Over the Fireside with Silent Friends Part 3

FOR ONE WEEK ONLY!

The Awful End of the Man who Gobbled his Food!

Mary of the Hooked Figure; or, the Girl who Wouldn't Change her Wet Socks!

A Picture of Living Vermin; or, the Man who Never Washed!

The End of the Girl who Would Take the Wrong Turning!

Parents, Free. Children, One Penny. Schools and Large Parties by Arrangement.

It would ease the burden of parenthood enormously. It might even "Save the Children." Maybe they would thank their mother from the bottom of their hearts because she took them to see these living examples of youthful folly instead of lugging them to a dull lecture on hygiene.

For half the silly things we do, we do because we don't realise the consequences. The man who _knows everything_ would gladly give up all his knowledge if he could turn back the hands of the clock, and, instead of studying the origin of Arabic, learn to recognise a pair of damp sheets when he got in between them; while a Woman of a Thousand Love Affairs would forego the memory of nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine of these if she could return to the early days and drink a gla.s.s of hot water between every meal! For, as I said before, Love leaves us and enthusiasms die; but Old Age which can sit down to a good dinner and thoroughly enjoy it without having to have a medical bulletin stuck up outside its bedroom door for days afterwards, is an Old Age which no one can call really unhappy. To eat is, at last, about the only joy which is left to us. The "romantic" will shudder at my philosophy, I know; but the "romantic" have generally such a lot to live for beside their meals. Old Age hasn't. That is why elderly people who can begin to look forward to their dinner--say at five o'clock in the afternoon--can be said to have reached the "ripe old age" of the Scriptures. If they _can't_?--well, over-ripe to _rottenness_ is the only description.

_It's oh, to be out of England--now that spring is here!_

I don't know if you, fair reader, find that in the spring your fancy turns to thoughts of love--I know mine doesn't! On the contrary, it turns to thoughts of sulphur tablets and camomile tea and other sickly or disagreeable circ.u.mventions of the "creakiness" of the human body.

For among the things I could teach Nature is that, when she made man, she did not permit him to "flower" in the spring and start each year with something at least resembling his pristine vigour--if he ever had any. But, whereas the spring gives a new glory to birds, and trees, and plants, she only gives to us--built in the image of G.o.d--spots, a disordered liver, and a muddy complexion. It seems a piece of gross mismanagement, doesn't it? It would be so delightful if, once a year, we were filled with extra energy; if our hair sprouted once more in the colour with which we were born; if the old skin shed itself and a new one came on so beautiful as to ruin the business of all the "Mrs.

Pomeroys" of this world. But Nature seems, once having made us, to leave us severely alone; to let us wither on our stalks, as it were, until we drop off them and are swept away into the dustbin of the worms and weeds. The mind is a far kinder ally. Oh, no; say what you will in the praise of spring, to all those who, as it were, have commenced the "bulge" of anno domini, it is a very trying season. Besides--here in England anyway--it is as uncertain as a flirt. Sometimes it suddenly comes upon us in the early days of March or lets mid-winter pay us a visit in the lengthening days of May. One never quite knows what spring is going to do. One never knows what kind of clothes to wear to please it. So often one sallies forth arrayed in winter underwear, because the morning awoke so coldly, only to spend the rest of the day eating ices to keep the body calm and cool. Or, again, the spring morning greets us with the warmth of an August day; we jump up gaily, deck ourselves out in muslin, sally forth, take a sudden "chill," and spend the rest of the week in bed!

One is always either too hot or too cold. It is the season of the unaccountable draught. True, it often turns the fancy towards sweet thoughts of love--but the fancy usually ends with an influenza cold through indulging in sentimental dalliance upon the gra.s.s. On the whole, I always think that spring in England is nicer to sing about than experience. It is delightful as a season of "promise"--but, like humanity, it often treats its promises like pie-crusts. Still, it _is_ spring, and--although the body rarely recognises the fact except to ruin by biliousness the romance which is surging in its heart--summer is, as it were, knocking at the door. And from June to mid-July--that surely is the glory of the year! After July, summer becomes a little dusty at the hem. Still, dusty, or even dirty, it makes life worth living. Nevertheless, I only wish that it were greedier and stole three months away from winter. For winter is too long, and spring is too uncertain, and autumn too full of "Farewell."

But summer never palls. And we have five summers to make up for, haven't we? For no one could really enjoy anything during the war except the war news--when it was favourable. But now we can--well, if not enjoy ourselves, at least lie back, just whispering to ourselves that, when the sun shines the world is a lovely place, and, so far as England is concerned, there is at any rate a kind of camouflaged peace.

And so we have to be very very old if we cannot feel in our hearts a breath of youth and spring. After all, when the sun shines, we are, or feel we are, of any age--or of no age whatever. And if we cannot burst into flower like the roses, we can at least enjoy the beauty of the rose when it blooms--which other roses cannot do. Thus, with a few small mercies, life is very good when the sun shines, isn't it?

_Bad-tempered People_

I would sooner live with an immoral man or woman than a bad-tempered one. An immoral person can often be a very charming companion, quite easy to live with--if you take the various excuses for sudden absences at their face value, and don't probe too deeply into the business; in fact, if you are not in love with the absentee. A bad-tempered person in the house may have the morality of the angels--but life with him is a daily "h.e.l.l," like always living with strangers, or a mad dog, or in a room full of those ornaments which belong, almost exclusively, to lodging-houses everywhere. Briefly, he is always _there_--ready to burst into flames at any moment, ready to misunderstand everything anybody does or says, a perpetual bugbear; and not even the emotional repentances, which are often the only partially saving grace of bad-tempered people, can atone for the atmosphere of disturbance which they always inflict. And the man or woman who loses his temper whenever anything goes in the slightest bit wrong--well, from them may the Lord deliver me for ever, Amen! They carry their ill-nature about with them all day and under all circ.u.mstances. Sometimes they seem to imagine that their spirit of disagreeableness is a sign of the super-man, or of that dominating personality of which Caesar and Napoleon are historical examples. They frequent restaurants and harry the already over-harried waiters. It is such a very easy victory--the victory over a paid servant. But the conquerors stamp themselves for ever and for ever among Nature's "cads" nevertheless. Anybody who is rude enough can give a quelling performance of "G.o.d Almighty" before menials. Some people delight to do so, apparently. They possess everything except an instinctive respect for a man and woman, however lowly, who are earning their own living. And the lack of it places them among the inglorious army of the "bounders" for all time. When there is no "inferior" upon whom to vent the outbursts of their own supreme egoism, they find their wives extremely useful. In the days when the divorce laws are "sensible," freedom will be granted for perpetual bad temper sooner than for occasional unfaithfulness.

Of course, we all have our days when we are like nothing so much as gunpowder looking for a match. We can't be perfect and serene all the time. And if ever, as I have just hinted, we do wake up in the morning feeling as if we could get up and quarrel with a bee because it buzzes, a Beecham pill will probably soon put us in a regular "click" of a humour. ("Mr. Carter" never offered me anything; nor did Sir Thomas Beecham. But being fond of grand opera, I mention the pills "worth a guinea a box" for preference. Besides, they tell us a "Beecham at night makes you sing with delight!" So there!) That is one of the reasons why I always advocate a "silence room" in every household which otherwise is large enough to put the biggest room aside to play billiards in. I would have it quite small, and decorated in restful, neutral tints, with the finest view from the window thereof that the house could supply. I would also have a little window cut out of the door, through which food could be pushed in to the sufferer without him having to tell the domestic that it is a fine day and that he hopes her bunion's better. This little room would be devoted to those inmates of the house who got up on the wrong side of the bed because both sides were "wrong sides" that morning. There he, or she, would stay until the world seemed to be bright again. And they would come forth in their new and serener state of mind, blessing the idea with all their hearts. For if, as they have to do now, they had come downstairs in the mood in which they woke up, the whole house would have known of it to curse it, and most of its members would not be on polite speaking terms for days afterwards. Of course, the idea could be recommended also for those people whose temper is always in a state of uproar. The only difficulty, however, would be, then--they might live in the silence room all their lives and die there--beloved, because _unseen_.

But that is the only thing to do with an habitually disagreeable person--_lock him up_, and, if you be wise, _take away the key of the dungeon with you_!

_Polite Masks_

You never really know anybody--until you have either lived with them, travelled with them, or drunk a gla.s.s of port with them quietly over the fireside. In almost every other instance, what you become acquainted with is one of a variety of _masks_! And everyone has a fine a.s.sortment of these, haven't they? For the most part you don them unconsciously--or rather, you have got so used to a.s.suming them suddenly that you have lost all consciousness of effort. But they are _masks_, nevertheless--and a mask always hides the truth, doesn't it?

Not that I am one of those, however, who dislike camouflage because it _is_ camouflage. In fact, most of the time I thank Heaven for it--my own and other people's! The "a.s.sumed" is so often so much more agreeable than the natural, and nine times out of ten all you require of men and women is that they should at least _look_ pleasant. You've got to get through this life day after day somehow, and time pa.s.ses ever so much quicker for everyone if the hypocrite be a smiling hypocrite at all times. At every moment of the everyday--preserve me from the _sour_-visaged saint.

After all, only love and friendship and the law demand the truth and nothing but the truth. Among acquaintances, among all the many thousands you meet through life only to discuss the weather and your own influenza symptoms--all you ask of them is that they should bring out their smiling mask as readily as you struggle to a.s.sume your own.

Only, as I said before, in love and friendship and the courts of law is the mask an insult, a tragic disillusion and a sham. In every other circ.u.mstance it is usually a blessing. Without it society, as a social entertainment, would become impossible. For society is but a collection of men and women wearing masks, each one vying with the others to make his mask the most attractive, and, at the same time, the most concealing. But the worst of wearing masks is, that we become tired at last of holding them in front of our features. This makes the entertainment of watching the truth peering through the camouflage one of the most amusing among the many unpremeditated amus.e.m.e.nts of the social world. After all, as I said before, so long as your lover and your friend, and the witnesses you have subpoenaed on behalf of your own case, show you _truth_--all you ask of the others is the most agreeable mask they can put on for the occasion. But even lovers and friends may deceive you, while some witnesses' idea of the truth in the law courts hasn't that semblance of reality possessed by the Medium's description of life in the world beyond. That is what makes matrimony often such a gamble with loaded dice, and holidays so often more tedious than work. To be in the company of one's lover for one ecstatic hour tells one nothing of what he will be when, day after day, one has to live with him in deadly intimacy until death doth part us both.

Neither do you really know how much, or how little, your friend means to you, until you have been with her on a cold railway station for hours, when fate has done its best to make you both lose your tempers and your luggage. Only a very _real_ love can survive smiling through that period when, from almost maudlin appreciation, a husband gradually sinks into the commonplace mood of taking his soul's mate "for granted." Only _real_ friendship can live through the disillusionment of irritable temper, lack of imagination, and boredom so often revealed while travelling in the company of friends. More than half the mutual life of lovers and friends is spent behind masks--for masks are sometimes necessary to keep love and friendship great and true. But one must, nevertheless, know _something_ of the real man and woman _behind the mask_--even though that which lies behind it may prove disappointing--before you can prove that your love is _real_ love, that your friendship is _real_ friendship, that you love your lover or your friend, not only for what they are, but also in spite of what they are _not_.

_The Might-Have-Been_

It is rare to come across anybody with very definite ideas; it is rarer still to meet a man and woman brave enough to put their ideas into practice. The hardest battle in life--and one of the longest--is the battle to live your own life. No one realises what fighting really means until they stand in battle-array face to face with relations.

But most of us have to fight this battle sooner or later, and if we fight and yet make a "hash" of the victory we gain, is it not better so? Relations always think they know what is best for you. Well, perhaps they do, if the "best" be a circ.u.mspect kind of goodness. But they rarely know what you _want_, and, until you have got what you really want, even though you find it is "Dead Sea fruit" after all, the thought always haunts the disappointed Present by visions of the glorious Might-Have-Been.

Relatives always seem to imagine that, when you say you want to lead your own life, it is always a "bad" life you want to lead. They seem to think that a girl leading her own life is a girl entertaining men friends, until goodness knows what hour of the night, alone in her bachelor flat, they picture a man leading his own life as a man whose memoirs would send shudders down a really nice woman's spine. They never realise that there is happiness in personal freedom and liberty--happiness which is happy merely in the independent feeling of self-respect which this freedom and liberty gives. They would like boys and girls to continue to maturity the same life which they led when they were children, subject to the same restrictions, bowing to the same parental point of view. No one knows of what he is capable until he has begun the battle of life in the world of men, independent and on his own. Better make a "hash" of everything; better suffer and endure and grow old in disappointment, than live in a gilded cage with clipped wings, while kind-hearted people feed you to repletion through the bars.

A girl or boy, who has no occupation, other than the occupation of mere amus.e.m.e.nt, who has no Ideal; who has no interest other than the interest of pa.s.sing the time, is not only useless, but detestable as a member of human society, while his old age is of unhappiness the most unhappy. For what is Old Age worth if it has no "memories"; and what are "memories" worth if they are not memories of having lived one's life to the full? To me, to live one's own life is to live--or, perhaps I ought to say, to strive to live--all those ideals which Reflection has shown you to be good, and Nature has given you the power to accomplish. That to me is the fight to live your own life--the fight to realise yourself, to live the "best" that is in you. For a man and woman must be able to hold up their heads high, not only face to face with the world, but face to face with their own selves, before they can say that Life is happy, that Life has been worth while. The tragic cases are those who cannot live their own lives because the lives of other people demanded their sacrifice, a sacrifice which cannot be withheld without loss of self-respect, of that good fellowship with your own "soul" which some people call Conscience.

This sacrifice is generally a woman's sacrifice. You may see the victims of it in any church, in any town, at almost any hour of the day. They are grey-haired, and sad, and grim, and they hold the more tenaciously to the promise of happiness in After Life because they have sacrificed, or permitted to pa.s.s by, the happiness of this. To a great extent it is a "Victorian" sacrifice. They are victims of that pa.s.sing Belief which was convinced that a girl of gentle birth ought to administer to her parents, pay calls, uphold the Church, and do a little needlework all her life, unless some man came along to marry her and give her emanc.i.p.ation. The happiness which goes with a career, even if that career fails, is saving daughters from this parentally imposed "atrophy." They are learning that to live one's own life is not necessarily to live a "bad" life, but a "fuller" life. Thus the young are teaching the Old People wisdom--the knowledge that youth has its Declaration of Rights no less than Middle Age.

_Autumn Sowing_

I sometimes think the man who first said that "the road to h.e.l.l is paved with good intentions" must have said it in November. The autumn is full of good intentions--just as spring is full of holiday and hope, and summer of heat and _dolce far niente_. But, just as the first warm day in June fills you with a physical vitality which you feel convinced that you must live for ever, so autumn makes you realise that life is fleeting and the mind has not yet reached its full development, nor intellectual ambition its complete fruition. Perhaps it is the touch of winter in the air which braces your mind and soul and gives you the impression that, given the long autumn evenings over the fire undisturbed, your brain will soon be capable of tackling the removal of mountains. If you are unutterably silly (as so many of us are--alas! for the world's sanity; but thank heaven for the world's humour!) you will plan a whole curriculum of intellectual labour for the quiet evenings over the fireside. Oh, the books--good books, I mean--you will read! Oh, the subjects you will study! Perhaps you will learn Russian, or maybe something strange and out-of-the-ordinary, like Arabic! You dream of the moment when, speaking quite casually, you will inform your friends that you are reading the whole of the novels of Balzac; that you are studying for the law and hope to pa.s.s your "Final" "just for the fun of the thing"; that you are learning Persian, and intend to retranslate the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and discover other Eastern philosophers. In fact, there is no end to the things you intend to do in the autumn evenings over the fireside when your labours of the day are over.

Briefly, you are going to "cultivate your mind"; and when people talk about "cultivating their minds," they usually regard the mind as a kind of intellectual allotment which anyone can till--given determination, an easy-chair near a big fire, and the long, long autumn evenings.

_What You Really Reap_

But alas! all you do . . . all you _really_ do, is . . . Well, as I said before, the man who first said that "the way to h.e.l.l is paved with good intentions," must have said it in the autumn, or perhaps, in the spring, when he realised how few of the good intentions he had lived up to.

Well, maybe the most enjoyable part of going to h.e.l.l is paving the way with, as it were, your back turned to your eventual goal. And sometimes I rather fancy, in spite of all the moralist may say, the paving-stones of good intent that you have laid on your way to perdition will be counted in your favour, and the Recording Angel will place them to your credit--which she can't do if, metaphorically speaking, you have not paved a way anywhere, but just been content to live snugly on the little plot upon which Fate planted you at the beginning, and you were too dully inert either to cultivate hot-house orchids thereon or even let it become overgrown with wild oats and roses. And I think sometimes that on good intentions we eventually mount to heaven. I certainly know that the good intentions of the early autumn make me very nearly forgive the cycle of the seasons which robs me of summer and its joys. And after all, there is always this to be said for a good intention, n.o.body knows, yourself least of all, if you may not one day fulfil it. That is what makes dreaming so exciting. In your dreams you _have_ learnt Russian; you _have_ read all the novels of Balzac; you _will_ be able to understand Sir Oliver Lodge when he leaves the realms of spiritualism and talks about the stars. And maybe--who knows?--by the time that your dreams have materialised into reality and spring has just arrived, you _will_ be able to tell Lenin, if you happen to meet him, that you have "seen the daughters of the lawyer and lost the pen of your aunt"; and you _will_ have read the books of Paul de k.o.c.k because you couldn't struggle through Balzac; and you _will_ know the composition of the moon and the impossibility of there being a man in it--which, after all, is a far greater achievement than having played countless games of bridge, learnt sixty-two steps of the tango, evolved a racing system, and arrived at loving the Germans, isn't it?

_Autumn Determination_

But unless your determination be something Napoleonic, you won't have achieved very much more than this. It has all been so invigorating and delightful to contemplate; and the way of your decline has been so cosy and so comfortable, and it has so often ended in a gla.s.s of hot "toddy"

and so to bed. You had stage-managed your self-education so beautifully.

You had brought the most comfortable easy-chair right up to the fire; you had put on your "smoking"--not that garment almost as uncomfortable as evening-dress, but that coat which is made of velvet, or flannel, softly lined with silk and deliciously padded: you had brought out all your books--the "First Steps to Russian," "How to appreciate Balzac,"

"Introduction to Astronomy"--put your feet on the fender, cut the end of your best cigar. Everything simply invited peace and comfort and an intellectual feast. Then, just _one more_ glimpse at the evening paper--and you would begin . . . oh yes! you _would begin_! And so you read about the threatened strike; the murder in East Ham; the leading article, the marriage of Lady Fitzclarence-Forsooth to--well, whoever she married, the funny remark the drunken woman made to the judge when he fined her two-and-six for kissing a policeman; Mr. Justice Darling's latest _mot_; the racing, the forthcoming fashions; the advertis.e.m.e.nt of Back-Ache Pills; Mr. C. B. Cochran's praise of his own productions, Mr.

Selfridge's praise of his own shop; the "Wants," the "Situations Vacant,"

the . . . Then somebody woke you up to ask if you were asleep . . .

which, of course, you _weren't_ . . . Well . . . well . . . It is past midnight! So what can one do now? What _can_ one do? Why, go to bed, of course. Another autumn evening is over. But then, there are plenty more . . . oh, plenty more. "Good-night."

_Two Lives_