LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. ^ Q 
 Edited by E. Haldeman-Jnliiu J^ Q^ 
 
 Idle Thoughts 
 
 of an 
 
 Idle Fellow 
 
 Jerome K. Jerome 
 
 HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY 
 GIRARD, KANSAS 
 
TEN G1:NT pocket series no. 18 
 
 Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius 
 
 The Idle Thoughts 
 of an Idle Fello^v 
 
 Jerome K. Jerome 
 
 HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY 
 GIRARD, KANSAS 
 
ON BEIiNG IDLE. 
 
 Now, this is a subject on which I flatter 
 myself I really am au fait. The gentleman 
 who, when I was young, bathed me at wisdom's 
 font for nine guineas a term — no extras — used 
 to say he never knew a boy who could do less 
 work in more time; and I remember my poor 
 grandmother once incidentally observing, in 
 the course of an instruction upon the use of 
 the Prayer-book, that it was highly improbable 
 that I should ever do much that I ought not to 
 do, but that she felt convinced beyond a doubt 
 that I should leave undone pretty well every- 
 thing that I ought to do. 
 
 I am afraid I have somewhat belied half the 
 dear old lady's prophecy. Heaven help me! 
 I have done a good many things that I ought 
 not to have done, in spite of my laziness. But 
 I have fully confirmed the accuracy of her 
 judgment so far as neglecting much that I ought 
 not to have neglected is concerned. Idling al- 
 ways has been my strong point. I take no" 
 credit to myself in the matter — it is a gift. Few 
 possess it. There are plenty of lazy people and 
 plenty of slow-coaches, but a genuine idler is a 
 rarity. He is not a man who slouches about 
 with his hands in his pockets. On the con- 
 trary, his most startling characteristic is that 
 he is always intensely busy. 
 
 It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly 
 unless one has plenty of work to do. There is 
 no fun in doing nothing when you have noth- 
 ing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupa- 
 tion then, and a most exhausting one. Idle- 
 
4 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 ness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. 
 
 Many years ago, when I was a young man, 
 I was taken very ill — I never could see my- 
 self that much was the matter with me, ex- 
 cept that I had a beastly cold. But I suppose 
 it was something very serious, for the doctor 
 said that I ought to have come to him a month 
 before, and that if it (whatever it was) had 
 gone on for another week he would not have 
 answered for the consequences. It is an ex- 
 traordinary thing, but I never knew a doctor 
 called into any case yet but what it transpired 
 that another day's delay would have rendered 
 cure hopeless. Our medical guide, philosopher, 
 and friend is like the hero in a melodrama — 
 he always comes upon the scene just, and only 
 just, in the nick of time. It is Providence, 
 that is what it is. 
 
 Well, as I was saying, I was very ill and 
 was ordered to Buxton for a month, with strict 
 injunctions to do nothing whatever all the 
 while that I was there. "Rest is what you re- 
 quire," said the doctor, "perfect rest." 
 
 It seemed a delightful prospect. "This man 
 evidently understands my complaint," said I, 
 and I pictured to myself a glorious time — a 
 four weeks' dolce far niente with a dash of ill- 
 ness in it. Not too much illness, but just ill- 
 ness enough — just sufficient to give it the 
 flavor of suffering and make it poetical. I 
 should get up late, sip chocolate, and have my 
 breakfast in slippers and a dressing-gown. I 
 should lie out in the garden in a hammock 
 and read sentimental novels with a melancholy 
 ending, until the books should fall from my 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 5 
 
 listless hand, and I should recline there, dream- 
 ily gazing into the deep blue of the firmament, 
 watching the fleecy clouds floating like white- 
 sailed ships across its depths, and listening to 
 the joyous song of the birds and the low 
 rustling of the trees. Or, on becoming too 
 weak to go out of doors, I should sit propped 
 up with pillows at the open window of the 
 ground-floor front, and look wasted and in- 
 teresting, so that all the pretty girls would 
 sigh as they passed by. 
 
 And twice a day I should go down in a Bath 
 chair to the Colonnade to drink the waters. 
 Oh, those waters! I knew nothing about them 
 then, and was rather taken with the idea. 
 "Drinking the waters" sounded fashionable and 
 Queen Annefied, and I thought I should like 
 them. But, ugh! after the first three or four 
 mornings. Sam Weller's description of them 
 as "having a taste of warm flat-irons" conveys 
 only a faint idea of their hideous nauseousness. 
 If anything could make a sick man get well 
 quickly, it would be the knowledge that he must 
 drink a glassful of them every day until he 
 was recovered. I drank them neat for six 
 consecutive days, and they nearly killed me; 
 but after then I adopted the plan of taking a 
 stiff glass of brandy-and-water immediately 
 on the top of them, and found much relief 
 hereby. I have been informed since, by various 
 eminent medical gentlemen, that the alcohol 
 must have entirely counteracted the effects of 
 the chalybeate properties contained in the 
 water. I am glad I was lucky enough to hit 
 upon the right thing. 
 
6 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 But "drinking the waters" was only a small 
 portion of the torture I experienced during that 
 memorable month — a month which was, with- 
 out exception, the most miserable I have ever 
 spent. During the best part of it I religiously 
 followed the doctor's mandate and did nothing 
 whatever, except moon about the house and 
 garden and go out for two hours a day in a 
 Bath chair. That did break the monotony to 
 a certain extent. There is more excitement 
 about Bath-chairing — especially if you are not 
 used to the exhilarating exercise — than might 
 appear to the casual observer. A sense of 
 danger, such as a mere outsider might not 
 understand, is ever present to the mind of 
 the occupant. He feels convinced every minute 
 that the whole concern is going over, a convic- 
 tion which becomes especially lively whenever 
 a ditch or a stretch of newly macadamized 
 road comes in sight. Every vehicle that passes 
 he expects is going to run into him; and he 
 never finds himself ascending or descending 
 a hill without immediately beginning to specu- 
 late upon his chances, supposing — as seems ex- 
 tremely probable — that the weak-kneed con- 
 troller of his destiny should let go. 
 
 But even this diversion failed to enliven 
 after awhile, and the ennui became perfectly 
 unbearable. I felt my mind giving way under 
 it. It is not a strong mind, and I thought It 
 would be unwise to tax it too far. So some- 
 where about the twentieth morning I got up 
 early, had a good breakfast, and v/alked straight 
 off to Hayfield, at the foot of the Kinder Scout 
 — a pleasant, busy little town, reached through 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 7 
 
 a lo\'ely yalley* and with two sweetly pretty 
 women in it. At least they were sweetly pretty 
 then; one passed me on the bridge and, I think, 
 smiled; and the other was standing at an open 
 door, making an unremunerative investment 
 of kisses upon a red-faced baby. But it is 
 years ago, and I dare say they have both grown 
 stout and snappish since that time. Coming 
 back, I saw an old man breaking stones, and 
 it roused such strong longing in me to use my 
 arms that I offered him a drink to let me take 
 his place. He w^as a kindly old man and he 
 humored me. I went for those stones with 
 the accumulated energy of three weeks, and did 
 more in half an hour than he had done all day. 
 But it did not make him jealous. 
 
 Having taken the plunge, I went further and 
 further into dissipation, going out for a long 
 walk every morning and listening to the band 
 in the pavilion every evening. But the days 
 still passed slowly notwithstanding, and I was 
 heartily glad when the last one came and I 
 was being whirled away from gouty, consump- 
 tive Buxton to London with its stern work 
 and life. I looked out of the carriage as we 
 rushed through Hendon in the evening. The 
 lurid glare overhanging the mighty city seemed 
 to warm my heart, and when, later on, my cab 
 rattled out of St. Pancras' station, the old fa- 
 miliar roar that came swelling up around me 
 sounded the sweetest music I had heard for 
 many a long day. 
 
 I certainly did not enjoy that month's idling. 
 I like idling when I ought not to be Idling; 
 not when it is the only thing I have to do. That 
 
8 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 is my pig-headed nature. The time when I 
 like best to stand with my back to the fire, 
 calculating how much I owe, is when my desk 
 is heaped highest with letters that must be 
 answered by the next post. When I like to 
 dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a 
 heavy evening's work before me. And if, for 
 some urgent reason, I ought to be up par- 
 ticularly early in the morning, it is then, more 
 than at any other time, that I love to lie an 
 extra half-hour in bed. 
 
 Ah! how delicious it is to turn over and go 
 to sleep again: "just for five minutes." Is 
 there any human being, I wonder, besides the 
 hero of a Sunday-school "tale for boys," who 
 ever gets up willingly? There are some men 
 to whom getting up at the proper time is an 
 utter impossibility. If eight o'clock happens tp 
 be the time that they should turn out, then 
 they lie till half-past. If circumstances change 
 and half-past eight becomes early enough for 
 them, then it is nine before they can rise. 
 They are like the statesman of whom it was 
 said that he was always punctually half an 
 hour late. They try all manner of schemes. 
 They buy alarm-clocks (artful contrivances that 
 go off at the wrong time and alarm the wrong 
 people). They tell Sarah Jane to knock at the 
 door and call them, and Sarah Jane does knock 
 at the door and does call them, and they grunt 
 back "awri" and then go comfortably to sleep 
 again. I knew one man who would actually 
 get out and have a cold bath; and even that 
 was of no use, for afterward he v/onld jump 
 into bed again to warm himself. 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW « 
 
 I think myself that I could keep out of bed 
 all right if J once got out. It is the wrenching 
 away of the head from the pillow that I find 
 so hard, and no amount of over-night determi- 
 nation makes it easier. I say to myself, after 
 having wasted the whole evening, I'll get up 
 early to-morrow morning;" and I am thoroughly 
 resolved to do so — then. In the morning, how- 
 ever, I feel less enthusiastic about the idea, 
 and reflect that it would have been much better 
 if I had stopped up last night. And then there 
 is the trouble of dressing, and the more one 
 thinks about that the more one wants to put 
 it off. 
 
 It is a strange thing this bed, this mimic 
 grave, where we stretch our tired limbs and 
 sink away so quietly into the silence and rest. 
 "O bed, O bed, delicious bed, that heaven on 
 earth to the weary head," as sang poor Hood, 
 you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and 
 girls. Clever and foolish, naughty and good, 
 you take us all in your motherly lap and hush 
 our wayward crying. The strong man full of 
 care — the sick man full of pain — the little 
 maiden sobbing for her faithless lover — like 
 children we lay our aching heads on your v/hite 
 bosom, and you gently soothe us off to by-by. 
 
 •Our trouble is sore indeed when you turn 
 away and will not comfort us. How long the 
 dawn seems coming when we ^cannot sleep! 
 Oh! those hideous nights when we toss and turn 
 in fever and pain, when we lie, like living men 
 among the dead, staring out into the dark hours 
 that drift so slowly between us and the light. 
 And oh! those still more hideous nights when 
 
10 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 we sit by another in pain, when the low fire 
 startles us every now and then with a falling 
 cinder, and the tick of the clock seems a 
 hammer beating out the life that we are watch- 
 ing. 
 
 But enough of beds and bedrooms. I have 
 kept to them too long, even for an idle fellow. 
 Let us come out and have a smoke. That 
 wastes time just as well and does not look 
 CO bad. Tobacco has been a blessing to us 
 idlers. What the civil-service clerks before Sir 
 Walter's time found to occupy their minds 
 with it is hard to imagine. I attribute the 
 quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young 
 men entirely to the want of the soothing weed. 
 They had no work to do and could not smoke, 
 and the consequence was they were forever 
 fighting and rowing. If, by any extraordinary 
 chance, there was no war going, then they got 
 up a deadly family feud v/ith the next-door 
 neighbor, and if, in spite of this, they still 
 had a few spare moments on their hands, they 
 occupied them with discussions as to whose 
 sweetheart was the best Icok'ng, th3 arguments 
 employed on both sires bc'ng batt'e-axes. clubs, 
 etc. Questions of taste wg:s soon decided i" 
 those days. When a twelfth-century youth fi 
 in love he did not take three pacc?s ba 
 ward, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she was 
 too beautiful to live. He said he would s'er 
 outside and s*ee about it. And if, when he 
 got out, he met a man and broke his head— 
 the other man's head, I mean— then that proved 
 that hia— the first fellow's— girl was a pretty 
 girl. But if the other fellow broke his head— 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 11 
 
 not his own, you know, but the other fellow's 
 — the other fellow to the second fellow, that Is, 
 because of course the other fellow would only 
 be the other fellow to him, not the first fellow 
 
 • who — well, if he broke his head, then Ms girl 
 —not the other fellow's, but the fellow who 
 tvas the — Look here, if A broke B's head, then 
 A's girl was a pretty girl; but if B broke A's 
 head, then A's girl wasn't a pretty girl, but 
 B's girl was. That was their method of con- 
 ducting art criticism. 
 
 Nowadays we light a pipe and let the girls 
 
 , fight it out among themselves. 
 
 They do it very well. They are getting to 
 do all our work. They are doctors, and bar- 
 risters, and artists. They manage theatres, 
 and promote swindles, and edit newspapers. I 
 am looking forward to the time when we men 
 shall have nothing to do but lie in bed till 
 twelve, read two novels a day, have nice little 
 five-o'clock teas all to ourselves, and tax our 
 brains with nothing more trying than discus- 
 sions upon the latest patterns in trousers and 
 arguments as to what Mr. Jones' coat was made 
 of and whether it fitted him. It Is a glorious 
 prospect — for idle fellows. 
 
 ON BEING IN LOVE. 
 You've been in love, of course! If not you've 
 got it to come. Love is like the measles; we 
 all have to go through it. Also like the 
 measles, we take it only once. 0ns never need 
 be afraid of catching it a second time. The 
 man who has had it can go into the most dan- 
 gerous places and play the most foolhardy 
 
1'^ IDLE THOUGHTS OP 
 
 tricks with perfect safety. He can picnic in 
 shady woods, ramble through leafy aisles, and 
 linger on mossy seats to watch the sunset. He 
 fears a quiet country-house no more than he 
 would his own club. He can join a family party 
 to go down the Rhine. He can, to see the last 
 of a friend, venture into the very jaws of the 
 marriage ceremony itself. He can keep his 
 head through the whirl of a ravishing waltz, 
 and rest afterward in a dark conservatory, 
 catching nothing more lasting than a cold. He 
 can brave a moonlight walk adown sweet- 
 scented lanes or a twilight pull among the 
 somber rushes. He can get over a stile with- 
 out danger, scramble through a tangled hedge 
 without being caught, come down a slippery 
 path without falling. He can look into sunny 
 eyes and not be dazzled. He listens to the 
 siren voices, yet sails on with unveered helm. 
 He clasps white hands in his, but no electric 
 "Lulu"-like force holds him bound in their 
 dainty pressure. 
 
 No, we never sicken with love twice. Cupid 
 spends no second arrow on the same heart. 
 Love's handmaids are our life-long friends. 
 Respect, and admiration, and affection, our 
 doors may always be left open for, but their 
 great celestial master, in his royal progress, 
 pays but one visit and departs. We like, we 
 cherish, we are very, very fond of — but we 
 never love again. A man's heart is a firework 
 that once in its tima flr.slies heavenward. 
 Meteor-like, it blazes for a moment and lights 
 with i"s rlory the w'lole world beneath. Then 
 the night cf cur g-^r-^'d conimonplace life closes 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 13 
 
 in around it, and the burned-out case, falling 
 back to earth, lies useless and uncared for, 
 slowly smoldering into ashes. Once, breaking 
 loose from our prison bonds, we dare, as 
 mighty old Prometheus dared, to scale the 
 Olympian mount and snatch from Phoebus' 
 chariot the fire of the gods. Happy those who, 
 hastening down' again ere it dies out, can kindle 
 their earthly altars at its flame. Love is too 
 pure a light to burn long among the noisome 
 gases that we breathe, but before it is choked 
 out we may use it as a torch to ignite the cozy 
 fire of affection. 
 
 And, after all, that warming glow is more 
 3uited to our cold little back parlor of a world 
 :han is the burning spirit love. Love should be 
 the vestal fire of some mighty temple — some 
 vast dim fane whose organ music is the rolling 
 of the spheres. Affection will burn cheerily 
 when the white flame of love is flickered out. 
 Affection is a fire that can be fed from day to 
 day and be piled up ever higher as the wintry 
 years draw nigh. Old men and w^omen can sit 
 by it with their thin hands clasped, the little 
 children can nestle down in front, the friend 
 and neighbor has his welcome corner by its 
 side, and even shaggy Fido and sleek Titty 
 can toast their noses at the bars. 
 
 Let us heap the coals of kindness upon that 
 fire. Throw on your pleasant words, your 
 gentle pressures of the hand, your thoughtful 
 and unselfish deeds. Fan it with good-humor, 
 patience, and forbearance. You can let the 
 wind blow and the rain fall unheeded then, for 
 your hearth will be warm and bright, and the 
 
14 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 faces round it will m:;ke sunshine in spite of 
 the clouds without. 
 
 I am afraid, dear Edwin and Angelina, you 
 expect too much from love. You think there 
 is enough of your littla hearts to feed this 
 fierce, devourin:! passion for all your long lives. 
 Ah, young folk! don't rely too much upon that 
 unsteady flicker. It will dwindle and dwindle 
 as the months roll on, and there is no re- 
 plenishing the fuel. You will watch it die out 
 in anger and disappointment. To each it will 
 seem that it is the other who is growing colder. 
 Edwin sees with bitterness that Angelina no 
 longer runs to the gate to meet him, all smiles 
 and blushes; and when he has a ccugh now 
 she doesn't begin to cry and, puttinjj her arms 
 round his neck, say that she cannot live with- 
 out him. Tha most she wi'l probably do is to 
 suggest a lozen-e, and even that in a tone im- 
 plying th-t it is the no^"se mere th"n anything 
 else she is anxious to get rid of. 
 
 Poor little Angelina, too, sheds silent tears, 
 for Edwin has given up carrying her old hand- 
 kerchief in the inside pocket of his waistcoat. 
 
 Both are astonished at the falling off in the 
 other one, but neither sees their own change. 
 If the:^ did they would not suffer as they do. 
 They v/ould look for the cause in the right quar- 
 ter—in the littleness of poor human nature- — 
 join hands over their common failing, and start 
 building their house anew on a more earthly 
 and enduring founda<^ion. But we are so blind 
 to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to 
 those of others. Everything that happens to 
 U9 is always the other person's fault, Angelina 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 15 
 
 would have gone on loving Edwin forever and 
 ever and ever if only Edwin had not grown so 
 strange and different. Edwin would have 
 adored Angelina through eternity if Angelina 
 had only remained the same as when he first 
 adored her. 
 
 It is a cheerless hour for you both when the 
 lamp of love has gone out and the fire of af- 
 fection is not yet 'lit, and you have to grope 
 about in the cold, raw dawn of life to kindle 
 it. God grant it catches light before the day 
 Is too far spent. Many sit shivering by the 
 dead coals till night comes. 
 
 But, there, of what use is it to preach? Who 
 that feels the rush of young love through his 
 veins can think It will ever flow feeble and 
 slow! To the boy of twenty it seems impos- 
 sible that he will not love as wildly at sixty 
 as he does then. He cannot call to mind any 
 middle-aged or elderly gentleman of his ac- 
 quaintance who Is known to exhibit symptoms 
 of frantic attachment, but that does not Inter- 
 fere in his belief in himself. His love will 
 never fail, whoever else's may. Nobody ever 
 loved as he loves, and so, of course, the rest 
 of the world's experience can be no guide in 
 his case. Alas! alas! ere thirty he has joined 
 the ranks of the sneerers. It Is not his fault. 
 Our passions, both the good and bad, cease 
 with our blushes. We do not hate, nor grieve, 
 nor joy, nor despair in our thirties like we did 
 in our teens. Disappointment does not sug- 
 gest suicide, and we quaff success without 
 intoxication. 
 
 We take all things in a minor key as we 
 
16 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 grow older. There are few majestic passages 
 in the later acts of life's opera. Ambition takes 
 a less ambitious aim. Honor becomes more 
 reasonable and conveniently adapts itself to 
 circumstances. And love — love dies, "Irrever- 
 ence for the dreams of youth" soon creeps like 
 a killing frost upon our hearts. The tender 
 shoots and the expanding flowers are nipped 
 and withered, and of a vine that yearned to 
 stretch its tendrils round the world there is 
 left but a sapless stump. 
 
 My fair friends will deem this rank heresy, 
 I know. So far from a man's not loving after 
 he has passed boyhood, it is not till there is 
 a good deal of gray in his hair that thev think 
 his protestations at all worthy of attention. 
 Young ladies take their notions of our sex from 
 the novels written by their own, and compared 
 with the monstrosities that masquerade for 
 men in the pages of that nightmare literature, 
 Pythagoras' plucked bird and Frankenstein's 
 demon were fair average specimens of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 In these so-called books, the chief lover, or 
 Greek god, as he is admiringly referred to — by 
 the way, they do not say which "Greek god" it 
 is that the gentleman bears such a striking like- 
 ness to; it might be hump-backed Vulcan, or 
 double-faced Janus, or even driveling Silenus, 
 the god of abstruse mysteries. He resembles 
 the whole family of them, however, in being a 
 blackguard, and perhaps this is what is meant. 
 To even the little manliness his classical pro- 
 totypes possessed, though, he can lay no claim 
 whatever, being a listless effeminate noodle, on 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 17 
 
 the shady side of forty. But oh I the depth and 
 strength of this elderly party's emotion for 
 some bread-and-butter school-girl! Hide your 
 heads, ye young Romeos and Leanders! this 
 Z)Za.se old beau loves with an hysterical fervor 
 that requires four adjectives to every noun to 
 properly describe. 
 
 It is well, dear ladies, for us old sinners that 
 you study only books. Did you read mankind, 
 you would know that the lad's shy stammering 
 tells a truer tale than our bold eloquence. A 
 boy's love comes from a full heart; a man's 
 is more often the result of a full stomach. In- 
 deed, a man's sluggish current may not be 
 called love, compared with the rushing fountain 
 that wells up when a boy's heart is struck with 
 the heavenly rod. If you would taste love, 
 drink of the pure stream that youth pours out 
 at your feet. Do not wait till it has become a 
 muddy river before you stoop to catch its 
 waves. 
 
 Or is it that you like its bitter flavor — that 
 the clear, limpid v/ater is insipid to your palate 
 and that the pollution of its after-course gives 
 it a relish to your lips? Must we believe those 
 who tell us that a hand foul with the filth of a 
 shameful life is the only one a young girl cares 
 to be caressed by? 
 
 That is the teaching that is bawled out day 
 by day from between those yellow covers. Do 
 they ever pause to think, I wonder, those devil's 
 lady-helps, what mischief they are doing crawl- 
 ing about God's garden, and telling childish 
 Eves and silly Adams that sin is sweet and 
 that decency is ridiculous and vulgar? How 
 
18 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 many an innocent girl do they not degrade into 
 an evil-minded woman? To liow many a weak 
 lad do they not point out the dirty by-path as 
 the shortest cut to a maiden's heart? It is not 
 as if they wrote of life as it really is. Speak 
 truth, and right will take care of Itself. But 
 their pictures are coarse daubs painted from 
 the sickly fancies of their own diseased imagi- 
 nation. • 
 
 We want to think of women not — as their 
 own sex Avould show them — as Loreleis luring 
 us to destruction, but as good angels beckon- 
 ing us upward. They have more power for 
 good or evil than they dream of. It is just at 
 the very age when a man's character is form- 
 ing that he tumbles into love, and then the lass 
 he loves has the making or marring of him. 
 Unconsciously he molds himself to what she 
 would have him, good or bad. I am sorry to 
 have to be ungallant enough to say that I do 
 not think they always use their influence for 
 the best. Too often the female world is 
 bounded hard and fast within the limits of the 
 commonplace. Their Ideal hero is a prince of 
 littleness, and to become that many a pow- 
 erful mind, enchanted by love, is "lost to life 
 and use and name and fame." 
 
 And yet, women, you could make us so much 
 better if you only would. It rests with you, 
 more than with all the preachers, to roll this 
 world a little nearer heaven. Chivalry is not 
 dead: it only sleeps for want of work to do. 
 It is you who must wake it to noble deeds. 
 You must be worthy of knightly worship. 
 
 You must be higher than ourselves. It was 
 
 i 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 19 
 
 for Una that .tho Red Cross Knight did v/ar. 
 For no pa nted, miming court dame could the 
 dragon have be3n siain. Oh, L.dies fair, be fair 
 in mind and soul r,s well c.s f:.ce, so that brave 
 l^nights may win cl^ry in your service! Oh, 
 v.'oraan throw off your disguising cloaks of 
 selfishness, effrontery, and aff2ctatlon! Stand 
 forth once more a queen in your royal robe of 
 simple purity. A thousand swords, now rust- 
 ing in ignoble slo'h, shall leap from their scab- 
 bards to do battle for your honor against 
 wrong. A thousand Sir Rolands shall lay lance 
 in rest, and Fear, Avarice, Pleasure, and Ambi- 
 tion shall go down in the dnst before your 
 colors. 
 
 What noble deeds were we not ripe for in 
 the days when we loved? What noble lives 
 could we not have lived for her s:ke? Our love 
 was a religion v/3 could have died for. It was 
 no m-^re human ere-^ture like ourselves that 
 we adored. It was a qu«en that we paid hom- 
 age to, a goddess that we worshiped. 
 
 And how madly we did worship! And how 
 sweet it was to worship! Ah, lad, cherish 
 love's young dream while it lasts! You will 
 know too soon how truly little Tom Moore sang 
 when he said that there was nothing half so 
 sweet in life. Even when it brines m.isery it 
 is a wild, romantic misery, all unlike the dull, 
 worldly pain of after-sorrows. When you have 
 lost her — when the light is gone out from your 
 life and the world stretches before you a long, 
 dark horror, even then a half-enchantment 
 mingles with your despair. 
 
 And who would not risk its terrors to gain 
 
20 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 its raptures? Ah, what raptures they were! 
 The mere recollection thrills you. How deli- 
 cious it was to tell her that you loved her, that 
 you lived for her, that you would die for her! 
 How you did rave, to be sure, what floods of 
 extravagant nonsense you poured forth, and 
 oh, how cruel it was of her to pretend not to 
 believe you! In what awe you stood of her. 
 How miserable you were when you had of- 
 fended her! And yet, how pleasant to be 
 bullied by her and to sue for pardon without 
 having the slightest notion of what your fault 
 was! How dark the world was when she 
 snubbed you, as she often did, the little rogue, 
 just to see you look wretched; how sunny when 
 she smiled! How jealous you were of every 
 one about her! How you hated every man she 
 shook hands with, every woman she kissed — 
 the maid that did her hair, the boy that cleaned 
 her shoes, the dog she nursed — though you had 
 to be respectful to the last-named! How you 
 looked forward to seeing her, how stupid you 
 were when you did see her, staring at her with- 
 out saying a word! How impossible it was for 
 you to go out at any time of the day or night 
 without finding yourself eventually opposite 
 her windows! You hadn't pluck enough to go 
 in, but you hung about the corner and gazed 
 at the outside. Oh, if the house had only 
 caught fire — it was insured, so it wouldn't have 
 mattered — and you could have rushed in and 
 saved her at the risk of your life, and have 
 been terribly burned and injured! Anything 
 to serve her. Even in little things that was so 
 sweet. How you Avould watch her, spaniel-like, 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 21 
 
 to anticipate her slightest wish! How proud 
 you were to do her bidding! How delightful 
 it was to be ordered about by her! To devote 
 your whole life to her and to never think of 
 yourself seemed such a simple thing. You 
 would go without a holiday to lay a humble 
 offering at her shrine, and felt more than re- 
 paid if she only deigned to accept it. How 
 precious to you was everything that she had 
 hallowed by her touch — her little glove, the 
 ribbon she had worn, the rose that had nestled 
 in her hair and whose withered leaves still 
 mark the poems you never care to look at now. 
 And oh, how beautiful she was, how won- 
 drous beautiful! It was as some angel enter- 
 ing the room, and all else became plain and 
 earthly. She was too sacred to be touched. 
 It seemed almost presumption to gaze at her. 
 You would as soon have thought of kissing 
 her as of sinnring comic songs in a cathedral. 
 It was desecration enough to kneel and tim- 
 idly raise the gracious little hand to your lips. 
 . Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days 
 when we were unselfish and pure-minded; 
 those foolish days when our simple hearts were 
 full of truth, and faith, and reverence! Ah, 
 those foolish days of noble longings and of 
 noble strivings! And oh, these wise, clever 
 days when we know that money is the only 
 prize worth striving for, when we believe in 
 nothing else but meanness and lies, when we 
 care for no living creature but ourselves! 
 
 ON BEING IN THE BLUES. 
 I can enjoy feeling melancholy, rnd there 
 
22 IDLE THOUGHTS OP 
 
 la a good deal of satisfaction about being thor- 
 oughly miserable; but nobody likes a fit of the 
 blues. Nevertheless, everybody has them; not- 
 withstanding which, nobody can tell why. 
 There is no accounting for them. You are just 
 as likely to have one on the day after you have 
 come into a large fortune as on the day after 
 you have left your new silk umbrella in the 
 train. Its effect upon you is somewhat similar 
 to what would probably be produc3d by a com- 
 bined attach of toothache, indigestion, and cold 
 in the head. You become stupid, restless, and 
 irritable; rude to strangers and dangerous to- 
 ward your friends; clumsy, maudlin, and quar- 
 relsome; a nuisance to yourself and everybody 
 about you. 
 
 While it is on you can do nothing and think 
 of nothing, though feeling at the time bound to 
 do something. You can't sit still, so put on 
 your hat and go for a walk; but before you 
 get to the corner of the street you wish you 
 hadn't come out and you turn back. You open 
 a book and try to read, but you find Shake- 
 speare trite and commonplace, Dickens Is dull 
 and prosy, Thackeray a bore, and Carlyle too 
 sentimental. You throw the book aside and 
 call the author names. Then you "shoo" the 
 cat out of the room and kick the door to after 
 her. You think :'ou will write your letters, 
 but after sticking at "Dearest Auntie: I find 
 I have five minutes to spare, and so hasten to 
 write to you," for a quarter of an hour, without 
 being able to think of another sentence, you 
 tumble the paper into the desk, fling the wet 
 pen down upon the table-cloth, and start up 
 
AX IDLE FELLOW 23 
 
 with the resolution of going to see tlie Thomp- 
 sons. While pulling on your r loves, however, 
 it occurs to you that the Thompsons are idiots; 
 that they never have supper; and that you will 
 be expected to jump the baby. You curse the 
 Thompsons and decide not to go. 
 
 By this time you feel completely crushed. 
 You bury your face in your hands and think 
 you would like to die and go to heaven. You 
 picture to yourself your own sick-bed, with 
 all your friends and relations standing round 
 you weeping. You bless them, all, especially 
 the young and pretty ones. They will value 
 you when you are gone, so you say to yourself, 
 and learn too late what they have lost; and 
 you bitterly contrast their presumed regard for 
 you then with their decided want of veneration 
 now. 
 
 These reflections make you feel a little more 
 cheerful, but only for a brief period; for the 
 next moment you think what a fool you must 
 be to imagine for an instant that anybody 
 would be sorry at anything that might happen 
 to you. Who would care two straws (whatever 
 precise amount of care two straws may repre- 
 sent) whether you are blown up, or hung up, 
 or married, or drowned? Nobody cares for 
 you. You never have been p:"operly appre- 
 ciated, never met with your due deserts in any 
 one particular. You review the whole of your 
 past life, and it is painfully apparent that you 
 have been ill-used from '^our cradle. 
 
 Half an hour's indulgence in these considera- 
 tfons works you up into a state of savage fury 
 against everybody snd. everything", especially 
 
2i IDLE THOQGHTS OF 
 
 yourself, whom anatomical reasons alone pre- 
 vent your kicking. Bed-time at last comes, to 
 save you from doing something rash, and you 
 spring upstairs, throw off your clothes, leaving 
 them strewn all over the room, blow out the 
 candle, and jump into bed as if you had backed 
 yourself for a heavy wager to do the whole 
 thing against time. There you toss and tumble 
 about for a couple of hours or so, varying the 
 monotony by occasionally jerking the clothes 
 off and getting out and putting them on again. 
 At length you drop into an uneasy and fitful 
 slumber, have had dreams, and wake up late 
 the next morning. 
 
 At least, this is all we poor single men can 
 do under the circumstances. Married men 
 bully their wives, grumble at the dinner, and 
 insist on the children's going to bed. All of 
 which, creating as it does, a good deal of dis- 
 turbance in the house, must be a great relief 
 to the feelings of a man in the blues, rows be- 
 ing the only form of amusement in which he 
 can take any interest. 
 
 The symptoms of the infirmity are much 
 the same in everj^ case, but the affliction itself 
 is variously termed. The poet says that "a 
 feeling of sadness comes o'er me." 'Arry refers 
 to the heavings of his wayward heart by con- 
 fiding to Jimee that he has "got the blooming 
 hump." Your sister doesn't know what is the 
 matter with her tonight. She feels out of sorts 
 altogether and hopes nothing is going to hap- 
 pen. The every-day young man is "so awful 
 glad to meet you, old fellow," for he does "feel 
 so jolly miserable this evening." As for my- 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 25 
 
 self, I generally say that "I have a strange, 
 unsettled feeling tonight" and "think I'll go 
 out." 
 
 By the way, it never does come except in 
 the evening. In the sun-time, when the world 
 is bounding forward full of life, we cannot stay 
 to sigh and sulk. The roar of the working day 
 drowns the voices of the elfin sprites that are 
 ever singing their low-toned miserere in our 
 ears. In the day we are angry, disappointed, 
 or indignant, but never "in the blues" and 
 never melancholy. When things go wrong at 
 t2n o'clock in the morning we — or rather you 
 — swear and knock the furniture about! but 
 if the misfortune comes at ten p. m., we read 
 poetry or sit in the dark and think what a 
 hollow world this is. 
 
 But, as a rule, it is not trouble that makes 
 us melancholy. The actuality is too stern a 
 thing for sentiment. We linger to weep over 
 a picture, but from the original we should 
 quickly turn our eyes away. There is no pathos 
 in real misery: no luxury in real grief. We do 
 not toy with sharp swords nor hug a gnawing 
 fox to our brsast for choice. When a man 
 or woman loves to brood over a sorrow and 
 takes care to keep it green in their memory, 
 you may be sure it is no longer a pain to them. 
 However they may have suffered from it at 
 first, the recollection has become by then a 
 pleasure. Many dear old ladies who daily look 
 at tiny shoes lying in lavender-scented drawers, 
 and weep as they think of the tiny feet whose 
 toddling march is done, and sv/eet-faced young 
 ones who place each night beneath their pillow 
 
26 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 some lock that once curled on a boyish head 
 that the salt waves have kissed to death, will 
 call me a nasty cynical brule and say I'm talk- 
 ing nonsense; but I believe, nevertheless, that 
 if they will ask themselves truthfully w^hether 
 they find it unpleasant to dwell thus on their 
 sorrow, they will be compelled to answer 
 "No." Tears are as sweet as laughter to some 
 natures. The proverbial Englishman, we know 
 from old chronicler Froissart, takes his pleas- 
 ure sadly, and the Englishwoman goes a step 
 further and takes her pleasures in sadness 
 itself. 
 
 I am not sneering. I would not for a moment 
 sneer at anything that helps to keep hearts 
 tender in this hard old world. We men are 
 cold and common-sensed enough for all; we 
 would not have, women the same. No, no, 
 ladies dear, be alv/avs sentimental and soft- 
 her.rted, as you are — be the soothing batter 
 to our coarse dry bread. Besides, sentiment 
 is to women what fun is to us. They do not 
 care for our humor, surely it would be unfair 
 to deny them their grief. And who shall say 
 that their mode of enjoyment is not as sensible 
 as ours? Why assume that a doubled-up body, 
 a contorted, purple face, and a gaping mouth, 
 emitting a series of e?.r-splitting shrieks points 
 to a state of more intelligent happiness than 
 a pensive face reposing upon a little white 
 hand, and a pair of gentle tear-dimmed eyes 
 looking back through Time's dark avenue upon 
 a fading past? 
 
 I am glad v;hen I see Regret walked with as 
 a friend — glad becausa I knov/ the saltness has 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 27 
 
 been washed from out the tears, and that the 
 sting must have been plucked from the beau- 
 tiful face of Sorrow ere we dare press her pale 
 lips to ours. Time has laid his healing hand 
 upon the wound when we can look back upon 
 the pain we once fainted under and no bitter- 
 ness or despair rises in our hearts. The burden 
 is no longer heavy when we have for our past 
 troubles only the same sweet mingling of pleas- 
 ure and pity that we feel when old knight- 
 hearted Colonel NTewcome answers ''adsum" to 
 the great roll-call, or when Tom and Maggie 
 Tulliver, clasping hands through the mists that 
 have divided them, go down, locked in each 
 other's arms, beneath the swollen waters of the 
 Floss. 
 
 Talking of poor Tom and Maggie Tulliver 
 brings to my mind a saying of George Eliot's in 
 connection with this subject of melancholy. 
 She speaks somewhere of the "sadness of a 
 summer's evening." How wonderfully true — 
 like everything that came from that wonderful 
 pen — the observation is! Who has not felt the 
 sorrowful enchantment of those lingering sun- 
 sets? The world belongs to Melancholy then, 
 a thoughtful deep-eyed maiden who loves not 
 the glare of day. It is not till "light thickens 
 and the crow v/ings to the rocky wood" that 
 she steals forth from her groves. Her palace 
 is in twilight land. It is there she meets us. 
 At her shadowy gate she takes our hand in 
 hers and walks beside us through her mystic 
 realm. We see no form, but seem to hear the 
 rustling of her wings. 
 
 Even in the toiling hum-drum city her spirit 
 
28 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 comes to us. There is a somber presence in 
 each long, dull street; and the dark river 
 creeps ghost-like under the black arches, as if 
 bearing some hidden secret beneath its muddy- 
 waves. 
 
 In the silent country, vi^hen the trees and 
 hedges loom dim and blurred against the rising 
 night, and the bat's wing flutters in our face, 
 and the landrail's cry sounds drearily across 
 the fields, the spell sinks deeper still into our 
 hearts. We seem in that hour to be standing 
 by some unseen death-bed, and in the swaying 
 of the elms we hear the sigh of the dying day. 
 
 A solemn sadness reigns. A great peace is 
 around us. In its light our cares of the work- 
 ing day grow small and trivial, and bread and 
 cheese — ay, and even kisses — do not seem the 
 only things worth striving for. Thoughts we 
 cannot speak but only listen to flood in upon 
 us, and standing in the stillness under earth's 
 darkening dome, we feel that we are greater 
 than our petty lives. Hung round with those 
 dusky curtains, the world is no longer a mere 
 dingy workshop, but a stately temple wherein 
 man may worship, and where at times in the 
 dimness his groping hands touch God's. 
 
 ON BEING HARD UP. 
 It is a most remarkable thing. I sat down 
 with the full intention of writing something 
 clever and original; but for the life of me I 
 can't think of anything clever and original — 
 at least, not at this moment. The only thing 
 I can think about now is being hard up. I 
 suppose having my hands in my pockets has 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 29 
 
 ma,de me think about this. I always do sit 
 with my hands in my pockets except when I 
 am in the company of my sisters, my cousins, 
 or my aunts; and they kick up such a shindy 
 — I should say expostulate so eloquently upon 
 the subject — that I have to give in and take 
 them out — my hands I mean. The chorus to 
 their objections is that it is not gentlemanly. 
 I am hanged if I can see why. I could under- 
 stand its not being considered gentlemanly to 
 put your hands in other people's pockets (espec- 
 ially by the other people), but how, O ye 
 sticklers for what looks this and what looks 
 that, can putting his hands in his own pockets 
 make a man less gentle? Perhaps you are 
 right, though. Now I come to think of it, I 
 have heard some people grumble most savagely 
 when doing it. But they were mostly old 
 gentlemen. We young fellows, as a rule, are 
 never quite at ease unless we have our hands 
 in our pockets. We are awkward and shifty. 
 We are like what a music-hall Lion Comique 
 would be without his opera-hat, if such a thing 
 can be imagined. But let us put our hands in 
 our trousers pockets, and let there be some 
 small change in the right-hand one and a 
 bunch of keys in the left, and we will face a 
 female post-office clerk. 
 
 It is a little difficult to know what to do 
 with your hands, even in your pockets, when 
 there is nothing else there. Years ago, when 
 my whole capital would occasionally come down 
 to "what in town the people call a bob," I 
 would recklessly spend a penny of it, merely 
 for the sake of having the change, all in cop- 
 
30 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 pens, to jingle. You don't feel nearly so hurd 
 up with eleven pence in your pocket as you do 
 with a shilling. Had I been "La-di-da," thai 
 impecunious youth about whom we superior 
 folk are so sarcastic, I would have changed 
 my penny for two ha-pennies. 
 
 I can speak with authority on the subject 
 of being hard up. I have been a provincial 
 actor. If further evidence be required, which 
 I do not think likely, I can add that I have 
 been a "gentleman connected with the press." 
 I have lived on 15 shilling a week, I have 
 lived a week on 10, owing the other 5; and 
 I have lived for a fortnight on a great-coat. 
 
 It is wonderful what an insight into domestic 
 economy being really hard up gives me. If 
 you want to find out the value of money, live 
 on 15 shillings a week and see how much you 
 can put by for clothes and recreation. You will 
 find out that it is worth while to wait for the 
 farthing change, that it is worth while to walk 
 a mile to save a penny, that a glass of beer is 
 a luxury to be indulged in only at rare in- 
 tervals, and that a collar can be worn for four 
 days. 
 
 Try it just before you get married. It will 
 be excellent practice. Let your son and heir 
 try it before sending him to college. He won't 
 grumble at a hundred a year pocket-money then. 
 There are some people to whom it would do a 
 world of good. There is that delicate blossom 
 who can't drink any claret under ninety-four, 
 and who would as soon think of dining off 
 cat's meat as off plain roast mutton. You 
 do come across these poor wretches now and 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 31 
 
 then, though, to the credit of humanity, they 
 are principally confined to that fearful and 
 wonderful society known only to lady novelists.. 
 I never heard of one of these creatures dis- 
 cussing a menu c?v(S. but I feel a mad desire 
 to drag him off to the bar of some common 
 east-end public-house and cram a sixpenny 
 dinner down his throat — beef-s:eak pudding, 
 fourpence; potatoes, a penny; half a pint of 
 porter, a penny. The recollection of it (and 
 the mingled fragrance of beer, tobacco, and 
 roast pork generally leaves a vivid impression) 
 might induce him to turn up his nose a little 
 less frequently in the future at everything that 
 is put before him. Then there is that generous 
 party, the cadger's delight, who is so free with 
 his small change, but who never thinks of pay- 
 ing his debts. It might teach even him a little 
 common sense. "I always give the waiter a 
 shilling. One can't give the fellow less, you 
 know," explained a young government clerk 
 with whom I was lunching the other day in 
 Regent Street. I agreed with him as to the 
 utter impossibility of making it elevenpence 
 ha'penny, but at the same time I resolved to 
 one day decoy him to an eating-house I re- 
 membered near Covent Garden, where the 
 waiter, for the better discharge of his duties, 
 coes about in his shirt-sleeves-— and very dirty 
 sleeves they are, too, when it gets near the 
 end of the month. I know that waiter. If my 
 friend gives him anything beyond a penny, the 
 man will insist on shaking hands with him 
 then and there as a mark of his esteem; of that 
 I feel sure. 
 
32 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 There have been a good many funny things 
 said and written about hardupishness, but the 
 reality is not funny, for all that. It is not 
 funny to have to haggle over pennies. It isn't 
 funny to be thought mean and stingy. It isn't 
 funny to be shabby and to be ashamed of your 
 address. No, there is nothing at all funny in 
 poverty — to the poor. It is hell upon earth to 
 a sensitive man; and many a brave gentleman 
 who would have faced the labors of Hercules 
 has had his heart broken by its petty miseries. 
 
 It is not the actual discomforts themselves 
 that are hard to bear. Who would mind rough- 
 ing it a bit if that were all it meant? What 
 cared Robinson Crusoe for a patch on his 
 trousers? Did he wear trousers? I forget; or 
 did he go about as he does in the pantomimes? 
 What did it matter to him if his toes did stick 
 out of his boots? and what if his umbrella was 
 a cotton one, so long as it kept the rain off? 
 His shabbiness did not trouble him; there was 
 none of his friends round about to sneer him. 
 
 Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being 
 known to be poor that is the sting. It is not 
 cold that makes a man without a great-coat 
 hurry along so quickly. It is not all shame at 
 telling lies — which he knows will not be be- 
 lieved — that makes him turn so red when he 
 informs you that he considers great-coats un- 
 healthy and never carries an unbrella on prin- 
 ciple. It is easy enough to say that poverty 
 is no crime. No; if it were men wouldn't be 
 ashamed of it. It's a blunder, though, and is 
 punished as such. A poor man is despised the 
 whole world over; despised as much by a Chris- 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 33 
 
 tian as by a lord, as much by a demagogue as 
 by a footman, and not aii tJie copy-booK maxims 
 ever set for ink stained youth will make him 
 respected. Appearances are everything, so far 
 as human opinion goes, and the man who will 
 walk down Piccadilly arm in arm with the most 
 notorious scamp in London, provided he is a 
 well-dressed one, will slink up a back street to 
 say a couple of words to a seedy-looking gentle- 
 man. And the seedy-looking gentleman knows 
 this — no one better — and will go a mile round 
 to avoid meeting an acquaintance. Those that 
 knew him in his prosperity need never trouble 
 themselves to look the other way. He is a 
 thousand times more anxious that they should 
 not see him than they can be; and as to their 
 assistance, there is nothing he dreads more 
 than the offer of it. All he wants is to be for- 
 gotten; and in this respect he is generally 
 fortunate enough to get what he wants. 
 
 One becomes used to being hard up, as one 
 becomes used to everything else, by the help 
 of that w^onderful old homeopathic doctor. 
 Time. You can tell at a glance the difference 
 between the old hand and the novice; between 
 the case-hardened man who has been used to 
 shift and struggle for years and the poor devil 
 of a beginner striving to hide his misery, and 
 in a constant agony of fear lest he should be 
 found out. Nothing shows this difference more 
 clearly that the w^ay in which each will pawn 
 his watch. As the poet says somewhere: 
 "True ease in pawning comes from art, not 
 chance." The one goes into' his "uncle's" with 
 as much composure as he would into his tailor's 
 
34 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 — very likel-y with more. The assistant is even 
 civil and attends to him at once, to the great 
 indignation of the lady in the next box, who, 
 however, sarcastically observes that she don't 
 mind being kept waiting "if it is a regular 
 customer." Why, from the pleasant and busi- 
 ness-like manner in which the transaction is 
 carried out, it might be a large purchase in the 
 three per cents. Yet what a piece of work 
 a man makes of his first "pop." A boy popping 
 his first question is confidence itself compared 
 with him. He hangs about outside the shop 
 until he* has succeeded in attracting the atten- 
 tion of all the loafers in the neighborhood and 
 has aroused strong suspicions in the mind of 
 the policeman on the beat. At last, after a 
 careful examination of the contents of the 
 windows, made for the purpose of impressing 
 the by-standers with the notion that he is go- 
 ing into purchase a diamond bracelet or some 
 such trifle, he enters, trying to do so with a 
 careless swagger, and giving himself really the 
 air of a member of the swell mob. When inside 
 he speaks in so low a voice as to be perfectly 
 inaudible, and has to say it all over again. 
 When, in the course of his rambling conver- 
 sation about a "friend" of his, the word "lend" 
 is reached, he is promptly told to go up the 
 court on the right and take the first door 
 round the corner. He comes out of the shop 
 with a face that you could easily light a cig- 
 arette at, and firmly under the impression that 
 the whole population of the district is watch- 
 ing him. When he does get to the right place 
 he has forgotten his name and address and is 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 35 
 
 in a general condition of hopeless imbecility. 
 Asked in a severe tone how ha came by "this," 
 he stammers and contrad-cts himself, and it is 
 only a miracle if he does not confess to having 
 stolen it that very day. He is thereupon in- 
 formed that they don't want anything to do 
 with his sort, and that he had better get out 
 of this as quickly as possible, which he does, 
 recollecting nothing more until he finds him- 
 self three miles off, without the slightest knowl- 
 edge how he got there. 
 
 By the way, how awkward it is, though, hav- 
 ing to depend on public-houses and churches 
 for the time. The former are generally too 
 fast and the latter too slow. Besides which, 
 your efforts to get a glimpse of the public- 
 house clock from the outside are attended with 
 great difficulties. If you gently push the swing- 
 door ajar and peer in you draw upon your- 
 self the contemptuous looks of the barmaid, 
 who at once puts you down in the same cate- 
 gory with area sneaks and cadgers. You also 
 create a certain amount of agitation among 
 thi married por ion of the customers. You 
 don't see the clock because it is behind the 
 door; and in trying to withdraw quietly you 
 jam your head. The only other method is to 
 jum.p up and down outside the window. After 
 this latter proceeding, however, if you do not 
 bring out a banjo and commence to sing, the 
 youthful inhabitants of the neighborhood, who 
 have gathered round in expectation, become 
 disappointed. 
 
 I should like to know, too, by what mys- 
 terious law of nature it is that before you have 
 
36 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 left your watch "to be repaired" half an hour, 
 some one Is sure to stop you in the street and 
 conspicuously ask you the time. Nobody even 
 feels the slightest curiosity on the subject when 
 you've got it on. 
 
 Dear old ladies and gentlemen who know 
 nothing about being hard up — and may they 
 never, bless their gray old heads — look upon 
 the pawn-shop as the last stage of degradation; 
 but those who know it better (and my readers 
 have, no doubt, noticed this themselves) are 
 often surprised, like the little boy who dreamed 
 he went to heaven, at meeting so many people 
 there that they never expected to see. For my 
 part, I think it a much more independent course 
 than borrowing from friends, and I always 
 try to impress this upon those of my acquaint- 
 ance who incline toward "wanting a couple of 
 pounds till the day after to-morrow." But they 
 won't all see it. One of them once remarked 
 that he objected to the principle of the thing. 
 I fancy if he had said it was the interest that 
 he objected to he would have been nearer the 
 truth: twenty-five per cent, certainly does 
 come heavy. 
 
 There are degrees in being hard up. We are 
 all hard up, more or less — most of us more. 
 Some are hard up for a thousand pounds; 
 some for a shilling. Just at this moment I am 
 hard up myself for a fiver. I only want it 
 for a day or two. I should be certain of paying 
 it back within a week at' the outside, and if 
 any lady or gentleman among my readers would 
 kindly lend it me, I should be very much obliged 
 indeed. They could send it to me under cover 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 37 
 
 to Messrs. Field & Tuer, only, in such case, 
 please Let the envelope be carefully sealed. I 
 would give you my I.O.U. as security. 
 
 ON VANITY AND VANITIES. 
 
 All is vanity and everybody's vain. Women 
 are terribly vain. So are men — more so, if pos- 
 sible. So are children, particularly children. 
 One of them at this very moment is hammer- 
 ing upon my legs. She wants to know what I 
 think of her new shoes. Candidly I don't think 
 much of them. They lack symmetry and curve 
 and possess an indescribable appearance of 
 lumpiness (I believe, too, they've put them on 
 the wrong feet). But I don't say this. It is 
 not criticism, but flattery that she wants; and 
 I gush over them with what I feel to myself 
 to be degrading effusiveness. Nothing else 
 would satisfy this self-opinionated cherub. I 
 tried the conscientious-friend dodge with her 
 on one occasion, but it was not a success. She 
 had requested my judgment upon her general 
 conduct and behavior, the exact case submitted 
 being, "Wot oo tink of me? Oo peased wi 
 me?" and I had thought it a good opportunity 
 to make a few salutary remarks upon her late 
 moral career, and said: "No, I am not pleased 
 with you." I recalled to her mind the events 
 of that very morning, and I put it to her how 
 she, as a Christian child, could expect a wise 
 and good uncle to be satisfied with the carry- 
 ings on of an infant who that very day had 
 roused the whole house at five a. m.; had upset 
 a watering and tumbled downstairs after it at 
 seven; had endeavored to put the cat in the 
 
38 IDLE THOUGHTS OP 
 
 bath at eight; and sat on her own father's hat 
 at nine thirty-five. 
 
 What did she do? Was she grateful to me 
 for my plain speaking? Did she ponder upon 
 my words and determine to profit by them and 
 to lead from that hour a better and nobler life! 
 
 No! she howled. 
 
 That done, she became abusive. She said: 
 
 "Oo naughty — oo naughty, bad unkie — oo bad 
 man — me tell MAR." 
 
 And she did, too. 
 
 Since then, when my views have been called 
 for I have kept my real sentiments to myself 
 like, preferring to express unbounded admira- 
 tion of this young person's actions, irrespective 
 of their actual merits. And she nods her head 
 approvingly and trots off to advertise my opin- 
 ion to the rest of the household. She appears 
 to employ it as a sort of testimonial for mer- 
 cenary purposes, for I subsequently hear dis- 
 tant sounds of "Unkie says me dood dirl — me 
 dot to have two bikkies [biscuits]." 
 
 There she goes, now, gazing rapturously at 
 her own toes and murmuring "pittie" — two- 
 foot-ten of conceit and vanity, to say nothing 
 of other wickednesses. 
 
 They are all alike. I remember sitting in a 
 garden one sunny afternoon in the suburbs of 
 London. Suddenly I heard a shrill treble voice 
 calling from a top-story window to some un- 
 seen being, presumably in one of the other 
 gardens, "Gamma, me dood boy, me wery dood 
 boy, gamma; me dot on Bob's knickiebockies." 
 
 Why, even animals are vain. I saw a great 
 Newfoundland dog the other day sitting in 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW SQ 
 
 front of a mirror at the entrance to a shop in 
 Regent's Circus and examining himself with an 
 amount of smug satisfaction that I have never 
 seen equaled elsewhere outside a vestry meet- 
 ing. 
 
 I was .at a farm-house once when some high 
 holiday was being celebrated. I don't remem- 
 ber what the occasion was, but it was some- 
 thing festive, a May Day or Quarter Day, or 
 something of that sort, and they put a garland 
 of flowers round the head of one of the cows. 
 Well, that absurd quadruped went about all 
 day as perky as a school-girl in a new frock; 
 and when they took the wreath off she became 
 quite sulky, and they had to put it on again 
 before she would stand still to be milked. This 
 is not a Percy anecdote. It is plain, sober 
 truth. 
 
 As for cats, they nearly equal human beings 
 for vanity. I have knov/n a cat get up and 
 walk out of the room on a rem.ark derogatory 
 to her species being made by a visitor, while 
 a neatly turned compliment will set them purr- 
 ing for an hour. 
 
 I do like cats. They are so unconsciously 
 amusing. There is such a comic dignity about 
 them, such a "How dare you!" "Go away, 
 don't touch me" sort of air. Now, there is 
 nothing haughty about a dog. They are "Hail, 
 fellow, w^ell met" with every Tom, Dick and 
 Harry that they comf. across. When I meet a 
 dog of my acquaintance I slan his head, call him 
 opprobrious epithets, and roll him over on his 
 back; and there he lies, gaping at me, and 
 doesn't mind it a bit. 
 
40 IDLiii THOUGHTS OF 
 
 Fancy carrying on like that with a cat! Why, 
 she would never speak to you again as long as 
 you lived. No, when you want to win the ap- 
 probation of a cat you must mind what you are 
 about and work your way carefully. If you 
 don't know the cat, you had best begin by say- 
 ing, "Po'or pussy." After which ad J "did 'urns" 
 in a tone of soothing sympathy. You don't 
 know what you mean any more than the cat 
 does, but the sentiment seems to imply a proper 
 spirit on your part, and generally touches her 
 feelings to such an extent that if you are of 
 good manners and passable appearance she will 
 stick her back up and rub her nose against you. 
 Matters having reached this stage, you may 
 chuck her under the chin and tickle the side 
 of her head, and the intelligent creature will 
 then stick her claws into your legs; and all is 
 friendship and affection, as so sweetly ex- 
 pressed in the beautiful lines — 
 
 "I love little pussy, her coat is so warm, 
 And if I don't tease her she'll do me no harm; 
 So I'll stroke her, and pat her, and feed her 
 
 with food, 
 And pussy will love me because I am good." 
 
 The last two lines of the stanza give us a 
 pretty true insight into pussy's notions of 
 human goodness. It is evident that in her 
 opinion goodness consists of stroking her, and 
 patting her, and feeding her with food. I fear 
 this narrow-minded view of virtue, though, is 
 not confined to pussies. We are all inclined 
 to adopt a similar standard of merit in our 
 estimate of other people. A good man is a 
 man who is good to us, and a bad man is a 
 man who doesn't do what we want him to. The 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 41 
 
 truth is, we each of us have an inborn convic- 
 tion that the whole world, with everybody in 
 it, was created as a sort of necessary append- 
 age to ourselves. Our fellow men and women 
 were made to admire us and to minister to our 
 various requirements. You and I, dear reader, 
 are each the center of the universe in our re- 
 spective opinions. You, as I understand it, 
 were brought into being by a considerate Provi- 
 dence in order that you might read and pay me 
 for what I write; while I, in your opinion, am 
 an article sent into the world to write some- 
 thing for you to read. The stars — as we term 
 the myriad other worlds that are rushing down 
 beside us through the eternal silence — were 
 put into the heavens to make the sky look in- 
 teresting for us at night; and the moon with 
 its dark mysteries and ever-hidden face is an 
 arrangement for us to flirt under. 
 
 I fear we are most of us like Mrs. Poyser's 
 bantam cock, who fancied the sun got up every 
 morning to hear him crow. " 'Tis vanity that 
 makes the world go round." I don't believe 
 any man -ever existed without vanity, and if 
 he did he would be an extremely uncomfortable 
 person to have anything to do with. He would, 
 of course, be a very good man, and we should 
 respect him very much. He would be a very 
 admirable man — a man to be put under a glass 
 case and shown round as a specimen — a man 
 to be stuck upon a pedestal and copied, like a 
 school exercise — a man to be reverenced, but 
 not a man to be loved, not a human brother 
 whose hand we should care to grip. Angels 
 may be very excellent sort of folk in their way. 
 
*Z IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 but we, poor mortals, in our present state, 
 would probably find them precious slow com- 
 pany. Even mere good people are rather de- 
 pressing. It is in our faults and failings, not in 
 our virtues, that we touch one another and find 
 sympathy. We differ widely enough in our 
 nobler qualities. It is in our follies that we are 
 at one. Some of us are pious, some of us are 
 generous. Some few of us are honest, com- 
 paratively speaking; and some, fewer still, may 
 possibly be truthful. But in vanity and kindred 
 weaknesses we can all join hands. Vanity is 
 one of those touches of nature that make the 
 whole world kin. From the Indian hunter, 
 proud of his belt of scalps, to the European 
 general, swelling beneath his row of stars and 
 medals; from the Chinese, gleeful at the length 
 of his pigtail, to the "professional beauty," suf- 
 fering tortures in order that her waist may 
 resemble a peg-top; from the draggle-tailed 
 little Polly Stiggins, strutting through Seven 
 Dials with a tattered parasol over her head, to 
 the princess sweeping through a drawing-room 
 with a train of four yards long; from 'Arry, 
 winning by vulgar chaff the loud laughter of 
 bis pals, to the statesman whose ears are 
 tickled by the cheers that greet his high-sound- 
 ing periods; from the dark-skinned African, 
 bartering his rare oils and ivory for a few 
 glass beads to hang about his neck, to the 
 Christian maiden selling her white body for 
 a score of tiny stones and an empty title to 
 tack before her name — all march, and fight, 
 and bleed, and die beneath its tawdry flag. 
 Ay, ay, vanity is truly the motive-power that 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 43 
 
 moves humanity, and it is flattery that greases 
 the wheels. If you want to win affection and 
 respect in this world, you must flatter people. 
 Flatter high and low, and rich and poor, and 
 silly and wise. You will get on famously. 
 Praise this man's virtues and that man's vices. 
 Compliment everybody upon everything, and 
 especially upon what they haven't got. Ad- 
 mire guys for their beauty, fools for their wit, 
 and boors for their breeding. Your discern- 
 ment and intelligence will be extolled to the 
 skies. 
 
 Every one can be got over by flattery. The 
 belted earl — "belted earl" is the correct phrase, 
 I believe. I don't know what it means, unless 
 it be an earl that wears a belt instead of braces. 
 Some men do. I don't like it myself. You 
 have to keep the thing so tight for it to be 
 of any use, and that is uncomfortable. Any- 
 how, whatever particular kind of an earl a 
 belted earl may be, he is, I assert, get-overable 
 by flattery; just as every other human being 
 is, from a duchess to a cat's-meat man, from 
 a plowboy to a poet — and the poet far easier 
 than the plowboy, for butter sinks better into 
 wheaten bread than into oaten cakes. 
 
 As for love, flattery is its very life-blood. 
 Fill a person with love for themselves, and 
 what runs over will be your share, says a cer- 
 tain witty and truthful Frenchman whose name 
 I can't for the life of me remember. (Confound 
 it! I never can remember names when I want 
 to.) Tell a girl she is an angel, only more 
 angelic than an angel; that she is a goddess, 
 only more graceful, queenly, and heavenly than 
 
44 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 the average goddess; that she is more fairy- 
 like than Titania, more beautiful than Venus, 
 more enchanting than Parthenope; more ador- 
 able, lovely, radiant, in short, than any other 
 woman that ever did live, does live, or could 
 live, and you will make a very favorable im- 
 pression upon her trusting little heart. Sweet 
 innocent! she will believe every word you say. 
 It is so easy to deceive a woman — in this way. 
 
 Dear little souls, they hate flattery, so they 
 tell you; and when you say, "Ah, darling, it 
 isn't flattery in your case, it's plain, sober 
 truth; you really are, without exaggeration, the 
 most beautiful, the most good, the most charm- 
 ing, the most divine, the most perfect human 
 creature that ever trod this earth," they will 
 smile a quiet, approving smile, and, leaning 
 against your manly shoulder, murmur that you 
 are a dear good fellow after all. 
 
 By Jove! fancy a man trying to make love 
 on strictly truthful principles, determining 
 never to utter a word of mere compliment or 
 hyperbole, but to scrupulously confine himself 
 to exact fact! Fancy his . gazing rapturously 
 into his mistress' eyes and whispering softly 
 to her that she wasn't, on the whole, bad-look- 
 ing, as girls went! Fancy his holding up her 
 little hand and assuring her that it was of a 
 light drab color shot with red; and telling her 
 as he pressed her to his heart that her nose, 
 for a turned-up one, seemed rather pretty; and 
 that her eyes appeared to him, as far as he 
 could judge, to be quite up to the average 
 standard of such things! 
 
 A nice chance he would stand against the 
 
AN idi^e: fellow 45 
 
 man wtio would tell her that her face was like 
 a fresh blush rof; that her hair was a wander- 
 ing sunbeam imprisoned by her smiles, and her 
 eyes like two evening stars. 
 
 There are various ways of flattering, and, of 
 course, you must adapt your style to your sub- 
 ject. Some people like it laid on with a trowel, 
 and this requires very little art. With sensible 
 persons, however, it needs to be done very 
 delicately, and more by suggestion than actual 
 words. A good many like it wrapped up in 
 the form of an insult, as — "Oh, you are a per- 
 fect fool, you are. You would give your last 
 sixpence to the first hungry-looking beggar you 
 met;" while others will swallow it only when 
 administered through the medium of a third 
 person, so that if C wishes to get at an A of 
 this sort, he must confide to A's particular 
 friend B that he thinks A a splendid fellow, 
 and beg him, B, not to mention it, especially 
 to A. Be careful that B is a reliable man, 
 though, otherwise he won't. 
 
 Those fine, sturdy John Bulls who "hate flat- 
 tery, sir," "Never let anybody get over me by 
 flattery," etc., etc., are very simply managed. 
 Flatter them upon their absence of vanity, and 
 you can do what you like with them. 
 
 After all, vanity is as much a virtue as a 
 vice. It is easy to recite copy-book maxims 
 against its sinfulness, but it is a passion that 
 can move us to good as well as to evil. Am- 
 bition is only vanity ennobled. We want to 
 win praise and admiration — or fam.e as we 
 prefer to name it — and so we write great books, 
 and paint grand pictures, and sing sweet songs; 
 
46 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 and toil with willing hands in study, loom, and 
 laboracory. 
 
 We wish to become rich men, not in order to 
 enjoy ease and comfort — all that any one man 
 can taste of those may be purchased anywhere 
 for £200 per annum — but that our houses may 
 be bigger and more gaudily furnished than our 
 neighbors'; that our horses and servants may 
 be more numerous; that we may dress our 
 wives and daughters in absurd but expensive 
 clothes; and that we may give costly dinners 
 of which we ourselves individually do not eat 
 a shilling's worth. And to do this we aid the 
 world's work with clear and busy brain, spread- 
 ing commerce among its peoples, carrying 
 civilization to its remotest corners. 
 
 Do not let us abuse vanity, therefore. 
 Rather let us use it. Honor itself is but the 
 highest form of vanity. The instinct is not 
 confined solely to Beau Brummels and Dolly 
 Vardens. There is the vanity of the peacock 
 and the vanity of the eagle. Snobs are vain. 
 But so, too, are heroes. Come, oh! my young 
 brother bucks, let us be vain together. Let 
 us join hands and help each other to increase 
 our vanity. Let us be vain, not of our trous- 
 ers and hair, but of brave hearts and working 
 hands, of truth, of purity, of nobility. Let us 
 be too vain to stoop to aught that is mean or 
 base, too vain for petty selfishness and little- 
 minded envy, too vain to say an unkind word 
 or do an unkind act. Let us be vain of being 
 single-hearted, upright gentlemen in the midst 
 of a world of knaves. Let us pride ourselves 
 upon thinking high thoughts, achieving great 
 deeds, living good lives. 
 
AN IDCE FELLOW 47 
 
 ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 
 
 Not exactly the sort of thing for an idle 
 fellow to think about, is it? But outsiders, 
 you know, often see most of the game; and 
 sitting in my arbor by the wayside, smoking 
 my hookah of contentment and eating the 
 sweet lotus-leaves of indolence, I can look out 
 musingly upon the whirling throng that rolls 
 and tumbles past me on the great highroad 
 of life. 
 
 Never-ending is the wild procession. Day 
 and night you can hear the quick tramp of 
 the myriad feet — some running, some walk- 
 ing, some halting and lame; but all hastening, 
 all eager in the feverish race, all straining life 
 and limb and heart and soul to reach the ever- 
 receding horizon of success. 
 
 Mark them as they surge along — men and 
 women, old and young, gentle and simple, fair 
 and foul, rich and poor, merry and sad — all hur- 
 rying, bustling, scrambling. The strong push- 
 ing aside the weak, the cunning creeping past 
 the foolish; those behind elbowing those be- 
 fore; those in front kicking, as they run, at 
 those behind. Look close and see the flitting 
 Show. Here is an old man panting for breath, 
 and there a timid maiden driven by a hard and 
 sharp-faced matron: here is a studious youth, 
 reading "How to Get On in the World" and let- 
 ting everybody pass him as he stumbles alona: 
 with his eyes on his book: here is a bored- 
 looking man, with a fashionably dressed woman 
 Jogsring his elbow; here a boy gazing wistfully 
 l)ack at the sunny village that he never again 
 will see; here, with a firm and easy step, 
 
48 IDLE THOUGHTS OP 
 
 strides a broad-shouldered man; and here, with 
 stealthy tread, a thin-faced, stooping fellow 
 dodges and shuffles upon his way; here, with 
 gaze fixed always on the ground, an artful 
 rogue carefully works his way from side to side 
 of the road and thinks he is going forward; 
 and here a youth with a noble face stands, hesi- 
 tating as he looks from the distant goal to the 
 mud beneath his feet. 
 
 And now into sight comes a fair girl, with 
 her dainty face growing more wrinkled at every 
 step, and now a care-worn man, and now a 
 hopeful lad. 
 
 A mosley throng — a motley throng! Prince 
 and beggar, sinner and saint, butcher and baker 
 and candlestick maker, tinkers and tailors, and 
 plowboys and sailors — all jostling along to- 
 gether. Here the counsel in his wig and gown, 
 and here the old Jew clothes-man under his 
 dingy tiara; here the soldier in his scarlet, and 
 here the undertaker's mute in streaming hat- 
 band and worn cotton gloves; here the musty 
 scholar fumbling his faded leaves, and here the 
 scented actor dangling his showy seals. Here 
 the glib politician crying his legislative pana- 
 ceas, and here the peripatetic Cheap-Jack hold- 
 ing aloft his quack cures for human ills. Here 
 the sleek capitalist and there the sinewy la- 
 borer; here the man of science and here the 
 shoe-black; here the poet and here the water- 
 rate collector; here the cabinet minister and 
 there the ballet dancer. Here a red-nosed pub- 
 lican shouting the praises of his vats and there 
 a temperance lecturer at £50 a night; here a 
 judge and there a swindler; here a priest and 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 49 
 
 there a gambler. Here a jeweled duchess, 
 smiling and gracious; here a thin lodging house 
 keeper, irritable with cooking; and here a 
 wabbling, strutting thing, tawdry in paint and 
 finery. 
 
 Cheek by cheek they struggle onward. 
 Screaming, cursing, and praying, laughing, sing- 
 ing, and moaning, they rush past side by side. 
 Their speed never slackens, the race never 
 ends. There is no wayside rest for them, no 
 halt by cooling fountains, no pause beneath 
 green shades. On, on, on — on through the heat 
 and the crowd and the dust — on, or they will 
 be trampled down and lost — on, with throbbing 
 brain and tottering limbs — on, till the heart 
 grows sick, and the eyes grow blurred, and a 
 gurgling sound tells those behind they may 
 close up another space. 
 
 And yet, in spite of the killing pace and the 
 Btony track, who but the sluggard or the dolt 
 can hold aloof from the course? Who — like the 
 belated traveler that stands watching fairy 
 revels till he snatches and drains the goblin 
 cup and springs into the whirling circle — can 
 view the mad tumult and not be drawn into 
 its midst? Not I for one. I confess to the way- 
 side arbor, the pipe of contentment, and the 
 lotus-leaves being altogether unsuitable meta- 
 phors. They sounde " very nice and philo- 
 sophical, but I'm afraid I am not the sort of 
 person to sit in arbors smoking pipes when 
 there is any fun going on outside. I think 1 
 more resemble the Irishman who, seeing a 
 crowd collecting, seat his little girl out to ask 
 
50 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 if there was going to be a row — " 'Cos, if so, 
 father would like to be in it." 
 
 I love the fierce strife. I like to watch It. I 
 like to hear of people getting on in it — battling 
 their way bravely and fairly — that is, not slip- 
 ping through by luck or trickery. It stirs one's 
 old Saxon fighting blood like the tales of 
 "knights who fought 'gainst fearful odds" that 
 thrilled us in our school-boy days. 
 
 And fighting the battle of life is fighting 
 against fearful odds, too. There are giants and 
 dragons in this nineteenth century, and the 
 golden casket that they guard is not so easy 
 to win as it appears in the story-books. There, 
 Algernon takes one long, last look at the an- 
 cestral hall, dashes the tear-drop from his eye, 
 and goes off — to return in three years' time, 
 rolling in riches. The authors do not tell us 
 "how it's done," which is a pity, for it would 
 surely prove exciting. 
 
 But then not one novelist in a thousand ever 
 does tell us the real story of their hero. They 
 linger for a dozen pages over a tea-party, but 
 sum up a life's history with "he had become 
 one of our merchant princes," or "he was now 
 a great artist, with the world at his feet." Why, 
 there is more real life in one of Gilbert's pat- 
 ter-songs than in half the biographical novels 
 ever written. He relates to ns all the various 
 steps by which his office-boy rose to be the 
 *'ruler of the queen's navee," and explains to 
 us how the briefless barrister managed to be- 
 come a great and good judge, "ready to try 
 this breach of promise of marriage." It is in 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 51 
 
 the petty details, not in the great results, that 
 the interest of existence lies. 
 
 What we really want is a novel showing U3 
 all the hidden under-current of an ambitious 
 man's career — his struggles, and failures, and 
 hopes, his disappointments and victories. It 
 would be an immense success. I am sure the 
 wooing of Fortune would prove quite as inter- 
 esting a tale as the wooing of any flesh-and- 
 blood maiden, though, by the way, it would 
 read extremely similar; for Fortune is, indeed, 
 as the ancients painted her, very like a woman 
 not quite so unreasonable and inconsistent, but 
 nearly so — and the pursuit is much the same 
 in one case as in the other. Ben Johnson's 
 couplet — 
 
 "Court a mistress, she denies you; 
 Let her alone, she will court ycu" — 
 puts them both in a nutshell. A woman never 
 thoroughly cares for her lover until he has 
 ceased to care for her; and it is not until you 
 have snapped your fingers iu Fortune's face 
 and turned on your heel that she begins to 
 smile upon you. 
 
 But by that time you do not much care 
 whether she smiles or frowns. Why could she 
 not have smiled when her smiles would have 
 filled you with ecstasy? Everything comes too 
 late in this world. 
 
 Good people say that it is quite right and 
 proper that it should be so, and that it proves 
 ambition is wicked. 
 
 Bosh! Good people are altogether wrong. 
 (They always are, in my opinion. We never 
 agree on any single point.) What would the 
 
52 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 world do without ambitious people, I should 
 like to know? Why, it would be as flabby as a 
 Norfolk dumpling. Ambitious people are the 
 leaven which raises it into wholesome bread. 
 Without ambitious people the world would 
 never get up. They are busybodies who are 
 about early in the morning, hammering, shout- 
 ing, and rattling the fire-irons, and rendering 
 it generally impossible for the rest of the house 
 to remain in bed. 
 
 Wrong to be ambitious, forsooth! The men 
 wrong who, with bent back and sweating brow, 
 cut the smooth road over which humanity 
 marches forward from generation to genera- 
 tion! Men wrong for using the talents that 
 their Master has intrusted to them — for toiling 
 while others play! 
 
 Of course they are seeking their reward. 
 Man is not given that god-like unselfishness 
 that thinks only of others' good. But in work- 
 ing for themselves they are working for us all. 
 We are so bound together that no man can 
 labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes 
 in his own behalf helps to mold the universe. 
 The stream in struggling onward turns the mill- 
 wheel; the coral insect, fashioning its tiny cell, 
 joins continents to one another; and the am- 
 bitious man, building a pedestal for himself, 
 leaves a monument to posterity. Alexander 
 and Caesar fought for their own ends, but in 
 doing so they put a belt of civilization half 
 round the earth. Stephenson, to win a for- 
 tune, invented the steam-engine; and Shake- 
 speare wrote his plays in order to keep a com- 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 53 
 
 fortable home for Mrs. Shakespeare and the 
 little Shakespeares. 
 
 Contented, unambitious people are all very 
 well in their way. They form a neat, useful 
 background for great portraits to be painted 
 against, and they make a respectable, if not 
 particularly intelligent, audience for the active 
 spirits of the age to play before. I have not 
 a word to say against contented people so long 
 as they keep quiet. But do not, for goodness' 
 sake, let them go strutting about, as they are 
 so fond of doing, crying out that they are the 
 true models for the whole species. Why, they 
 are the deadheads, the drones in the great hive, 
 the street crowds that lounge about, gaping at 
 those who are working. 
 
 And let them not imagine, either — as they 
 are also fond of doing — that they are very wise 
 and philosophical and that it is a very artful 
 thing to be contented. It may be true that "a 
 contented mind is happy anywhere," but so is 
 a Jerusalem pony, and the consequence is that 
 both are put anywhere and are treated any- 
 how. "Oh, you need not bother about him," is 
 what is said; "he is very contented as he is, 
 and it would be a pity to disturb him." And 
 so your contented party is passed over and 
 the discontented man gets his place. 
 
 If you are foolish enough to be contented, 
 don't show it, but grumble with the rest; and 
 if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. 
 Because if you don't you won't get any. In 
 this world it is necessary to adopt the princi- 
 ple pursued by the plaintiff in an action for 
 damages, and to demand ten times more than 
 
54 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 you are ready to accept. If you can feel satis- 
 fied with a hundred, begin by insisting on a 
 thousand; if you start by suggesting a hundred 
 you will only get ten. 
 
 It was not following this simple plan that 
 poor Jean Jacques Rousseau came to such 
 grief. He fixed the summit of his earthly 
 bliss at living in an orchard with an amiable 
 woman and a cow, and he never attained even 
 that. He did get as far as the orchard, but 
 the woman was not amiable, and she brought 
 her mother with her, and there was no cow. 
 Now, if he had made up his mind for a large 
 country estate, a houseful of angels, and a cat- 
 tle-show, he might have lived to possess his 
 kitchen garden and one head of live-stock, and 
 even possibly have came across that "rara- 
 avis" — a really amiable woman. 
 
 What a terribly dull affair, too, life must be 
 for contented people! How heavy the time 
 must hang upon their hands, and what on earth 
 do they occupy their thoughts with, supposing 
 that they have any? Reading the paper and 
 smoking seems to be the intellectual food of 
 the majority of them, to which the more ener- 
 getic add playing the flute and talking about 
 the affairs of the next-door neighbor. 
 
 They never knew the excitement of expec- 
 tation nor the stern delight of accomplished ef- 
 fort, such as stir the pulse of the man who has 
 objects, and hopes, and plans. To the ambi- 
 tious man life is a brilliant game — a game that 
 calls forth all his tact and energy and nerve — 
 a game to be won, in the long run, by the 
 quick eye and the steady hand, and yet having 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 55 
 
 sufficient chance about Its working out to give 
 it all the glorious zest of uncertainty. He 
 exults in it as the strong swimmer in the heav- 
 ing billows, as the athlete in the wrestle, the 
 soldier in the battle. 
 
 And if he be defeated he wins the grim joy 
 of fighting; if he lose the race, he, at least, 
 has had a run. Better to work and fail than to 
 sleep one's life away. 
 
 So, walk up, walk up, walk up. Walk up, 
 ladies and gentlemen! Walk up, boys and girls! 
 Show your skill and try your strength; brave 
 your luck and prove your pluck. Walk up! 
 The show is never closed and the game is 
 always going. The only genuine sport in all 
 the fair, gentlemen — highly respectable and 
 strictly moral — patronized by the nobility, cler- 
 gy, and gentry. Established in the year one, 
 gentlemen, and been flourishing ever since — 
 walk up! Walk up, ladies and gentlemen, and 
 take a hand. There are prizes for all and all 
 can play. There is gold for the man and fame 
 for the boy; rank for the maiden and pleasure 
 for the fool. So walk up, ladies and gentlemen, 
 walk up! — all prizes and no blanks; for some 
 few win, and as to the rest, why — 
 'The rapture of pursuing 
 Is the prize the vanquished gain." 
 
 ON THE WEATHER. 
 Things do go so contrary-like with me. I 
 wanted to hit upon an especially novel, out-of- 
 the-way subject for one of these articles. "I 
 will write one paper about something alto- 
 
56 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 gether new," I said to myself; "something that 
 nobody else has ever written or talked about 
 before; and then I can haye it all my own 
 way." And I went about for days, trying to 
 think of something of this kind; and I couldn't. 
 And Mrs. Cutting, our charwoman, came yes- 
 terday — I don't mind mentioning her name, be- 
 cause I know she will not see this book. She 
 would not look at such a frivolous publication. 
 She never reads* anything but the Bible and 
 Lloyd's Weekly News. All other literature she 
 considers unnecessary and sinful. 
 
 She said: "Lor*, sir, you do look worried.** 
 
 I said: "Mrs. Cutting, I am trying to think 
 of a subject the discussion of which will come 
 upon the world in the nature of a startler — 
 some subject upon which no previous human 
 being has ever said a word — some subject that 
 will attract by its novelty, invigorate by its 
 surprising freshness." 
 
 She laughed and said I was a funny gentle- 
 man. 
 
 That's my luck again. When I make serious 
 observations people chuckle! when I attempt a 
 joke nobody sees it. I had a beautiful one 
 last week. I thought it so good, and I worked 
 it up and brought it in artfully at a dinner- 
 party. I forget how exactly, but we had been 
 talking about the attitude of Shakespeare to- 
 ward the Reformation, and I said something 
 and immediately added, "Ah, that reminds me; 
 such a funny thing happened the other day in 
 Whitechapel." "Oh,** said they, "wh'at was 
 that?" "Oh, 'twas awfully funny,** I replied, 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 0< 
 
 begirming to giggle myself; "it will make you 
 roar;" and I told it them. 
 
 There was dead silence when I finisljed — it 
 was one of those long jokes, too — and then, at 
 last, somebody said: "And that was the joke?" 
 
 I assured them that it was, and they were 
 very polite and took my word for it. All but 
 one old gentleman at the other end of the 
 table, who wanted to know which was the 
 joke — what he said to her or what she said 
 to him; and we argued it out. 
 
 Some people are too much the other way. I 
 knew a fellow once whose natural tendency to 
 laugh at everything was so strong that if you 
 wanted to talk seriously to him, you had to ex- 
 plain before-hand that what you were going 
 to say would not be amusing. Unless you got 
 him to clearly understand this, he would go 
 off into fits of merriment over every word you 
 uttered. I have knov/n him on being asked 
 the time stop short in the middle of the road, 
 slap his leg, and burst into a roar of laughter. 
 One never dared say anything really funny to 
 that man. A good joke would have killed him 
 on the spot. 
 
 In the present instance I vehemently repu- 
 diated the accusation of frivolity, and pressed 
 Mrs. Cutting for practical ideas. She then be- 
 came thoughtful and hazarded "samplers;" 
 saying that she never heard them spoken much 
 of now, but that they used to be all the rage 
 when she was a girl. 
 
 I declined samplers and begged her to think 
 again. She pondered a long while, with a tea- 
 tray in her hands, and at last suggested the 
 
58 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 weather, which she was sure had been most 
 trying of late. 
 
 And ever since that idiotic suggestion I have 
 been unable to get the weather out of my 
 thoughts or anything else in. 
 
 It certainly is most wretched weather. At all 
 events it is so now at the time I am writing, 
 and if it isn't particularly unpleasant when I 
 come to be read it soon will be. 
 
 It always is wretched weather according to 
 us. The weather is like the government — al- 
 ways in the wrong. In summer-time we say it 
 is stifling; in winter that it is killing; in 
 spring and autumn we find fault with it for 
 being neither one thing nor the other and wish 
 it would make up its mind. If it is fine we 
 say the country is being ruined for want of 
 rain; if it does rain we pray for fine weather. 
 If December passes without snow, we indig- 
 nantly demand to know what has become of 
 our good old-fashioned winters, and talk as if 
 we had been cheated out of something, we had 
 bought and paid for; and when it does snow, 
 our language is a disgrace to a ChrisMan na- 
 tion.' We shall never be content until each 
 man makes his own weather and keeps it to 
 himself. 
 
 If that cannot be arranged, we would rather 
 do without it altogether. 
 
 Yet I think it is only to us in cities that all 
 weather is so unwelcome. In her own home, 
 the country. Nature is sweet in all her moods. 
 What can be more beautiful than the snow, 
 falling big with mystery in silent softness, 
 decking the fields and trees with white as if 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 59 
 
 for a fairy wedding! And how delightful Is a 
 walk when the frozen ground rings beneath 
 our swinging tread — when our blood tingles in 
 the rare keen air, and the sheep-dogs' distant 
 bark and children's laughter peals faintly clear 
 like Alpine bells across the open hills! And 
 then skating! scudding with wings of steel 
 across the swaying ice, making whirring music 
 as we fly. And oh, how dainty is spring — Na- 
 ture at sweet eighteen! When the little hopeful 
 leaves peep out so fresh and green, so pure and 
 bright, like young lives pushing shyly out into 
 the bustling world; when the fruit-tree blos- 
 soms, pink and white, like village maidens in 
 their Sunday frocks, hide each white-washed 
 cottage in a cloud of fragile splendor; and the 
 cuckoo's note upon the breeze is wafted through 
 the woods! And summer, with its deep dark 
 green and drowsy hum — when the rain-drops 
 whisper solemn secrets to the listening leaves 
 and the twilight lingers in the lanes! And 
 autumn! ah, how sadly fair, with its golden 
 glow and the dying grandeur of its tinted 
 woods — its blood-red sunsets and its ghostly 
 evening mists, with its busy murmur of reap- 
 ers, and its laden orchards, and the calling of 
 the gleaners, and the festivals of praise! 
 
 The very rain, and sleet, and hail seem only 
 Nature's useful servants when found doing 
 their simple duties in the country; and the 
 East Wind himself is nothing worse than a 
 boisterous friend when we meet him between 
 the hedge-rows. 
 
 But in the city where the painted stucco blis- 
 ters under the smoky sun, and the sooty rain 
 
60 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 brings slush and mud, and the snow lies piled 
 in dirty heaps, and the chill blasts whistle 
 down dingy streets and shriek round flaring 
 gas lit corners, no face of Nature charms. 
 Weather in towns is like a skylark in a count- 
 ing-house — out of place and in the way. Towns 
 ought to be covered in, warmed by hot-water 
 pipes, and lighted by electricity. The weather 
 is a country lass^ and does not appear to ad- 
 vantage in town. We liked well enough to 
 flirt with her in the hay-field, but she does not 
 seem so fascinating when we meet her in Pall 
 Mall. There is too much of her there. The 
 frank, free laugh and hearty voice that sounded 
 so pleasant in the dairy jars against the arti- 
 ficialty of town-bred life, and her ways become 
 exceedingly trying. 
 
 Just lately she has been favoring us with al- 
 most incessant rain for about three weeks; and 
 I am a demned damp, moist, unpleasant body, 
 as Mr. Mantalini puts it. 
 
 Our next-door neighbor comes out in the back 
 garden every now and then and says it's doing 
 the country a world of good — not his coming 
 out into the back garden, but the weather. He 
 doesn't understand anything about it, but ever 
 since he started a cucumber-frame last summer 
 he has regarded himself in the light of an 
 agriculturist, and talks in this absurd way with 
 the idea of impressing the rest of the terrace 
 with the notion that he is a retired' farmer. 
 I can only hope that for this once he is cor- 
 rect, and that the weather really is doing good 
 to something, because it is doing me a con- 
 siderable amount ' of damage. It is spoiling 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 61 
 
 both my clothes and my temper. The latter I 
 can afford, as I have a good supply of it, but 
 it wounds me to the quick to see my dear old 
 hats and trousers sinking, prematurely worn 
 and aged, beneath the cold world's blasts and 
 snows. 
 
 There is my new spring suit, too. A beauti- 
 ful suit it was, and now it is hanging up so 
 bespattered with mud I can't bear to look at 
 it. 
 
 That was Jim's fault, that was. I should 
 never have gone out in it that night if it had 
 not been for him. I was just trying it on when 
 he came in. He threw up his arms with a wild 
 yell the moment he caught sight of it, and ex- 
 claimed that he had "got 'em again!" 
 
 I said: "Does it fit all right behind?" 
 
 "Spiffin, old man," he replied. And then he 
 wanted to know if I was coming out. 
 
 I said "no" at first, but he overruled me. He 
 said that a man with a suit like that had no 
 right to stop indoors. "Every citizen," said 
 he, "owes a duty to the public. Each one 
 should contribute to the general happiness as 
 far as lies in his power. Come out and give 
 the girls a treat." 
 
 Jim is slangy. I don't know where he picks 
 it up. It certainly is not from me. 
 
 I said: "Do you think it will really please 
 'em?" 
 
 He said it would be like a day in the coun- 
 try to them. 
 
 That decided me. It was a lovely evening 
 and I went. 
 
 When I got home I undressed and rubbed 
 
62 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 myself down wuh whisky, put my feet in hot 
 water and a mustard plaster on my chest, had 
 a basin of gruel and a glass of hot brandy-and- 
 water, tallowed my nose, and went to bed. 
 
 These prompt and vigorous measures, aided 
 by a naturally strong constitution, v/ere the 
 means of preserving my life; but as for the 
 suit; Well, there, it isn't a suit; it's a splash 
 board. 
 
 And I did fancy that suit, too. But thafS 
 just the way. I never do get particularly fond 
 of anything in this world but what something 
 dreadful happens to it. I had a tame rat when 
 I was a boy, and I loved that animal as only a 
 boy would love an old water-rat; and one day 
 it fell into a large dish of gooseberry-fool that 
 was standing to cool in the kitchen, and nobody 
 knew what had become of the poor creature 
 until the second helping. 
 
 I do hate wet weather in town. At least, it is 
 not so much the wet as the mud that I object 
 to. Somehow or other I seem to possess an 
 irresistible, alluring power over mud. I have 
 only to show myself in the street on a muddy 
 day to be half-smothered by it. It all comes 
 of being so attractive, as the old lady said 
 when she was struck by lightning. Other peo- 
 ple can go out on dirty days and walk about 
 for hours without getting a speck upon them- 
 selves; while if I go across the road I come 
 back a perfect disgrace to be seen (as in my 
 boyish days my poor dear mother used often 
 to tell me). If there was only one dab of 
 mud to be found, I am convinced I should carr 
 ry it off from all competitors. 
 
AN IDi^E FELLOV/ 63 
 
 I wish I could return the affection, but I 
 fear that I never shall be able to. I have a 
 hororr of what they call the "London particu- 
 lar." I feel miserable and muggy all through 
 a dirty day, and it is quite a relief to pull 
 one's clothes off and get into bed, out of the 
 way of it all. Everything goes wrong in wet 
 weather. I don't know how it is, but there 
 always seem to me to be more people, and 
 dogs, and perambulators, and cabs, and carts 
 about in wet weather than at any other time, 
 and they all get in your way more, and every- 
 body is so disagreeable — except myself — and 
 it does make me so wild. And then, too, some- 
 how I always find myself carrying more things 
 in wet weather than in dry; and when you 
 have a bag, and three parcels, and a newspaper, 
 and it suddenly comes on to rain, you can't 
 open your umbrella. 
 
 Which reminds me of another phase of the 
 weather that I can't bear, and that is April 
 weather (so called because it always comes in 
 May). Poets think it very nice. As it does 
 not know its own mind five minutes together, 
 they liken it to a woman; and it is supposed 
 to be very charming on that account. I don't 
 appreciate it, myself. Such lightning-change 
 business may be all very agreeable in a girl. 
 It is no doubt highly delightful to have to do 
 with a person who grins one moment about 
 nothing at all, and snivels the next for precise- 
 ly the same cause, and who then giggles, and 
 then sulks, and who is rude, and affectionate, 
 and bad-tempered, and jolly, and boisterous, and 
 silent, and passionate, and cold, and stand- 
 
64 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 Offish, and flopping, all in one minute (mind, 
 I don't say this. It is those poets. And they 
 are supposed to be connoisseurs of this sort 
 of thing) ; but in the weather the disadvan- 
 tages of the system are more apparent. A 
 woman's tears do not make one wet, but the 
 rain does; and her coldness does not lay the 
 foundations of asthma and rheumatism, as the 
 east wind is apt to. I can prepare for and 
 put up with a regularly bad day, but these 
 ha'porth-of-all-sorts kind of days do not suit 
 me. It aggravates me to sep a, hright blue 
 sky above me when I am walking along wet 
 through, and there is something so exasper- 
 ating about the way the sun comes out smiling 
 after a drenching shower; and seems to say: 
 "Lord love you, you don't mean to say you're 
 wet? Well, I am surprised. Why, it was only 
 my fun." 
 
 They don't give you time to open or shut 
 your umbrella in an English April, especially 
 if it is an "automaton" one — the umbrella, I 
 mean, not the April. 
 
 I bought an "automaton" once in April, and 
 I did have a time with it! I wanted an um- 
 brella, and I went into a shop in the Strand 
 and told them so, and they said: 
 
 "Yes, sir. What sort of an umbrella would 
 you like?" 
 
 I said I should like one that would keep the 
 rain off, and that would not allow itself to be 
 left behind in a railway carriage. 
 
 "Try an 'automaton'?" said the shopman, 
 
 "What's an 'automaton'?" said I, 
 
 "Oh, it's a beautiful arrangement," replied 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 6 5 
 
 the man, with a touch of enthusiasm. "It opens 
 and shuts itself." 
 
 I bought one and found that he was quite 
 correct. It did open and shut itself. I had no 
 control over it whatever. When it began to 
 rain, which it did that season every alternate 
 five minutes, I used to try and get the machine 
 to open, but it would not budge; and then I 
 used to stand and struggle with the wretched 
 thing, shake it, and swear at it, while the rain 
 poured down in torrents. Then the moment 
 the rain ceased the absurd thing would go up 
 suddenly with a jerk and would not come down 
 again; and I had to walk about under a bright 
 blue sky, with an umbrella over my head, 
 wishing that it would come on to rain again, so 
 that it might not seem that I was insane. 
 
 When it did shut it did so unexpectedly and 
 knocked one's hat off. 
 
 I don't know why it should be so, but it is an 
 undeniable fact that there is nothing makes a 
 man look so supremely ridiculous as losing his 
 hat. The feeling of helpless misery that shoots 
 down one's back on suddenly becoming aware 
 that one's head is bare is among the most 
 bitter ills that flesh is heir to. And then there 
 is the wild chase after it, accompanied by an 
 excitable small dog, who thinks it is a game, 
 and in the course of which you are certain to 
 upset three or four innocent children — to say 
 nothing of their mothers — butt a fat old gentle- 
 man onto the top of a perambulator, and carom 
 off a ladies' seminary into the arms of a wet 
 sweep. After this, the idiotic hilarity of the 
 spectators and the disreputable appearance of 
 
GQ IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 the hat when recovered appear but of minor 
 importance. 
 
 Altogether, what between March winds, April 
 showers, and the entire absence of May flow- 
 ers, spring is not a success in cities. It is all 
 very well in the country, as I have said, but in 
 towns whose population is anything over ten 
 thousand it most certainly ought to be abol- 
 ished. In the world's grim workshops it is like 
 the children — out of place. Neither shows to 
 advantage amid the dust and din. It seems so 
 sad to see the little dirt-grimed brats trying to 
 play in the noisy courts and muddy streets. 
 Poor little uncared-for, unwanted human atoms, 
 they are not children. Children are bright- 
 eyed, chubby, and shy. These are dingy, 
 screeching elves, their tiny faces seared and 
 withered, their baby laughter cracked and 
 hoarse. 
 
 The spring of life and the spring of the year 
 were alike meant to be cradled in the green 
 lap of nature. To us in the town spring 
 brings but its cold winds and drizzling rains. 
 We must seek it among the leafless woods 
 and the brambly lanes, on the heathy moors 
 and the great still hills, if we want to feel its 
 joyous breath and hear its silent voices. There 
 is a glorious freshness in the spring there. The 
 scurrying clouds, the open bleakness, the rush- 
 ing wind, and the clear bright air thrill one 
 with vague energies and hopes. Life, like the 
 landscape around us, seems bigger, and wider, 
 and freer — a rainbow road leading to unknown 
 ends. Through the silvery rents that bar the 
 sky we seem to catch a glimpse of the great 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 67 
 
 hope and grandeur that lies around this little 
 throbbing world, and a breath of its scent is 
 wafted us on the wings of the wild March 
 wind. 
 
 Strange thoughts we do not understand are 
 stirring in our hearts. Voices are calling us 
 to some great effort, to some mighty work. But 
 we do not comprehend their meaning yet, and 
 the hidden echoes within us that would reply 
 are struggling, inarticulate and dumb. 
 . We stretch our hands like children to the 
 light, seeking to grasp we know not what. Our 
 thoughts, like the boys' thoughts in the Danish 
 song, are very long, long thoughts, and very 
 vague; we cannot see their end. 
 
 It must be so. All thoughts that peer out- 
 side this narrow world cannot be else than dim 
 and shapeless. The thoughts that we can clear- 
 ly grasp are very little thoughts — that two and 
 two make four — that when we are hungry it 
 is pleasant to eat — that honesty is the best 
 policy; all greater thoughts are undefined and 
 vast to our poor childish brains. We see but 
 dim.ly through the mists that roll around our 
 time-girt isle of life, and only hear the distant 
 surging of the great sea beyond, 
 
 ON CATS AND DOGS. 
 What I've suffered from them this morning 
 no tongue can tell. It began with Gustavus 
 Adolphus. Gustavus Adolphus (they call him 
 "Gusty" downstairs for short) is a very good 
 sort of dog when he is in the middle of a large 
 field or on a fairly extensiv*^ common, but I 
 won't have him indoors. He means well, but 
 
68 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 this house is not his size. He stretches him- 
 self, and over go two chairs and a what-not. 
 He wags his tail, and the room looks as if a 
 devastating army had marched through it. He 
 breathes, and it puts tha fire out. 
 
 At dinner time he creeps in under the table, 
 lies there for awhile, and then gets up sud- 
 denly; the first intimation we have of his 
 movements being given by the table, which ap- 
 pears animated by a desire to turn somersaults. 
 We -all clutch at it frantically and endeavor to 
 maintain it in a horizontal position; whereupon 
 his struggles, he being under the impression 
 that some wicked conspiracy is being hatched 
 against him, become fearful, and the final pic- 
 ture presented is generally that of an over- 
 turned table and a smashed-up dinner sand- 
 wiched between two sprawling layers of infuri- 
 ated men and women. 
 
 He came in this morning in his usual style, 
 which he appears to have founded on that of an 
 American cyclone, and the first thing he did 
 was to sweep my coffee-cup off the table with 
 his tail, sending the contents full into the mid- 
 dle of my waistcoat. 
 
 I rose from my chair hurriedly, and remark- 
 ing " ," approached him at a rapid rate. He 
 
 preceded me in the direction of the door. At 
 the door he met Eliza coming in with eggs. 
 Eliza observed "Ugh!" and sat down on the 
 floor, the eggs took up different positions about 
 the carpet, where they spread themselves out, 
 and Gustavus Adolphus left the room. I called 
 after him, strongly advising him to go straight 
 down stairs and not let me see him again for 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 69 
 
 the next hour or so; and he, seeming to agree 
 with me, dodged the coal-scoop and went, while 
 I retur-ned, dried myself, and finished break- 
 fast. I made sure that he had gone into the 
 yard, but when I looked into the passage ten 
 minutes later he was sitting at the top of the 
 stairs. I ordered him down at once, but he 
 only barked and jumped about, so I went to see 
 what was the matter. 
 
 It was Tittums. She was sitting on the top 
 stair but one and wouldn't let him pass. 
 
 Tittums is our kitten. She is about the size 
 of a penny roll. Her back was up and she was 
 swearing like a medical student. 
 
 She does swear fearfully. I do a little that 
 way myself sometimes, but I am a mere ama- 
 teur compared with her. To tell you the truth 
 —mind, this is strictly between ourselves, 
 please; I shouldn't like your wife to know I 
 said it — the women folk don't understand these 
 things; but between you and me, you know, I 
 think it does a man good to swear. Swearing 
 is the safety-valve through which the bad tem- 
 per that might otherwise do serious internal 
 injury to his mental mechanism escapes in 
 harmless vaporing. When a man has said: 
 "Bless you, my dear, sweet sir. What the sun, 
 moon, and stars made you so careless (if I may 
 be permitted the expression) as to allow your 
 light and delicate foot to descend upon my 
 corn with so much force? Is it that you are 
 physically incapable of comprehending the di- 
 rection in which you are proceeding? you nice, 
 clever young man — you!" or words to that ef- 
 fect, he feels better. Swearing has the same 
 
70 IDLE THOUGHTS OP 
 
 soothing effect upon our angry passions that 
 smashing the furniture or slamming the doors 
 is so well known to exercise; added to which it 
 is much cheaper. Swearing clears a man out 
 like a pen'orth of gunpowder does the wash- 
 house chimney. An occasional explosion is 
 good for both. I rather distrust a man who 
 never swears, or savagely nicks the foot-stool, 
 or pokes the fire with unnecessary violence. 
 Without some outlet, the anger caused by the 
 ever-occurring troubles of life is apt to rankle 
 and fester within. The petty annoyance, in- 
 stead of being thrown from us, sits down beside 
 us and becomes a sorrow, and the little of- 
 fense is brooded over till, in the hot-bed of rumi- 
 nation, it grows into a great injury, under 
 whose poisonous shadow springs up hatred and 
 revenge. 
 
 Swearing relieves the feelings — that is what 
 swearing does. I explained this to my aunt 
 on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. 
 She said I had no business to have such feel- 
 ings. 
 
 That is what I told Tittums. I told her she 
 ought to be ashamed of herself, brought up in 
 a Christian family as she was, too. I don't so 
 much mind hearing an old cat swear, but I can't 
 bear to see a mere kitten give way to it. It 
 seems sad in one so young. 
 
 I put Tittums in my pocket and returned to 
 my desk. I forgot her for the moment, and 
 when I looked I found that she had squirmed 
 out of my pocket on to the table and was try- 
 ing to swallow the pen; then she put her leg 
 into the ink-pot and upset it; then she licked 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 71 
 
 her leg; then she swore again — at me this time. 
 I put her down on the floor, and there Tim 
 began rowing with her. I do wish Tim would 
 mind his own business. It was no concern of 
 his what she had been doing. Besides, he is 
 not a saint himself. He is only a two-year-old 
 fox-terrier, and he interferes with everything 
 and gives himself the airs of a gray-headed 
 Scotch collie. 
 
 Tittums' mother has come in and Tim has 
 got his nose scratched, for which I am re- 
 markably glad. I have put them all three out 
 in the passage, where they are fighting at the 
 present moment. I'm in a mess with the ink 
 and in a thundering bad temper; and if any- 
 thing more in the cat or dog line comes fool- 
 ing around me this morning, it had better bring 
 its own funeral contractor with it. 
 
 Yet, in general, I like cats and dogs very 
 much indeed. What jolly chaps they are! They 
 are much superior to human beings as com- 
 panions. They do not quarrel or argue with 
 you. They never talk about themselves, but 
 listen to you while you talk about yourself, and 
 keep up an appearance of being interested in 
 the conversation. They never make stupid 
 remarks. They never observe to Miss Brown 
 across a dinner table that they always under- 
 stood she was very sweet on Mr. Jones (who 
 has just married Miss Robinson). They never 
 mistake your wife's cousin for her husband and 
 fancy that you are the father-in-law. And they 
 never ask a young author with fourteen trage- 
 dies, sixteen comedies, seven farces, and a cou- 
 
72 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 pie of burlesques in his desk why he doesn't 
 write a play. 
 
 They never say unkind things. They never 
 tell us of our faults, "mereiy for our own 
 good." Tliey do not at inconvenient moments 
 mildly remind us of our past follies and mis- 
 takes. They do not say, "Oh, yes, a lot of use 
 you are if you are ever really wanted" — sarcas- 
 tic like. They never inform us, like our inamo- 
 ratas sometimes do, that we are not nearly so 
 nice as we used to be. We are always the 
 same to them. 
 
 They are always glad to see us. They are 
 with us in all our humors. They are merry 
 when we are glad, sober when we feel solemn, 
 and sad when we are sorrowful. 
 
 "Halloo! happy and want a lark? Right you 
 are; I'm your man. Here I am, frisking round 
 you, leaping, barking, pirouetting, ready for 
 any amount of fun and mischief. Look at my 
 eyes if you doubt me. What shall it be? A 
 romp in the drawing-room and never mind the 
 furniture, or a scamper in the fresh, cool air, 
 a scud across the fields and down the hill, and 
 won't we let old Gaffer Goggles' geese know 
 what time o' day it is, neither! Whoop! come 
 along." 
 
 Or you'd like to be quiet and think. Very 
 well. Pussy can sit on the arm of the chair and 
 purr, and Montmorency will curl himself up on 
 the rug and blink at the fire, yet keeping one 
 eye on you the while, in case you are seized 
 with any sudden desire in the direction of rats. 
 
 And when we bury our face in our hands and 
 wish we had never been born, they don't sit up 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 7^ 
 
 very straight and observe that we have brought 
 it all upon ourselves. They don't even hope it 
 will be a warning to us. But they come up 
 softly and shove their heads against us. If it 
 is a cat she stands on your shoulder, rumples 
 your hair, and says, "Lor,' I am sorry for you, 
 old man," as plain as words can speak; and if 
 it is a dog he looks up at you with his big, true 
 eyes and says with them. "Well you've always 
 got me, you know. We'll go through the world 
 together and always stand by each other, won't 
 
 we 
 
 He is very imprudent, a dog is. He never 
 makes it his business to inquire whether you 
 are in the right or in the wrong, never bothers 
 as to whether you are going up or down upon 
 life's ladder, never asks whether you are rich 
 or poor, silly or wise, sinner or saint. You are 
 his pal. That is enough for him, and come 
 luck or misfortune, good repute or bad, honor 
 or shame, he is going to stick to you, to com- 
 fort you, guard you, and give his life for you 
 if need iDe — foolish, brainless, soulless dog! 
 
 Ah! old stanch friend, with your deep, clear 
 eyes and bright, quick glances, that take in all 
 *one has to say before one has time to speak it, 
 do you know you are only an animal and have 
 no mind? Do you know that that dull;eyed, gin> 
 sodden lout leaning against the post out there is 
 immeasurably your intellectual superior? Do 
 you know that every little-minded, selfish 
 scoundrel who lives by cheating and tricking, 
 who never did a gentle fleed or said a kind 
 word, who never had a chought that wa? not 
 mean and low of a desire that was not base. 
 
f4 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 whose every action is a fraud, whose every ut- 
 terance is a lie — do you know that these crawl- 
 ing skulks (and there are millions of them in 
 the world), do you know they are all as much 
 superior to you as the sun is superior to rush- 
 light, you honorable, brave-hearted, unselfish 
 brute? They are men, you know, and men are 
 the greatest, and noblest, and wisest, and best 
 beings in the whole vast eternal universe. Any 
 man will tell you that. 
 
 Yes, poor doggie, you are very stupid, very 
 stupid indeed, compared with us clever men, 
 who understand all about politics and philoso- 
 phy, and who know everything, in short, except 
 v/hat we are and where we came from and 
 whither we are going, and what everything 
 outside this tiny world and most things in it 
 are. 
 
 Never mind, though, pussy and doggie, we 
 like you both all the better for your being 
 stupid. We all like stupid things. Men can't 
 bear clever women, and a woman's ideal man 
 is some one she can call a "dear old stupid." 
 It is so pleasant to come across people more 
 stupid than ourselves. We love them at once 
 for being so. The world must be rather a 
 rough place for clever people. Ordinary folk 
 dislike them, and as for themselves, they hate 
 each other most cordially. 
 
 But there, the clever people are such a very 
 insignificant minority that it really doesn't 
 much matter if they are unhappy. So long as 
 the foolish people can be made comfortable 
 the world, as a whole will get on tolerably well. 
 
 Cats have the credit for being more worldly 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 75 
 
 wise than dogs — of looking more after their 
 own interests and being less blindly devoted to 
 those of their friends. And we men and wo- 
 men are naturally shocked at such selfishness. 
 Cats certainly do love a family that has a car- 
 pet in the kitchen more than a family that has 
 not; and if there are many children about, they 
 prefer to spend their leisure time next door. 
 But, taken altogether, cats are libeled. Make 
 a friend of one, and she will stick to you 
 through thick and thin. All the cats that I 
 have had have been most firm comrades. I 
 had a cat once that used to follow me about 
 everywhere, until it even got quite embarrassing, 
 and I had to beg her, as a personal favor, not 
 to accompany me any further down the High 
 Street. She used to sit up for me when I was 
 late home and meet me in the passage. It 
 made me feel quite like a married man, except 
 that she never asked me where I had been 
 and then didn't believe me when I told her. 
 
 Another cat I had used to get drunk regularly 
 every day. She would hang about for hours 
 outside the cellar door for the purpose of sneak- 
 ing in on the first opportunity and lapping up 
 the drippings from the beer-cask. I do not 
 mention this habit of hers in praise of the 
 species, but merely to show how almost human 
 some of them are. If the transmigration of 
 souls is a fact, this animal was certainly quali- 
 fying most rapidly for a Christian, for her 
 vanity was only second to her love of drink. 
 Whenever she caught a particularly big rat, 
 she would bring it up into the room where we 
 were all sitting, lay the corpse down in the 
 
76 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 midst of us, and wait to be praised. Lord! 
 how the girls used to scream. 
 
 Poor rats! They seem only to exist so that 
 cats and dogs may gain credit for killing them 
 and chemists make a fortune by inventing 
 specialties in poison for their destruction. And 
 yet there is something fascinating about them. 
 They are so cunning and strong, so terrible in 
 their numbers, so cruel, so secret. They swarm 
 in deserted houses, where the broken case- 
 ments hang rotting to the crumbling walls and 
 the doors swing creaking on their rusty hinges. 
 They know the sinking ship and leave her, no 
 one knows how or whither. They whisper to 
 each other in their hiding-places how a doom 
 will fall upon the hall and the great name die 
 forgotten. They do fearful deeds in ghastly 
 charnel-houses. 
 
 No tale of horror is complete without the 
 rats. In stories of ghosts and murderers they 
 scamper through the echoing rooms, and the 
 gnawing of their teeth is heard behind the 
 wainscot, and their gleaming eyes peer through 
 the holes in the worm-eaten tapestry, and they 
 scream in shrill, unearthly notes in the dead 
 of night, while the moaning wind sweeps, sob- 
 bing, round the ruined turret towers, and 
 passes wailing like a woman through the cham- 
 bers bare and tenantless. 
 
 And dying prisoners, in their loathsome 
 dungeons, see through the horrid gloom their 
 small red eyes, like glittering coals, hear in 
 the death-like silence the rush of their claw- 
 like feet, and start up shrieking in the darkness 
 and watch through the awful night. 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 77 
 
 I love to read tales about rats. They make 
 my flesh creep so. I like that tale of Bishop 
 Hatto and the rats. The wicked bishop, you 
 know, had ever so much corn stored in his 
 granaries and would not let the starving peo- 
 ple touch it, but when they prayed to him for 
 food gathered themselves together in his barn, 
 and then shutting the doors on them, set fire 
 to the place and burned them all to death. But 
 next day there came thousands upon thousands 
 of rats, sent to do judgment on him. Then 
 Bishop Hatto fled to his strong tower that 
 stood in the middle of the Rhine, and barred 
 himself in and fancied he was safe. But the 
 rats! they swam the river, they gnawed their 
 way through the thick stone walls, and ate him 
 alive where he sat. 
 
 "They have whetted their teeth against the 
 stones. 
 And now they pick the bishop's bones; 
 They gnawed the flesh from every limb, 
 For they were sent to do judgment on him." 
 Oh, it's a lovely tale. 
 
 Then there is the story of the Pied Piepe; 
 of Hamelin, how first he piped the rats away 
 and afterward, when the mayor broke faitl. 
 with him, drew all the children along with him 
 and went into the mountain. What a curious 
 old legend that is! I wonder what it means, 
 or has it any meaning at all? There seems 
 something strange and deep lying hid beneath 
 the rippling rhyme. It haunts me, that picture of 
 the quaint, mysterious old piper piping through 
 Hamelin's narrow streets, and the children 
 following with dancin'T feet and thoughtful 
 eager faces. The old folks try to stay them, but 
 
78 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 the children pay no heed. They hear the weird, 
 witched Diusic and must follow. The gamea 
 tiic left unfinished and the playthings drop 
 from their careless hands. They know not 
 whither they are hastening. The mystic music 
 calls to them, and they follow, heedless and un- 
 asking where. It stirs and vibrates in their 
 hearts and other sounds grow faint. So they 
 wander through Pied Pieper Street away from 
 Hamelin town. 
 
 I get thinking sometimes if the Pied Piper 
 is really dead, or if he hiay not still be roam- 
 ing up and down our streets and lanes, but 
 playing now so softly that only the children 
 hear him. Why do the little faces look so 
 grave and solemn when they pause awhile 
 from rompin!?, and stand, deep wrapt, with 
 straining eyes? They only shake their curly 
 heads and dart back laughing to their play- 
 mates when we question them. But I fancy 
 myself they have been listening to the magic 
 music of the old Pied Piper, and perhaps with 
 those bright eyes of theirs have even seen his 
 odd, fantastic fisrure gliding unnoticed through 
 the whirl and throng. 
 
 Even we grown-up children hear his piping 
 now and then. But the yearning notes are 
 very far away, and the noisy, blustering world 
 is always bellowing so loud it drowns the 
 dream-like melody. One day the sweet, sad 
 strains will sound out full and clear, and then 
 we too shall, like the little children, throw our 
 playthings all aside and follow. The loving 
 hands will be stretched out to stay us, and the 
 voices we have learned to listen for will cry 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 79 
 
 .to US to stop. But we shall push the bond arms 
 gently back and pass out through the sorrow- 
 ing house and through the open door. For the 
 wild, strange music will be ringing in our 
 hearts, and we shall know the meaning of its 
 song by then. 
 
 I wish people could love animals without 
 getting maudlin over them, as so many do. 
 Women are the most hardened offenders in 
 such respects, but even our intellectual sex 
 often degrade pets into nuisances by absurd 
 idolatry. There are the gushing young ladies 
 who, having read "David Copperfield," have 
 thereupon sought out a small, long-haired dog 
 of nondescript breed, possessed of an irritat- 
 ing habit of criticising a man's trousers, and of 
 finally commenting upon the same by a sniff 
 indicative of contempt and disgust. They talk 
 sweet girlish prattle to this animal (when there 
 is any one near enough to overhear thern), 
 and they kiss its nose, and put its unwashed 
 head up against their cheek in a most touch- 
 ing manner; though I have noticed that these 
 caresses are principally performed when there 
 are young men hanging about. 
 
 Then there are the old ladies who worship 
 a fat poodle, scant of breath and full of fleas. 
 I knew a couple of elderly spinsters once who 
 had a sort of German sausage on legs which 
 they called a dog between them. They used 
 to wash its face with warm water every mo^-ri- 
 ing. It had n mutton cutlet regularly for 
 breakfast; and on Sundays, when one of the 
 ladies went to church, the other always 
 Stopped at home to keep the dog company. 
 
so IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 There are many families where the whole 
 interest of life is centered upon the dog. Cats, 
 by the way, rarely suffer from excess of adu- 
 lation. A^cat possesses a very fair sense of the 
 ridiculous,* and will put her paw down kindly 
 but firmly upon any nonsense of this kind. 
 Dogs, however, seem to like it. They encour- 
 age their owners in the tomfoolery, and the 
 consequence is that in ^he circles I am speak- 
 ing of what "dear Fido" has done, does do, 
 will do, won't do, can do, can't do, was doing, 
 is doing, is going to do, shall do, shan't do, and 
 is about to be going to have done is the con- 
 tinual theme of discussion from morning till 
 night. 
 
 All the conversation, consisting, as it does, of 
 the very dregs of imbecility, is addressed to 
 this confounded animal. The family sit in a 
 row all day long, watching him, commenting 
 upon his actions, telling each other anecdotes 
 about him, recalling his virtues, and remem 
 bering with, tears how one day they lost him 
 for two whole hours, on which occasion he was 
 brought home in a most brutal manner by the 
 butcher-boy, who had been met carrying him 
 by the scruff of his neck with one hand, 
 while soundly cuffing his head with the other. 
 
 After recovering from these bitter recollec- 
 tions, they vie with each other in bursts of 
 admiration for the brute, until some more than 
 usually enthusiastic member, unable any lon- 
 ger to control his feelings, swoops down upon 
 It. Whereupon the others, mad with envy, 
 the unhappy quadruped in a frenzy of affec- 
 tion, clutches it to his heart, and slobbers over 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 81 
 
 rise up, and seizing as much of the dog as 
 the greed of the first one has left to them, 
 murmur praise and devotion. 
 
 Among these people everything is done 
 through the dog. If you want to make love to 
 the eldest daughter, or get the old man to lend 
 you the garden roller, or the mother to sub- 
 scribe to the Society for the Suppression of 
 Solo-Cornet Players in Theatrical Orchestras 
 (it's a pity there isn't one, anyhow), you have 
 to begin with the dog. You must gain its ap- 
 probation before they will even listen to you, 
 and if, as highly probable, the animal, whose 
 frank, doggy nature has been warped by the un- 
 natural treatment he has received, responds to 
 your overtures of friendship by viciously snap- 
 ping at you, your cause is lost forever. 
 
 "If Fido won't take to any one," the father 
 has thoughtfully remarked beforehand, "I say 
 that man is not to be trusted. You know, 
 Maria, how often I have said that. Ah! he 
 knows, bless him." 
 
 Drat him! 
 
 And to think that the surly brute was once 
 an innocent puppy, all legs and head, full of fun 
 and play, and burning with ambition to be- 
 come a big, good dog and bark like mother. 
 
 Ah me! life sadly changes us all. The world 
 seems a vast horrible grinding machine, into 
 which what is fresh and bright and pure is 
 pushed at one end, to come out old and crabbed 
 and wrinkled at the other. 
 
 Look even at Pussy Sobersides, with her dull 
 sleepy glance, her grave, slow walk, and digni- 
 fied, prudish airs; who could ever think that 
 
82 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 once she was th? blu^-e^'^i whirling, scamper- 
 ing, head-over-hecls, mad little firework that 
 we call a kitten? 
 
 What marvelous vitality a kitten has. It is 
 really something very beautiful the way life 
 bubbles over in the little creatures. They rush 
 about, and mew, and spring; dance on their 
 hind legs, embrace everything with their front 
 ones, roll over and over, lie on their b^^cks and 
 kick. They don't know what to do with them- 
 selves, they are so full of life. 
 
 Can you remember, reader, when you and T 
 felt something of the same sort of thing? 
 Can you remember those glorious days of fresh 
 young manhood— rhow, when coming home 
 along the moonlit road, we felt too full of life 
 for sober walking, and had to spring and skip, 
 and wave our arms, and shout till ^Delated 
 farmers' wives thought — and with good rea- 
 son. too — that we were- mad. and kent close to 
 the hedge, while we stood and laughed aloud 
 to see them scuttle off so fast, anc made their 
 blood run cold with a wild n^rting whoop, and 
 the tears came, avg knew not why? Oh. that 
 m^ignificent young lifpf that crowned us kines 
 of the earth: that rushed through every ting- 
 ling vein till we seemed to walk on air: that 
 thrilled through our throbbing brains and told 
 us to go forth and conquer the whole world: 
 that welled up in our young hearts till we 
 longed to stretch cut our arms and gather all 
 the toiling men and women and the little chil- 
 dren to our breast and love them all — all. Ah! 
 they were grand davs, those deep, full davs, 
 v/hen our coming life, like an unseen organ, 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 33 
 
 pealed strange, yearnful music in our ears, and 
 our young blood cried out like a war-horse for 
 the battle. Ah, our pulse beats slow and steady 
 now, and our old joints are rheumatic, and we 
 love ovfr easy-chair and pipe and sneer at boys' 
 enthusiasm. But oh for one brief moment of 
 that god-like life again! 
 
 ON BEING SHY. 
 
 All great literary men are shy. I am myself 
 though I am told it is hardly noticeable. 
 
 I am glad it is not. It used to be extremely 
 prominent at one time, and was the cause of 
 much misery to myself and discomfort to every 
 one about me — my lady friends especially com- 
 plained most bitterly about it. 
 
 A shy man's lot is not a happy one. The merf 
 dislike him, the women despise him, and he 
 dislikes and despises himself. Use brings him 
 no relief, and there is no cure for him except 
 time; though I once came across a delicious 
 recipe for overcoming the misfortune. It ap- 
 peared among the "answers to correspondents" 
 in a small weekly journal and ran as follows— 
 I have never forgotten it: "Adopt an easy 
 and pleasing manner, especially toward ladies." 
 
 Poor wretch! I can imagine the grin with 
 which he must have read that advice. "Adopt 
 an easy and pleasing manner, especially toward 
 ladies," forsooth! Don't you adopt anything of 
 the kind, my dear young shy friend. Your at-, 
 tempt to put on any o'ther disposition than 
 you own will infallibly result in your becoming 
 ridiculously gushing and offensively familiar. 
 
84 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 Be your own natural self, and then you will 
 only be thought to be surly and stupid. 
 
 The shy man does have some slight revenge 
 upon society for the torture it inflicts upon 
 him. He is able, to a certain extent, to com- 
 municate his misery. He frightens other peo- 
 ple as much as they frighten him. He acts 
 like a damper upon the whole room, and the 
 most jovial spirits become in his presence de- 
 pressed and nervous. 
 
 This is a good deal brought about by mis- 
 understanding. Many people mistake the shy 
 man's timidity for overbearing arrogance and 
 are awed and insulted by it. His awkwardness 
 is resented as insolent carelessness, and when, 
 terror-stricken at the first word addressed to 
 him, the blood rushes to his head and the 
 power of speech completely fails him, he is 
 regarded as an awful example of the evil 
 effects of giving way to passion. 
 
 But, indeed, to be misunderstood is fhe shy 
 man's fate on every occasion; and whatever 
 impression he endeavors to create, he is sure 
 to convey its opposite. When he makes a joke, 
 it is looked upon as a pretended relation of 
 fact and his want of veracity much condemned. 
 His sarcasm is accepted as his literal opinion 
 and gains for him the reputation of being an 
 ass, while if, on the other hand, wishing to in- 
 gratiate himself, he ventures upon a litile bit , 
 of flattery, it is taken for satire and he is 
 hated ever afterward. 
 
 These and the rest of a shy man's troubles 
 are always very amusing to other people, and 
 have afforded material for comic writing from 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 85 
 
 time immemorial. But if we look a little deeper 
 we shall find there is a pathetic, one might 
 almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shy- 
 man means a lonely man — a man cut off from 
 all companionship, all sociability. He moves 
 about the world, but does not mix with it. 
 Between him and his fellow-men there runs 
 ever an impassable barrier — a strong, invisible 
 wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises 
 himself against. He sees the pleasant faces 
 and hears the pleasant voices on the other 
 side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to 
 grasp another hand. He stands watching the 
 merry groups, and he longs to speak and to 
 claim kindred with them. But they pass him 
 by chatting gayly to one another, and he can- 
 not stay them. He tries to reach them, but his 
 prison walls move with him and hem him in on 
 every side. In a busy street, in the crowded 
 room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of 
 pleasure, amid the many or amid the few — 
 wherever men congregate together, wherever 
 the music of human speech is heard and human 
 thought is flashed from human eyes, there, 
 shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, 
 stands apart. His soul is full of love and long- 
 ing, but the world knows it not. The iron 
 mask of shyness is riveted before his face, and 
 the man beneath is never seen. Genial words 
 and hearty greetings are ever rising to his 
 lips, but they die away in unheard whispers 
 behind the steel clamps. His heart aches for 
 the weary brother, but his sympathy is dumb. 
 Contempt and indignaflon against wrong choke 
 up his throat, and finding no saf«ty-valv€ 
 
86 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 v/hence in passionate utterance they may burst 
 ijrth, they only turn in again and harm him. 
 All the hate and scorn and love of a deep 
 nature such as the shy man is ever cursed by 
 fester and corrupt within, insead of spending 
 themselves abroad, and sour him into a mis- 
 anthrope and cynic. 
 
 Yes, shy men, like shy women, have a bad 
 time of it in this world, to go through which 
 with any comfort needs the hide of a rhinoc- 
 eros. Thick skin is, indeed, our moral clothes 
 and without it we are not fit to be seen abeut 
 in civilized society. A poor gasping, blushing 
 creature, with trembling knees and twitching 
 hands, is a painful sight to every one, and if 
 it cannot cure itself, the sooner it goes and 
 hangs itself the better. 
 
 The disease can be cured. For the comfort 
 of the shy, I can assure them of that from per- 
 sonal experience. I do not like speaking about 
 myself, as may have been noticed, but in the 
 cause of humanity I on this occasion will do 
 so, and will confess that at one time I was, 
 as the young man in the Bab Ballad says, "the 
 shyest of the shy," and "whenever I was in- 
 troduced to any pretty maid, my knees they 
 knocked together just as if I was afraid." Now, 
 I would — nay, have — on this very day before 
 yesterday I did the deed. Alone and entirely 
 by myself (as the school-boy said in translat- 
 ing the "Bellum Gallicum") did I beard a rail- 
 way refreshment-room young lady in her own 
 lair. I rebuked her in terms of mingled bitter- 
 ness and sorrow for her callousness and want 
 of condescension. I insisted, courteously but 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 87 
 
 firmly, on being accorded that deference and 
 attention that was the right of the traveling 
 Briton, and at the end I looked her full in the 
 face. Need I say more? 
 
 True, immediately after doing so I le^^t the 
 room with what may possibly have ap'peared 
 to be precipitation and without waiting for 
 any refreshment. But that was because I had 
 changed my mind, not because I was frightened 
 you understand. 
 
 One consolation that shy folk can take unto 
 themselves is that shyness is certainly no sign 
 of stupidity. It is easy enough for bull-headed 
 clowns to sneer at nerves, but the highest na- 
 tures are not necessarily those containing the 
 greatest amount of moral brass. The horse is 
 not an inferior animal to the cock-sparrow, nor 
 the deer of the forest to the pig. Shyness sim- 
 ply means extreme sensibility, and has nothing 
 whatever to do with self-consciousness or with 
 conceit, though its relationship to both is con- 
 tinually insisted upon by the poll-parrot school 
 of philosophy. 
 
 Conceit, indeed, is the quickest cure for it. 
 When it once begins to dawn upon you that 
 you are a good deal cleverer than anyone else 
 in this world, bashfulness becomes shocked and 
 leaves you. When you can look round a room- 
 ful of people and think that each one is a mere 
 child in intellect compared with yourself, you 
 feel no more shy of them than you would of a 
 select company of magpies or orang-outangs. 
 
 Conceit is the finest armor that a man can 
 wear. Upon its smooth, impenetrable surface 
 the puny dagger-thrusts of spite and envy 
 
88 IDLE THOUGPITS OP 
 
 glance harmlessly aside. Without that breast- 
 plate the sword of talent cannot force its way 
 through the battle of life, for blows have to be 
 borne as well as dealt. I do not, of course, speak 
 to th^ conceit that displays itself in an ele- 
 vated nose and a falsetto voice. That is not 
 real conceit — that is only playing at being con- 
 ceited; like children play at being kings and 
 queens and go strutting about with feathers and 
 long trains. Genuine conceit does not make a 
 man objectionable. On the contrary, it tends 
 to make him genial, kind-hearted, and simple. 
 He has no need of affectation — he is far too 
 well satisfied with his own character; and his 
 pride is too deep-seated to appear at all on the 
 outside. Careless alike of praise cr blame, he 
 can afford to be truthful. Too far, in fancy, 
 above the rest of mankind ';o trouble about 
 their petty distinctions, he is equally at home 
 with duke or costermonger. And valuing no 
 one's standard but his own, he is never tempt- 
 ed to practice that miserable pretense that less 
 self-reliant people offer up as an hourly sacri- 
 fice to the god of their neighbor's opinion. 
 
 The shy man, on the other hand, is humble — 
 modest of his own judgment and over-anxious 
 concerning that of others. But this in the case 
 of a young man is surely right enough. His 
 character is unformed. It is slowly evolving 
 itself out of a chaos of doubt and disbelief. 
 Before the growing insight and experience the 
 diffidence recedes. A man rarely carries his 
 shyness past the hobbledehoy period. Even if 
 his own inward strength does not throw it off, 
 the rubbings of the wcrld generally smooth it 
 
AN IDL.E FEKLOW 89 
 
 down. You scarcely ever meet a really shy 
 man — except in novels or on the stage, where, 
 by the bye, he is much admired, especially by 
 the women. 
 
 There, in that supernatural land, he appears 
 as a fair-haired and saint-ljke young man — 
 fair hair and goodness always go together on 
 the stage. No respectable audience would be- 
 lieve in one without the other. I knew an 
 actor who mislaid his wig once and had to 
 rush on to play the hero in his own hair, which 
 was jet-black, and the gallery howled at all 
 his noble sentiments under the impression that 
 he was the villain. He — the shy young man — 
 loves the heroine, oh so devotedly (but only 
 in asides, for he dare not tell her of it), and 
 he Is so noble and unselfish, and speaks in 
 such a low voice, and is so good to his mother; 
 and the bad people in the play, they laugh at 
 him and jeer at him, but he takes it all so 
 gently, and in the end it transpires that he is 
 such a clever man, though nobody knew it, and 
 then the heroine tells him she loves him, and 
 he is so surprised, and oh, so happy! and 
 everybody loves him and asks him to forgivb 
 them, which he does in a few well-chosen and 
 sarcastic words, and blesses them; and he 
 seems to have generally such a good time of 
 it that all the young fellows who are not shy 
 long to be shy. But the really shy man knows 
 better. He knows that it is not quite so pleas- 
 ant in reality. He is not quite so interesting 
 there as in the fiction. He is a little more 
 clumsy and stupid and a little less devoted 
 and gentle, and his hair is much darker, which. 
 
90 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 taken altogether, considerably alters the as- 
 pect of the case. 
 
 The point where he does resemble his ideal 
 is in his faithfulness. I am fully prepared to 
 allow the shy young man that virtue: he is 
 constant in his love. But the reason is not 
 far to seek. The fact is it exhausts all his 
 stock of courage to look one woman in the 
 face, and it would be simply impossible for 
 him to go through the ordeal with a second. 
 He stands in far too much dread of the whole 
 female sex to want to go gadding about with 
 many of them. One is quite enough for him. 
 
 Now, it is different wi:.h the young man who 
 is not shy. He has temptations which his 
 bashful brother never encounters. He looks 
 around and everywhere sees roguish eyes and 
 laughing lips. What more natural than that 
 amid so many roguish eyes and laughing lips 
 he should become confused and, forgetting for 
 the moment which particular pair of roguish 
 eyes and laughing lips it is that he belongs 
 to, go off making love to the wrong set. The 
 shy man, who never looks at anything but his 
 own boots, sees not and is not tempted. Happy 
 shy man! 
 
 Not but what the shy man himself would 
 much rather not be happy in that way. He 
 longs to "go it" with the others, and curses 
 himself every day for not being able to. He 
 will now and again, screwing up his courage 
 by a tremendous effort, plunge into roguish- 
 ness. But it is always a terrible fiasco, and 
 after one or two feeble flounders he crawls out 
 again, limp and pitiable. 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 91 
 
 I say "pitiable," though I am afraid he never 
 is pitied. There are certain misfortunes which, 
 while inflicting a vast amount of suffering upon 
 their victims, gain for them no sympathy. 
 Losing an umbrella, falling in love, toothache, 
 black eyes, and having your hat sat upon may 
 be mentioned as a few examples, but the chief 
 of them all is shyness. The shy man is re- 
 garded as an animate joke. His tortures are 
 the sport of the drawing room arena and are 
 pointed out and discussed with much gusto. 
 
 "Look," cry his tittering audience to each 
 other; "he's blushing!" 
 
 "Just watch his legs," says one. 
 
 "Do you notice how he is sitting?" adds an- 
 other: "right on the edge of the chair." 
 
 "Seems to have plenty of color," sneers a 
 military-looking gentleman. 
 
 "Pity he's got so many hands," murmurs an 
 elderly lady, with her own calmly folded on 
 her lap. "They quite confuse him." 
 
 "A yard or two off his feet wouldn't be a 
 disadvantage," chimes in the comic man, "es- 
 pecially as he seems so anxious to hide them." 
 
 And then another suggests that with such a 
 voice he ought to have been a sea-captain. 
 Some draw attention to the desperate way in 
 which he is grasping his hat. Some comment 
 upon his limited powers of conversation. Others 
 remark upon the troublesome nature of his 
 cough. And so on, until his peculiarities and 
 the company are both thoroughly exhausted. 
 
 His friends and relations make matters still 
 more unpleasant for the poor boy (friends and 
 relations are privileged to be more disagree- 
 
92 IDLE 'rHOUGHTS OF 
 
 able than other people). Not content with mak- 
 ing fun of him among themselves, they insist 
 on his seeing the joke. They mimic and cari- 
 cature him for his own edification. One, pre- 
 tending to imitate him, goes outside and comes 
 in again in a ludicrously nervous manner, ex- 
 plaining to him afterward that that is the 
 v/ay he — meaning the shy fellow — walks into a 
 room ; or, turning to him with "This is the 
 way you shake hands," proceeds to go through 
 a comic pantomime with the rest of the room, 
 taking hold of every one's hand as if it were 
 a hot plate and flabbily dropping it again. 
 And then they ask him why he blushes, and 
 why he stammers and why he always speaks in 
 an almost inaudible tone, as if they thought 
 he did it on purpose. Then one of them, stick- 
 ing out his chest and strutting about the room 
 like a pouter-pigeon, suggests quite seriously 
 that that is the style he should adopt. The old 
 man slaps him on the back and says: "Be bold, 
 my boy. Don't be afraid of any one." The 
 mother says, "Never do anything that you need 
 be ashamed of, Algernon, and then you never 
 need be ashamed of anything you do," and, 
 beaming mildly ar him, seems surprised at 
 the clearness of her own logic. The boys tell 
 him that he's "worse than a girl," and the 
 girls repudiate the implied slur upon their sex 
 by indignantly exclaiming that they are sure 
 no girl would be half as bad. 
 
 They are quite right; no girl would be. There 
 is no such thing as a shy woman, or, at all 
 events, I have never come across one, and 
 until I do I shall not believe in them. I know 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 93 
 
 that the generally accepted belief is quite the 
 reverse. All women are supposed to be like 
 timid, startled fawns, blushing and casting down 
 their gentle eyes when looked at and running 
 away when spoken to; while we men are sup- 
 posed to be a bold and rollicky lot, and the 
 poor, dear little women admire us for it, but 
 are terribly afraid of us. It is a pretty theory, 
 but, like most generally accepted theories, mere 
 nonsense. The girl of twelve is self-contained 
 and as cool as the proverbial cucumber, while 
 her brother of twenty stammers and stutters 
 by her side. A woman will enter a concert- 
 room late, interrupt the performance, and dis- 
 turb the whole audience without moving a hair, 
 while her husband follows her, a crushed heap 
 of apologizing misery. 
 
 The superior nerve of women in all matters 
 connected with love, from the casting of the 
 first sheep's-eye down to the end of the honey- 
 moon, is too well acknowledged to need com- 
 ment. Nor is the example a fair one to cite 
 in the present instance, the positions not being 
 equally balanced. Love is woman's business, 
 and in "business" we all lay aside our natural 
 weaknesses — the shyest man I ever knew was 
 a photographic tout. 
 
 ON BABIES. 
 Oh, yes, I do — I know a lot about 'em. I was 
 one myself once, though not long — not so long 
 as my clothes. They were very long, I recol- 
 lect, and always in my way when I wanted to 
 kick. Why do babies have such yards of un- 
 necessary clothing? It is not a riddle. I really 
 
94 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 want to know. I never could understand it. Is 
 it that the parents are ashamed of the size of 
 the child and wish to make believe that it is 
 longer than it actually is? I asked a nurse 
 once why it was. She said: 
 
 "Lor', sir, they always have long clothes, 
 bless their little hearts." 
 
 And when I explained that her answer, al- 
 though doing credit to her feelings, hardly dis- 
 posed of my difficulty, she replied: 
 
 "Lor', sir, you wouldn't have 'em in short 
 clothes, poor little dears?" And she said it in 
 a tone that seemed to imply I had suggested 
 some unmanly outrage. 
 
 Since then I have felt shy at making in- 
 quiries on the subject, and the reason — if 
 reason there be — is still a mystery to me. But 
 indeed, putting them in any clothes at all seems 
 absurd to my mind. Goodness knov/s there is 
 enough of dressing and undressing to be gone 
 through in life without beginning it before we 
 need; and one would think that people who live 
 in bed might at all events be spared the tor- 
 ture. Why wake the poor little w: etches up 
 in the morning to take one lot of clothes off, 
 fix another lot on, and put them to bed again, 
 and then at night haul them out once more, 
 merely to change everything back? And when 
 all is done, what difference is there, I should 
 like to know, between a baby's night-shirt and 
 the thing it wears in the day-time? 
 
 Very likely, however, I am only making my- 
 self ridiculous — I often do, so I am informed — 
 and I will therefore say no more upon this 
 matter of clothes, except only that It wouid be 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 95 
 
 of great convenience if some fashion was 
 adopted enabling you to tell a boy from a girl. 
 
 At present it is most awkward. Neither hair, 
 dress, nor conversation afford the slightest 
 clew, and you are left to guess. By some mys- 
 terious law of nature you invariably guess 
 wrong, and are thereupon regarded by all the 
 relatives and friends as a mixture of fool and 
 knave, the enormity of alluding to a male babe 
 as "she" being only equaled by the atrocity 
 of referring to a female infant as "he." Which- 
 ever sex the particular child in question hap- 
 pens not to belong to is considered as beneath 
 contempt, and any mention of it is taken as a 
 personal insult to the family. 
 
 And as you value your fair name do not 
 attempt to get out of the difficulty by talking 
 of "it." There are various methods by which 
 you may achieve ignominy and shame. By 
 murdering a large and respected family in cold 
 blood and afterward depositing their bodies in 
 the water companies' reservoir, you will gain 
 much unpopularity in the neighborhood of your 
 crime, and even robbing a church will get you 
 cordially disliked, especially by the vicar. But 
 If you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest 
 cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human 
 creature can pour out for you, let a young 
 mother hear you call dear baby "it." 
 
 Your best plan is to address the article as 
 "little angel." The noun "angel" being of com- 
 mon gender suits the case admirably, and the 
 epithet is sure of being favorably received. 
 "Pet" or "beauty" are useful for variety's 
 sake, but "angel" is the term that brings you 
 
0^ IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 the greatest credit for sense and good-feeling. 
 The word should be preceded by a short giggle 
 and accompanied by as much smile as po'5- 
 sible. And whatever you do, don't forget to 
 say that the child has got its father's nose. 
 This "fetches" the parents (if I may be allowed 
 a vulgarism) more than anything. They will 
 pretend to laugh at the idea at first and will 
 sa5% "Oh, nonsense!" You must then get 
 excited and insist that it is a fact. You need 
 have no conscientious scruples on the subject, 
 because the thing's nose really does resemble 
 its father's — at all events quite as much as it 
 does anything else in nature — being, as it is, 
 a mere smudge. 
 
 Do not despise these hints, my friends. There 
 may come a time when, with mamma on one 
 side and grandmamma on the other, a group of 
 admiring young ladies (not" admiring you, 
 though) behind, and a bald-headed dab of 
 humanity in front, you will be extremely thank- 
 ful for some idea of what to say. A man — an 
 unmarried man, that is — is never seen to such 
 disadvantage as when undergoing the ordeal 
 of "seeing baby." A cold shudder runs down 
 his back at the bare proposal, and the sickly 
 smile with which he says how delighted he 
 shall be ought surely to move even a mother's 
 heart, unless, as I am inclined to believe, the 
 whole proceeding is a mere device adopted by 
 wives to discourage the visits of bachelor 
 friends. 
 
 It is a cruel trick, though, whatever its 
 excuse may be. The bell is rung and some- 
 body sent to tell nurse to bring baby down. 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 97 
 
 This is the signal for all the females present 
 to commence talking "baby," during which 
 time you are left to your own sad thoughts 
 and the speculations upon the practicability 
 of suddenly recollecting an important engage- 
 ment, and the likelihood of your being believed 
 if you do. Just when you have concocted an 
 absurdly implausible tale about a man outside, 
 the door opens, and a tall, severe-looking 
 woman enters, carrying what at first sight 
 appears to be a particularly skinny bolster, 
 with the feathers all at one end. Instinct, 
 however, tells you that this is the baby, and you 
 rise with a miserable attempt at appearing 
 eager. When the first gush of feminine en- 
 thusiasm with which the object in question is 
 received has died out, and the number of ladies 
 talking at once has been reduced to the 
 ordinary four or five, the circle of fluttering 
 petticoats divides, and room is made for you 
 to step forward. This you do with much the 
 same air that you would walk into the dock 
 at Bow Street, and then, feeling unutterably 
 miserable, you stand solemnly staring at the 
 child. There is dead silence, and you know 
 that every one is waiting for you to speak. 
 You try to think of something to say, but find, 
 to your horror, that your reasoning faculties 
 have left you. It is a moment of despair, and 
 your evil genius, seizing the opportunity, sug- 
 gests to you some of the most idiotic remarks 
 that it is possible for a human being to per- 
 petrate. Glancing round with an imbe-cile 
 smile, you sniggeringly observe that "it hasn't 
 got much hair, has it?" Nobody answers you 
 
98 IDLE THOUCHTS OF 
 
 fo? a minuto. but at last Va-^ stut^ly nurse says 
 with much gruvlty: "I I is not customary for 
 children five wcehs old to have long hair." 
 Another silence follows this, and you feel you 
 are being given a second chance, which you 
 avail yourself of by inquiring if it can Vv^alk 
 yet, or what they feed it on. 
 
 By this time you have got to be regarded as 
 not quite right in your head, and pity is the 
 only thing felt for you. The nurse, however, is 
 determined that, insane or not, there shall be 
 no shirking and that you shall go through your 
 task to the end. In the tones of a high 
 priestess directing some religious mystery she 
 says, holding the bundle toward you: "Take 
 her in your arms, sir." You are too crushed 
 to offer any resistance and so meekly accept 
 the burden. "Put your arm more down her 
 middle, sir," says the high-priestess, and then 
 all step back and watch you intently as though 
 you are going to do a trick with it. 
 
 What to do you know no more than you did 
 what to say. It is certain something must be 
 done, and the only thing that occurs to you 
 is to heave the unhappy infant up and down 
 to the accompaniment of "oopsee-daisy," or 
 some remark of equal intelligence. "I wouldn't 
 jig her, sir, if I were you," says the nurse; "a 
 very little upsets her." You promptly decide 
 not to jig her and sincerely hope that you 
 have not gone too far already. 
 
 At this point the child itself, who has 
 hitherto been regarding you with an expression 
 of mingled horror and disgust, puts an end to 
 the nonsense by beginning to yell at the top of 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 99 
 
 its voice, at which the priestess rushes forward 
 unci snatches it from you with "There! there 1 
 there! What did urns do to urns?'' "How very 
 extraordinary I" you say pleasantly. "What- 
 ever made^ it go off like that?" "Oh, why, you 
 must have done something to her!" says the 
 mother indignantly; "the child wouldn't scream 
 like that for nothing." It is evident they think 
 j'ou have been running pins into it. 
 
 The brat is calmed at last, and would no 
 doubt remain quiet enough, only fcOme mis- 
 chievous busybody points you out again with 
 "Who's this, baby?" and the intelligent child, 
 recognizing you, howls louder than ever. 
 
 Whereupon some fat old lady remarks that 
 "it's strange how children take a dislike to 
 any one." "Oh, they know," replies another 
 mysteriously. "It's a wonderful thing," adds a 
 third; and then everybody looks sideways at 
 you, convinced you are a scoundrel of the 
 blackest dye; and they glory in the beautiful 
 idea that your true character, unguessed by 
 your fellow-men, has been discovered by the 
 untaught instinct of a little child. 
 
 Babies, though, with all their crimes and 
 errors, are not without their use — not without 
 use, surely, when they fill an empty heart; not 
 without use when, at their call, sunbeams of 
 love break through care-clouded faces; not 
 without use when their little fingers press 
 wrinkles into smiles. 
 
 Odd little people! They are the unconscious 
 comedians of the world's great stage. They 
 supply the humor in life's all-too-heavy drama. 
 Each one, a small but determined opposition 
 
100 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 to the order of things in general, is forever 
 doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, in 
 the wrong place and in the wrong way. The 
 nurse-girl who sent Jenny to see what Tommy 
 and Totty were doing and "tell 'em they 
 mustn't" knew infantile nature. Give an 
 average baby a fair chance, and if it doesn't 
 do something it oughtn't to a doctor should be 
 called in at once. 
 
 They have a genius for doing the most 
 ridiculous things, and they do them in a grave, 
 stoical manner that is irresistible. The busi- 
 ness-like air with which two of them will join 
 hands and proceed due east at a break-neck 
 toddle, while an excitable big sister is roaring 
 for them to follow her in a westerly direction, 
 is most amusing — except, perhaps, for the big 
 sister. They walk round a soldier, staring at 
 his legs with the greatest curiosity, and poke 
 him to see if he is real. They stoutly main- 
 tain, against all argument and much to the dis- 
 comfort of the victim, that the bashful young 
 man at the end of the 'bus is "dadda," A 
 crowded street-corner suggests itself to their 
 minds as a favorable spot for the discussion of 
 family affairs at a shrill treble. When in the 
 middle of crossing the road they are seized 
 with a sudden impulse to dance, and the door- 
 step of a busy shop is the place they always 
 select for sitting down and taking off their 
 shoes. 
 
 When at home they find the biggest walking- 
 stick in the house or an umbrella — open pre- 
 ferred — of much assistance in getting upstairs. 
 They discover that they love Mary Ann at the 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 101 
 
 precise moment when that faithful domestic is 
 blackleading the stove, and nothing will relieve 
 their feelings but to embrace her then and 
 there. With regard to food, their favorite 
 dishes are coke and cat's meat. They nurse 
 pussy upside down, and they show their affec- 
 tion for the dog by pulling his tail. 
 
 They are a deal of trouble, an^ they make a 
 place untidy and they cost a lot of money to 
 keep; but still you would not have the house 
 without them. It would not be home without 
 their noisy tongues and their mischief-making 
 hands. Would not the rooms seem silent with- 
 out their pattering feet, and might not you 
 stray apart if no prattling voices called you 
 together? 
 
 It should be so, and yet I have sometimes 
 thought the tiny hand seemed as a wedge, 
 dividing. It is a bearish task to quarrel with 
 that purest of all human affections — that per- 
 fecting touch to a woman's life — a mother's 
 love. It is a holy love, that we coarser-fibered 
 men can hardly understand, and I would not 
 be deemed to lack reverence for it when I say 
 that surely it need not sv\^allow up all other 
 affection. The baby need not take your whole 
 heart, like the rich man who walled up the 
 desert well. Is there not another thirsty 
 traveler standing by? 
 
 In your desire to be a good mother, do not 
 forget to be a good wife. No need for all the 
 thought and care to be only for one. Do not, 
 whenever poor Edwin wants you to come out, 
 answer indignantly, "What, and leave baby!" 
 Do not spend all your evenings upstairs, and 
 
102 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 do not eoofiue your conversation exclusively 
 to whooping-cough and measles. My dear little 
 woman, the child is not going to die every time 
 it sneezes, the house is net bound to get burned 
 down and the nurse run r.way with a soldier 
 every time you go outside the front door; nor 
 the cat sure to come and sit on the precious 
 child's chest the moment you leave the bedside. 
 You worry yourself a good deal too much about 
 that solitary chick, and you worry everybody 
 else too. Try and think of your other duties, 
 and your pretty face will not be always puck- 
 ered into wrinkles, and there will be cheerful- 
 ness in the parlor as well as in the nursery. 
 Think of your big baby a little. Dance him 
 about a bit; call him pretty names; laugh at 
 him now and then. It is only the first baby 
 that takes up the whole of a woman's time. 
 Five or six do not require nearly so much 
 attention as one. But before then the mischief 
 has been done. A house where there seems 
 no room for him and a wife too busy to think 
 of him have lost their hold on that so unrea- 
 sonable husband of yours, and he has learned 
 to look elsewhere for comfort and companion- 
 ship. 
 
 But there, there, there! I shall get myself 
 the character of a baby-hater if I talk any 
 more in this strain. And Heaven knows I am 
 not one. Who could be, to look into the little 
 innocent faces clustered in timid helplessness 
 round those great gates that open down into 
 the world? 
 
 The world-^the small round world! what a 
 vast mysterious place it must seem to baby 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 103 
 
 eyes! What a trackless continent the back 
 garden appears! What marvelous explorations 
 they make in the cellar under the stairs! With 
 what awe they gize down the long street, won- 
 dering, like us bigger babies when we gaze up 
 at the stars, where it all ends! 
 
 And down that longest street of all— that 
 long, dim street of life that stretches out be- 
 fore them — what grave, old-fashioned looks they 
 seem to cast! What pitiful, frightened looks 
 sometimes! I saw a little mite sitting on a 
 doorstep in a Soho slum one night, and I shall 
 never forget the look that the gas-lamp showed 
 me on its wizen face— a look of dull despair^ 
 as if from the squalid court the vista of its 
 own squalid life had risen, ghost-like, and 
 struck its heart dead with horror. 
 
 Poor little feet, just commencing the stony 
 journey! We old travelers, far down the road, 
 can only pause to wave a hand to you. You 
 come out of the dark mist, and we, looking 
 back, see you, so tiny in the distance, standing 
 on the brow of the hill, your arms stretched 
 out toward us. God speed you! We would 
 stay and take your little hands in ours, but 
 the murmur of the great sea is in our ears 
 and we may not linger. We must hasten down, 
 for the shadowy ships are waiting to spread 
 their sable sails. 
 
 ON EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 I always was fond of eating and drinking, 
 even as a child — especially eating, in those early 
 days. I had an appetite then, also a digestion. 
 I remember a dull-eyed, livid-complexioned gen- 
 
104 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 tleman coming to dine at our house once. He 
 watched me eating for about five minutes, quite 
 fascinated seemingly, and then he turned to 
 my father with — 
 
 "Does your boy ever suffer from dyspepsia?" 
 
 "I never heard him complain of anything of 
 that kind," replied my father. "Do you ever 
 suffer from dyspepsia, Collywobbles?" (They 
 called me Collywobbles, but it was not my real 
 name.) 
 
 "No, pa," I answered. After which I added: 
 "What is dyspepsia, pa?" 
 
 My livid-complexioned friend regarded me 
 with a look of mingled amazement and envy. 
 Then in a tone of infinite pity he slowly said: 
 
 "You will know — some day." 
 
 My poor, dear mother used to say she liked 
 to see me eat, and it has always been a pleasant 
 reflection to me since that I must have given 
 her much gratification in that direction. A 
 growing, healthy lad, taking plenty of exercise 
 and careful to restrain himself from indulging 
 in too much study, can generally satisfy the 
 most exacting expectations as regards his feed- 
 ing powers. 
 
 It is amusing to see boys eat when you have 
 not got to pay for it. Their idea of a square 
 meal is a pound and a half of roast beef with 
 five or six good-sized potatoes (soapy ones pre- 
 ferred as being more substantial), plenty of 
 greens, and four thick slices of Yorkshire pud- 
 ding, followed by a couple of currant dump- 
 lings, a few green apples, a pen'orth of nuts, 
 half a dozen jumbles, and a bottle of ginger- 
 beer. After that they play at horses. 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 105 
 
 How they must despise us men, who require 
 to sit quiet for a couple of hours after dining 
 off a spoonful of clear soup and the wing of a 
 chicken! 
 
 But the boys have not all the advantages on 
 their side. A boy never enjoys the luxury of 
 being satisfied. A boy never feels full. He can 
 never stretch out his legs, put his hands behind 
 his head, and, closing his eyes, sink into the 
 ethereal blissfulness that encompasses the well- 
 dined man. A dinner makes no difference what- 
 ever to a boy. To a man it is as a good fairy's 
 potion, and after it the world appears a brighter 
 and a better place. A man who has dined sat- 
 isfactorily experiences a yearning love toward 
 all his fellow-creatures. He strokes the cat 
 quite gently and calls it "poor pussy," in tones 
 full of the tenderest emotion. He sympathizes 
 with the members of the German band outside 
 and wonders if they are cold; and for the 
 moment he does not even hate his wife's rela- 
 tions. 
 
 A good dinner brings out all the softer side 
 of a man. Under its genial influence the 
 gloomy and morose become jovial and chatty. 
 Sour, starchy individuals, who all the rest of 
 the day go about looking as if they lived on 
 vinegar and Epsom salts, break out into 
 wreathed smiles after dinner, and exhibit a 
 tendency to pat small children on the head and 
 to talk to them — vaguely — about sixpences. Seri- 
 ous men thaw and become mildly cheerful, 
 and snobbish young men of the heavy-mustache 
 type forget to make themselves objectionable. 
 
 I always feel sentimental myself after dinner. 
 
106 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 It is the only time when I can properly ap- 
 preciate love-stories. Then, when the hero 
 clasps "her" to his heart in one last wild em- 
 brace and stifles a sob, I feel as sad as though 
 I had dealt at whist and turned up only a 
 deuce; and when the heroine dies in the end 
 I weep. If I read the same tale early in tho_ 
 morning I should sneer at it. Digestion, or' 
 rather indigestion, has a marvelous effect upon 
 the heart. If I want to write anything very 
 pathetic — I mean, if I v/ant to try to write 
 anything very pathetic — I eat a large plateful 
 of hot buttered muffins about an hour before- 
 hand, and then by the time I sit down to my 
 v/ork a feeling of unutterable melancholy has 
 come over me. I picture heartbroken lovers 
 parting forever at lonely wayside stiles, while 
 the sad twilight deepens arornd them, and only 
 the tinkling of a distant sheep-bell breaks thi 
 ccrrow-laden silence. Old men sit and gaze at 
 withered flowers till their sight is dimmed by 
 the mist of tears. Little diiinty maidens wait 
 and watch at open casements; but "he com.eth 
 not," and the heavy years roll by and th? 
 sunny gold tresses wear white and thin. The 
 babies that they dandled have become grown 
 men and women with podsy torments of their 
 own, and the playmates that they laughed 
 v/ith are lying very silent under the wavin^^ 
 n:rass. But still they wait and watch, till th 
 dark shadows of the unknown night steal \v 
 rnd gather round them and the world with itT 
 childish troubles fades from their aching eyes. 
 I see pale corpses tossed on white-foamed 
 "aves, and death-beds stained with bitter tears. 
 
I 
 
 AN IDLE FELLOW 107 
 
 and graves in trackless deserts. I hear the 
 wild wailing of women, the low moaning of 
 little children, the dry sobbing of strong men. 
 It's all the muffins. I could not conjure up one 
 melancholy fancy upon a mutton chop and a 
 glass of champagne. 
 
 A full stomach is a great aid to poetry, and 
 indeed no sentiment of any kind can stand 
 upon an empty one. We have not time or in- 
 clination to indulge in fanciful troubles until 
 we have got rid of our real misfortunes. We 
 do not sigh over dead dicky-birds with the 
 bailiff in the house, and when we do not know 
 where on earth to get our next shilling from, 
 we do not worry as to whether our mistress' 
 smiles are cold, or hot, or lukewarm, or any- 
 thing else about them. 
 
 Foolish people — when I say "foolish people" 
 in this contemptuous way I mean people who 
 entertain different opinions to mine. If there 
 is one person I do despise more than another, 
 it is the man who does not think exactly the 
 same on all topics as I do — foolish people, I 
 say, then, who have never experienced much 
 of either, will tell you that mental distress ir 
 far more agonizing than bodily. Romantic and 
 touching theory! so comforting to the love-sick 
 young sprig who looks down patronizingly at 
 some poor devil with a white starved face and 
 thinks to himself, "Ah, how happy you are 
 compared v/lth me!" — so soothing to fat old 
 gentlemen who cackle about the superiority of 
 poverty over riches. But it is all nonsense — 
 all cant. An aching head soon makes one for- 
 get an aching heart. A broken finger will 
 
108 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 drive away all recollections of an empty chair. 
 And when a man feels really hungry he does 
 not feel anything else. 
 
 We sleek, well-fed folk can hardly realize 
 what feeling hungry is like. We know what it 
 is to have no appetite and not to care for the 
 dainty victuals placed before us, but we do not 
 understand what it means to sicken for food — 
 to die for bread while others waste it — to gaze 
 with famished eyes upon coarse fare steaming 
 behind dingy windows, longing for a pen'orth 
 of pea pudding and not having the penny to 
 buy it — to feel that a crust would be delicious 
 and that a bone would be a banquet. 
 
 Hunger is a luxury to us, a piquant, flavor- 
 giving sauce. It is well worth while to get 
 hungry and thirsty merely to discover how 
 much gratification can be obtained from eating 
 and drinking. If you wish to thoroughly en- 
 joy your dinner, take a thirty-mile country walk 
 after breakfast and don't touch anything till 
 you get back. How your eyes will glisten at 
 sight of the white table-cloth and steaming 
 dishes then! With what a sigh of content you 
 will put down the empty beer tankard and 
 take up your knife and fork! And how com- 
 fortable you feel afterward as you push back 
 your chair, light a cigar, and beam round upon 
 everybody. 
 
 Make sure, however, when adopting this plan, 
 that the good dinner is really to be had at the 
 end, or the disappointment is trying, I re- 
 member once a friend and I — dear old Joe, it 
 was. Ah! how we lose one another in life's 
 mist. It must be eight years since I last saw 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 109 
 
 Joseph Taboys. How pleasant it would be to 
 meet his jovial face again, to clasp his strong 
 hand, and to hear his cheery laugh once more! 
 He owes me 14 shillings, too. Well, we were 
 on a holiday together, and one morning we had 
 breakfast early and started for a tremendous 
 long walk. We had ordered a duck for dinner 
 over night. We said, "Get a big one, because 
 we shall come home awfully hungry;" and as 
 we w^ere going out our landlady came up in 
 great spirits. She said, "I have got you gentle- 
 men a duck, if you like. If you get through 
 that you'll do well;" and she held up a bird 
 about the size of a door-mat. We chuckled 
 at the sight and said we would try. We said 
 it with self-conscious pride, like men who know 
 their own power. Then we started. 
 
 We lost our way, of course. I always do in 
 the country, and it does make me so wild, be- 
 cause it is no use asking direction of any of 
 the people you meet. One might as well in- 
 quire of a lodging-house slavey the way to 
 make beds as expect a country bumpkin to 
 know the road to the next village. You have 
 to shout the question about three times before 
 the sound of your voice penetrates his skull. 
 At the third time he slowly raises his head and 
 stares blankly at you. You yell it at him then 
 for a fourth time, and he repeats it after you. 
 He ponders while you count a couple of hun- 
 dred, after which, speaking at the rate of three 
 words a minute, he fancies you "couldn't do 
 
 better than " Here he catches sight of 
 
 another idiot coming down the road and bawls 
 out to him the particular? requesting hii^ a-^- 
 
110 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 vice. The two then argue the case for a quarter 
 of an hour or so, and finally agree that yon 
 had better go straight down the lane, ro-n'^i to 
 the right and cross by the third stile, and keep 
 to the .left by old Jimmy Milcher's ccw-.hc 
 nd across the seven-acre field, and through 
 the gate by Squire Grubbin*s hay-stack, keep- 
 ing the bridle path for awhile till you come 
 opposite the hill where the win'ilmill used t'^ 
 be — but it's gone now — and round to the right, 
 leaving Stigsin's plantation behind you; and 
 you say "Thank you' 'and go away with a split- 
 ting headache, but without the faintest notion 
 of your way, the only clear idea you have on 
 the subject bein^ that somewhere or other 
 "^here is a stile which has to be got over; and 
 at the next turn you come ur-on four stiles, all 
 leading in different directions! 
 
 We had undergone this ordeal tv/o or three 
 times. We had tramped over fields. We had 
 waded through brooks and scrambled over 
 hedges and walls. We had had a row as to 
 whose fault it was that we had first lost our 
 way. We had got thoroughly disagreeable, foot- 
 sore, and weary. But throughout it ail the hop 
 of that duck kept us up. A fairy-like vision, 
 it floated before our tired eyes and drew us 
 onward. The thought of it was as a trumpet- 
 call to the fainting. We talked of it and cheered 
 each other with our recollections of it. "Come 
 along," we said; "the duck will be spoiled." 
 
 We felt a strong temptation, at one point, to 
 turn into a village inn as we passed and have 
 a cheese and a few loaves between us, but we 
 heroically restrained ourselves; we should en- 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 111 
 
 joy the duck all the better for being famished. 
 
 We fancied we smelled it when we got into 
 the town and did the last quarter of a mile 
 in three minutes. We rushed upstairs, and 
 washed ourselves, and change:! our clothes, and 
 came down, and pulled our chairs up to the 
 table, and sat and rubbed our hands while the 
 landlady removed the covers, when I seized the 
 knil'e and fork and started to carve. 
 
 It seemed to want a lot of carving. I struggled 
 with it for about five minutes without making 
 the slightest impression, and then Joe, who had 
 been eating potatoes, wanted to know if it 
 wouldn't be better for some one to do the job 
 that understood carving. I took no notice of his 
 foolish remark, but attacked the bird again; and 
 so vigorously this time that the animal left 
 the dish and took refuge in the fender. 
 
 We soon had it out of that, though, and I 
 was prepared to make another effort. But Joe 
 was getting unpleasant. He said that if he 
 had thought we were to have a game of blind 
 hockey with the dinner he would have got a bit 
 of bread and cheese outside. 
 
 I was too exhausted to argue. I laid down 
 the knife and fork with dignity and took a side 
 seat and Joe went for the wretched creature, 
 He worked away in silence for awhile, and 
 then he muttered "Damn the duck" and took 
 his coat off. 
 
 We did break the thing up at length with the 
 aid of a chisel, but it was perfectly impossible 
 to eat it, and we had to make a dinner off the 
 vegetables and an apple tart. We tried a mouth- 
 
112 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 ful of the duck, but it was like eating India- 
 rubber. 
 
 It was a wicked sin to kill that drake. But 
 there! there's no respect for old institutions 
 in this country. 
 
 I started this paper with the idea of writing 
 about eating and drinking, but I seem to have 
 confined my remarks entirely to eating as yet. 
 Well, you see, drinking is one of those subjects 
 with which it is inadvisable to appear too well 
 acquainted. The days are gone by when it was 
 considered manly to go to bed intoxicated every 
 night, and a clear head and a firm hand no 
 longer draw down upon their owner the re- 
 proach of effeminacy. On the contrary, in these 
 sadly degenerate days an evil-smelling breath, 
 a blotchy face, a reeling gait, and a husky voice 
 are regarded as the hall marks of the cad rather 
 than of the gentleman. 
 
 Even nowadays, though, the thirstiness of 
 mankind is something supernatural. We are 
 forever drinking on one excuse or another. A 
 man never feels comfortable unless he has a 
 glass before him. We drink before meals, and 
 with meals, and after meals. We drink when 
 we meet a friend, also when we part from a 
 friend. We drink when we are talking, when 
 we are reading, and when we are thinking. 
 We drink one another's healths and spoil our 
 own. We drink the queen, and the army, and 
 the ladies, and everybody else that is drink- 
 able; and I believe if the supply ran short we 
 should drink our mothers-in-law. 
 
 By the way, we never eat anybody's health, 
 always drink it. Why should we not stand up 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 113 
 
 now and then and eat a tart to somebody's 
 success? 
 
 To me, I confess the constant necessity of 
 drinking under which the majority of men 
 labor is quite unaccountable. I can understand 
 people drinking to drown care or to drive away 
 maddening thoughts well enough, I can under- 
 stand the ignorant masses loving to soak them- 
 selves in drink — oh, yes, it's very shocking that 
 they should, of course — very shocking to us 
 who live in cozy homes, with all the graces 
 and pleasures of life around us, that the dwell- 
 ers in damp cellars and windy attics should 
 creep from their dens of misery into the warmth 
 and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to 
 float for a brief space away from their dull 
 world upon a Lethe stream of gin. 
 
 But think, before you hold up your hands in 
 horror at their ill-living, what "life" for these 
 wretched creatures really means. Picture the 
 squalid misery of their brutish existence, 
 dragged on from year to year in the narrow, 
 noisome room where, huddled like vermin in 
 sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; 
 where dirt-grimed children scream and fight 
 and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and 
 curse, and nag; where the street outside teems 
 with roaring filth and the house around is a 
 bedlam of riot and stench. 
 
 Think what a sapless stick this fair flower 
 of life must be to them, devoid of mind and 
 soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet 
 hay and munches the ripe corn contentedly. 
 The watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the 
 grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over 
 
114 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of glad- 
 ness to greet a caressing hand. But the clod- 
 like life of these human logs never knows one 
 ray of light. From the hour when they crawl 
 from their comfortless bed to the hour when 
 they lounge back into it again they never live 
 ona moment of real life. Recreation, amuse- 
 ment, companionship, they know not the mean- 
 ing of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friend- 
 ship, longing, despair, are idle words to them. 
 From the day when their baby eyes first look 
 out upon their sordid world to the day when, 
 with an oath, they close them forever and 
 their bones are shoveled out of sight, they never 
 warm to one touch of human sympathy, never 
 thrill to a single thought, never start to a 
 single hope. In the name of the God of mercy, 
 let them pour the maddening liquor down their 
 throats and feel for ona brief moment that they 
 live! 
 
 Ah! we may talk sentiment as much as we 
 like, but the stomach is the real seat of happi- 
 ness in this world. The kitchen is the chief 
 temple wherein we worship, its roaring fire is 
 our vestal flame, and the cook is our great 
 high-priest. He is a mighty magician and a 
 kindly one. He soothes away all sorrow and 
 care. He drives forth all enmity, gladdens 
 all love. Our God is great and the cook is his 
 prophet. Let us eat, drink, and be merry. 
 ON FURNISHED APARTMENTS. 
 
 "Oh, you have some rooms to let." 
 
 "Mother!" 
 
 "Well, what is it?" 
 
 " 'Ere's a gentleman about the rooms." 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 115 
 
 "Ask 'im in. I'll l^e up in a minute." 
 
 "Will yer step inside, sir? Mother'll be up in 
 a minute." 
 
 So you step inside, and after a minute "moth- 
 er" comes slowly up the kitchen stairs, unty- 
 ing her apron as she comes and calling down 
 instructions to some one below about the po- 
 tatoes. 
 
 "Good-morning, sir," says "mother," with a 
 washe-T-out smile. "Will you step this way, 
 please?" 
 
 "Oh, it's hardly worth while my coming up," 
 you say. "What sort of rooms are they, and 
 how much ?" 
 
 "Well," says tTie landlady, "if you'll step up- 
 stairs I'll show them to you." 
 
 So with a protesting murmur, meant to im- 
 ply th-^t ?ny wpste of time complained of here- 
 pff-r Tn"st not be l-'id to your charge, you fol- 
 low "mother" upstairs. 
 
 A!: the first l-^nding you run up against a 
 pail and a broom, whereupon "mother" expati- 
 ates upon the unreliability of servant-girls, and 
 bavis over the b:iluster3 for Sarah to come and 
 t:<ke them away at once. When you get out- 
 ni'le the rooms she pauses, with her hand upon 
 the door, to explain to you that they are rather 
 untidy Just at present, as the last lodger left 
 only yesterday; and she also adds that this 
 is their cleaning-day — it always is. With this 
 understanding you enter, and both stand sol- 
 emnly feasting your v?yes upon the scene before 
 you. The rooms cannot be said to appear in- 
 viting. Even "mother's" face betrays no ad- 
 miration. Untenanted "furnished apartments" 
 
116 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 viewed in the morning sunlight do not inspire 
 cheery sensations. There is a lifeless air about 
 them. It is a very different thing when you 
 have settled down and are living in them. With 
 your old familiar household goods to greet your 
 gaze whenever you glance up, and all your lit- 
 tle knick-knacks spread around you — with the 
 photos of all the girls that you have loved and 
 lost ranged upon the mantel-piece, and half a 
 dozen disreputable-looking pipes scattered about 
 in painfully prominent positions — with one car- 
 pet slipper peeping from beneath the coal-box 
 and the other perched on the top of the piano — 
 with the well-known pictures to hide the dingy 
 walls, and these dear old friends, your books, 
 higgledy-piggledy all over the place — with the 
 bits of old blue china that your mother prized, 
 and the screen she worked in those far by-gone 
 days, when the sweet old face was laughing and 
 young, and the white soft hair tumbled in gold- 
 brown curls from under the coal-scuttle bon- 
 net 
 
 Ah, old screen, what a gorgeous personage 
 you must have been in your young days, when 
 the tulips and roses and lilies (all growing 
 from one stem) were fresh in their glistening 
 sheen! Many a summer and winter have come 
 and gone since then, my friend, and you have 
 played with the dancing firelight until you 
 have grown sad and gray. Your brilliant col- 
 ors are fast fading now, and the envious moths 
 have gnawed your silken threads. You are 
 withering away like the dead hands that w^ove 
 you. Do you ever think of those dead hands? 
 You seem so grave and thoughtful sometimes 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 117 
 
 that I almost think you do. Come, you and I 
 and the deep-glowing embers, let us talk to- 
 gether. Tell me in your silent language what 
 you remember of those young days, when you 
 lay on -my little mother's lap and her girlish 
 fingers played with your rainbow tresses. Was 
 there never a lad near sometimes — never a lad 
 who would seize one of those little hands to 
 smot'ier it with kisses, and who would persist 
 in hvjlding it, thereby sadly interfering with 
 the progress of your making? Was not your 
 frail existence often put in jeopardy by this 
 same clumsy, headstrong lad, who would toss 
 you disrespectfully aside that he — not satisfied 
 with one — might hold both hands and gaze 
 up into the loved eyes? I can see that lad now 
 through the haze of the flickering twilight. He 
 is an eager, bright-eyed boy, with pinching, 
 dandy shoes and tight-fitting smalls, snowy 
 shirt frill and stock, and — oh! such curly hair. 
 A wild, light-hearted boy! Can he be the great, 
 grave gentleman upon v/hose stick I used to 
 ride cross-legged, the care-worn man into whose 
 thoughtful face I used to gaze with childish rev- 
 erence and whom I used to call "father?" You 
 say "yes," old screen; but are you quite sure? 
 It is a serious charge you arp bringing. Can it 
 be possible? Did he have to kneel down in 
 those wonderful smalls and pick you up and 
 re?rranp:e you before he was forgiven and h-s 
 curly head smoothed by his mother's little 
 hand? Ah! old screen, and did the lads and 
 the lassies go making love fifty years ago just 
 as they do now? Are men and women so un- 
 changed? Did little maidens' hearts beat the 
 
118 IDLE THOUGHTS OP 
 
 same under pearl-embroidered bodices as they 
 do under Mother Hubbard cloaks? Have steel 
 casques and chimneypot hats made no differ- 
 ence to the brains that work beneath them? 
 Oh, Time! great Chronos! and is this your 
 power? Have you dried up seas and leveled 
 mountains and left the tiny human heart- 
 strings to defy you? Ah, yes! they were spun 
 by a Mightier than thou, and they stretch be- 
 yond your narrow ken, for their ends are made 
 fast in eternity. Ay, you may mow down the 
 leaves and the blossoms, but the roots of life 
 He too deep for your sickle to sever. You re- 
 fashion Nature's garments, but you cannot vary 
 by a jot the throbbins:s of her pulse. The world 
 rolls round obedient to your laws, but the heart 
 of man is not of your kingdom, for in its birth- 
 place "a thousand years are but as yesterday." 
 
 I am getting away, though, I fear, from my 
 "furnished apartments," and I hardly know how 
 to get back. But I have some excuse for my 
 meanderings this time. It is a piece of old 
 furniture that has led me astray, and fancies 
 gather, somehow, round old furniture, like moss 
 around old stones. One's chairs and tables get 
 to be almost part of one's life and to seem like 
 quiet friends. What strange tales the wooden- 
 headed old fellows could tell did they but choose 
 to speak! At what unsuspected comedies and 
 tragedies have they not assisted! What bitter 
 tears have been sobbed into that old sofa cush- 
 ion! What passionate whisperings the settee 
 must have overheard! 
 
 New furniture has no charms for me com- 
 pared with old. It Is the old things that we 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 119 
 
 love — the old faces, the old books, the old Jokes. 
 New furniture can make a palace, but it takes 
 old furniture to make a home. Not merely old 
 in itself—lodging-house furniture generally is 
 that — but it must be old to U5>i0ld in associa- 
 tions and recollections. The furniture of fur- 
 nished apartments, however ancient it may be 
 in reality, is new to our eyes, and we feel as 
 though we could never get on with it. As, too, 
 in the case of all fresh acquaintances, whether 
 wooden or humr.n (and there is very little dif- 
 ference between the two species sometimes), 
 everything impresses you with its worst as- 
 pect. The knobby wood-work and shiny horse- 
 hair covering of the easy-chair suggest any« 
 thing but ease. The mirror is smoky. The cur- 
 tains want washing. The carpet is frayed. The 
 table looks as if it would go over the instant 
 rnything was rested on it. The grate is cheer- 
 less, the wall-paper hideous. The ceiling ap» 
 pears to have had coffee spilt all over it, and 
 the ornaments— well, they are worse than the 
 v/all-p-iper. 
 
 There must surely be some special and se- 
 ^■T3t manufactory for the production of lodging- 
 house ornaments. Precisely the same articles 
 -^re to be found at every lodging-house all over 
 ^he kingdom, and they are never seen any- 
 "here else. There are the two— what do you 
 --11 them? they stand one at each end of the 
 mantel-piece, where they are never safe, and 
 they are hung round with long triangular slips 
 of glass that clank against one another and 
 make you nervous. In the commoner class of 
 rooms these works of art are supplemented by 
 
120 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 a couple of pieces of china which might each 
 be meant to represent a cow sitting upon its 
 hind legs, or a model of the temple of Diana 
 at Ephesus, or a dog, or anything else you like 
 to fancy. Som.?>;here about the room you come 
 across a bilious-looking object, which at first 
 you take to be a lump of dough left about by 
 one of the children, but which on scrutiny 
 seems to resemble an underdone cupid. This 
 thing the landlady calls a statue. Then there 
 is a "sampler" worked by some idiot related 
 to the family, a picture of the "Huguenots," 
 two or three Scripture texts, and a highly 
 framed and glazed certificate to the effect that 
 the father has been vaccinated, or is an Odd 
 Fellow, or something of that sort. 
 
 You examine these various attractions and 
 then dismally ask what the rent Is. 
 
 "That's rather a good deal," you say on hear- 
 ing the figure. 
 
 "Well, to tell you the truth," answers the 
 landlady with a sudden burst of candor, "I've 
 always had" (mentioning a sum a good deal in 
 excess of the first-named amount), "and before 
 that I used to have" (a still higher figure). 
 
 What the rent of apartments must have been 
 twenty years ago makes one shudder to think 
 of. Every landlady makes you feel thoroughly 
 ashamed of yourself by informing you, when- 
 ever the subject crops up, that she used to get 
 twice as much for her rooms as you are pay- 
 ing. Young men lodgers of the last generation 
 must have been of a wealthier class than they 
 are now, or they must have ruined themselves. 
 I should have had to live in an attic. 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 121 
 
 Curious, that in lodgings the rule of life i^ 
 reversed. The higher you get up in tlie world 
 the lower you come down in your lodgings. 
 On the lodging-house ladder the poor man is at 
 the top, the rich man underneath. You start in 
 the attic and work your way down to the first 
 floor. 
 
 A good many great men have lived in attics 
 and some have died there. Attics, says the 
 dictionary, are "places where lumber is stored," 
 and the world has used them to store a good 
 deal of its lumber in at one time or another. Its 
 preachers and painters and poeis, its deep- 
 browed men who will find out things, its fire- 
 eyed men who will tell truths that no one wants 
 to hear — these are the lumber that the world 
 hides away in its attics. Haydn grew up in 
 an attic and Chatterton starved in one. Addi- 
 son and Goldsmith v/rote in garrets. Faraday 
 and De Quineey knew them well. Dr. Johnson 
 camped cheerfully in them, sleeping soundly — 
 too soundly sometimes — upon their trundle- 
 beds, like the sturdy old soldier of fortune that 
 he was, inured to hiirclsbip and all careless of 
 himself. Dickens spent bis youth among them, 
 Morlanl his old age — alas! a drunken, prema- 
 ture old age. Hans Andersen, the fairy king, 
 dreamed his sweet fancies beneath their slop- 
 ing roofs. Poor, wayward-hearted Collins 
 leaned his head upon their crazy tables; prig- 
 gish Benjamin Franklin; Savage, the wrong- 
 headed, much troubled when he could afford 
 vny softer bed than a doorstep; young Bloom- 
 field, "Bobby" Burns, Hogarth, Watts the en- 
 gineer — the roll is endless. Ever since the 
 
122 IDLE THOUGHTS OF 
 
 habitations of men were reared two stories high 
 has the garret been the nursery of genius. 
 
 No one who honors the aristocracy of mind 
 can feel ashamed of acquaintanceship with 
 them. Their damp-stained walls are sacred 
 to the memory of noble names. If all the wis- 
 dom of the world and all its art — all the spoils 
 that it has won from nature, all the fire that 
 it has snatched from heaven — were gathered 
 together and divided into heaps, and we could 
 point and say, for instance, these mighty truths 
 were flashed forth in the brilliant salon amid 
 the ripple of light laughter and the sparkle of 
 bright eyes; and this deep knowledge was dug 
 up in the quiet study, where the bust of Pallas 
 looks serenely down on the leather-scented 
 shelves; and this heap belongs to the crowded 
 street; and that to the daisied field—the heap 
 that would tovN^er up high above the rest as a 
 mountain above hills would be the one at 
 which we should look up and say: this noblest 
 pile of all— these glorious paintings and this 
 wondrous music, these trumpet words, these 
 solemn thoughts, these daring deeds, they were 
 forged and fashioned amid misery and pain in 
 the sordid squalor of the city garret. There, 
 from their eyries, while the w^orld heaved and 
 throbbed below, the kings of men sent forth 
 their eagle thoughts to wing their flight 
 through the ages. There, where the sunlight 
 streaming through the broken panes fell on 
 rotting boards and crumbling walls; there, 
 from their lofty thrones, those rag-clothed 
 Joves have hurled their thunderbolts and 
 shaken, before now, the earth to its founda- 
 tions. 
 
AN IDLE FELLOV/ 123 
 
 Huddle them up in your lumber-rooms, oh, 
 world! Shut them fast in and turn the key 
 of poverty upon them. Y/eld close the bars, 
 and let them fret their hero lives away within 
 the narrow cage. Leave them there to starve, 
 and rot, and die. Laugh at the frenzied beat- 
 ings of their hands against the door. Roll on- 
 ward in your dust and noise and pass them by, 
 forgotten. 
 
 But take care le?t they turn and sting you. 
 All do not, like the fabled phoenix, warble 
 sweet melodies in their agony; sometimes they 
 spit venom — venom you must breathe whether 
 you will or no, for you cannot seal their 
 mouths, though you m.ay fetter their limbs. 
 You can lock the door upon them, but they 
 burst open their shaky lattices and call out 
 over the house-tops so that men cannot but 
 hear. You hounded wild Rousseau into the 
 meanest garret of the Rue St. Jacques and 
 jeered at his angry shrieks. But the thin, pip- 
 ing tones swelled a hundred years later into 
 the sullen roar of the French Revolution, and 
 civilization to this day is quivering to the 
 reverberations of his voice. 
 
 As for myself, however, I like an attic. Not 
 to live in: as residences they are inconvenient. 
 There is too much getting up and downstairs 
 connected with them to please me. It puts one 
 unpleasantly in mind of the tread-mill. The 
 form of the ceiling offers too many facilities 
 for bumping your head and too few for shav- 
 ing. And the note of the tom-cat as he sings 
 to his love in the stilly night outside on the 
 
124 IDLE THOUGHTS OP 
 
 tiles becomes positively distasteful when heard 
 so near. 
 
 No, for living in give me a suit of rooms on 
 the first floor of a Piccadilly mansion (I wish 
 somebody would!); but for thinking in let me 
 have an attic up ten flights of stairs in the 
 densest quarter of the city. I have all Herr 
 Teufelsdrockh's affection for attics. There is 
 a sublimity about their loftiness. I love to 
 "sit at ease and look down upon the wasps' 
 nest beneath"; to listen to the dull murmur of 
 the human tide ebbing and flowing ceaselessly 
 through the narrow street^ and lanes below. 
 How small men seem, how like a swarm of ants 
 sweltering in endless confusion on their tiny 
 hill! How petty seems the work on which they 
 are hurrying and skurrying! How childishly 
 they Jostle against one another and turn to 
 snarl and scratch! They jabber and screech 
 and curse, but their puny voices do not reach 
 up here. They fret, and fume, and rage, and 
 pant, and die; "but I, m.ein Werther, sit above 
 it all; I am alone with the stars." 
 
 The most extraordinary attic I ever came 
 across was one a friend and I once shared 
 many years ago. Of all eccentrically planned 
 things, from Bradshaw to the m^aze at Hamp- 
 ton Court, that room was the most eccentric. 
 The architect who designed it must have been 
 a genius, though I cannot help thinking that 
 his talents would have been better employed in 
 contriving puzzles than in sh?riing human 
 habitations. No figure in Euclid could give 
 any idea of that apartment. It contained seven 
 corners, two of the walls sloped to a point, and 
 
AN IDLE FELLOW 125 
 
 the window was just over the fireplace. The 
 only possible position for the bedstead was 
 between the door and the cupboard. To get 
 anything out of the cupboard we had to scram- 
 ble over the bed, and a large percentage of the 
 various commodities thus obtained was ab- 
 sorbed by the bedclothes. Indeed, so many 
 things were spilled and dropped upon the bed 
 that toward night-time it had become a sort 
 of small co-operative store. Coal was what it 
 always had most in stock. We used to keep 
 our coal in the bottom part of the cupboard, 
 and when any was wanted we had to climb 
 over the bed, fill a shovelful, and then crawl 
 back. It was an exciting moment when we 
 reached the middle of the bed. We would hold 
 our breath, fix our eyes upon the shovel, and 
 poise ourselves for the last move. The next 
 instant we, and the coals, and the shovel, and 
 the bed would be all mixed up together. 
 
 I've heard of the people going into raptures 
 over beds of coal. We slept in one every night 
 and were not in the least stuck up about it. 
 
 But our attic, unique though it was, had by 
 no means exhausted the architect's sense of 
 humor. 'The arrangement of the whole house 
 was a marvel of originality. All the doors 
 opened outward, so that if any one wanted to 
 leave a room at the same moment that you 
 were coming downstairs it was unpleasant for 
 you. There was no ground-floor — its ground- 
 floor belonged to a house in the next court, 
 and the front door opened direct upon a flight 
 of stairs leading down to the cellar. Visitors 
 on entering the house would suddenly shoot 
 
G IDLE THOUGHTS 
 
 past the person who had answered the door 
 to them and disappear down these stairs. 
 Those of a nervous temperament used to im- 
 agine that it was a trap laid for them. an:l 
 would shout murder as they lay on their backs 
 at the bottom till somebody came and picked 
 them up. 
 
 It is a long time ago now that I last saw the 
 Inside of an attic. I have tried various floors 
 since, but I have not found that they have 
 made much difference to me. Life tastes much 
 the same, whether we quaff it from a golden 
 goblet or drink it out of a stone mug. The 
 liours come laden with the same mixture of 
 joy and sorrovv-, no m.atter where we wait for 
 them. A waistcoat of broadcloth or of fustian 
 is alike to an aching heart, and we laugh no 
 merrier on velvet cushions than we did on 
 wooden chairs. Often have I sighed in those 
 low-ceilinged rooms, yet disappointments have 
 come neither less nor lighter since I quitted 
 them. Life works upon a compensating bal- 
 ance, and the happiness we gain in one direc- 
 tion we lose in another. As our means in- 
 crease, so do our desires; and we ever stand 
 midway between the two. "When we reside in 
 an attic we enjoy a supper of fried fish and 
 stout. When we occupy the first floor it takes 
 an elaborate dinner at the Continental to give 
 us the same amount of satisfaction.