education. "I've no notion of being taxed to teach my cowman's daughters to play the piano, and I should like to know how we are to procure labour if every little yokel is put on to Conic Sections." A Board School (as we still call it in the country, for we do not readily change our terminology) would of course be an unspeakable abomination in the Squire's eyes; but, though he supports the National School, he is by no means content that the vicar should exercise too much control over it. At the time when the Kenyon-Slaney clause was passing through Parliament, I heard a Squire exulting over this new safeguard to our national Protestantism, and thus explaining its scope: "You see, the object is to prevent the parsons teaching the children that there are seven Sacraments. That's the Roman Catholic doctrine, and these 222 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES Ritualistic traitors--for that is what I call them -are teaching it in our schools. The Church of England doctrine is that there are-well, I forget at this moment how many, but I know it's not seven." This combination of zeal for the Protestant faith with haziness about its tenets always struck me as exceedingly characteristic of the typical Squire. In politics, of course, the Squire claims an absolute control. His wife and daughters are office-bearers of the Primrose League and use all their charms in the political education of the agricultural labourer. They are jealously aided by the other parochial powers. The Vicar's wife is assiduous in domiciliary visitation. The farmer lets the ploughman know that if he is caught listening to a blooming Radical in a Red Van he may seek a job somewhere else. The Squire communicates his pleasure to his tenants through his agent, and the Vicar (if he is like-minded with the Squire, as he generally is) enforces from the pulpit the cardinal duties of contentment, submission, and reverence for authority. Now and then the tranquillity of the village is shaken by the appearance of the Liberal candidate. Of course no room is available for his meeting. The Vicar refuses the schoolroom and the farmer padlocks his barn. A meeting is held with considerable difficulty on the village green. The agent occupies a prominent place near the orator's waggon, and it is deemed inexpedient to THE SQUIRE 223 ask for a show of hands. The proceedings are reported to the Squire, whose indignation knows no bounds. "That fellow Jawkins had the impudence to come and spout his Free Trade nonsense in my village. There he was, within a hundred yards of my park-gates, telling the labourers that they were underpaid, and finding fault with my cottages because some of them choose to sleep six in a room. He may think himself devilish lucky that my stablemen didn't put him in the horsepond." But, whatever difficulties may attend the beginning and the course of the Liberal candidate's campaign, polling-day comes at last. The Squire, assuming with difficulty a genial and friendly air, and laying aside dictatorship, smilingly urges the labourers to stick to the colour under which they have enjoyed such abounding prosperity, and conveys them, grinning, to the poll in carriages swathed with Tory streamers. Official spies hang about the doors of the polling-booth, and the Squire's daughters are insinuating in their enquiries about Tom Smith's vote and Jack Brown's promise. But Smith and Brown have learned to keep their own secret, and the Liberal candidate emerges victorious from the poll. Strong waters are insufficient to fortify the Squire under the horrible discovery that a ploughman dares think for himself. Like Mrs. Jarley when Miss Monflathers insulted her, he is "almost inclined to turn atheist when he thinks of it." CHAPTER XXXIII THE PLUTOCRAT "69WE have had Plutocrats who were patterns of every virtue; but still let us be jealous of Plutocracy, and of its tendency to infect Aristocracy, i-2s elder and nobler sister; and learn, if we can, to hold by, or get back to, some regard for simplicity of life." This was Mr. Gladstone's appeal in 1887, when reviewing fifty years of political and social development. Let us be jealous of Plutocracy. Certainly the appeal has lost nothing of its reasonableness or its urgency in the lapse of eighteen years. In that time Plutocracy has advanced by leaps and bounds; has made a ruinouis and disgraceful war; has profoundly corrupted the press; and has organized, though so far without success, a gigantic gamble in the People's food. With such tremendous mischiefs as these in view, it seems of comparatively slight importance that honours have been bought and sold, that Society has been visibly vulgarized, and that many of the chief beauties, natural and artistic, of historical England have passed into the hands of an alien caste, lacking alike root in the soil and sympathy 224 THE PLUTOCRAT25 225 with the moral ideals which make a nation great. It was, I firmly believe, the sight of these pluto-. cratic achievements which, at the time of Queen Victoria's death, made a good many theoretical republicans thank heaven that they lived under an Hereditary Monarchy. If the devolution of the Crown were a matter which could be affected by social intrigue, journalistic conspiracy, or pecuniary influence, the Plutocrat would, beyond doubt, have had a try for it. The spirit which described the British Flag as a commercial asset would not have shrunk from regarding the Crown as a purchasable commodity. Better, in spite of all theoretical anomalies and imperfections, the thousand years of English Kingship, than those "obscene Empires of Mammon and Belial" which Plutocracy would erect in its place. But Plutocracy, after all, is an abstraction. Let us regard it in its concrete form-the Plutocrat. What is he like? Even outwardly, he is stamped by certain characteristics of person and bearing which mark him off unmistakably from the English gentleman. Matthew Arnold had a prevision of him long ago, before his development was anything like completed: "job Bottles, who is on the Stock Exchange, a man with black hair at the side of his head, dark eyes, and a fleshy nose, and a camellia in his buttonhole." For the camellia we have now learnt -to substitute the orchid, and our true Plutocrat has a strong propensity to fur coats; but otherP 226 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES wise Matthew Arnold's description very well portrays the Plutocrat of to-day. The Plutocrat is essentially a Londoner. If he is not in London, he is at Paris or at Brighton; but he does not care much for the country. Of course he has a country house, for that is a necessary element in his scheme of life; but he does not inhabit it very often, and, when he does, he contrives to make it look and seem exactly like a London house on a larger scale. Bridge rages from morn till midnight; the telephone-bell tinkles without intermission, and telegrams fall like autumn leaves. If he builds his house for himself, it reproduces the worst monstrosities of Park Lane. If he buys an old house, he commits the most shameless atrocities in the way of reconstruction and decoration. He stuffs the gallery of an Elizabethan manor with furniture of the French Empire, or repairs the breaches of an Edwardian ruin with Italian marble and gilds the roof of the Baron's Hall. Whether his house be ancient or modern, he lives and moves and has his being by the aid of electricity-electric light, electric bells, electric baths, and electric lifts. The house is very hot, and smells overwhelmingly of exotic flowers. From the drawing-room you can step into a winter-garden full of sham rockwork and tin ivy. From the walls of the dining-room Gainsboroughs and Hoppners, bought at fabulous prices from decayed gentility, look down with THE PLUTOCRAT 227 astonished eyes upon their new surroundings. The gardens are on an enormous scale, and the glasshouses cover acres; and the Plutocrat rejoicingly tells you the precise number of gardeners which is required to keep the place in order. The stables are beautifully ornate, with maple-wood fittings and blue tiles; the harness-room glitters like a silversmith's shop; and the Stud Groom's cottage is a villa. The curious observer will note that there are a good many more harnesshorses than hacks or hunters; for the Plutocrat is not much at home on a horse, and prefers the security and dignity of a carriage. The lamented Mr. G. A. Sala declared that a Plutocrat for whom he laboured used to begin a conversation by saying, "I have just returned from my drive. How did you get here? I suppose you walked." The Plutocrat thinks it due to his position in the county to subscribe handsomely to the Hounds, and sometimes, in spite of qualms, he adventures himself on a made hunter in a country well supplied with gates. But his interest in the sport is palpably insincere, and he is considerably keener for his luncheon than for a second fox. Some years ago a Master of Harriers was pursuing his miserable quarry in some fields near Leighton Buzzard. Suddenly, he was joined by a well-mounted Plutocrat of superlative splendour, who galloped round several large enclosures with keen enjoyment. Presently the 228 228 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES wretched hare could go no longer, and was satisfactorily put to death. Thereupon the gorgeous stranger said to the Master, "Pray, sir, have we been pursuing that little creature? I thought I was hunting with Lord Rothschild's Stag-hounds. I certainly started with them, but got thrown out; and, when I saw you, I thought I had caught them up again." To the untutored eye of the Plutocrat there was no difference between the line of a stag across the Vale of Aylesbury and the gyrations of a hare in a strongly-fenced enclosure. He knew that he was "hunting," and that proud consciousness was enough. The Plutocrat hunts because he feels that hunting is the right thing, but he takes a more real pleasure in shooting. The whole business smacks so agreeably of wealth. The regiment of keepers and beaters; the hosts of tame pheasants asking to be shot; the elaborate preparations for the luncheon; the carriages which convey the ladies to the scene of slaughter; and, above all, the sense that he is at once astonishing and patronizing his guests-all these things fill the plutocratic breast with genuine joy. Af ter all, the hunting field is a republic, where, if anywhere on the earth, something like social equality reigns. But a shooting party is a despotism, where the Plutocrat is ruler, his guests are his subjects, and his selfishness is lawBut, when all is said and done, the Plutocrat THE PLUTOCRAT 229 does not really care for any kind of sport. In nine cases out of ten he is an alien or a cockney, or both, and sport is only a way of gaining admission to the social life of the county in which he fixes his abode. What he really enjoys is motoring. For him the motor must have been invented; in it he finds the realization of all his ideals. It combines every element of life which he most enjoys-luxury, ostentation, insolence, and the sense that he is envied and admired. As he does not drive the car, there is no demand on his skill or courage. It poisons the air with dust and stench. It occasionally kills an old woman or mutilates a child, but the pace is too good to admit of enquiries. It brings the glare and noise and swagger of London into the "sweet, sincere surroundings of country life"; and, by practically annihilating distance, it makes the Kentish castle or the manor-house in the New Forest a suburb of Park Lane or Piccadilly. And this the Plutocrat calls "sport." He presumes to bracket it with hunting among his amusements in "Who's Who"; and in the vivacious columns of the "Motorist" he gains the acceptable but illdeserved praise of "a keen all-round sportsman," though there is no single sport, in the sense in which that term used to be understood by English gentlemen, in which he can hold his own. But perhaps it is when he turns his attention to politics that the Plutocrat is most offensive. He regards a seat in Parliament exactly as he 230 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES regards a Sir Joshua, a tiara, a cabinet, or a villa. It exists, he wants it, and it can be bought. Such is his simple philosophy, and no one can say that it is wholly inconsistent with experience. The method is changed, but the principle remains the same as in the good old days of Shoreham and Retford and St. Albans. The Plutocrat no longer buys his votes at so much a head-the voters are too many and the results too uncertain. But he pursues his end by subscriptions and entertainments, patronage and custom. "I ply the gyme," said such an one in a burst of candour, and his notion of "plying the gyme" was to make the constituency feel that, as long as he was member, there would be money circulating in the neighbourhood, and that every one had a chance. When the Plutocrat is pitted against a poor man the contest is too unequal to be amusing, but when Plutocrat meets Plutocrat then comes the tug of war I remember a small tradesman in a country town saying with smug complacency: "Both the candidates are wealthy men. The Liberal candidate is Mr Cashington of the Stock Exchange, and the Unionist is Baron Shekelheim of South Africa. We are looking forward to a very interesting contest." There was great significance in that epithet "interesting." CHAPTER XXXIV THE ELECTION-AGENT I HAVE described both the Squire and the Plutocrat in their relation to politics. A friend who has an instinct for psychological moments invites some observations on that peculiar type without whose aid neither Squire nor Plutocrat could find his way into the House of Commons. I see the aptness of the suggestion, and propose to say a few words about the Election-Agent. This type must be divided into two classes, the Ancient and the Modern, and the dividing line between the two is exactly drawn by the Corrupt Practices Act of 1883. It was a main object of the men who passed that Act to abolish the Election-Agent of the Old School, to eradicate his professional traditions, and to penalize his trade. Before he is utterly forgotten, let us recall some of his characteristics. The Election-Agent of the Old School had no recognized status or profession. Very often he was an attorney, but that was rather a decent cloak for his real character than a true description of his essential function. In some cases his proper name and place of abode were unknown. Some231 232 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES times he was known by some such expressive title as "The Pump" or as "The Man in the Moon." Sometimes he bore some traditional name which conveyed as clear a sense as Robin Hood. In distant days, when the Grenvilles dominated the politics of Buckinghamshire, the Whig "Man in the Moon" was called John Terry. Whether a person rightly so called ever existed I know not, but as late in the world's history as 1880 his name was still a symbol and a token in the Vale of Aylesbury. The local politicians chanted a ditty which still rings in the ear of memory:"John Terry is come down again, Come down again, come down again; With his White Hat and his Rag Mop, To turn the Grenvilles round again." In this mysterious canticle, the White Hat traditionally signified Radical politics, as against the orthodox beaver of the Established order; and the Rag Mop was understood to mean a product of rags-namely paper, and more particularly such paper as is issued by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. The election of i880 was the last at which the Agent of the Old School prevailed. A year or so later I met a hard-bitten practitioner of that school at the house of the man for whom he had acted, and who had been unseated for bribery. In the confidence of after-dinner claret, the old practitioner said: "It was a bad job, our host THE ELECTION-AGENT 23 233 getting unseated, but I don't mind telling you, sir, that when I go into an election, I go in to win, and as to the way it's done-well, I'm not particular to a shade." The client might perhaps have fared better if these little distinctions had been more closely observed, but nothing shook the equanimity of the Agent. He had won the game, and the sequel did not signify. That excellent phrase-" not particular to a shade,"would have aptly described the temper of a Conservative Agent in a cathedral city in the north of England, whose private note-book of electioneering memoranda fell into the hands of the enemy and was produced in evidence at the trial of an Election-petition. Here are some of the items of expenditure, actual or contemplated, which I have transcribed from the Report. "/3'for letting a pole be put up. L 196 for rosettes (at one shop). A. wants a change of air. B. is very favourable, but poor. C. promises, but wants a little drop. D.s wife wants liquoring up." But, after all, there is a kind of grossness about these forms of suasion; a more subtle one was practised by the Agent of a Plutocrat in a Midland county. This gentleman let it.be understood that any one whose politics were of the right colour, and who had lost a cow or an apple-crop, could have a loan of ~5 or so on easy terms. 234 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES For three or four years no allusion was made to these little debts, but, just before the General Election, the Agent went round the constituency auricularly suggesting that, if Mr. Shekelheimer unfortunately lost his seat, he would terminate his connexion with the neighbourhood, and would be obliged to call in these small outstanding sums. This was a menace which worked like a charm. But, in spite of all said and done, the Agent of the Old School was "o'er good for banning," though precisians might call him "o'er bad for blessing." He knew, by heredity, tradition, and personal experience, every move on the electioneering board. He knew how to terrify the timid, and how to cajole the weak; how to win his client's battle, and how to feather his own nest. But he was wholly free from the sin of treachery, and his devotion to the cause for which he worked covered a multitude of sins. He was entirely unscrupulous and absolutely loyal. Of the Modern Agent how shall I trust myself to speak? Many of my readers must know him as well as I do. Alike externally and internally, he is quite unlike his forerunner. The Agent of the Old School was a convivial-looking gentleman, with a twinkling eye, a horsey get-up, and a marked taste for port wine. The Modern Agent is a slim and genteel young man, with a staid and thoughtful air, a vast appearance of earnestness, and abstemious and almost ascetic THE ELECTION-AGENT 23 7.35 habits. He has, what his forerunner had not, a recognized and official position. Some years ago some of the chief wirepullers of the Liberal party conceived the brilliant idea of setting up a test-examination for gentlemen who aspired to become Agents. It fell through because no one could be got to recognize the authority of the examining body, or to attach the slightest value to their certificate that the aspirant had satisfied the examiners. But, if only the experiment had been tried, the questions propounded to the candidate might have been very illuminating. I can well conceive the deft draftmanship of my friend Mr. Robert Hudson. "1What are the chances of a Liberal Candidate who has declared his approval of Chinese Labour?" "1Is it possible to be for and against Disestablishment at the same time?" "What formula would you suggest where the candidate is against Home Rule and there is an Irish vote in the constituency? " "I'What should a supporter of Local Veto say when he is accused of robbing a poor man of his beer?" The Agent of the Old School did his work in private, and a good deal of it after dark. His comings and goings were mysterious. He held consultations in secret places. He never appeared on a platform or committed himself to an opinion. He was profoundly, incessantly, and justly suspicious of the other side, and would have made short work of any colleague or subordinate 236 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES whom he saw conversing with the wrong colour. All this is changed. The New Agent is always on view. He flits from meeting to meeting, gazes pensively from the platform or the gallery, and is incessantly at the Candidate's elbow, full of suggestion, encouragement, pr warning. Meanwhile his proper work is neglected; those mysterious transactions which his forerunner conducted in quiet corners are abandoned. He sleeps with the Corrupt Practices Act by his side; and vague declarations at enthusiastic meetings are substituted for that close, intimate, and personal knowledge of the voters which in the days of smaller constituencies and more restricted suffrage really did the work of the election. And again the New Agent is terribly candid and courteous towards the other side. " Sir," said Dr. Johnson, 'to treat your opponent with courtesy is to give him an advantage over you to which he is not entitled." This was a maxim which the Old Agent had laid thoroughly to heart. The Modern Agent praises the rival Candidate and that Candidate's Agent, ascribes to them every private and civic virtue, and mildly says that the contested seat is the only boon which he does not wish them to secure. All this stands in sharp contrast with the sturdy Whiggism of such men as the first Lord Leicester, who used to delight the Liberals of Norfolk by saying that, when he was a boy, his grandfather had taken him on his knee and said, "Now Tom, my boy, mind, what THE ELECTION-AGENT 237 ever you do, you never trust a Tory;" to which he used to add, "1And I never have, and by G- I never will." That is the electioneering language which English people understand; and Lord Randolph Churchill's Life shows us that the shrewdest of observers very soon discovered the political value of invective. A mealy-mouthed Agent knocks all heart out of a contest. CHAPTER XXXV THE CARPET-BAGGER PARLIAMENT is dissolved; I the writs are out and the voice of the Carpet-bagger is heard in the land. Already I have discussed the Candidate; but then I spoke more generally, and did not analyse that particular type of candidate which is indicated by this picturesque Americanism. The Carpet-bagger can be best appreciated by placing him in contrast with the Common Candidate who supplied us with our earlier type. Even the Common Candidate can generally show some reason, more or less special, why he should be a candidate at all; and the Happy Candidate can also parade some claim upon the particular seat which he is attacking, or some qualification which may encourage reasonable hope that if he gets into Parliament he will be of some use there. As regards the first of these points, the Common Candidate of course expresses a fervent desire to serve his country on the high stage of Parliamentary life; but the Carpet-bagger, however loudly he makes the same patriotic profession, is dogged by the ungracious suspicion that he SJanuary i906. 238 THE CARPET-BAGGER 239 has an axe of his own to grind or a log to roll. As regards the second, the first and most obvious reason is connexion with the place which one seeks to represent. To have been born in it is much; to have been born near it is something. To have lived in it all one's life is (provided one has contrived to keep that benevolentia civium which Cicero extolled) is best of all. When Sir Elliott Lees fought Oldham in 1886, he carried all before him by his appeals to local sentiment. He had been born in Oldham, as was his father before him, and the electors might call him "an Owdham roughhead" if they liked. It was observed that every seat which Mr. Gladstone contested, and even every town at which he made an oration, had a knack of being, in some remote but sufficient way, connected with himself or his ancestors or his wife's family; insomuch that a Tory scribbler wrote an ironic dissertation on "Some of the More Famous Birthplaces of Mr. Gladstone." A member of the Russell family, desiring to capture the chief town of Buckinghamshire and eager to establish a local connexion, was reduced to the rather depressing argument that his kinsfolk for three hundred years had been buried in that county. A flowery orator, contesting a county in which his family possessed hereditary acres, implored support on the ground that he had been "personally connected with the district for more than six centuries"; and, though the flippant 240 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES replied that in that case he must be "full old for the job," this appeal to ancestry was not lost upon the sentimental. At the General Election of 1868 Lord George Hamilton conciliated a vast amount of good-will in Middlesex by reference to the fact that only five years before he had played in the Harrow Eleven. All these genealogical and geographical associations have their distinct advantages, and especially this, that they silence those disagreeable enquiries about the antecedents of the Candidate-where he came from and what he wants -which a suspicious electorate is only too prone to make. But the Carpet-bagger has none of them. He drops from the clouds. He has neither beginning nor end, ancestry nor succession. The local press can obtain only the haziest particulars-" John Jawkins, son of the late William Jawkins, Esq., of London, by his marriage with Mary, daughter of John Smith. Educated privately. Has been engaged in business" (or " called to the Bar, but has never practised"). " Has contributed largely to periodical literature. A Unionist and supporter of Mr. Balfour but in favour of Fiscal Reform" (or "a follower of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, a Free-trader, and opposed to the Education Act.") " Residence: The Acacias, Brixton (or Beaconsfield House, Croydon)." Then, again, in the way of qualifications, the Common Candidate has something to show. He can speak, and may hope to catch THE CARPET-BAGGER 24 241 the ear of the House. He knows something of history and politics, and can, as the homely phrase goes, open his mouth without putting his f oot in it. He has a definite opinion on the issues of the moment, and will give a plain Yes or No to a question about his intended votes. He is intimately versed in local affairs, and may be expected to fight a stout battle for his constituency when harassed by Private Bill legislation; or at least he is rich, not unwilling to "1part," and a tried friend in hard times. None of these qualifications, as a rule, belongs to the Carpet-bagger. His speaking is either halting and dry, hatched out of his notes, read from a roll of manuscript written within and without; or else it is torrential in volume, extent, and rapidity, but lacking in conviction, and very uncertain in its influence on local sentiment. I n a word, the carpet-bag is too often a wind-bag, and the Carpet-bagger's opinions are of the haziest. Here let a concrete and recent instance suffice. It becomes known to the wirepullers of a constituency with which I am connected that a gentleman, whose name and fame were alike unknown to us, was willing to be our Candidate at the Election of 1906. He was duly interviewed and examined, and, among other questions, he was asked what he thought about the army. Fired with patriotic zeal, he replied, "I1 am for a great increase in the army, as the surest safeguard against war" I t was 242 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES intimated to him that this sentiment would not go down with the electorate, and he took the hint with commendable alacrity. When the same question was put to him on the platform, his prompt reply was, "I am in favour of reducing the army to half its present size." There spoke the docile spirit of the genuine Carpet-bagger. Then, again, as regards his pecuniary qualification, the Carpet-bagger is shrouded in mystery. Before the General Election of I88o a carpet-bagging barrister appeared as Conservative candidate for a small borough since disfranchised. There was the usual speculation about his whence, his whither, and his wherewithal. At first there was a good deal of anxiety and uncertainty; but soon a holy calm settled down on the electoral breast. It transpired, through the unprofessional garrulity of the local solicitor, that the Conservative candidate had added a codicil to his will leaving ~io,ooo to the charities of the borough which he hoped to represent. This was good enough. At any rate, he was a solid man; and he was triumphantly returned. As a matter of fact, he was at the time of standing an applicant for relief from the Barristers' Benevolent Institution. But still the mystery remains. Strategical devices of this kind may deceive the very elect, and affect the votes of those whose eyes are steadily fixed on future advantage; but they do not pay the Returning Officer's expenses. Yet those ex THE CARPET-BAGGER 243 penses are paid-and by whom? Sometimes, strange as it may seem, they are paid by the Carpet-bagger himself. More than once in my political life I have known a man who had accumulated a few hundred pounds by professional work convert the whole of his savings into ready money, and risk his all on the issue of a contested election; quite prepared to begin again at the bottom of the professional ladder if he failed to enter Parliament. That is real enthusiasm, and it requires a strong leader and a great cause to evoke it. Very often, of course, the Carpet-bagger is the nominee of some great potentate in the Borough or the County. Said a noble Duke before the Election of 1886. " Send me down a candidate to turn the Home Ruler out of my division. He must be a gentleman, young, fluent, good-looking, and well-mannered. I will pay for his election, keep the register going, and allow him ~500 a year as long as he sits." The right man was found, and was produced with great pomp before the admiring electorate. The local heiress threw herself enthusiastically into his canvass. He captured the seat and the heiress as well, and they have lived happily ever after Then, of course, there is the Carpet-bagger who is run by some strong interest, such as that wielded by Publicans, by Temperance Societies, and by Railway Companies. Some crucial instances of this type were not obscurely indicated in the House 244 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES of Commons when the Payment of Members was discussed, and, though every one tried to look extremely independent, it was obvious that the House contained a good many more hirelings than were revealed by Dod. Should this paper fall under the eye of any potential Carpet-bagger who is going to try his luck at the next Election, I would say to such an one: "1Be of good cheer. Reckon up the men now prominent in politics, and ask how many of them had originally any connexion with the places which they represent. Premiers, Chancellors, and Secretaries of State have gone carpetbagging in their time, and every carpet-bag carries in it the potential key of a Cabinet box." CHAPTER XXXVI THE DISINHERITED KNIGHT "THE device on his shield was a young oak tree pulled up by the roots, with the Spanish word Desdichado, signifying Disinherited." That device and that motto are rather conspicuously displayed by the Chivalry of Protection, returning to-day1 from the stricken field where it has fought and fallen. Let each Disinherited Knight comfort himself with the remembrance of Wilfrid in the lists of Ashby, and reflect that there may be triumphs reserved for him in some future Passage of Arms. But to-day he is Disinherited indeed, and his woebegone aspect would melt a heart of stone. Men take these reverses very differently. "Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe." One is quite confident that the fiscal issue had nothing whatever to do with the result. "On Tariff Reform I should have won. It was Chinese Labour. It was the Schools. It was the Chapels. Every minister in the place preached against me. The Radicals put out the most shameful cartoons; there was one of me holding a Chinaman 1 Written just after the General Election, January 1906. 245 246 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES by the pigtail while Alfred Lyttelton flogged him; that made a great impression." Another writes long letters to the newspapers showing conclusively that he ought to have won, and that, if every one in the division had voted for him instead of against him, he would now be M.P. A third sits glowering in the corner of the smokingroom at the Club, considering all manner of revengeful policies. He would certainly go for a Petition, only it is so expensive and the result so uncertain. He will expose his successful rival on every platform in the constituency, and will most infallibly turn him out next time. He will withdraw his subscriptions from a place so destitute of common decency. "They'll find the difference when they apply to my successor. He hasn't got two sixpences to rub together" Another is ostentatiously cheerful; is thankful to have got rid of all the worry; hopes he will never see the inside of the House again; and rejoices that he now has a little time for his business, or for reading, or for looking after his property, or for cultivating the family affections. Alas! poor Desdichado, the pretence, though creditable, is too thin. We can see your bleeding heart through the hole in the glistening breastplate. Yet another variety takes refuge in a proud and gloomy silence; involves himself in his own virtue; and finds a sombre joy in prognosticating "a year of sects and schisms" for the victorious party. THE DISINHERITED KNIGHT 247 In the Election just concluded, the Happy Candidate, as I drew him, has, in a great number of instances, gone down before the Carpet-bagger. But still there have been enough survivals to justify the type, and I have had the pleasure of saluting more than one Happy Candidate as victor in a hard-fought contest. But the device which the Disinherited Knight bore on his shield suggests other imagery than that of the battlefield, and it is peculiarly appropriate to the man whom recent convulsions have rudely ejected from his seat. "An oak tree pulled up by the roots." The image is horribly expressive. At the General Election of 1895 the Happy Candidate acquired the seat f or which he had been so carefully trained. He suited the soil, and the soil suited him, and he put forth vigorous and apparently tenacious roots. If I suggest that one of those roots was Money, I insinuate nothing against the morality either of candidate or of constituency. I do not mean that votes were bought and sold, or that the provisions of the Corrupt Practices Act were violated. I mean nothing more heinous than that in every village of the Division or every ward of the Borough, as the case may be, there were a "1Rugger " and a "Soccer" football-team, a cricket-club, a cycling club, a flower-show, a fat-stock show, a bazaar for enlarging the church, and two Nonconformist chapels with debts on the buildingfund. To these meritorious objects, and to others 248 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES like them, the M.P. must subscribe or risk the loss of support. As Sydney Smith said, "You might as well try to poultice the hump off a camel's back as to cure mankind of these little corruptions." But Money is by no means the only root which the M.P. has struck into the soil. He has given to the utmost of his ability, but he has also worked like a slave. On dark winter nights he has jolted uncomplainingly from one village to another, running perilously near the edge of yawning ditches, going several miles out of his way in unlit lanes, waiting wearily at the level crossing till the belated train creeps in, and perhaps getting his linch-pin removed by the youth of the village while he is perorating about Trade or Empire. Or, if his lot be cast in the Borough, he has dined at six in the dog-days, and spent the glorious evenings of August and early September amid the foetid fumes of acetyline gas, perfecting the organization of each ward, and imbibing the most amazingly misleading reports about the results of the Registration. The Agent says proudly, "I don't believe in Meetings. It is the quiet, steady, day-by-day local work that tells"; and the M.P. believes the Agent, and toils and suffers accordingly. There are many most excellent and deserving M.P.'s who, coming in the first instance from afar, pitch their tents in the midst of their constituents. It is a risky experiment. The M.P. THE DISINHERITED KNIGHT 249 must give all his custom to the neighbouring tradesmen, must buy a good deal more butcher's meat than his family can consume, and dare not complain if the household loaf is a little stodgy. An M.P. dwelling among his constituents has parted with the ordinary rights of a free man and self-governing citizen. Then, again, he is probably put to a good deal of expense in painting, papering, and draining the house which his Agent recommends, and which, by a curious coincidence, turns out to belong to the Agent's cousin. For these improvements he must rely on local art, for the arrival of a band of workmen from Maple's or Shoolbred's would at once secure the seat for the opponent. The M.P., good, easy man, is no sportsman, but it is expedient that he should maintain foxes for the enjoyment of his neighbours, even at the expense of his own poultry-yard. The corpse of a fox discovered in the shrubbery would awake much livelier indignation than a murdered bishop. Yet another root is that of Parliamentary action. The M.P answers every letter by return of post and with his own hand. He entertains constituents on the Terrace, and conducts parties round the Houses of Parliament. He asks incredible numbers of unnecessary questions, eagerly promotes the new Branch-Line which is to open up the dairy country, or fights tooth and nail for or against, as the case may be, a new scheme of urban sewerage. His speeches, 250 250 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES though highly condensed in the Times, are fully reported in the local press; and, if he ever tears himself away from the duties of the session, it is to open a Sale of Work or kick off at a football match. And so, as the years go on, the M.P 's roots grow deeper and spread wider; a holy calm diffuses itself over his breast, and he begins to think himself immovable. The Parliament is nearing its close. The Carpet-bagger has already appeared in the field, and has held a hole-andcorner meeting where he has been unanimously adopted. The Agent smiles sarcastically, and says it is a pity that a decent fellow should waste his money on a forlorn hope. The solid men of the party say that a constituency is not likely to part with a Member who spends a thousand a year among them; and earnest politicians predict a redoubled majority. All at once-no one can exactly say why-the moral atmosphere seems to change. The new Candidate is young and active, very keen to win the seat, and not too mealy-mouthed in his language about the sitting Member. He has a fluent tongue and a face of brass; his politics are popular; his speeches attract their hearers, and his motor annihilates time and space. He is all over the constituency at once, haranguing, denouncing, promising, and flattering. He shows sport. He is fresh and lively and reckless. He doesn't care much about what players call the rules of the game, but he cares extremely about winning. The fateful day THE DISINHERITED KNIGHT 251 of the Poll draws near. Superhuman energies are put forth on either side. Publicans turn on one sort of tap, and clergymen another; beer and eloquence flow in equal and parallel streams. The Poll closes amid anxious uncertainty, and the hideous hours of counting crawl by with leaden foot. Suddenly the Returning Officer appears at the window of the Town Hall and makes the fateful declaration-THE CARPETBAGGER IS IN. The rest is silence; but the exmember realizes, as he has never realized before, what is implied in the sensation of "being pulled up by the roots." Figuratively he inscribes Desdichado on his shield, and, if he is a wise man, vanishes to the Riviera or the Nile. If he is unwise, he comes up to London, walks Pall Mall like an unquiet spirit, haunts the Club, and exhausts the patience of even sympathetic friends by elaborate explanations of his downfall. His crestfallen countenance peers gloomily through the windows of the Carlton, and, as he notes the tumultuous joy of the Reform Club, he wishes from a full heart that he had never heard the name of Tariff Reform. Will the up-rooted oak ever be replanted? Will the Disinherited Knight ever recover his lost patrimony? This and other things time has yet to show. CHAPTER XXXVII THE VICTOR PEDESTRIAN prose is all unequal to the task of depicting the man who has just emerged victorious from the battle of the polls. Poetry must come to our assistance" One after one the lords of time advanceHere Stanley meets-how Stanley scorns-the glance!" The late Postmaster- General will, I hope, forgive me if I venture to substitute for his own and his grandfather's historic name something more typical of the popular M.P." Here Jawkins meets-how Jawkins scorns-the glance!" Pall Mall is scarcely wide enough to hold him. He meets, and scorns, the glance of the Commissionaire outside the Carlton. He bestows a copper on the Crossing-sweeper with the majestic benevolence of a monarch scattering largesse. He enters the Club as if it belonged exclusively to him" Pride in his port, defiance in his eye." The buttony boys in the front hall see them and tremble, and the Hall-Porter who hands him his 252 THE VICTOR 253 letters seems to be performing an act of homage. The Victor is longing to display his new-born magnificence in the crowded luncheon-room; but his letters must be investigated first, so he seeks a cosy nook in the silent library and prepares himself to enjoy a feast of fat things. How nice the envelopes look! 1" M.P." is such a picturesque suffix to the familiar " John Russell Jawkins, Esq." (for the Victor was named after a Whig statesman whom his father supported), and the initials "1H. C.-B.," lurking in the corner of an official cover, suggest that his efforts on behalf of the Old Cause and the Big Loaf are not unrecognized in influential quarters. That fine, lawyer-like, writing is the Agent's, and sheer force of habit induces the Victor to examine it at once. "Dear sir,-I much regret to tell you "--Good heavens! what's this? Is he going to say that there's to be a Petition? The moment holds anguish, but the next line dispels it. The Agent only reports that the bill at the hotel is considerably larger than he had expected, and that another ~ioo must be added to the Personal Expenses. He goes on to say that it has been usual for the Member to entertain a house-party for the local races, and that the late representative subscribed very handsomely for restoring the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral-but these points can be discussed later on. The next envelope bears the post-mark " Harrow," and the letter breathes the generous simplicity of 254 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES ardent youth. The writer is awfully glad that his uncle has got in, and sends his best love to his aunt and cousins. He has not got his Remove this term, but is playing in "Torpids" for his House, and enjoys racquets very much, but finds it such an expensive game. If his uncle would give him a new racquet, which he wants badly, he would always treasure it in memory of the Election of 1906. Next comes the Vicar of the principal parish, who has worked tooth and nail against the Liberal cause; has sent his curates to disturb Liberal meetings; has drilled his district-visitors to canvass for the Tariff Reformer; and has given "magic-lantern lectures" with pictures of St. Paul's Cathedral converted into a music-hall and Westminster Abbey into an aquarium. Now the worthy man, with a fine oblivion of personal rancour, informs the Victor that he is willing to let bygones be bygones, and solicits a contribution to his new Parochial Institute. A dozen letters, of similar tenor, from Nonconformist ministers of different persuasions, the Roman Catholic priest, and the head of the Undenominational Mission in Huggermugger Lane, have at any rate this justification, that the writers have worked for the Liberal cause. A considerable number of enthusiastic supporters have been a little unfortunate just lately, and would be grateful for pecuniary assistance; while the house- agents, money- lenders, wine - merchants, THE VICTOR 255 shorthand-writers, and Private Secretaries, who desire in one way or another to serve the Victor's interests, are so many as to defy enumeration. Now the letters are read, docketed, and put on one side for reply. Perhaps the Victor feels a little surprised that he has not yet been asked to move or second the Address, but the peevish thought perishes as he enters the luncheon-room. Now he is in all his glory. His enemies have been made his footstool. His friends crowd round with beaming countenances, and a good many men who have hitherto concealed their friendship are now effusively cordial, but their homage is less welcome. "The man who hails you Tom or Jack And proves by thumping on your back His sense of your great merit, Is such a friend that one had need Be very much his friend indeed To pardon, or to bear it." As the Victor writes his luncheon-bill the Head Waiter congratulates him in a darkling undertone, and he takes his seat with the air of an Emperor who has won his throne. It is to be noted by the curious observer that the Victor does not choose a table where M.P.'s of older date are sitting. There he would feel too like the New Boy at the Public School, and in his present mood of exaltation he has no liking for the part of Second Fiddle. He there 256 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES fore chooses a table where he discerns two or three mild men who will form a suitable audience, and, if one of them has ever failed in a political contest, his society is doubly grateful. While the waiter is bringing the toast and the butler is mixing the whisky and soda, the flood of vainglorious reminiscence begins; it submerges the luncheon-table and overflows into the smoking-room. "Well, you see, I went into this thing determined to win. That's my way Whatever I do, I do thoroughly- About the Fiscal Question I took my line at once. I saw it was no good shilly-shallying. That's what I admire in Joe-you know what he means. The chap I can't stand is Balfour. You never can tell where to have him. So I said to my people, ' I'm a Free-fooder.' I said it at my first meeting, and I stuck to it till the last. It won the election. People like plain speaking. And I tell you what it is-the rougher the constituency the more they like to be represented by a gentleman. I saw directly how they tumbled to me on that account. After my first meeting, a man came up to me and said, 'Mr. Jawkins, I see at a glance that you're a man of culture and a gentleman'-not that I let the fact of my being a gentleman hamper me in speaking of my opponent. I said my opinion of him--straight. That's what people like." At this stage the Victor retails several hoary instances of plain speaking on public platforms, THE VICTOR 257 which may be humorous but are unreportable. His hearers have heard them after each election, but titter obsequiously; and the Victor resumes. "Then, again, though I don't profess to be an orator, I can make a speech. I give 'em the sort of thing they understand. My voice is pretty good and carries a long way in the open air. And canvassing, again-they tell me I've got a certain way with me which tells. I don't know exactly how it is-I never studied it. Came to me naturally, I suppose. Whether it's a drawingroom in a Castle or a two-pair in a slum, my manner is just the same. I make myself at home, and that makes the others feel the same. A genial, sympathetic, hearty manner-that's what tells." The word "Castle" attracts the attention of the hearers, a little jaded by personal reminiscences. " Oh, you got the support of the Castle, did you? That was lucky. I thought Lord Lumpington was a Tariff Reformer?" "Well, so he is. We reckoned on him, as his father used to be a good Whig; but, though I called at the Castle several times, I never got my foot across the threshold. And he took the chair for my opponent, and lent his carriages on the polling-day. But it did me nothing but good. When a man is unpopular with his butcher and baker, he's not very popular with any one. And that's what's the matter with Lumpington. No wonder he's in favour of Fiscal Change. He wants it, poor devil." R 258 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES At this period of the discourse (for conversation it cannot be called) a mild man who takes a serious interest in politics says meekly, "And now that you've got in, Jawkins, what is the next step? I am very anxious to see what the Government does. Which Bill do you think they will take first?" This is exactly the opportunity for which the Victor has been longing, and the stream, temporarily dammed, bursts forth with redoubled vigour. "My dear Mivins, that's the important point. As soon as I was elected, I wrote direct to C.-B. I told him plainly that, if he did not tackle the Education Act, even my seat would not be safe. Welsh Disestablishment, I said, can wait. One thing at a time. As to Old-age Pensions, we'll talk of them nearer the election. But the Schools must come first. On that point I am deeply pledged to the Congregationalists and the Baptists. I have squared the Wesleyans and the Jews, but I expect to have a little trouble with the Roman Catholics. Still, my personal honour is involved, and the word must be 'Schools first.' Yes, that's what I said, and C.-B., who is a very sensible fellow and an old friend of mine, said he quite agreed. I don't know so much about Birrell, though my wife likes his books. But I shall let him know what I think, and I'm told he's very quick at taking a hint. So, my dear Mivins, when you ask me what the Government is going to do, I say, Wait for the King's THE VICTOR 259 Speech; and, if it doesn't contain something about Education, and in a prominent place too, I give you leave to call me an Impostor. But my correspondence with C.-B. was confidential, so of course as regards details my lips are sealed." CHAPTER XXXVIII THE QUIDNUNC DR. MURRAY defines a Quidnunc as "an inquisitive person; a gossip; a newsmonger." The "Standard Dictionary" of America defines him as "one who seeks or affects to know all that is going on." As a general rule I share Mr. Herbert Paul's dislike of people who use foreign words where English would express their meaning. But "Quidnunc," though it certainly is not English, is not quite foreign, and it seems to signify a type of character for which no other precise equivalent exists. "Gossip" is certainly a better word, but it is encumbered by associations of femininity and the memory of "Gossip Quickly." Shakespeare, as far as I remember, recognizes no male gossips. Then, again, "gossip" has a frivolous sound. One instinctively expects a gossip to deal with the lighter interests of life-with "personal talk Of friends who live within an easy walk;" with marriages and rumours of marriage, scandals and sensations, festivities and "functions." But the Quidnunc is a far more profound character, 26o THE QUIDNUNC 261 and he traffics in graver things. Horace Walpole was a Gossip; Charles Greville was a Quidnunc. The graver quality does not necessarily exclude the lighter. The Quidnunc may be a gossip as well. He may babble of Lord A.'s income and Sir B. C.'s domestic differences; the value of Lady D.'s jewels, and the amount which Mrs. E. has lost at Bridge; but this is purely incidental. The essential characteristic of the Quidnunc is a simulated knowledge of grave secrets, and in political mysteries he is peculiarly at home. A typical Quidnunc was Thackeray's friend Captain Spitfire, who knew that Lord Palmerston had sold himself to Russia and the exact number of roubles paid. "Why wasn't the Princess Scragamoffsky at Lady Palmerston's party? Because she can't show-and why can't she show? Shall I tell you why she can't show? The Princess Scragamoffsky's back is flayed alive. I tell you it's raw! On Tuesday last at twelve o'clock three drummers of the Preobajinski Regiment arrived at the Russian Embassy, and at half-past twelve, in the yellow drawing-room, before the ambassadress and four ladies' maids, the Greek Papa, and the Secretary of Embassy, Madame Scragamoffsky received thirteen dozen. She was knouted, sir-knouted in the midst of England -in Berkeley Square-for having said that the Grand Duchess Olga's hair was red. And now, sir, will you tell me that Lord Palmerston ought to continue Minister?" 262 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES I believe I have said before that Lord Beaconsfield told a young aspirant that the really pleasant part of office was not station or emolument, but the fun of hearing the ignorant chatter of society about things which it has no means of knowing. That chatter is, of course, mainly provided by the Quidnunc, and hence his social value. Two or three eminent instances of the type recur to my memory as I write. Each was the devoted friend of a Great Man, whose secrets he was supposed to share, and of whom he loved to be thought the exponent or forth-teller. A. was the friend of a Tory chief whom we will call Lord Stonehenge; A., terribly at ease in Zion, always called him "Stonehenge," and seasoned his conversation thus: "I was staying from Saturday to Monday with the Stonehenges. Quite a small party. I took a long walk with Stonehenge in the afternoon, and heard a good deal that was very interesting. Whatever else happens, you may rely on this-that Stonehenge will never give in to the Tape-and-Sealing-Wax Bill, however much it is pressed on him. He regards it as confiscatory and Socialistic." "You may take it from me that Jawkins will never be in the Cabinet. Stonehenge thinks that he talks too much and is too intimate with the Press; and that is what Stonehenge, with his aristocratic aloofness, abhors." "Stonehenge himself told me, in so many words, that he will never give preferment to a THE QUIDNUNC 263 man who contributed to Caligo Cali. He is a stiff Churchman of the old school, and is keen to scent heresy." It is my firm belief that Lord Stonehenge, who had a very bitter humour, used to stuff poor A. with all these confidential assurances just in order to conceal his actual designs. For, within a few months' time, the Government had adopted the Tape-and-SealingWax Bill and carried it to a triumphant issue; Jawkins was a Secretary of State; and six contributors to Caligo Cali had assumed aprons and gaiters. B. was the friend of a Liberal Leader whom we will call Lord Quex, and, like the conscientious histrion who played Othello in Mr. Crummles's company, he blacked himself all over for the part. Lord Quex was a gentleman of vivacious temper, strong utterance, and variable opinion; and "panting B. toiled after him in vain." B. was by profession a journalist, and, in his desperate determination to follow the gleam wherever it led him, he floundered into the most dreadful quagmires. One day Quex made a Protectionist speech, and the faithful B. wrote that "Lord Quex, with his accustomed insight into the true trend of political forces, has recalled his countrymen from the waking dreams of Free Trade in which they have so long indulged, and has brought them face to face with the stern realities of foreign competition." But meanwhile Quex had discovered that Protection was, as Lord Salisbury 264 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES would have said, "the wrong horse," and that, if he wanted to win, he must stick to Free Trade. Quick as a weathercock in a cyclone, B. changed his tack. Quex was, as usual, perfectly right, and must be backed at all hazards. "We rejoice to see that Lord Quex has, with characteristic gallantry, stood forth as the champion of those who cannot defend themselves. Whoever endeavours to tax the food of the people will have to pass to his base object over Lord Quex's dead body." In describing my third instance I will so far change my pseudonymous method as to say that C. was a Quidnunc who professed to possess the closest confidence of Mr. Gladstone. It will be remembered that George Glyn, second Lord Wolverton, was once Chief Whip of the Liberal Party, and always a most devoted adherent of Mr. Gladstone. He was a very rich man, and had no family; and, when his death was announced, a rumour, originating no doubt in a Quidnunc, ran through Club-land to the effect that he had left Mr. Gladstone a hundred thousand pounds as a token of personal and political loyalty While this rumour was flying from mouth to mouth, C. entered the morning-room of his club, wearing an air of mystery and superior knowledge. A friend went up to him and said, "Now, C., you know everything. Is this story about Wolverton's will true?" C.'s aspect of mystery deepened; he laid his finger THE QUIDNUNC 265 on his lip, and drew the questioner into the front hall. " I could not," he said in a solemn undertone, "answer your question in the morning-room, with all those men round us listening. But you are a friend of the G.O.M.'s, and so am I; and I don't mind telling you the truth. ~Ioo,ooo is an exaggeration; these things always get exaggerated. But you may take it from me that the G.O.M. comes into a very substantial sum." The delicate art with which this was done illustrated that," Lie with a Circumstance" on which the Quidnunc depends for a great part of his effectiveness; for, as a matter of fact, Mr. Gladstone might have said of Lord Wolverton's will, as he said of his acquaintance with Messrs. Gilbey, that "he had not profited by it to the extent of a glass of light claret." So far I have spoken of Quidnuncs comparatively ancient, for time moves quickly; but the Quidnunc of to-day is quite as active, and quite as informing, and quite as untrustworthy, as his predecessors. A General Election and the formation of a Government are his harvest-time and his vintage; they yield in rich abundance the supplies on which he lives. He will produce from his pocket-book a well-thumbed sheet, dated a year ago, and showing within three the precise figure of the Liberal majority. He knows the hidden currents of each constituency; he can tell you why Mr Lane-Fox recaptured Barkston Ash, and how Sir Edward Sassoon contrived to 266 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES retain his seat at Hythe. As soon as Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman received the King's command, the Quidnunc was ready with a list of the new Cabinet; though, with laudable reticence, he kept it tightly buttoned up in his breast-pocket. "It's there," he said, tapping his manly expanse of broadcloth. "It's there-everything except the Under Secretaryships; and I can tell you that, when it comes out, you'll be astonished." Some curious questions suggest themselves to the reflective mind when it contemplates the Quidnunc. How does he come by his information? Does he go round the world button-holing and asking questions, and getting intentionally false answers for his pains? Does he invent the whole story out of his head, as Smike thought that Mrs. Nickleby invented her reminiscences of polite society? Does he tell his story so often that he comes to believe it himself? When he is proved to have been entirely and absolutely wrong in a circumstantial statement of fact, does he feel ashamed? These are questions which I cannot profess to answer. I take the Quidnunc as I find him, and I confess to a friendly feeling for him. I find that he adds to the gaiety and the resources of life, and I hold with Matthew Arnold that whatever does that is good. CHAPTER XXXIX THE COLLECTOR IT is a relief to turn from the strife of politicsfrom caucusings and candidatures, triumphs and tragedies--to the "regions mild of calm and serene air" where the Collector dwells. The frenzy of a General Election sweeps past him like the idle wind which he regards not. He hears with "patient, deep disdain" the clamours of contending parties. His withers are unwrung by tales of Chinese Labour. The Big Loaf wakes no tumult in his tranquil breast. Whether Mr. Balfour will outwit Mr Chamberlain or Mr. Chamberlain overcrow Mr. Balfour; what Lord Rosebery thinks of the new Cabinet, and how Mr. Birrell is to reconcile the claims of Archbishop Bourne and Dr Clifford-all these questions leave him cold. He warms to one subject only, and that is his COLLECTION. The Collector is a type which has many varieties. He may collect on a great or on a small scale; he may accumulate fine works of art or heaps of hideous rubbish. He may glory in the enormous prices which he has given, or may be proud, with an even baser pride, of the sharp 267 268 268 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES practice which secured what he wanted for half its proper value. In these and in many other respects, Collector differs from Collector as star from star; but all Collectors have this in common-that each man loves and believes in his own Collection and makes it the principal object of his existence. The curious observer of human life may remark that the Collector is almost always a celibate, or, if he has been married before he took to Collecting, "the expulsive power of a new affection" soon asserts itself. As Pitt was married to his country, so is the Collector married to his Collection; and a cracked teapot is a matter of more lively concern than a rickety child. A tendency to collect, manifested in early manhood, is a heavy blow and deep discouragement to the operations of the matrimonial market. An experienced matron, well known for her successful energy in that line of business, once said to me with regard to an otherwise eligible bachelor: "No; I have no hopes in that quarter. When once a man takes to collecting brass tobacco-boxes, I give him up." Some years ago I was visiting a Collector on the largest scale, who, having acquired some unusually fine portraits of the English school, built a lordly pleasure-house to contain them. When we had made a peregrination of the house, which contained something worth looking at in every room and corridor, we ended our tour of THE COLLECTOR 269 inspection in the Servants' Hall. It was of baronial proportions, and the walls were covered "--"decorated" would not be the right word - with portraits of Georgian gentlemen in tight surtouts and satin stocks, and ladies with "fronts" and cameo brooches. Interpreting my glance of surprise, my host (whom we will call Mr. Neuchatel) replied with the most perfect affability: "These are my own family. As they made the money, I felt it would be ungrateful to burn them, and of course I could not mix them with my beautiful Gainsboroughs and Sir Joshuas; so I put them here, and I believe the servants admire them very much." But, after all, Collectors on the grand scale are comparatively rare, if only because there are only a limited number of first-class pictures in the market. But bad pictures are as plentiful as blackberries, and as widely diffused as microbes; and the Collector of inferior art is a familiar figure on the social stage. Sydney Smith knew him in the flesh, as he existed at Manchester eighty and odd years ago. "Philips1 doubles his capital twice a week, and talks much of cotton, more of the fine arts; he has lately returned from Italy, and purchased some pictures which were sent out from Piccadilly on purpose to intercept him." Mr. Anstey Guthrie drew him and his Collection with a master-hand, when he described Mr. Bultitude sitting at his ease 1 Sir George Philips, Bart. (1766-1847). 270 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES among his "dirty rabbis, fat white horses, bloated goddesses, and misshapen boors, by masters who, if.younger than they assume to be, must have been quite old enough to know better." A Collector of the same class as Mr. Bultitude (though a much more amiable character) was the excellent Mr. Meagles in "Little Dorrit," who displayed the cherished spoils of his Italian tour to the unsympathetic eyes of Arthur Clennam and Daniel Doyce. "Of his pictorial treasures Mr. Meagles spoke in the usual manner. He was no judge, he said, except of what pleased himself; he had picked them up dirt-cheap, and people had considered them rather fine. One man, who at any rate ought to know something of the subject, had declared that 'Sage, Reading' (a specially oily old gentleman in a blanket, with a swansdown tippet for a beard, and a web of cracks all over him like a rich pie-crust) to be a fine Guercino. As for Sebastian del Piombo there, you would judge for yourself; if it were not his later manner, the question was, Who was it? Titian -that might or might not be; perhaps he had only touched it. (Daniel Doyce said perhaps he hadn't touched it; but Mr. Meagles rather declined to hear the remark.)" The whole-hearted Collector of pictures, whether he be a Neuchatel or a Meagles, is ready to sacrifice not merely money but ease and convenience and peace of mind to the divinity THE COLLECTOR 271 which he adores. The statesman - connoisseur Lord Lansdowne always insisted on breakfasting in the drawing-room at Bowood, to the distraction of the housemaids and the discomfiture of the furniture, in order that he might see the morning light fall on the faces of his Correggios. The Lord Ashburton whom Carlyle honoured with his friendship used to travel with all his Titians and Raphaels in gigantic packing-cases. To traverse Europe with an itinerant picturegallery was a performance worthy of an "English Milor"; but society said that the thing was overdone when Baron Pinto had packing-cases made for the vases on his chimney-piece, so that, whether he took his annual cure at Buxton or at Homburg, he might still draw light and inspiration from the contemplation of Green Sevres, and might forget the terrors of black horsehair and crimson flock in the society of Dresden Shepherdesses. The Collectors of rare and beautiful things may, by a stretch of charity, be regarded as benefactors of their species, especially if they leave their Collections to the nation. The collection of precious stones is one of the most fascinating sports in the world, and collections of autographs-even of book-platesare extolled by their devotees as illuminating the dark places of history. But nothing can be urged in exculpation of the Collectors of rubbish. Byron made savage fun of the "noseless blocks" which the conoscenti of his time imported in 272 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES cartloads, and we may turn again to Dickens for a later description of what perverted ingenuity can collect. "There were antiquities from Central Italy made by the best modern houses in that department of industry; bits of mummy from Egypt (and perhaps from Birmingham), model gondolas from Venice, model villages from Switzerland, morsels of tessellated pavement from Herculaneum and Pompeii like petrified minced veal; ashes out of tombs, and lava out of Vesuvius." The Tapling Collection of Postage Stamps, valued at 50,000o, gives the Political Economist food for thought. A lady whose house was raided by the police a few years ago was found to have amassed a unique collection of Messrs. Gunter's teaspoons, abstracted from wedding parties at which she had been an uninvited guest; but this form of collecting was stigmatized as Kleptomania. It has been observed time out of mind that the horse, though the noblest of animals, produces the most demoralizing effect on the nature of those who cultivate him. It is the same with some forms of Collecting. If any sort of accumulation is to be tolerated, the accumulation of books would seem the most blameless; yet the true book-collector is notoriously a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles; and he who possesses a rare, or valuable, or curious book acts discreetly if he keeps it under lock and key. The cult of china, with its gentle associations of maiden THE COLLECTOR 273 aunts and tea-tables and country-houses and Charles Lamb, should surely be the most innocent of all. Yet a host and hostess, who entertain society in a beautifully complete Adam house not twenty miles from London, have been forced to place all their best china under glass. After every garden-party some vase or coffee-cup was missing. These acts of larceny must add a singular zest to the Collector's life; but, after all, they are exceptional. Of course, in the main, Collections are formed by purchase; but purchase, where a Collection is concerned, is not always quite so straightforward a business as it sounds. Baron Pinto collects china. The china-mender is. his emissary. "Whenever you see a bit which you think I should like, offer for it. Never mind if they kick you out of the house. If you can get it, you will have your commission." Mr Perfumo, of South Africa and Park Lane, collects Romneys, or Rembrandts, or snuff-boxes, or buhl furniture, or any other necessary of polite life which you choose to name. His agents are the dealers, who travel all over England in pursuit of business, make their way into unsuspecting households, and offer tempting prices or convenient exchanges. A case in point recurs to my memory. Some years ago a nobleman well known in Cheshire was journeying from Euston to Crewe. He had one companion in the carriage-a conversable gentleman, who offered him Punch or Truth, and made apS 274 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES propriate remarks about landscape and agriculture. Seasoned with these delights, the three hours passed like one; and, as they neared the journey's end, Lord - said, in the fulness of his hospitable heart, " If you are making any stay in Cheshire, pray come and pay me a visit. Any one in Cheshire will tell you where I live. Always delighted to see you." The conversable traveller, who was in fact one of the most famous dealers in London, accepted the invitation. He stayed, I believe, only one night; but the result was that Lord - 's house was denuded of every beautiful or valuable article which it contained, and that all his ancestors and ancestresses now adorn the baronial halls of Mr. Perfumo. They were replaced by modern copies, and Lord -, after recounting what he got for them, used to say, with a cheerful chuckle, "I assure you, you would never know the difference"-which, as regards the bulk of his neighbours, was probably true enough. CHAPTER XL THE CITY MAN THE City Man is of all sorts and sizes. Walking by chance on the Sacred Way of the Thames Embankment, I have just seen him, in several aspects, on his way to that Tom Tiddler's Ground where, as Mr. Mantalini pleasantly observed, he "picks up the demnition gold and silver." As I gazed on him the fire burned, and I felt that he must be our next portrait. A City Man, perhaps more renowned for sharpness than for scruples, said to a "Cheery Boy," as they parted one night on the steps of the club: "Well, I must go home and get to bed. I have to be up early in the morning, for I work for my living, I suppose you are going to a couple of balls, f or I know you are a bird of pleasure." "1Yes, old chap," replied the Cheery Boy, not the least awed by the man of millions; "I'm a bird of pleasure, and you're a bird of prey." On the Embankment this morning these Birds of Prey were congregated as thick as the seagulls on the Thames in a frost. I leaned against the parapet and marked the long procession. I can scarcely say that "I 275 276 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES bless'd them unaware," for the emotions which they awoke in me were not benedictory; but I gazed and meditated. First came a well-appointed brougham with a foreign coronet on the panel, and, inside, a gentleman wrapped in sables, whose expressive features and colossal cigar were silhouetted against the window of the carriage. He aptly headed the procession, for he was one of those whom Lord Beaconsfield used to call "the Paladins of High Finance." He finds his prey in nations which wish to go to war with one another and require the assistance of a Loan; in continents with mineral resources which need developing; in Princes and Crowned Heads reduced to the vulgar necessity of paying their tradesmen. His business, in short, is on the grandest scale; yet your true Bird of Prey condescends to profits however insignificant; and a fashionable woman in difficulties about her dressmaker's bill finds him as ready a listener as if she were the Chancellor of the Exchequer or Mr. Pierpont Morgan's agent. The skilful hand of "F. C. G." immortalized the personal appearance of this gentleman as "the Throgmorton Street Patriot" in the series of "People who thought it would be so easy" at the beginning of the South African War "Buy 'em, my vrend-- buy 'em till you're black in the face. Vy, it'll be all over in a week ven we get out there." Just after the coronetted brougham came, two THE CITY MAN 277 abreast, the buggies and phaetons of adventurous youth. Smart young fellows, "well groomed," as the newspapers say, with large bunches of violets in their button-holes and cigarettes in their mouths, they drive with careless grace, and launch airy imprecations at the motors of more elderly financiers, which make their horses shy and poison the air with petrol fumes. The Paladin in the brougham was not an attractive-looking object, but these young stockbrokers are pleasantseeming lads, full of good temper and high spirits, and apparently on the best of terms with themselves and the world. The aged moralist, propped against the parapet, heaves a sigh when he thinks of youth and vigour and capacity sacrificed to the Moloch of money-making, and ponders on the strange phenomenon that every lewd and blasphemous joke which circulates in debauched Society is always said to be "the latest thing from the Stock Exchange." Before we turn to more humble practitioners, it may be remarked in passing that the practice of going to the City in a carriage is a departure from tradition. A partner in one of the greatest banks in two continents used every morning to toddle from his palace in Carlton House Terrace, plant himself firmly on the pavement by the Guards' Monument, and hail the passing 'bus with a very businesslike umbrella. "I keep carriages and horses," he used to say, "for my wife and daughters, but carriages are out of place in the City. A 278 278 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES business man should always go to business in the 'bus." Indeed, the Banker, however good his business may be, is generally a quiet and modest sort of gentleman. The customers don't like arrogance or display, but they respect and trust solid comfort. So the Banker eschews the thoroughfares of fashion, makes his nest in some quiet corner of Paddington or South Kensington, and gives large dinner-parties of a grave and conventional type. The guests as a rule are not politicians, for politics are inimical to business. The Army and Navy are regarded as a little wild, and Science, Literature, and Art are considered barely respectable. So the Banker's guests are chiefly other bankers, happily mingled with brewers, stockj obbers, "dealers in precious metals, railway directors, underwriters, wharfingers, K.C.'s, solicitors, and such-like solid men, living peaceably in their habitations, and keeping comfortable balances at their banks. Almost always a clergyman of Low Church principles says grace over these serious banquets, for, as Archbishop Benson long ago observed, "There is something in Evangelicalism, as it exists now, which is very concordant with wealth." The types which we have been considering -the Loanmonger, the Stockbroker, and the Banker-have their rocognized sphere and function. Every one knows what they are, and has some faint conception of what they do. But THE CITY MAN 279 there is an immense array of people who may be classed under the title of "City Men," and about whom their friends and neighbours know absolutely nothing beyond the fact that they repair to the City every day after breakfast and return with great regularity in time for dinner. The mystery which surrounds the intermediate hours has suggested various possibilities in fiction. Dickens conceived the fascinating shopassistant who, disguised as a spark of fashion, won all hearts at suburban dances. If his shop was east of Temple Bar, he was a City Man. Thackeray imagined a crossing-sweeper who plied his daily task far from the aristocratic quarter in which he dined and danced-he, too, was a City Man. Disraeli pictured the Apollo-like pugilist who fought his way from the Minories to Carlton Gardens, and then, plunging into finance, became a City Man in a second sense. I myself have known a steady-going gentleman, with all the outward signs of prudent opulence, whose business in the City turned out to be the modest craft of covering umbrellas; and I once heard enthusiastic praise of a cultured youth who called himself a "Waterworks Engineer," and was subsequently discovered to be a Turncock. An even more remarkable instance of the City Man was brought to light not long ago in connexion with some extensive forgeries. This gentleman lived in a trim villa in one of our genteelest suburbs, subscribed handsomely to local objects, 280 280 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES and sometimes carried the bag in church. By profession he was "1Something in the City." That was all, and that was enough. Eventually Scotland Yard discovered that he kept a bureau for would-.be forgers. A youth who thought he had a turn that way would call at the bureau, show specimens of his art, copy a signature or two under -the principal's eye, and then receive counsel about his future. If he was utterly clumsy and hopeless, he was bowed out as soon as the fee was paid, and recommended to try some other line. If he showed talent, he was set to copying; and, after a longer or shorter course, according to his aptitude, was pronounced a qualified expert. But the resources of the bureau did not end there. The principal made it his business to know the banks at which the clerks were most careless in scrutinizing signatures; where the rich kept their accounts; who were notoriously careless in looking at their pass-books; and all other forms of information which a conscientious forger should learn and know for his soul's health. This sounds like a fairy-tale, but the Solicitor to the Treasury knew that it was a fact, and I think it not unlikely that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may have had the story in mind when he elaborated Moriarty and the Murder-Bureau in "1 Sherlock Home. But I have wandered far from the Thames Embankment and the City-ward procession which passed by me this morning. There was not, I fancy, much romance about the City Men, old THE CITY MAN 28l or young, on whom I gazed. The love of money is, as the Revised Version says, a root of all evils, and among those evils is an incredible and appalling dulness. There is, I think, no kind of conversation known to man-not House of Commons humour, or boating-shop, or shooters' recollections -which can for a moment compete in point of dulness with the habitual discourse of the genuine City Man. True it is that there are members of the class who chatter of sport, and plays, and pictures; but they are comparatively few, and their interest in these things is superficial and their talk unreal. The genuine City Man talks of money. What is so and so worth? What did he start with? How much did he lose in Kaffirs? What did he give for that place he bought in Kent? How has he been doing at Newmarket? How long will he be able to keep it up at this rate? Did he get any money with his wife? What does he give his daughters? And so the stream flows on. It takes its rise in money; through money it runs its course; in money it ends, but only ends to begin again to-morrow. Of all forms of idolatry, the worship of the Golden Calf is certainly the most depressing; and yet for its devotees it seems to be the most absolutely enthralling, and it has the singular power of awakening a kind of imaginative faculty in the most austerely literal minds. The mere thought of money seems to kindle a form of megalomania; for every one who talks about other people's money habitually 282 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES exaggerates. There seems to be an unholy pleasure in the mere mention of prodigious sums, even though the speaker is wondering at the moment how he is to pay the jobmaster's bill and whether he can afford to take his family to the seaside this year. CHAPTER XLI THE PHILANTHROPIST L ove, Serve. It was a happy accident which made this magnificent motto the hereditary cognizance of the Great Lord Shaftesbury- Not long ago I encountered an Oxford Undergraduate, a little flushed with intellectual success, who maintained, with the calm assurance of his age and class, that "the Great Lord Shaftesbury" was a very proper designation of the third Earl, who was a philosopher, and that it might even be fairly applied to the first Earl, who was a politician; but that to bestow it on the seventh Earl, who was merely a Philanthropist, was a misuse of words. Thus Young Oxford; but by the time that my friend has taken his degree it is to be hoped that his eyes will have been opened to see the transcendent greatness of Social Service. It is. a commonplace of patriotism to extol the philanthropic labours of John Howard and William Wilberforce and Fowell Buxton. Lord Shaftesbury himself (in spite of my young friend's adverse judgment) has his assured place on the bede-roll of the men who have made England glorious. 283 284 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES But it may be doubted whether we duly recognize the devotion and the services of the men who are Philanthropists to-day. Kossuth did homage to the "unnamed demigods" who fought for Freedom and Nationality against the tyranny of armed power. The Social War against misery and ignorance and filth has its ventures, its repulses, and its triumphs, as signal as those which belong to political or racial strife; its leaders are "the faithful who are not famous," and its rewards, as a rule, are posthumous. I could name plenty of men, and women too, who are daily spending themselves with reckless prodigality in the social service of Humanity, and yet whose names, if they were proclaimed from the platform of Exeter Hall, would not elicit a single cheer. Such a man was Edward Denison, the cultivated M.P., who first tried the experiment of living in the slums; such was Theodore Talbot, the "young man of great possessions," who did so much for the social work of St. Alban's, Holborn. It is easy enough, and in some ways natural enough, to deplore the degeneracy of the race and to prophesy woe and destruction for a State which is passing through a stage of development such as that which was marked by the General Election of 1906. The best corrective for despondency is to know the forces which are working for good. The clearest disproof of degeneracy is the activity of virtue. The surest safeguard against civil THE PHILANTHROPIST 285 dissolution is the labour of the men and women who spend their life in healing social sores, and knitting human hearts together with those "cords of a man" which are "bands of love." Let me give, in passing, just one illustration of what I mean. The year 1867 had far more resemblance to a year of revolution than 1906. The artisans of England had just become enfranchized citizens. A republican spirit-how engendered it is not now necessary to enquire-had asserted itself in English politics. The Fenian Conspiracy was active, and was reinforced by auxiliary movements on the Continent and in the United States. For the first time for thirty years the foundations of society seemed to be shaken. In December, 1867, Matthew Arnold wrote: "We are in a strange, uneasy state in London. To double the police on duty and to call out Special Constables seems a strange way of dealing with an enemy who is not likely to come in force into the streets, and who really needs a good secret police to track his operations." At this season of disturbance and anxiety, Lord Shaftesbury was sitting alone one evening in his library in Grosvenor Square, when the servant came in and said that a working man from Clerkenwell wished to see his Lordship. His Lordship was well used' to strange visitors at strange hours, so the man was promptly shown in. As soon as he and Lord Shaftesbury were alone 286 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES together, he said: "My Lord, you have been a good friend to some of us, and I have come to tell you something which you ought to know. There's a Fenian plot to blow up Clerkenwell Prison. I have overheard the plotting going on in the back room of the Public-house where I spend my evenings, and I thought I ought to let you know. But, of course, if you gave up my name I should be a dead man." It is true that the authorities at Whitehall, with characteristic ineptitude, refused to take cognizance of the information, unless Lord Shaftesbury would give the name and address of his informant. So the plot was duly carried out; the prison-wall was blown down; the street was wrecked; six people were killed outright, six more died of the explosion, and 120 more were wounded. But this triumph of officialism does not impair the fact that Lord Shaftesbury's philanthropic labours had put into the hands of Government-if only it had chosen to use them-the means of crushing a murderous and treasonable conspiracy. The Philanthropist, whom I know and the world ignores, is to be found alike in town and country, in various grades of society and in all sorts of professions. He may belong to either political party or stand aloof from all; may adhere to any religious body or to none. The Philanthropic Aristocrat has been done to death in fiction and in verse. Let Lord Vieuxbois and THE PHILANTHROPIST 28 287 Lord Lynedale and Romney Leigh sleep with their fathers; they were excellent people in their day, but that day has passed. The Philanthropic Aristocrat of the present period is commonly a sound man of business. He does not rely for Social Reform on Anglo-Catholic tracts or cheap reproductions of sacred pictures; still less does he wish to abolish the House of Lords, or to melt all social orders into one. But he works like a galley-slave at his property. If it is in a town, he helps his tenants exactly when they cannot help themselves, fights the Local Authority for good drainage and water-supply, and breaks his heart over the hideous obduracy of the middleman who has got a long lease of his houses and is growing f at on the profits of the slums. If he is a country Landowner, in spite of falling rents and agricultural depression he toils to keep his cottages in good repair, sets his face like a flint against overcrowding, reduces the rents of his allotments in bad times, and does whatever lies in his power to maintain or revive the old quasi-feudal sentiment which once animated rural life. But the gainsayer might remark that, after all, the Landowner has not much to do except to amuse himself, and that to him philanthropy may be merely a pleasant way of passing his time. This ungracious sneer cannot be aimed at the professional man who, after a hard day's work in a merchant's office or a law-court, gives his scanty 288 288 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES leisure to philanthropic work. Such a man was the late Mr Quintin Hogg, who for forty years was an Earthly Providence to the working lads of London. Men of this type abound, and they are just the men whose work, as a rule, passes unrecognized. I know Bankers who, after a stiff day in Lombard Street, will snatch a hasty chop or a cup of tea and then plunge for the evening into the tumult of a Working Man's Club or the tedium of a Sanitary Committee. I know young men at the Bar and in the Civil Service who turn their backs on the most alluring dances, decline invitations to dinner, and reduce their theatre-going to a minimum, in order that they may teach shoeblacks to box or newspaper boys to sing part-songs. And, besides the sacrifice of hard-earned leisure, there is the systematic and unseen sacrifice of money. Many a professional man, who earns not very much more than is required for the necessities of home and family, will retrench his personal expenditure to th'e narrowest limits-wear old clothes, travel thirdclass, and choose the cheapest luncheon at the Club-in order that he may give more largely to causes which he believes to be deserving. He may be cheated and disappointed once and again, but nothing chills his ardour or checks his- generosity. And certainly it is bare justice to enumerate among the Philanthropists of the present day that noble array of Women, married THE PHILANTHROPIST 289 and single, who toil so patiently and so bravely for the girls and young women of our great cities. For surely the woman who trains the future mothers of English citizens in the ways of modesty, gentleness, and refinement is helping to purify, as no other agency can purify it, the fountain of our national life. Truly said George Eliot: "The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs." T CHAPTER XLII THE PROFESSIONAL PHILANTHROPIST "WE must never forget that, alongside of any great truth, there is certain to be a sham and a counterfeit of that truth." So said Charles Kingsley in his celebrated sermon on Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality. "Wherever," said Cardinal Newman, "the true Jerusalem is built, there is a Samaria close at hand." As is the reality to the counterfeit-as were the Chosen People to their alien and degenerate neighbours,-so is the true Philanthropist, whom we have just described to the character indicated at the head of this chapter. The Professional Philanthropist is not a desirable person, but he plays so considerable a part in modern life that he deserves at least a passing recognition. How is he bred? Where does he come from? What was he before he became a Philanthropist? To these questions, expressed or implied, he is rather shy of giving an answer. Perhaps (like Mr. Creakle) he has failed as a hop-merchant in the Borough, and, having made a mess of his own affairs, takes to lecturing on Thrift, Co-operation, and Social Economics. 290 THE PROFESSIONAL PHILANTHROPIST 291 Perhaps he is a barrister who has missed his mark with judges and juries, but finds a vent for his too-fluent eloquence at Church Congresses or meetings of the Christian Social Union. Perhaps he is a journalist who has written a sensational description of "An Opium-Den in Poplar" or "A Day's Drudgery in the Deptford CattleMarket." Perhaps he has never done a stroke of work in his life, but has subsisted from his youth up on the misplaced hospitality of the weakly benevolent, who consider him an interesting young man, give him the run of their houses in London, and entertain him for weeks together at their country homes. It is a sad but an undeniable fact that a great leader of philanthropy is generally surrounded by a court of parasites and toadies. Himself incapable of worldliness or baseness or self-seeking, he does not realize that these qualities flourish luxuriantly among his followers and adherents. A thoroughly unworldly man, rich, kind-hearted, and not observant, attracts humbugs and hypocrites as a sponge sucks water. Let us trace the operation of this natural law. Tom Garbage has lived, ever since he grew up, by his wits, which, it is only fair to say, are not contemptible. He has dabbled in "1London Letters," and has harangued at Debating Societies. He can write a little and speak a little; knows a good deal about the seamy side of London, and has a quick eye for men and movements. He 292 292 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES passes through life in persistent quest of one supremely desirable object, and this object he would, in his own racy vernacular, describe as a "Mug." Sooner or later, he sees exactly what he wants, and springs at it with a prompt alacrity which is really, in its way, creditable. Lord A., a genuine philanthropist, presides at a public meeting to promote, say, the Reform of our Prison System. He speaks with sincerity and animation, and warmly invites co-operators in the good work to which he has set his hand. The Times gives a full report of his speech, and next morning he receives a letter from Tom Garbage. Tom begins, with a well-turned apology for his intrusion, and says that, after hearing his Lordship's burning words, he cannot refrain from placing his services, such as they are, at the disposal of the Cause. He has studied the subject in all its bearings, has strong theories on Recidivism, and hints at acquaintance with interesting Ticket-of-Leave Men who could give invaluable information as to the inner working of the system. Here, obviously, is the man whom Lord A. wants, and, in the warmth of his generous heart, he writes to thank Tom Garbage for his welcome letter, and would be very glad to see him at luncheon one day, if he were passing Grosvenor Square about two o'clock. Tom needs no second bidding; and having in the meantime got up his subject in the Public Library, he duly presents himself at Lord THE PROFESSIONAL PHILANTHROPIST 293 A.'s luncheon-table. His host draws him out, and explains him to the other guests. "This is Mr. Garbage, who has made a special study of Prison Reform. I think you would be interested to hear his views." And then Tom launches out on the perilous voyage of romantic narrative, steers his course adroitly, and creates a most favourable impression. Social Reformers are very accessible on the emotional side, and, when properly moved, are not too exacting about tiresome details. From these small beginnings Tom dates his career as a Professional Philanthropist. The movement spreads. Duchesses take it up. Drawing-room meetings are held in well-known houses. Lectures are addressed to fashionable audiences in West End halls. At all these Tom is the lion. Lord A., whose hands are really full of social work, cannot comply with a tithe of the requests for a speech; and in excusing himself he writes: " My friend Mr. Thomas Garbage would be a much more effective exponent of the case than I can be, for his knowledge of it is more intimate and more recent, and he has an eloquence to which I can lay no claim." So Tom soon makes his way into the innermost circles of benevolent society; gets his luncheon for nothing six days out of seven: dines three times a week at philanthropic houses, and is overwhelmed with invitations for the autumn. "Do you think you are likely to be in the north any time after August? We are thinking of getting up a meeting at Drumble, and, if only 294 294 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES we could persuade you to speak, it would give the movement such a splendid start. Do come." " I know it is a dreadful shame to ask you to come all the way down to Cornwall. But feeling is very strong at the Land's End, and, if you have never spoken to a Cornish audience, you would enjoy the experience, I'm sure." Thus Tom becomes the official orator of the Prison Reform Movement, and it is not his fault if he does not make his oratory pay. Or take the case of Mr. B., the Evangelical banker. His hobby is the Housing of the Poor; he has contributed largely to Model Dwellings, and has shares in the Garden City. He is an extremely busy man, and it is impossible for him to give much personal attention to enterprises outside his business, however much he may believe in them. He looks about for some one who will act as his almoner and agent, investigate slums, draw up reports, and administer funds. Returning in the train from Lombard Street to Putney, he reads in his evening paper a vivid sketch called "1Dreams in a Doss-house, by One Who Has Dreamed Them." Being a practical man, he makes a note of the signature, and next morning writes to the dreamer, under cover to the editor, suggesting an interview in Lombard Street at an early date. Tom arrives, a little perplexed, but soon takes the measure of his man, and replies shortly, clearly, and cheerfully to the enquiring banker. Encouraged by that THE PROFESSIONAL PHILANTHROPIST 295 good man's attention, he comes quickly to the point. "The fact is that I can't afford to do this work for nothing. I have my profession, and I must live by it. But if you would like me to undertake this slum-work for you, I am quite prepared to take ~300 a year and my expenses and lay my profession aside. Is it a bargain?" It is; and next year Tom Garbage is examined before a Mansion House Committee as an expert authority on the Housing of the Poor; and, when the philanthropic world persuades the Government to appoint a Royal Commission on the subject, one of the Commissioners is sure to be "our trusty and well-beloved Thomas Garbage, Esquire." Sic itur ad astra. We need not pursue the flight. Then again there is the Opulent Woman, widow or spinster, who honestly desires to serve some good work of moral or material reform. "The Destitute Orange-girl, the Neglected Washerwoman, the Distressed Muffinman, find in her a fast and generous friend"; but she realizes the responsibilities of wealth, knows by sad experience how easily one may be deceived, and feels herself handicapped and helpless without the assistance of a man. Tom Garbage, who saw her melt under his eloquence at Lady A.'s drawing-room meeting or took her in to dinner at one of Mr. B.'s serious banquets, early marked her for his own. In a case like this his progress lacks the excitement of adventure--it is almost shamefully 296 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES easy and unhindered. Acquaintance soon ripens into friendship. Before long he becomes Mrs. C.'s philanthropic conscience. All applications for help are referred to him, and he speaks out of the very heart of the oracle. "Well, you see that Mrs. C. is placed in a very peculiar position. Certainly she has great wealth, but the calls on her are literally incessant. She is good enough to set some store on my judgment, and I am bound, of course, to safeguard her interests, and this year I have been advising her rather to curtail than increase her present outlay on charitable objects. I know how sorry she will be to say No to any request of yours, but really it is inevitable." Sometimes, however, the opposite policy is pursued. A Royal Personage becomes warmly interested in a scheme for a Convalescent Hospital or an Inebriates' Home. Tom Garbage sees his market, and urges Mrs. C. to subscribe largely. When the auspicious day of stone-laying arrives, Tom figures very conspicuously in the ceremonies. It is he who hands the Princess from her carriage, presents her with the mystic trowel, and, at the close, proposes a vote of thanks in a happily-phrased oration. His expressive eyes sparkle, he pushes his hair back from his thoughtful forehead, and there is a quaver in his voice when he speaks of the miseries which the Institution is intended to relieve. An admiring murmur runs round the tent. "What a striking THE PROFESSIONAL PHILANTHROPIST 297 looking young man! and how well he speaks!" " Do you know him? Who is he?" " Oh! he is the man who has done so much for the fund. I hear that half of Mrs. C.'s donation was really his, only he cannot bear anything like publicity or praise." " How very interesting, and so uncommon I " " Oh, Mr Garbage, would you mind coming this way? The Princess wishes to speak to you. I have the honour of presenting to your Royal Highness Mr. Garbage, who has done so much for our work here." Tom makes his best bow; a few gracious words fall on his enraptured ear; and he finds himself numbered among the lights of the philanthropic firmament. When the Institution is opened, the odds are that "T. Garbage, Esq," is gazetted as Secretary and General Manager at a salary of ~C5oo a year; and when, a year or two later, he marries Mrs. C.'s orphan niece, he discovers, to his astonishment, that her father left her ~20,000. Thus, even in this hard world, Virtue is sometimes its own reward, and Philanthropy need not always imply self-abnegation. CHAPTER XLIII THE TOADY THIS familiar but unpleasing type evolves itself by a natural process from the Professional Philanthropist. For, until Tom Garbage establishes himself in that salaried post on which he has always had his eye, he is, by the very necessity of the case, a Toady. What is a Toady? ask some who ought to know the answer pretty well. "Toady," the modern lexicographers tell us, is contracted from "Toad-eater," and Dr. Johnson defines the Toad-eater as "a mountebank's man, one of whose duties was to swallow, or pretend to swallow, any kind of garbage." The Toadeater presumably was paid for his unpalatable art; and so his successor, the Toady, is content to perform some very undignified antics in consideration of substantial advantages to be gained by his humiliation. The Toady lives by flattery, and no one who has anything to give can reckon on being safe from his attentions. He pervades Society from its summit to its base. Let us begin on the highest level, and consider the Toady as he appears in the empyreal atmosphere which sur298 THE TOADY 299 rounds the Throne. Here the Toady is called a courtier; and, if he is successful in the practice of his arts, he is applauded and admired for exactly the same qualities which, if displayed in an inferior sphere, would be called contemptible and base. "Every one likes flattery," said Lord Beaconsfield, who knew what he was talking about, "and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." His practice exactly accorded with his theory, and, when he bracketed the most illustrious Personage in the realm with himself under the designation "we authors," he seemed to reach the highest flight of successful toadyism. Courtiership produces in all natures, except the very strongest and purest, a mean admiration for mean things, a doglike devotion to quite unworthy persons, and a preternatural interest in sayings and doings too trivial to engage the serious attention of a Kindergarten. The characteristics which Thackeray and Leech regarded as the peculiar property of domestic servants are reproduced with amusing exactness in courtly circles. Some years ago a Lord Steward was chatting to a Mistress of the Robes about his last visit to Windsor. He had carried down an Address from the House of Lords, and had eaten his midday meal under the Royal roof. 1" I was quite shocked by the Household luncheon," he declared, with tears in his voice. "I assure you, my dear Duchess, there was nothing on the table but a roast hare and a leg of boiled pork." 300 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES It was the genuine lamentation of a soul trained to higher things, and it would have come quite naturally from Major,Pendennis's Morgan when he exchanged the splendours of Stillbrook for the modest housekeeping of Fairoaks. Then, of course, Prime Ministers are, in a very special way, the objects of the Toady's attentions. "If you take a large buzzing bluebottle-fly and look at it in a microscope, you may see twenty or thirty little ugly insects crawling about it, which doubtless think their fly to be the bluest, grandest, merriest, most important animal in the universe, and are convinced that the world would be' at an end if it ceased to buzz." That was Sydney Smith's picturesque way of describing ta Premier's parasites, and the lapse of a century has not materially changed the type. It would be invidious to describe individual toadies whom I have seen plying their pleasing pranks on successive Prime Ministers, and I must seek safety in generalizations. There are Private Secretaries, each passionately convinced that his Bluebottle is the grandest creature in the realm of being, and that he will not "cease to buzz" until he has provided all his parasites with well-paid offices in the public service. There are obsequious doctors, tenth-rate men of letters or science, promotionseeking clergymen, and journalists who can be bought by invitations to evening parties. "Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make" THE TOADY30 301 and the burden of that call is always the same: "Let us flatter our Bluebottle to the top of hi's bent. Let us assure him, day and night, that he is the wisest, ablest, and noblest of mankind. Let us inspire pamphlets and organize puffs, stop every chink in Downing Street against the wintry breath of criticism, and make our great man believe that the country is in love with him, and that no other Administration than his is even conceivable." These devices are not thrown away. As a rule, the Toady gets what he wants, which is ~iooo a year, though, even in the hour of triumph, he is apt to be a little jealous of his brother-Toady who, with less merit, has secured ~1500. But the Bluebottle, made heady by the fumes of toadyism, goes blundering to his doom, and wakes up some fine morning to find himself out of office, and perhaps out of Parliament as well. It is the end of the Bluebottle, but the Parasite is safe. Bishops, again, are much pursued by Toadies. The Domestic Chaplain must be made of exceptionally manly stuff if he can resist the atmosphere in which he lives; avoid "drop-down-dead-ativeness"' of manner; and forget that each daughter of the episcopal household carries a living in her pocket. A living-yes, and something more than a living; f or have we not seen a promoted chaplain work his sinuous way to the Decanal Stall and the Episcopal Throne? Many and various are the baits by which good 302 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES men are allured into the trap of toadyism. An Honorary Canonry would seem to be the very most illusory and unsubstantial of all earthly distinctions; and yet we have all known clergymen, in other respects exemplary, abjure the principles and practices of a lifetime, and forswear old friends in favour of new diocesans, for the poor reward of being called Canon, instead of Mr., Demas. The Philanthropist, as I said before, is usually encompassed by a great cloud of Toadies. If Lord A. is a fanatical teetotaller, Tom Garbage poses as a very Rechabite. He traces the thin quality of the learning which he brought with him from Crichton House to the fact that his infant brain was stupefied by the ardent poison of Dr. Grimstone's table-beer, and he smilingly swallows large draughts of orange champagne or ginger-pop, while all the time his caitiff soul is longing for a pint of half-and-half. Lord B. is a leader of the Anti-Vivisection Movement; will not shoot the pheasants (which he eats); he allows Lady B.'s lapdog to sit on the dinnertable; and expects his guests to get out of the carriage and walk uphill lest the horses should be tired. I admire his devotion to the cause of our Dumb Friends, but I cannot emulate Tom Garbage's passionate eulogies. "The most eloquent, most moving, most convincing speech which I have ever heard in my life was one which your Lordship delivered at the annual meeting THE TOADY 303 of the Society for Promoting the Use of Vegetarian Boots. I have never forgotten it, and never can." That sentence is, barring the name of the Society, a transcript of a tribute paid, in my hearing, by a very flamboyant toady to an excellent member of the House of Lords, who had started a discussion at dinner on the merits of public speakers. The merely social Toady has been a favourite theme with satirists in every age. George Colman the Elder described him in a trenchant passage, which is as true as when it was penned: "If there are any characters of this motley drama that move our wrathful indignation more powerfully than all the others, it is the swarm of humble retainers to the great that are for ever buzzing in the ear of Nobility.. Such self-made dependents are engendered by the smiles of the great, like flies or maggots out of carrion by the rays of the sun. They are considered in general as runners for the great, that fetch and carry, come and go as they are bid. Though they flatter themselves that they mix in the polite world, they live but in the suburbs or outskirts of gentility." Opulent old ladies are very specially the subjects of this kind of toadyism, and Tom Garbage if he sees his opening in social rather than philanthropic circles, soon loses the last vestiges of manhood. 'Tis his to fill an unexpected vacancy at a dowager's dinner-table, and to make a fourth 304 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES at a game which he detests. But he has his reward. He "gets asked out," as the choice phrase goes, and what can aspiring youth desire more? In whatever company you meet the Toady, and in whatever sphere of life he operates, his essential quality is still the same. Plausibility is the badge of all his tribe; and his only miscalculation is that, as Sir Henry Taylor says in his essay on " The Plausible Man," " he forgets that what he pretends to be, other people may pretend to think him." CHAPTER XLIV THE BUCK IT is an old-fashioned phrase for an old-fashioned character-the superannuated Beau. Joe Sedley was a Buck, and Major Pendennis was a Buck until he "became serious" and enjoyed Laura's reading aloud. A Buck was Mr. Thorne of Ullathorne, and Bucks in their different ways were Sir John Chester and Mr. Tracy Tupman. A Buck, too, was Mr. George Chuzzlewit, the "gay bachelor cousin, who claimed to be young but had been younger," and was renowned for "the bright spots on his cravats and the rich patterns of his waistcoats." Turning from fiction to real life, it may be noted that the creator of the Chuzzlewits was himself Buckishly inclined. Buckishness was hereditary in the Lytton family, passing, with due modification, from' the first to the second Lord. Bucks of the first water were Mr. Alfred Montgomery and Sir Hastings Doyle and Mr. Augustus Lumley; and a crowning instance of the Buck was Lord Beaconsfield, whom, in his seventy-third year, Matthew Arnold described as "very elaborately got up," with his dyed curls and his astrachan collar, or, as he 305 U 306 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES used to appear in the evening, with his Blue Ribbon, and his Star blazing in diamonds and rubies. The distinguishing characteristic of the Buck is that he resolutely declines to grow old. Perhaps he fixes on a definite age-say from thirty-five to forty-at which he will remain; and, like Mr. Chillingly Mivers, starts a wig in middle life so as to be beforehand with churlish Time. It is, I think, exceptional to meet a married Buck; and those few of the tribe who are married rather live as though they were not. The painful consciousness that one's wife at any rate must know one's age tends to discourage uxorious buckishness, and the horrible inquisitiveness of children makes havoc of simulated youth. So the Buck, as a rule, is a bachelor. He lives, perhaps, in the Albany, where many a generation of Bucks has predeceased him; or he has chambers in St. James's Street, so as to be in the very heart of Clubland; or he owns what the house-agents call a "Bijou Residence," comprising six rooms and a basement, in the purlieus of Belgravia. In the course of a morning's stroll through South-west London, I could point out whole rows and squares of these small houses, where the Dowager, the Spinster, and the Buck divide the land between them. Let us pause for a moment in Lilliput Square and survey the diurnal course of Tommy Tupman, descendant in the third generation of that blighted cavalier who THE BUCK 307 spent the evening of his days on the Terrace at Richmond. Tommy Tupman rises late. He was at a ball till two o'clock; then he supped lightly on hock cup and lobster-salad, and, by the time he wound his enamelled watch and slipped into his silk pyjamas, the early sparrows were twittering in Belgrave Square. Tommy sleeps sound and long, for his are the dreamless slumbers which wait on an easy conscience and a practised digestion. But the sun, notoriously no respecter of persons, forces his way unwelcomed into Tommy's bedroom; and, after two or three ineffectual attempts to turn over and go to sleep on the other side, Tommy realizes that he is wide awake, and that the toils and responsibilities of another day have begun. As regards personal appearance, this is the least felicitous hour of his twenty-four, for he looks rather hollow under the eyes; what Homer called the barrier of his teeth is visibly impaired; and his chin, like that of Major Pendennis, "glistens like an elderly dew-" However, it does not much matter, for his servant is used to seeing him in all aspects and attitudes; his cup of strong tea will rekindle the sparkle in his eye, and the list of the "To-day's" engagements in the Morning Post will reinvigorate his energies. His ablutions and toilet are conducted on an elaborate system. His bathroom contains every appliance for detergency and stimulation. Out of a lake-like plunge-bath he rises like Venus 308 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES out of the sea. Twenty minutes' work with perfectly-stropped razors restores to his rounded cheek the amiable smoothness of youth; and it would be a breach of tact to enquire too curiously into the contents of all the silver bottles which stud his dressing-table. When it comes to dressing, no girl making ready for her first ball could be more scrupulously careful. The colour and harmony of suits and shirts and neckcloths are anxiously studied. The vital decision between a cat's-eye scarfpin and a turquoise is conscientiously weighed. Feet, perhaps a little reluctant after last night's labours, are thrust into boots miraculously small and shiny (this is a characteristic of the Buck in all ages), and a mechanical contrivance, euphemistically called a Surgical Belt, reduces the expanded waist of middle age to a more picturesque circumference. Breakfast, as a rule, is not much of an affair with the seasoned Buck. In this, as in so many other ways, the juvenile dandy, with his invincible appetite, has distinctly the advantage of his senior comrade. The "Cheery Boy" can encounter a grilled cutlet and a dish of devilled kidneys with a smile; but the Buck shows a tendency to toy with his dry toast, and scarcely feels fit to face the day's campaign till he has pulled himself together with a small brandy-and-soda. The Buck no longer rides. His figure is not seen at its best on the outside of a horse. The lower part of his chest, as THE BUCK 309 tailors call it, is, in spite of artificial restraints, too pronounced; and, besides, his doctor has warned him that a man of his build falls heavy, and that a heavy fall is very inconsistent with the claims of digestion. So Tommy prefers a hansom, and in that Gondola of London he sallies forth in quest of luncheon. Sometimes he eats it at the club; more often at the tables of ladies whose carriage he calls after the ball, or to whom he sends tickets for Hurlingham or Lord's. Whether at a private house or at a club, Tommy "does himself," as he would say, "uncommonly well," for by two o'clock appetite has reasserted itself; and then, after coffee, kummel, and a cigarette, the world is all before him where to choose. Perhaps he goes to a garden-party; perhaps to one of those many places of outdoor amusement with which the suburbs abound; perhaps, calculating on the fineness of the afternoon, he pays a round of calls on the people whom he does not wish to find at home; perhaps, if he has been at a ball five nights running, he subsides into an armchair at the club, and only wakes in time for a cup of tea and a muffin somewhere between five and six. Of course the Buck passes a good deal of his time in clubs. He is not remarkable for keenness of intellectual taste, and his literary cravings are amply satisfied by the trayful of novels from the Circulating Library, which he finds in the Smoking-room. He plays a con 31o SOCIAL SILHOUETTES spicuous part in the daily life of the club, and is on the whole looked up to, though the junior members are a little inclined to make fun of him. His own attitude towards those juniors varies according to his temperament, and it is impossible to predicate of the Buck, as such, a particular line of conduct towards younger men. If waning vigour and increasing weight have disarranged his temper, he probably revenges himself by copious blackballing, and by a dogged resistance to every change, however palpably desirable, in the interior economy of the club. If, on the other hand, he is an amiable and eupeptic person, he makes close friends with the youngest of his fellow-clubmen, and, in spite of all differences in age and figure, imitates the most recent developments of tailoring and hosiery. He has already attained the condition which Edward Bowen described in one of his songs,"Shorter in wind, but in memory long"; and, if he can secure an audience of very juvenile companions, nothing pleases him better than to discourse of Strawberry Hill in Lady Waldegrave's time, or the even remoter recollections of Lady Palmerston's Saturday evenings. His flow of reminiscences is only stemmed by the necessity of going to dress for dinner; and, by half-past eight, the Buck, made glorious by the amplest of white waistcoats and the brightest of buttonholes, is deep in his repast. "His exhausted brain rallies under his glass of dry sherry, THE BUCK 311 and he realizes all his dreams by the aid of claret which has the true flavour of the violet." Four hours later he may be seen, in spite of age and infirmities, plunging about in the orgies of the Kitchen Lancers, or, as dawn begins to peep, leading a cotillon with the energy of twentyone. Mothers find him a convenient friend, for he is fond of supping, and occasions no anxiety on the matrimonial score. If he is well off, he is probably known as a fixed and incurable celibate; and, if he belongs to the "Little Brothers of the Rich," he is too sensible a fellow to exchange comfortable bachelorhood for matrimony with a small house and a bad cook. Hugo Bohun, one of the Bucks in "Lothair," said that he would not answer for himself if he could find an affectionate family with good shooting and first-rate claret. "'There must be many families with such conditions,' said Lothair. Hugo shook his head. 'You try. Sometimes the wine is good and the shooting bad; sometimes the reverse; sometimes both are excellent, but then the tempers and the manners are equally detestable."' Hugo is still unmarried, though the intervening years have a little staled his infinite variety. CHAPTER XLV THE WORLDLING " We've no abiding city here; This may distress the Worldling's mind." THIS dismal ditty may be found in a singular compilation called "The Church and Home Metrical Psalter and Hymnal" (by the Rev. William Windle), which helped to form my infant taste for sacred verse. Good Mr Windle must have long since passed from among us, and I doubt if his hymn-book is still current even in evangelical circles; but some of its images and illustrations have always lingered in my memory, and in early youth I longed to see a "Worldling." The opportunity was granted to me when, as a Harrow boy, I went to stay in my holidays with my revered friend the late Dean Vaughan, at that time Vicar of Doncaster. One morning there arrived a letter from a well-known figure in society whom we will call Sir Thomas Timson, proposing to visit Doncaster Vicarage on his way south from his distinguished friends in Scotland. The proposal was accepted, not, I am bound to say, with entire complacency on the part of the host and hostess, and some rather elaborate arrangements 312 THE WORLDLING 313 were made for Sir Thomas's proper reception. On the morning of the day fixed for his arrival, Dr. Vaughan, who had a knack, unusual among ex-schoolmasters, of encouraging boys to ridicule their elders, said to me in his blandest tone, " Have you ever seen Sir Thomas Timson?" " No, sir; I have never seen any one." "Well, observe Sir Thomas carefully. He is well worth your attention. He is what the hymn-books call 'a Worldling,' and perhaps you will never again see so perfect a specimen of the type." So my opportunity had come at last. Mr Windle's creation was to appear in bodily form, and my dream of a Worldling was to be realized. I remember to this day the thrilling excitement of the arrival-the luggage-laden fly; the anxious servant, half nurse, half valet; the shrivelled form and puckered countenance of the aged baronet, with "Brutus" wig and false teeth, and, I think, a glass eye; the quaint, old-fashioned enquiries and greetings, and the high-pitched, querulous voice. And then at dinner the studied yet pungent conversation; the reminiscences, petrifying to a boy, of the French Revolution and the War and the Regency; and, withal, the keenest interest in all that was going on at the moment in the actual world-politics and books, vintages and cookery, the houses which Sir Thomas had been visiting during the summer, and the parties which he meant to attend during the ensuing winter. All combined to suggest the impression that the speaker had lived from the 3r14 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES beginning of time and intended to go on living till the crack of doom. In Sir Thomas Timson's presence "We've no abiding city here" seemed a mere flourish of rhetoric; but even a schoolboy could perceive that, if it were to be taken literally, it would "distress" Sir Thomas's "mind" most consumedly. Some forty years have sped their course, and I have never again set eyes on so perfect a specimen of the type, combining the external characteristics of Mr. Angelo Cyrus Bantam, Mr. Turveydrop, and Major Pendennis. But, though the outward form of the Worldling has changed with the changing years, his inner man remains the same in every age. In the best social satire of Queen Victoria's reign the satirist taught us to distinguish between "the Wholly Worldly" and "the Worldly Holy." Of the Wholly Worldly we may speak later on, but the Worldly Holy should be considered first. They are, it must be confessed, a plausible crew; and, as the Worldling is of both sexes as well as of all periods, we may think of our Worldly Holy as a woman, though she by no means lacks her male correlative. The Worldly Holy, as I conceive of her, is a fond mother of marriageable daughters, and, in trying to arrange the future of these damsels, she blends the Church and the World in the most judicious proportions conceivable. She is, to use the current nomenclature, "moderately High Church"-scarcely a " Ritualist," certainly not a THE WORLDLING 315 "Catholic." In her own phrase, she "likes to see things nicely done in Church," but has no opinion of systems which drag one out of bed at seven in the morning after one has been up all night at a ball, and feels sure that growing girls should not go without meat on Friday "Of course I am all in favour of teaching girls selfdenial and that sort of thing, so during Lent we only go to matinees." The Worldly Holy likes a church which is near at hand, where the music is good, and where the preacher draws a smart congregation. Of course the worldly side of the Worldly Holy character impels her to take her daughters to the fullest possible round of the Season's gaieties; and then, as she justly observes, it would be cruelty to expect them to do parochial work as well; besides, parochial work involves the society of agreeable curates, and they are, of all the "detrimental" host, the most to be avoided. But, though she has no desire for a curate-son-in-law, the Worldly Holy admires and encourages church-going tendencies in her daughters' friends. "Dear Lord Farintosh, have you ever heard Mr. --? I am sure you would like him. He always gives one something to think of. And the morning service begins at such a comfortable hour--half-past eleven. I shall have a spare seat next Sunday, and I should be so delighted if you would use it, and then you can come home to luncheon with us. That will be delightful." When the Worldly Holy 3P6 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES gives a dinner-party, she not uncommonly has a bishop to say grace; this lends a kind of sanctity to the whole entertainment, and yet does not interfere with the legitimate enjoyment of fascinating daughters and desirable youths. Now and then she will drop in at a staid gardenparty at Fulham or Lambeth-provided, of course, that those graver festivals do not clash with Osterley or Holland House,-and, with unerring instinct, will pick out from among the company of the preachers some secular youth who combines ecclesiastical tastes with great expectations. When, in the fulness of time, these manceuvres have been conducted to a successful conclusion, the Worldly Holy mother keeps up appearances to the last. "Thank you! Thank you! Yes; it is a marriage which really pleases us. They have been devoted to one another for ages, and are quite absurdly happy. Oh yes; they will be trhs bien installis from the first, and I suppose there will be wealth some day. But, as you know, that is not what one really cares for. It is everything that he is so bien pensant about the Church and all that sort of thing, and so really anxious to set a good example in Society." When we turn from the Worldly Holy to the Wholly Worldly, we dismiss these blandishments of femininity, and contemplate Man, poor man, in his undisguised baseness. The Wholly Worldly man-the "Worldling "-is a very unattractive object. He starts in life with a definite plan of THE WORLDLING 317 absolute and calculated selfishness. If he must work for his living, his motto is Extremum occupet scabies-the devil take the hindmost. Whatever else happens, he must succeed, and others may go to the wall. In the choice of means he is not too scrupulous. Friendship, sympathy, generosity, are to him the words of an unknown tongue. He ruthlessly crushes out the smaller competitor, and, in effect if not in words, he says, with that practical philosopher Mr. Lowten, " Dhurting yourself for any one else, you know." If his aspirations are not commercial but social, selfishness is still the active impulse of his life. While he is still poor and unknown, he is assiduous in paying court in quarters out of which any small advantage may be sucked. He will dine in Bloomsbury and go to dances in the Cromwell Road, drink tea with dowagers, and be hand in glove with younger sons. But, as he ascends the social ladder, these earlier assistants are discarded. He has got his foot planted in Piccadilly or Grosvenor Square, and Russell Square and Stanhope Gardens know him no more. When the reigning Countess can be cultivated, the Dowager can be safely disregarded; and the younger son is an undesirable companion compared with the eldest who will one day be the head of the family and already manages the shooting. The Worldling will look the other way when his former schoolfellow at Great Mudport Free School or Lycurgus House Academy salutes him from the roof of 3i8 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES the omnibus, and will turn the cold shoulder on his oldest friend if he is a man of no social mark. "Oh yes, Stubbins is an excellent fellow, and his people were very good to me in the old days when I first came up to London. But you know what it is. London is a terrible place for drifting apart, and it is difficult to keep up with old associations. However, I really must try to see a little more of him this season." Conversely, if the Worldling's acquaintances suddenly emerge from obscurity into fame, he becomes intensely loyal to Auld Lang Syne, and spares no opportunity of parading, or if necessary inventing, the early intimacy. "We were a great deal together in old days and I was always devoted to him. Such a good fellow! and so thoroughly deserves all he has got!" An agreeable variant on the same theme was offered by a Worldling who was asked whether he knew the wife of a gallant General who distinguished himself in the South African War. "You must know Lady--," said a friend in London. "For she was Miss -, and came from somewhere close to your old home." "No," replied the Worldling with artless candour. "We have never known her or her husband; but we shall know them now." Or perhaps the Worldling has set his heart, or whatever substitute for that organ he possesses, on a political career, and then the opportunities for displaying his peculiar characteristics are THE WORLDLING 319 plentiful. Within the last seven or eight years he has flourished like the green bay-tree. Perhaps he started as a Gladstonian Liberal, and spoke, with tears in his voice, about the Union of Hearts. When the Liberal standard passed into other keeping, he developed Jingo tendencies, talked at large of Empire, gloried in the South African War, and was a fervid defender of Chinese Labour. He has had his eye fixed steadily on the future, and has thought he saw a good time coming, when Imperialism would possess the earth. But it is the besetting weakness of the Worldling that he always "rats" at the wrong moment; and, just as he has comfortably divested himself of his last shred of Liberal clothing, he finds to his dismay that the weather has changed, and that he must wrap himself up again in the discarded vesture of Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform. And the curious part of it is that the Worldling honestly believes that no one can remember his tergiversations. I have spoken of Liberal Worldlings; but human flesh and blood are much the same in whatever camp they are found; and I should not wonder if Mr. Balfour, in his present humiliations, can recall some Worldlings of his own party who not a year ago were beslavering him with the most unctuous adulation, and now go about talking of shilly-shally, double-dealing, and unsuccessful trickery. We need not follow the Worldling through all 320 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES the changing scenes of lif e. Wherever he is, and whatever he does, his essential characteristic is baseness. He has no heart, no principle, no conscience. He is a false friend and a treacherous enemy. He lives for self only; and his epitaph has been written by a great preacher in a poignant phrase: "The sensualist and the suicide are at least to be pitied in their end; but the death of the average man of the world is only and utterly contemptible."'I I J. R. Illingworth. CHAPTER XLVI L'ENVOI LET US part good friends; "never forgetting" (as Thackeray said in closing his most pungent satire) "that, if Fun is good, Truth is still better, and Love best of all." Fun, Truth, Love. These are three of the best things in the world; and now, since the conclusion of even the humblest work invites to retrospect, perhaps it is permissible to enquire whether the foregoing pages have made any contribution to the cause of Fun, of Truth, or of Love. I. FuN.-I disregard the Metaphysics of Fun, even as Sydney Smith, in reviewing a book on natural history, "disregarded the metaphysics of the Toucan." I do not, with Charles Kingsley, speculate on a sense of humour in the Creator. I do not enquire whether the sense of humour in man is a survival of something primeval, or an anticipation of something still to come. I do not even guess why some things strike us as funny and others do not, or why the same thing seems very funny to A. and not the least so to B. Wild horses should not drag me into a dissertation on the theory of Wit and Humour, for 321 x 322 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES I know that I should immediately find myself as completely befogged as the philosophers in "Happy Thoughts." "'The essence of surprise is wit,' I remind Bob Englefield. I wonder if this is an original idea of mine. On thinking it over, I find I mean 'the essence of wit is surprise.' However, it doesn't matter, as Englefield answers 'Yes.'" Warned by that high example of analytical perplexity, I confine myself to actualities. I neither know nor care what constitutes the faculty of Fun-the sense of humour, -but I recognize it as one of the determining elements of human character. Between those who have and those who have not some sense of a joke there yawns an abyss which no science can bridge; they never can look at life from the same point of view; and they seem naturally inclined to regard one another with a suspicion which borders on ill-will. The prosaic, literal, and serious-minded man looks upon the lover of jokes as intellectually frivolous or morally unsound. A man who manifests a sense of humour is commonly regarded in anti-humorous circles as reft of all capacity for thinking or feeling. It is true that he can neither think despairingly nor feel ferociously, for in the darkest hours the good Angel of Humour comes with glad tidings of a happiness which is independent of circumstances. "The still, small voice," as Mr Sampson Brass said, "is singing comic songs within me, and all is happiness and joy." L'ENVOI 323 Pathos and Humour are indeed inextricably intertwined, "For the foam-flakes that dance in life's shallows Are wrung from life's deep;" but a sense of humour makes dulness impossible, and he who is delivered from dulness is delivered also from despair. A curious symptom observable in those who either hate jokes or, like the Scotch editor, "jock wi' deeficulty" is their profound scepticism about all humorous experiences. You might much more easily persuade them that you had discovered Pharaoh's chariot-wheels in the Red Sea, or had identified the Man in the Iron Mask, than that you had witnessed the scene which you described or had heard with your own ears "a thing one would rather have expressed differently." My own firm conviction is that in this respect Fortune is absolutely impartial, and that we all are allowed, during our walk through life, to encounter the same number of ludicrous persons, situations, and sayings. The difference is not in our circumstances but in ourselves. "The eye sees in all things that which it brought with it the power to see", and many are the wayfarers who plod year after year from Dan even to Beersheba and swear that all is barren. If I have contrived to supply any of my readers with a livelier notion of the road on which we all are travelling, I am well content. 324 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES II. TRUTH.-Here comes the Literal Manthe "poring fellow" whom Dr. Johnson despised so heartily,-and says, "Ah, yes! It's all very well to try and amuse your readers. There is no harm in that; but are the stories which you tell them TRUE?" Heavens, what a question! And put in what a tone! Even so the savage Barrister at the Old Bailey thunders at the pavid witness. " Now, sir, on your oath - do you stick to your statement? - Aye or No." Well -on the whole,-Aye; with due qualifications and reserves. A life which, if I may so express myself, began early and has lasted for several years; an observant habit; and a retentive memory, have enabled me to set forth as things seen and heard by me a good many incidents which if they were invented would be absurd and overdone. Whenever I have used such phrases as "I saw this" or "I heard the other" I am to be understood as narrating my own experiences. But even here I have used a licence generally conceded to the social annalist. If a ludicrous incident occurred at York, there can be no harm in placing it at Canterbury. If the Bishop of Bungay is a goose, his diocese can be transferred to Babbacombe. If a Scotch Laird bullies his tenants, he can be transmogrified into a Norfolk Squire. If Lord A. interferes unduly at an election, we elude his claim for damages by calling him the Duke of B. I hold that one is not justified in narrating as L'ENVOI 325 part of one's own experience even the bestauthenticated anecdotes; but even here I make a distinction, and, when I state boldly that such and such a scene took place, I imply a nearer approach to historical accuracy than is conveyed in the formula "It is said." After all, there is both comfort and reason in Gibbon's dogma, that it does not really matter whether a historical character did or did not perform the action imputed to him; for it would not have been imputed to him if it had not been the sort of thing which he habitually did. Truth, on its severer side, is Justice; and at a moment of self-examination one may profitably ask oneself whether the delineation of one's various types has been true, and therefore just. John Bright once asked Sir Robert Inglis-the pre-Adamite Member for the University of Oxford -whether he really believed what he had said in a recent speech. Sir Robert, instead of pulling his interrogator's nose, laid his hand on his own heart, and replied, "It may surprise you, but upon my honour and conscience I do." Similarly, I reply to my own self-questionings that, as far as a man can judge of his own handiwork, I do not think that I have offended against justice. Tyranny, cruelty, greed, political and social oppression, unscrupulous self-seeking, subserviency to base ideals-these and others like them are elements in character and in life with which we ought to make no terms. "The time has come," X2 326 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES wrote Keble in 1833, "when scoundrels must be called scoundrels;" and that time seems to have come again. Carlyle, repudiating Monckton Milnes's exaggerated humanitarianism, said, "I know wicked men-men whom I would not live with; men whom, under some conceivable circumstances, I would kill or they should kill me." I plead for a clear judgment in these plain issues of Right and Wrong; and, if fun, or humour, or satire, or sarcasm, can help us to see things as they really are, it is well employed. III. LOVE.-There are some words in Carlyle's "Cagliostro " which have constantly been running in my mind since I took these types in hand: "Such is the world. Understand it, despise it, love it; cheerfully hold on thy way through it, with thy eye on higher loadstars." It might perhaps be urged that " Love it" is the precept which, in a series of social sketches, it was least easy to obey. It might be conceded that Truth, both in its sense of accurate narration and in its sense of just judgment, had been fairly observed; and yet it might be argued that Love was essentially incompatible with a satirical handling of personal or typical peculiarities. But this would be, I think, a quite unfounded doctrine. I will not turn for a refutation to the great masters of humour and satire: I confine myself to personal experience. It is by no means necessary to hate the person of whom you make fun, or to be hated by him. Just as it L'ENVOI 327 has been said that no man believes in his religion till he dares to joke about it, so it might be said that, when affection or friendship is secure, one can venture to "chaff" without fear of consequences. Then, again, it is not the cleverest or the wisest or the most learned folks on earth who are always the most lovable; and one may see the quaint limitations of the Undergraduate or the Curate or the Subaltern, and yet love him as sincerely as George Warrington loved Arthur Pendennis or Austin Elliot loved Charles Barty. A hyper-sensitive author wrote lately to a critic, " I never can make out whether you are chaffing or in earnest about my books." The critic replied, "I am always both. My seriousness naturally expresses itself in chaff;" and that is an attitude which real intimacy never resents. It is a defect almost inherent in an album of Social Silhouettes, that the less admirable types tend to be the more numerous. Certainly a Picture-Gallery exclusively composed of the good and great would be a rather uninteresting collection. We must find room on our walls for the villains and the adventuresses who have made so large a part of history; and it need not be inferred that the numerical proportion between good and bad in our gallery corresponds to the proportion in actual life. 328 328 SOCIAL SILHOUETTES I hope that in what has gone before it has been possible to read, between the lines of ridicule and sometimes of invective, some hint or suggestion of the character which the writer holds to be ideal. And here it is to be borne in mind that the Ideal Character is not necessarily gifted, or striking, or popular, or even widely attractive. The man who owns it may be very homely, very insignificant; as the world judges, very uninteresting. But the character itself bears the sign-manual of Heaven, writ large in Purity, and Courage, and Gentleness, and Unselfishness; and the man, by a secret power which he has never realized, leavens the world in which his lot is cast. "1It is by the work of grace in lives such as his that both the Church and Society are braced and sanctified; it is from such lives that a truer, loftier, more disinterested, sterner, yet withal, most assuredly, not less affectionate, spirit than that of common men radiates into and elevates an entire generation."' I Dr. Liddon. POSTSCRIPT THE substance of this book has appeared in the Mffanchester Guardian, and is reproduced by the kind permission of Mr. C. P. Scott. Easier, 1906. Prinlted by DALLANT'YMED HANSON &frQ Edinburgk b0 Land.