A Lame Dog's Diary Part 5

Eliza, a.s.suming the deep frown of learning which is quite common amongst us nowadays, was upon her in a moment, and said emphatically, "How would you define a genius?" The Socratic habit of asking for a definition is one that is always adopted during our discussions, and it is generally demanded in the tone of voice in which one says "check"

when playing chess. Frances Taylor was quite ready for Eliza, and said, "Genius, I think, is like some star----"

"a.n.a.logy is not argument!" Eliza pounced upon her in the voice that said, "I take your p.a.w.n."

It will be noticed, I fear, that in Stowel we are not altogether original in our arguments--many of them can be traced, alas! to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and they are not often the outcome of original thought.

Frances Taylor's king was once more in check, and she became a little nervous and irritable. "I do not think we need go into definitions,"

she said; but Eliza had gone indoors to "look it up." She returned presently with a dictionary, walking across the lawn towards us with its pages held close to her near-sighted eyes. "A genius," she began, and then she glanced disparagingly at the t.i.tle of the book, and said, "according to Webster, that is--but I do not know if we ought to accept him as a final authority--is explained as being 'a peculiar structure of mind which is given by Nature to an individual which qualifies him for a particular employment; a strength of mind, uncommon powers of intellect, particularly the power of invention.' A crank," she went on, "in its modern meaning, seems hardly to have been known to the writer of this dictionary; the word is rendered literally, as meaning 'a bend or turn.'"

"Then I submit," said Miss Taylor, "that Coleridge was a genius."

Miss Tracey said in a very sprightly manner--she often astonished us by showing a subtle turn of mind, and a graceful apt.i.tude for epigram which, it was believed, could only have found its proper field in those salons which are now, alas! things of the past--"Let us write him down a genius _and_ a crank! The two"--she advanced her daring view bravely--"the two are often allied." She had a volume of Coleridge on her bookshelves, and prided herself upon her appreciation--unusual in a woman--of the "Ancient Mariner."

"A genius in italics, and a crank followed by a mark of interrogation!"

said Eliza in a brilliant fashion; and Miss Taylor, not to be beaten in a matter of intellect, said at once, "Did Bacon write Shakespeare's plays?"

Mrs. Gallup and Mr. Lee were quoted extensively.

Miss Taylor could only suggest, with a good deal of quiet dignity, that she could write to The Uncle and find out who is right. This of course closes the controversy for the present.

George Jamieson, who goes to town every day, gains advanced views from the magazines which he reads during his dinner-hour in the City, and he is a great a.s.sistance to the Reading Society. I contribute the use of my library, and I have heard the members of the Reading Society say that "women are the true leaders of the present movement, and already their influence is being felt by the male mind."

George brought with him the current number of the Nineteenth Century when he came home last Friday, instead of Pearson's or the Strand, and already there are whispers of a Magazine Club in Stowel. Miss Frances Taylor received nothing but books on her last birthday, and Palestrina told me a pathetic little story of how Gracie Jamieson went without a pair of shoes to buy a copy of Browning. Perhaps the climax of culture and learning was felt only to have been reached when Eliza introduced the expression "Hypothesis of Purpose" into an ordinary conversation at the conclusion of one of the meetings of the Reading Society.

After this, as Palestrina remarked, it was quite refreshing to hear that the curate's wife had got a new baby. It was born on Sunday, and the anxious father spent his days bicycling wildly to and fro between his own house and the church, hopelessly confusing his reading of the service, and then flying back to inquire about his wife's health. Led by him we prayed successively for fine weather and for rain, while the Sunday-school teachers' meeting was announced for 2 a.m. on the following Sat.u.r.day, and the Coal Club notices were inextricably confused with the banns of marriage. After each service the distracted little man would leap on his bicycle again, and, scattering the departing congregation with his bicycle bell, he was off down the hill to his house. His perturbation was nothing compared with the confusion at home, where, so far as I could make out, the bewildered household did nothing but run up and down stairs, and madly offer each other cups of tea.

My sister's kind heart suggested that we should have Peggy, the eldest child, to stay with us until her mother should be better. Is it necessary to mention the fact that Palestrina is fat and very pretty, and that she spoils me dreadfully? Do I want a book, I generally find that Palestrina has written for it, almost before I had realized that life was a wilderness without it. I have never known her out of temper, nor anything else but placid and serene. And she has a low, gurgling laugh, and a certain way of saying, "Oh, that will be very nice!" to any proposal that one makes, which one must admit makes her a very charming and a very easy person to live with. She is fond of children, and she announced to Peggy with a beaming smile this morning that she had a new little brother.

Peggy went on quietly with her breakfast for some time without making any remark; then she gave a little sigh, and said: "Mamma thought she had enough children already, but I suppose G.o.d thought otherwise."

Peggy has been in low spirits all day, and closely following some line of reasoning of her own she has flatly refused to say her prayers at bedtime.

Mrs. Fielden rode over to see us this morning, in her dark habit and the neat boots which she loves to tap with her riding-crop. She came into the dim hall like the embodiment of Spring or of Life, and sat down in her oddly-shaped habit as though she were at home and in no hurry to go off anywhere else. This gives a feeling of repose to a sick man. One knew that she would probably stop to luncheon, and that one would not have to say to her half a dozen times in the morning, "Please don't go."

Presently Margaret Jamieson, who had been doing the whole work of the curate's household during the late trying time, came with the baby in her arms to show him to Palestrina. Her manner had a charming air of matronliness about it, and she threw back the fretted silk of the veil that covered the face of the little creature in her arms with an air of pride that was rather pretty to see. But Eliza, who had raced over to our house in the usual Jamieson headlong fashion, to say something to us on the subject of textual criticism, looked severely at the infant through her gla.s.ses, and remarked that she had no sympathy whatever with that sort of thing. Margaret hugged the baby closer to her, and Mettie, who had pattered over to see us with her cousin Eliza, remarked that children and their upbringing were doubtless among the great risks of matrimony.

"I am sure," said Eliza, "when one sees how happy Kate is with James, it makes one feel that marriage is not so very great a risk after all."

That there should be an element of sarcasm in this remark did not even suggest itself to Eliza.

"We should all be thankful," piped forth Mettie, who is always ready to talk, "that it has turned out so well. Kate's courage and independence of mind seem exactly suited to Mr. Ward. But that is what I think about us all at Belmont; our characteristics are so different that any gentleman coming amongst us might find something to attract him in one, if not in the others. Margaret is our home-bird, and Eliza is so cultured, and Kate----"

The two Miss Jamiesons were looking very uncomfortable, and Margaret said, "O Mettie, dear!" while Mrs. Fielden made an excuse for walking over to the piano. There was a piece of music open upon it. "Do sing it," she said to Palestrina.

THE GAY TOM-t.i.t.

"A tom-t.i.t lived in a tip-top tree, And a mad little, bad little bird was he.

He'd bachelor tastes, but then--oh dear!

He'd a gay little way with the girls, I fear!

"Now, a Jenny wren lived on a branch below, And it's plain she was vain as ladies go, For she pinched her waist and she rouged a bit.

With a sigh for the eye of that gay tom-t.i.t.

She sighed, 'Oh my!'

She sighed, 'Ah me!'

While the tom-t.i.t sat on his tip-top tree-tree-tree.

And she piped her eye A bit-bit-bit For the love of that gay tom-t.i.t-t.i.t-t.i.t.

"She saw that her rouge did not attract, So she tried to decide how next to act: She donned a stiff collar and fancy shirt, And she wore, what is more, a divided skirt.

Then she bought cigarettes and a big latch-key, And she said, 'He'll be bound to notice me!'

But she found her plan did not work one bit, For he sneered, as I feared, did that gay tom-t.i.t.

He sneered, 'Oh my!'

He sneered, 'Oh lor!

What on earth has she done that for-for-for?'

And he winked his eye A bit-bit-bit, That giddy and gay tom-t.i.t-t.i.t-t.i.t.

"'Alas! no more,' said the poor young wren, 'Will I ape the shape of heartless men!'

So she flung cigarettes and big latch-key With a flop from the top of the great green tree.

And she wouldn't use rouge or pinch her waist, But she dressed to the best of a simple taste; Then she learned to cook and sew and knit-- 'What a pearl of a girl!' said the gay tom-t.i.t.

Said he, 'Good day!'

Said she, 'How do?'

They were very soon friends, these two-two-two.

And I'm bound to say In a bit-bit-bit She married that gay tom-t.i.t-t.i.t-t.i.t."

Thus sang Palestrina.

"Ethically considered, my dear Palestrina," said Eliza, "that song is distinctly unmoral."

"Don't let us consider it ethically," said Palestrina tranquilly; and she went over and sat in the corner of the sofa with several pillows at her back.

"Ethically considered," repeated Eliza, "that song, if one pursues its teaching to a logical conclusion, can only mean that all female social development is impossible, and that the whole reason for a woman's existence is that she may gratify man."

"They are really not worth it," murmured Mrs. Fielden, who was in a frivolous mood.

"And mark you," said Eliza, in quite the best of the Reading Society manner: "it does not suggest that that gratification may be inspired either by our beauty or by our intellect; indeed, it proves that such powers are worthless to inspire it. It postulates the hypothesis"--Eliza is really splendid--"that man is a brute whose appreciation can only be secured by ministering to his desire for food and suitable clothing, and that woman's whole business is to render this creature complacent."

"Don't you think things are much pleasanter when people _are_ complacent?" said my sister easily.

Eliza fixed her with strong, dark eyes. "Were I describing you in a book," she said--one feels as though Eliza will write a book, probably a clever one, some day--"I should describe you as a typical woman, and therefore a pudding. A dear, tepid pudding, with a pink sauce over it.

Very sweet, no doubt, but squashy--decidedly squashy. Some day," said Eliza triumphantly, "you will be squashed into mere pulp, and you will not like that."

This did not seem to be a likely end for Palestrina. Eliza continued: "Who will deny that men are selfish?"

"But they are also useful," said Mrs. Fielden in an ingenuous way.

"They open doors for one, don't you know, and give one the front row when there is anything to be seen, even when one wears a big hat; and they see one into one's carriage--oh! and lots of other useful little things of that sort."

"Admitted," said Eliza, "that women have certain privileges--have they any Rights?"