ABOUT 
 
 w *9 
 
 D. WILLOUGHBY 
 
 flffi
 
 LIBRARY
 
 ABOUT IT 8? ABOUT
 
 ABOUT IT & ABOUT 
 
 BY 
 
 D. WILLOUGHBY 
 
 E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 
 681 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
 
 (All rights reserved) 
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
 
 TO MY 
 
 WIFE AND MOTHER
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IN the sketches and studies of which this 
 book consists, I have examined a number 
 of reputable British institutions. I have ranged 
 from John Bull, his wife and children, to the 
 houses in which they live, and to sundry public 
 bodies which are supposed to serve them. As 
 we do not live alone in the world, I have taken 
 a glance at Ireland, and have, when necessary, 
 extended my survey to other lands. I have also 
 had a few words to say on certain persons to 
 whom in the recent past we looked as leaders 
 of reform, but who now seem to be speaking to 
 audiences which no longer exist. 
 
 There have been many books about war, but 
 this is a book about peace. I have, therefore, 
 tried to make it a cheerful book. It will not, 
 however, add to the gaiety of those who believe 
 that an armistice and a treaty have made every- 
 thing right for us, and that there is now nothing 
 for them but to return to their sofas. Persons, 
 traditions, and institutions, once very useful, 
 must now either be abandoned or radically 
 altered. To cling to them when their use has 
 
 7
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 vanished is to invite revolution, and to use 
 them as the basis of reconstruction is to build 
 the new State upon sand. 
 
 A desire for new things is plain in many 
 quarters. 
 
 Never came reformation in a flood, 
 
 With such a heady currance, scouring faults. 
 
 The mere fact that a thing is and has been 
 seems to be taken often as reason enough for its 
 abolition, yet side by side with this spirit, 
 popularly called Bolshevism, exists a still power- 
 ful disposition towards reaction. Some are for 
 putting the clock forward, some for putting 
 it back ; few seem to know or to care what the 
 right time may be. War has made most people 
 violent. At the risk of being out of fashion, 
 I remain impenitently moderate. I confess to 
 a certain dislike of things as they are, yet when 
 I come on various fragments of the old world, 
 such as a church, a comedy by Mr. Shaw, or 
 a tavern with idolatrous literary associations, 
 I am anxious not only that it should be preserved, 
 but that it should be taken out of its lavender 
 and brought forthwith into daily service. 
 
 Of all people, the English know themselves 
 the least. They have not the habit of self- 
 
 8
 
 PREFACE 
 
 examination, and they may, in consequence, 
 be a trifle annoyed when I hold up a mirror to 
 them. The qualifications I claim for the task 
 are that I was born in William the Conqueror's 
 old duchv, that I have several dashes of Irish 
 
 J * 
 
 blood, and that I have recently passed a couple 
 of years on active service abroad, there enjoying 
 a chance for reflection on many things which in 
 the common hurry of existence I had previously 
 taken for granted. For the rest, I can only 
 advance the facts that I have lived most of my 
 life in England, and that, like the obscure Peter 
 Pattieson and other persons even less notable, 
 I possess " the usual allowance of visual organs." 
 Most of the following articles, in whole or part, 
 appeared in Everyman. My warmest thanks 
 are due to the editor for the encouragement 
 he gave me in their production, and thanks 
 equally warm are due to the friend who first 
 made me known to him. One article, in a 
 slightly shortened form, appeared in The Out- 
 look. 
 
 9
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAOS 
 
 I. THE BRITISH MATRON . . . .13 
 
 II. JOHN BULL . . . . . .22 
 
 III. THE YOUNG LADY . . . . .31 
 
 IV. THE PUBLIC SCHOOL . . . .40 
 V. THE BRASS HATS . . . . .50 
 
 VI. THE DIPLOMATISTS . . . . .58 
 
 VII. THE BENCH OP BISHOPS . . . .67 
 
 VIII. THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE . . . .76 
 
 IX. THE TEMPORARY CIVIL SERVANT . . .84 
 
 X. THE IMPERIALIST . . . , .93 
 
 XI. THE BUSINESS MAN ..... 101 
 
 XII. THE COUNTRY HOUSE .... 109 
 
 XIII. THE RATIONALIST . . . . .118 
 
 XIV. THE FABIAN SOCIETY .... 126 
 XV. THE WAR POETS ..... 135 
 
 XVI. KINGS IN EXILE ..... 144 
 
 XVII. MR. BERNARD SHAW .... 153 
 
 XVIII. MR. HILAIRB BELLOC . . . .161 
 
 11
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 PAM 
 
 XIX. THE ANARCHIST ..... 169 
 
 XX. SONS OP TOIL ..... 177 
 
 XXI. THE ORANGEMAN ..... 185 
 
 XXII. THE DAILY NEWSPAPER .... 193 
 
 XXIII. THE ACTOR-MANAGER .... 201 
 
 XXIV. THE SUPERMAN ..... 209 
 XXV. THE DOMESTIC SERVANT .... 217 
 
 XXVI. THE HOUSE OP LORDS .... 224 
 
 XXVII. THE PUBLIC HOUSE .... 234 
 
 XXVIII. THE POOR LAW . , . . . 243 
 
 XXIX. THE SPORTSMAN . . . . . 253 
 
 XXX. THE COUPON GOVERNMENT . . . 262 
 
 XXXI. CERTAIN ARTISTS ..... 270 
 
 XXXII. DOCTORS AND NURSES . . . . 279 
 
 XXXIII. THE LITERARY CRITICS .... 290 
 
 XXXIV. REVOLUTION? . 300 
 
 12
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 THE BRITISH MATRON 
 
 THAT the people of England have too 
 good a conceit of themselves has often 
 been alleged by their neighbours of Wales and 
 Scotland. They are said to have a habit of 
 calling English many things which can only be 
 properly covered by a wider adjective. They 
 talk of English literature, or England's effort 
 in the war, as though Sir Walter Scott had never 
 written and there had never been a Mr. Lloyd 
 George. As my place of birth was in the 
 Channel Islands, I have examined the matter 
 in a neutral spirit, and have come to the 
 conclusion that the charge is ill founded. The 
 more inclusive word is, I find, freely used for 
 those institutions which seem most to have a 
 quality of permanence, and in which, despite 
 an occasional grumble, the greatest pride is 
 taken. Invariably, one hears of the British 
 Navy, the British Constitution, and the British 
 Workman. To the soldier this term may be 
 
 13
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 less commonly applied, for the simple reason 
 that in normal times the English do not think 
 about soldiers apart from a few regiments such 
 as the British Grenadiers. Of literature they 
 seldom think at all. 
 
 With the ground thus cleared, I venture to 
 approach the British Matron. She, also, has 
 been regarded as of the immortals ever since 
 she first appeared among us, though from the 
 silence of certain old writers one must judge 
 that she was not always with us. Perhaps 
 the first positive reference to her is made by 
 Thomas Morton when, in Speed the Plough, he 
 mentions her as Mrs. Grundy, a name which 
 was to be remembered long after the rest of 
 the author's creation had passed from memory. 
 Frequently she has been reviled, but always 
 she has stood her ground, and so has won a right 
 to our consideration. " Who would not fall, 
 with all the world about her ? " Ben Jonson, 
 who knew her not, yet may have had some faint 
 prevision of her coming, provided the words 
 for her answer : " Not I, that would stand on 
 it, when it falls." Yes, and if my estimate 
 of her be correct, would even give it just one 
 more downward push in honour of her own 
 upstanding virtues. She would do it, too, as 
 
 14
 
 THE BRITISH MATRON 
 
 she has done so many other things, for the sake 
 of example. 
 
 Her period of least questioned power coincided 
 with the first fifty years of Queen Victoria's reign, 
 and her pride is that in that age were women 
 respected as they never have been respected 
 either before or since. She says that she made 
 the home her sphere, and was supreme in it, 
 which, of course, is true, since the husband, 
 having taken refuge at his club, did not dispute 
 her supremacy. She claims to have been the 
 mainstay of the Church ; vicars whom she intimi- 
 dated and curates whom she patronized both 
 admit her claim's validity. With her daughters, 
 her endeavour was always to bring them up 
 so that they should become as she was, and to 
 marry them at least as advantageously as she 
 had been married. Here, by the way, an inter- 
 esting fact of natural history emerges. No per- 
 fect specimen of the British Matron is known 
 to have been without daughters. The fully 
 developed stage has never been reached by a 
 woman who had sons alone. It looks almost 
 as though Nature, in her constant effort for 
 economy, will waste none of her gifts on those 
 who are not going to transmit them to another 
 generation. The only other explanation is 
 
 15
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 that the British Matron could never come to 
 completion save by perpetual practice in her 
 favourite occupation of being a model to others. 
 In housekeeping, as an end and aim in itself, 
 quite apart from what it might produce in the 
 way of comfort or aesthetic satisfaction, she 
 believed firmly ; yet, unlike her German sister, 
 she did not always have her girls thoroughly 
 trained in it. If she chanced to be a Countess, 
 she possibly had them taught to make butter 
 or something which would be similarly useless, 
 and, therefore, piquantly ornamental, in any 
 state of life to which they were likely to be called. 
 In any less aristocratic stratum of society she 
 pinned her faith to such accomplishments as 
 acquaintance with the plays of Bowdler or with 
 the musical glasses. These traces of inconsistency 
 may be more apparent than real. She educated 
 her daughters for marriages, not for married 
 life. There were several things the details of 
 which she held it would be better for them 
 to find out for themselves, and housekeeping 
 was merely one of them. With certain general 
 maxims she did, however, provide the dear 
 children. One was to distrust their servants ; 
 another was to be guided by their husbands 
 on any point where resistance might mean an 
 
 16
 
 THE BRITISH MATRON 
 
 open rupture. Married lives, she reflected, 
 were much of a muchness as long as there was 
 no disparity of incomes. Her girls would be 
 able to judge how she would have comported 
 herself when their times of trial came. Confident 
 that she was the cynosure of all eyes, she was 
 sure that every right-minded woman would be 
 wishful to mould herself on the pattern she 
 presented. 
 
 One knows fairly accurately what were her 
 ideas on art and politics. She liked members 
 of her family to have good looks, and thought 
 that people in her own social station had a duty 
 of dressing well. Beauty she distrusted. When 
 she suspected it in her kitchenmaid's fringe or 
 in a painting of the nude, she immediately 
 wanted it to be abolished. Of course she desired 
 her daughter to have accomplishments, but 
 they and that art of which people raved in 
 Paris and elsewhere were, thank goodness, two 
 different things. Nevertheless, her annual tour 
 of the Royal Academy showed she was not 
 intolerant. Sometimes she had found it not 
 unpleasant to meet at dinner a painter or writer, 
 but, if she mentioned him afterwards in her 
 own circle of friends, it would be with a meaning 
 smile as though she had to record an encounter 
 
 17 B
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 with a very intelligent Samoyed or a well-spoken 
 Bashi Bazouk. Of all foreigners she was doubt- 
 ful, being persuaded that their morals were 
 inferior to their manners, and what so often 
 induced her to send her girls to school among 
 them I cannot divine. It would have seemed 
 wrong to her if Olive and Mabel had not known 
 the French language, but it would have seemed 
 worse had she found them studying French 
 literature. Patriotic she certainly was a very 
 Britannia in a sealskin coat but the intricacies 
 of home politics did not interest her greatly 
 as long as nothing was mooted which could 
 interfere with her status. She knew it was 
 absurd to talk of raising others to her level, and 
 criminal and yet more absurd to talk of bringing 
 her to that of anybody else. Nonconformists 
 she must have disliked. She had nothing specific 
 against their religious tenets, but she had never 
 lost an opportunity herself of conforming to 
 everything that was established. 
 
 " Cant and inconsistency," wrote Max O'Rell, 
 " are the characteristics of the British Matron," 
 but he was a Frenchman, and could not have 
 been expected to like her. She had the virtues 
 of society, and they, as Emerson said, are the 
 vices of the saint. The real question is whether 
 
 18
 
 THE BRITISH MATRON 
 
 any man liked her, and whether, at her prime, her 
 sex was as honoured as her defenders would have 
 one think. Light on the subject may be thrown 
 by a glance at some old volumes of Punch, 
 that sure index to the opinions of the middle- 
 aged middle classes, amongst whom, if any- 
 where, she was revered. I can see Thackeray 
 having an eye on her when he writes of the 
 Parisians and their dramatists " joking against 
 marriage ever since writing began," and, again, 
 when in a burst of exaltation he draws the 
 obvious comparison : " We will laugh in the 
 company of our wives and children ; we will 
 tolerate no indecorum ; we like that our matrons 
 and girls should be pure." Yet, in the same 
 publication, Jerrold and Leech were all the while 
 engaged in vulgarizing the married woman. 
 They may not have joked against marriage ; 
 they certainly jcked most cruelly about it. By 
 every means they had, they made the married 
 woman look ridiculous, and half their humour 
 was spent on showing how tiresome she was to 
 her husband. They spared her at no hour of 
 day or night. Leech, whose " truth, fun, beauty, 
 and kindness " Thackeray had extolled, was 
 never kind to her. About her bedroom he 
 scattered her wearing apparel, and every article 
 
 19
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 of it was frowsy and indescribably repulsive. 
 Perhaps it was all quite decorous ; emphatically 
 it was not aphrodisaic. 
 
 Never, I am afraid, was the British Matron 
 popular, and her influence for good has been 
 too often over-rated. In the improvement of 
 manners she may have had a part, but in the 
 history of morals she is negligible. I have 
 written of her as though she belonged to the 
 past, but I know that though she does not belong 
 to our age she is still in it. Every few weeks 
 she writes to the papers about some breach she 
 has espied of the Grundified conventions. Might 
 one ask her, as Martial asked Cato, " Why did 
 you come to the theatre ? Was it only for the 
 sake of going out ? " The question would be 
 useless. She has not to enter public places to 
 find impropriety ; since her reign is over, she 
 knows it must be there. She has a flair for it. 
 At times one feels that she may yet do some 
 good in the world, but the worst of it is that she 
 so seldom lights on the things which most need 
 to be mended or ended. Poverty and cruelty 
 have strange ways of escaping her vigilance. 
 Vulgarity she often passes unheeded. What 
 really rouses her to action is the idea of people, 
 and particularly poor people or young people, 
 
 20
 
 THE BRITISH MATRON 
 
 enjoying themselves in ways she never knew 
 or has forgotten. They are not following her 
 example. They are doing something new and 
 different, and against that sort of thing she 
 always has, and always will, set her face.
 
 JOHN BULL 
 
 WHEN Barnaby Rudge and his mother 
 were journeying to London, they met 
 on the way a stout man with a long whip. This 
 individual's name has never been revealed, but 
 among his friends he had various endearing 
 appellations. He was variously styled " a 
 country gentleman of the true school," " a 
 sporting gentleman," " a thoroughbred English- 
 man; " others called him " a genuine John Bull." 
 These were several ways of describing him, 
 but on one point all his admirers were agreed. 
 They united in saying " that it was a pity there 
 were not more like him, and that because there 
 were not, the country was going to rack and ruin." 
 This same sentiment is still occasionally 
 expressed. Some while ago John Bull left the 
 shires to become a townsman, but it made no 
 great change in him. His sporting instinct 
 remained as strong as ever, even if he had to 
 indulge it vicariously. His belief that money 
 could buy everything, exemplified by his rage 
 when Barnaby would not sell the raven, did not 
 diminish but, if anything, increased. His 
 
 22
 
 JOHN BULL 
 
 manners, brusque to the verge of coarseness, 
 did not improve, and his antipathy to strangers 
 did not lessen. 
 
 Why there should be complaints of his rarity, 
 I do not know. My own object in writing of 
 him is to ask that he should no longer be taken 
 as the representative figure of England. Openly 
 or secretly, we are all ashamed of his graceless 
 and unsocial ways, and our confidence in his bluff 
 virtues is waning. During the war, his ebulli- 
 tions seemed either excusable or negligible. 
 Mr. Bottomley, who claims to be his complete 
 and latest embodiment, added not a little 
 to our gaiety in the dark days, and created 
 annual merriment by his predictions that we 
 should all be home for Christmas. His visit 
 to the front, and his adventures there, were 
 voted by the Army to be the best jokes that 
 even he had so far perpetrated. " We read him," 
 one soldier said to me, " not because we agree 
 with him, but for the sake of a good laugh," 
 and just then it would have been hard to give 
 a better reason for reading anything. At the 
 same time, one could be uneasy at the thought 
 of his paper in the hands of foreigners who might 
 not understand our sense of humour. Mme. 
 D'Arblay once remarked that it was ever a 
 
 23
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 John Bullish trait to fight with better will than 
 justice, and Mr. Bottomley trampling on the 
 ideals of the Allied cause was a disconcerting 
 spectacle for those who did not know how to 
 discount him with laughter. 
 
 The time has come for a new standard of 
 humour, and John Bull's sallies are now only 
 obnoxious. His old abuse of the Boche was not 
 free from vulgarity, but one scarcely demanded 
 niceties of speech at such a time and with such 
 an opponent. Something, though not every- 
 thing, was to be said for fighting the foe with his 
 own weapons, but it is not so easy to find an 
 excuse for Mr. Bottomley's more recent vitupera- 
 tion of our Allies. To tell us that America is 
 the new enemy, and that he hopes she is in for 
 " a good, strong taste " of labour troubles, 
 is tactless. Rather worse was the vote against 
 the French pilots. When we hear from the 
 same source that an ambassador able " to stand 
 up to President Wilson " is wanted for Washing- 
 ton, we begin to wonder whether the Member for 
 Hackney would prefer that post to the director- 
 ship of peace propaganda of which he talks so 
 often. When he refers to Lord Robert Cecil's 
 hope that public opinion will become the arbi- 
 trator of international differences, and sums 
 
 24
 
 JOHN BULL 
 
 it up as " nonsense," I am left debating which 
 position he would most unsuitably fill. His 
 description of the rights of small nations as 
 " copy-book piffle " is, of course, what one would 
 expect from the man whose " To Hell with 
 Serbia " once adorned the London hoardings. 
 His triumphant declaration that we no longer 
 hear anything of " Wilson's idealism and the 
 Fourteen Points " is, on the other hand, non- 
 sensical enough to be surprising. As a matter of 
 fact, some of those points are as ubiquitous 
 as King Charles's head, but even if one did 
 not hear of them, it would not matter. For 
 the past month nobody has mentioned in my 
 presence the Norman Conquest, the forty- 
 seventh proposition of Euclid, or the Copernican 
 system, but I am sure I should be wrong if I 
 interpreted this silence as meaning that I could 
 frame my future conduct on an assumption 
 that these things had ceased to influence me, 
 my country, or the world. 
 
 Having fought for justice in partnership with 
 more than half the civilized nations of the earth, 
 we now have leisure to consolidate our friend- 
 ships. I agree with Mr. Bottomley that there 
 is need for peace propaganda, but his plan for 
 introducing the British bootmaker to the foreign 
 
 25
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 tailor will not promote cordial relations. " Kick 
 them out and keep them out," as the foundation 
 of our foreign policy, can only result in much 
 cry and little wool, though a certain amount 
 of cotton wool may be required to staunch 
 wounded feelings. As an alternative we might 
 cultivate decency of manners. The French 
 and others do not relish being called aliens, 
 and though it be a small matter, we might 
 humour them on it. We might issue a manifesto 
 expressing a hope that several unfavourable 
 ideas about us had been modified during our 
 struggle to save civilization. We might even 
 follow it by inviting old friends and neutrals 
 to visit us in greater numbers and to see for them- 
 selves that we no longer sold our wives at Smith- 
 field, were rather less gloomy than formerly on 
 the Sabbath, and that we had learned to be more 
 diverse in our culinary methods than Voltaire 
 found us. Instead, we prepare offensive measures 
 against immigrants who may have heard good 
 reports of us, and surround ourselves with a 
 wall of which the main features would gladden 
 an old-fashioned Chinaman. And yet all human 
 experience goes to show that a wall, whilst it 
 repels friendly callers, has a magnetic attraction 
 for mud slingers. 
 
 26
 
 JOHN BULL 
 
 " Wut's good's all English, all that isn't ain't," 
 wrote Lowell in the Biglow Papers, and many 
 still believe that in these words are summarized 
 our whole national creed. The blatant John Bull 
 who lands at New York or Boulogne as though 
 his mission were to collect freaks, and his brother 
 who glowers suspiciously at the rest of mankind 
 through an opaque telescope, the while he stays 
 at home to consume his own fog, can share the 
 blame between them. The rest of us are amiable, 
 but seldom audible. Perhaps the truth is that 
 as a race we are better at defiance than defence. 
 When some one calls us a nation of shopkeepers, 
 we reply that we are proud of it, and promptly 
 claim to be the best shopkeepers, though anybody 
 acquainted with the large cities of America and 
 the Continent knows that we are making an 
 idle boast. Had we said that there was still, 
 unfortunately, a lot we could be taught abouj; 
 shops, but that we did happen to be a nation 
 of poets, there would have been no gainsaying 
 our claim. In many places between China and 
 Peru, where the name of the late Mr. Whiteley 
 cuts no ice, one can be honoured by making it 
 clear that one comes from the land of Shakespeare, 
 Milton, and Shelley. 
 
 John Bull, however, will never mention a 
 
 27
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 poet, except to jape about his hair. Should he 
 light on anybody whose interests are neither 
 sporting nor commercial, he hastily exclaims that 
 he, at any rate, is not a " high-brow." As to 
 making friends with foreigners, he would as soon 
 seek congenial society in the monkey-house at 
 the Zoo as amongst those who do not habitually 
 talk English. A holiday on the Continent at 
 some John Bullish resort is, naturally, another 
 matter, though its enjoyment may be marred 
 by having from time to time to utter sounds 
 in a language not his own. In such an unfor- 
 tunate event, he will do his best to give them a 
 true English flavour. French with all the vowels 
 broadened to bursting is the furthest he will 
 go in the way of compromise between dignity 
 and convenience. French which more closely 
 imitated the French fashion of speaking it would 
 be pandering to prejudices he does not respect. 
 But, perhaps, the part of the holiday he enjoys 
 most is his return home when he regales his 
 cronies with tales of the shocking things he has 
 seen, and can hint to his women-folk of what 
 lewd fellows those others are. If we must have 
 an Aliens' Bill, could we not balance it by a law 
 to prohibit any Briton from crossing the sea 
 without testimonials from three responsible 
 
 28
 
 JOHN BULL 
 
 persons to the effect that he was not likely to 
 disgrace us abroad ? 
 
 Admittedly, there have been good Englishmen 
 who had in them more than a touch of John Bull- 
 ishness. Dr. Johnson had it often, and displayed 
 it when he growled about the Scots invading 
 England, but he took one of them to be his 
 devoted friend. Cobbett almost flaunted it, 
 but, when he saw his countrymen flogged by 
 Germans, he flew into a temper, had a protest 
 printed, and paid a fine of a thousand pounds 
 for his pains. He was ready, you see, to pay 
 for his patriotism, and did not look to make, 
 a profit from it. I used to fancy Mr. Chesterton 
 would carry on the tradition, but something 
 has restrained him. Probably he has noticed 
 that the modern John Bull has a countenance 
 which proclaims kinship with the Shylock 
 family. This fact was impressed on me by an 
 election address I once received from a gentleman 
 whose name is familiar to every student of the 
 Old Testament, and I learned from it how 
 conglomerated greed could be disguised as love 
 of country. " England for the Engleesh " was, 
 of course, its burden. It is a pity that Mr. 
 Bottomley should have picked up the mantle 
 which Mr. Chesterton rejected, for he is a 
 
 29
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 native of this island, and, therefore, under no 
 necessity to rant about it. Moreover, he is a 
 kindly man. If he is not always on the side of 
 the angels, he has always taken an equally 
 honourable and, perhaps, more clearly dis- 
 interested place on the side of the animals. 
 Decidedly, his heart is in the right place. His 
 efforts to spit the dove of peace, and roast it 
 instead of a turkey for another Christmas dinner 
 in the trenches, can only be explained on the 
 assumption that his head is not screwed on the 
 right way. 
 
 30
 
 THE YOUNG LADY 
 
 YOUNG ladies are said to be a disappearing 
 class. They were exquisite upon a 
 Watteau fan, and in the Pump Room at Bath 
 must have been charming, but it is doubted 
 whether there is any place for them in the world 
 to-day. Jane Austen's schoolgirl whom Scott de- 
 scribed as " very good-humoured, very silly, very 
 pretty, and very much disposed to be married " 
 was the young lady of her period in embryo, 
 and, fortunately for herself, she never had to 
 wrestle with such difficulties as earning a living 
 or getting home on a tram-car, nor was she 
 faced with the present scarcity of husbands. 
 Some are already crying that she can be of 
 interest only to the antiquarian. There have, 
 it is true, been great changes, and more than a 
 quarter of a century has passed since Mr. Miller, 
 of Oneida Creek, wrote of " The Strike of a Sex." 
 It is a long, long trail a-winding from Fanny 
 Burney to Miss Rebecca West, and even in the 
 crowd things have not been at a standstill. 
 The typical English girl of the present moment 
 would be more than half inclined to resent being 
 
 31
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 called a young lady, a name which, as Stevenson 
 said, has " such niminy associations." Yet I 
 should not like to tell her she was not one, and 
 in my heart of hearts I question whether the 
 alteration in her has been as great as either the 
 optimists or the pessimists affirm. 
 
 Caught in a serious mood, Mr. Justice Darling 
 has issued a jeremiad on the subject of young 
 women. " It can be seen in a walk along the 
 street," he says, " that they differ by the width 
 of Heaven from what their mothers were." That 
 a walk along the street should be taken to afford 
 evidence for so sweeping a statement may seem 
 strange to those who do not possess the judicial 
 mind, and before endorsing it with all its implica- 
 tions the ordinary observer would want to follow 
 the accused to her home, her office, and the 
 place where she dances. One would, in fact, 
 have to compromise oneself seriously, and one 
 must, therefore, be content with suggesting that 
 outward appearances are not always safe indica- 
 tions of a person's character or status. When 
 I see Mr. Justice Darling in ermine, I am, indeed, 
 compelled to believe he is a judge, but the fact 
 that my neighbour dresses in scarlet and uses a 
 superfluity of cosmetics does not make me 
 confound her with the apocalyptic woman or 
 
 32
 
 THE YOUNG LADY 
 
 with Jezebel. Her appearance merely convinces 
 me that she has a liking for bright colours and 
 is not an accomplished artist. 
 
 Whenever a condemnation is to be made of the 
 fair sex, it is usual to begin it with a scathing 
 reference to the way in which its members clothe 
 themselves. Critics are constantly affirming 
 that the dress of our young ladies is immodest 
 and betokens the immodesty of its wearer. 
 Let it be granted that it reveals plainly the fact 
 that they are bifurcated beings, whereas in 
 days of train or crinoline it was far easier to 
 imagine them as mermaids, creatures out of 
 their proper element on our gross earth. The 
 upper part of their costume tends to become as 
 scanty as the lower, and displays at all hours 
 of the day a profusion of beauties which more 
 careful generations concealed until the lamps 
 were lighted and dinner was served. Good 
 Hannah More used to urge that, if women only 
 knew their interests, " they would dress decorously 
 . . . and assume modesty as an artifice ; the 
 coquet would adopt it as an allurement ; the 
 pure as her appropriate attraction." Sydney 
 Smith, having pondered these words, replied 
 that, if such were the truth, nudity had become 
 a virtue, and no decent woman could for the 
 
 33 c
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 future be seen in clothes. In reality, it should 
 be recognised that what women wear offers little 
 or no indication of their disposition. Bare necks 
 and gossamer covered calves mean nothing in 
 particular to those who display them. One 
 sees others who decorate themselves with 
 aigrettes and the plumage of birds of paradise, 
 and hang round their necks the heads and 
 tails of slaughtered beasts as a gamekeeper 
 decorates the door of his shed, yet they are 
 not consciously barbarians. Quite possibly they 
 have kind hearts, and have a real affection for a 
 pet dog or a canary. Simply, they have not 
 begun to reason about their dress. They have 
 a vague, but usually correct, idea that it looks 
 nice, but that it has any meaning does not 
 occur to one in a hundred. 
 
 In all probability, it was Adam who thought 
 of the fig leaves. Were one to find that the 
 maidens of Mayfair and Upper Tooting had of 
 their own free will adopted yashmaks and pan- 
 talets it would be rash to imagine that a reign 
 of prudery had begun, and if a warm afternoon 
 brings sundry damsels on to the Thames in their 
 night-gowns it is unwise to rush to opposite 
 conclusions. Only when a fashion or a custom 
 has originated in the male mind can one trace 
 
 34
 
 THE YOUNG LADY 
 
 it to any deep design. The long maintained 
 ban on smoking by women is a case in point, 
 and its open flouting by the modern young 
 lady shows that here at least she has gained 
 a victory for her sex. Dispassionately regarded, 
 it will be seen that it was on a par with the 
 Victorian ordinance which confined female 
 passengers to the interior of the omnibus in all 
 its stuffiness, whilst their lords enjoyed the 
 air on the top. If with the aid of a little fantasy 
 one can picture Mr. Justice Darling plodding 
 his homeward way one evening from the Law 
 Courts, one can imagine him not a little scandalized 
 by the number of girls who smoke openly in the 
 streets when dusk has fallen. Maybe he would 
 only notice their cigarettes as so many signs of 
 the decay in public morals, but were he to speak 
 with two or three of the crowd he would discover 
 that others were condemning the practice for 
 other reasons. Smith could tell him that his 
 difficulty in obtaining " yellow perils " was 
 largely due to feminine competition for those 
 fragrant weeds. Jones, too, could tell a piteous 
 tale of his fiancee's affection for vet more ex- 
 
 V 
 
 pensive brands, and add that her new liking 
 for " Abdul Hamids " had in no way lessened 
 her pristine love of chocolates. One has heard 
 
 35
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 of certain cunning savages who made eggs taboo 
 for women in order that they might eat them all 
 themselves, and civilized man is not in wit be- 
 hind the savage, but in at least one or two small 
 matters he has been outwitted by his sisters. 
 
 Another change alleged in the habits of the 
 young lady is in her choice of literature. Alder- 
 man Evans, of Lambeth, who, for all I know to 
 the contrary, may be an authority on the subject, 
 declares that at the age of seven she begins to 
 read the works of Mrs. Elinor Glyn. Such a 
 state of affairs may make a moralist sigh for 
 days when " Chapone's instructive volume " 
 lay open on every girl's toilette table, but it 
 has never been proved that the pages of that 
 remarkable treatise were often turned. Sukey 
 Saunter and Lydia Languish found more congenial 
 matter in such romances as The Mistakes of 
 the Heart and The Innocent Adultery, and Sir 
 Anthony Absolute was not speaking at random 
 when he compared the circulating library to an 
 evergreen tree. Titles alter, but the young 
 lady's taste in novels is little affected by years 
 and seasons, though it nust be allowed to her 
 credit that she no longer attempts to conceal 
 her gingerbread fiction in the cover of a book 
 of sermons. 
 
 36
 
 THE YOUNG LADY 
 
 Sukey and Lydia were taught the virtue 
 of concealment. Little Dorrit was told that 
 " nothing disagreeable should ever be looked 
 at." There was once a child who ran to her 
 governess, and, in unquotable words, borrowed 
 from the gardener's boy, informed her that she 
 was suffering from the heat. " My dear," 
 her mentor replied, " animals sweat ; men 
 perspire ; but young ladies only glow." Thus, 
 at an early age was it impressed on the small 
 girl that she was a being Providence had set 
 apart from the rest of creation. Though the 
 sun looked to shine with equal force on her 
 and her brothers, the results upon them were not 
 allowed to be the same. Mother Nature, coarse 
 an old woman as she might be, had suspended 
 certain laws in favour of the daughters of the 
 genteel, whilst, for those which, unfortunately, 
 still operated, an elegant patchwork cloak of 
 hushes and euphistic words had been invented. 
 Advancing in her teens, the young lady may have 
 found the suspensions fewer than she had been 
 led to expect, but mother, aunts, and governess 
 were constantly adding to the cloak's length. 
 In the end it almost completely concealed her 
 from herself. 
 
 " Fanny," said Mrs. General, " at present 
 
 37
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 forms too many opinions. Perfect breeding 
 forms none." The time, one fears, has come 
 when Fanny must form an opinion, even if 
 breeding is thereby thrown to the winds. She 
 must decide for herself about herself. The 
 young lady of the past was generally content 
 to live in a garden enclosed, taking no more 
 than a few peeps through a chink, but she who 
 is now with us has scaled the wall after throwing 
 some preliminary stones over it. What she 
 intends to do is uncertain, and her present 
 position is anomalous. During the war she 
 showed both desire and ability to be a useful 
 member of society. If she wants employment, 
 one does not wish to see her denied it, but it is 
 scarcely fair to her at the same time to be keeping 
 a man from his job and demanding everything 
 but pin-money from her father. If she has 
 decided to choose her own dresses, let her give 
 some thought to her choice, and, if there is to 
 be no censorship of her reading, one would beg 
 her at once to develop her own critical faculties. 
 Whether she determines to be a genuine wage- 
 earner or not, to wear her skirts long or short 
 or tight or full, to read natural history or romance, 
 all will be well if there be some reason behind 
 her decisions. Oscar Wilde came very near 
 
 38
 
 THE YOUNG LADY 
 
 the truth when he wrote that all that is realized 
 is right, and that shallowness is the supreme 
 vice. 
 
 All the young lady's past, all the past, too, 
 of her ancestresses, is against her. An acknow- 
 ledged part of her education and theirs was 
 " to keep ideas from getting into the girl's head." 
 She has been starved of ideas for generations, 
 and is now trying to make her way through the 
 world with no more illumination than that of 
 the cigarette she has lighted for herself. Like 
 Amy Dorrit, she may say that she requires a 
 little time, although a learned judge, in the 
 role of Papa Dorrit, frowns and looks anything 
 but pleased. It is too late to talk of bundling 
 her back into the care of a Mrs. General or a 
 Mrs. Malaprop, for already she has taken a step 
 or two into " the contagious countries." Nor 
 is it any good merely to scold her. She has been 
 a chrysalis, and is now alternately blamed for 
 having emerged as a butterfly or worker-bee, 
 with all the defects of either insect. Give her 
 the time she requires. Perhaps she will curl 
 up, and, in the full sense of the term, become 
 a young lady again, even though she will have 
 no duenna to aid her. Or, possibly, she may 
 spread herself, and presently become a woman. 
 
 39
 
 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 world," said Dr. Butler of Shrewsbury, 
 is content with moderate acquisitions." 
 Were one to read through a list of the headmasters 
 of our public schools for the last hundred years, 
 one would find no more than half a dozen 
 names more eminent than his, and not one 
 more representative. An Arnold of Rugby or 
 a Thring of Uppingham is a person foredoomed 
 to veneration. Their successors speak the 
 mystic word personality, and sigh of a place 
 that cannot be filled, but in a few months nobody 
 wants to fill it. They continue to be held in 
 pious memory and to be extolled on speech 
 days, but there is comfort in the hour when in 
 the discreet company of the common-room some 
 small absurdity is remembered about the de- 
 parted and a little, quite reverent, laugh is heard. 
 Even in scholastic circles they can have enough 
 of praising famous men. Hawtrey, to whom 
 Gladstone said he owed everything, passed with 
 the habit of quoting Homer in public and a 
 genuine appreciation of port. Waves upon 
 waves of boisterous athletes have rushed through 
 
 40
 
 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 the citadel of his fine gentlemanliness. Butler, 
 however, is still a model. He did almost every- 
 thing that a headmaster is expected to do to-day. 
 He brought his school from obscurity to fame. 
 He increased its numbers, made his boys win 
 many scholarships at the Universities, made 
 Eton look to its laurels. The question of blues 
 was not paramount in his time, but he would 
 have been the last to refuse supply when once 
 a demand had been widely and definitely made. 
 He believed in making the best of things as he 
 found them, and in the world's contentment 
 with moderate acquisitions. 
 
 Based on those two beliefs, the public schools 
 have stood for a century. If they have been 
 in the family, we have accepted them. If they 
 have not been in the family, we have striven 
 to remedy that defect. A public school education, 
 like a ghost either hereditary or acquired through 
 purchase of landed property, is a hall-mark of 
 social position. It serves, in lieu of any other 
 evidence, to establish a claim to being of the 
 select. The soldier who applied for a commission 
 had the opportunity to notice the approval of 
 his company officer if he could announce that 
 he came from Eton, Harrow, or Giggleswick. 
 There were varying degrees of approval, but 
 
 41
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 all were approved, and discipline might for a 
 moment be waived in the friendlv chat that 
 
 
 
 followed. " Were you there with old So-and- 
 So ? ' : "In the eleven when he made the 
 century against us ? " " Good man ! ' : And 
 familiarity bred respect. 
 
 Let none deny the benefits which his public 
 school has brought him if he has moved in the 
 right circles. The fraternity of old boys has 
 been a sort of mutual benefit society, even 
 an Empire within an Empire. Whether that 
 coterie spirit has been harmful to the whole 
 community, and had a deadening effect on the 
 very individuals who have shared in it, is another 
 matter. Perhaps a more important point is 
 whether the acknowledged benefits, including 
 the hall-mark and membership of a caste with 
 an entrance fee, are going to count for as much 
 in the life of a boy now at school as they did 
 in the lives of his elders. 
 
 At present, many are busy with talk of reform. 
 Mr. Alec Waugh has written his " Loom of 
 Youth " for our information, and, Mr. Owen 
 Nares being chairman, has lectured us. Mr. 
 Mais, who was his mentor at Sherborne, has 
 also belaboured the system and profession he 
 adorns. It has all been highly interesting, but 
 
 42
 
 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 in those who can look on the public schools 
 with detachment, it has created only the mildest 
 surprise. All they tell with bated breath has been 
 known for years, for such things will out despite 
 the league of silence to which all the old boys were 
 supposed to belong. That they should openly 
 proclaim what everybody has muttered is almost 
 the only remarkable feature in their campaign. 
 For the rest they are zealous reformers, loving 
 what they would correct, and quite unaware that 
 they are dealing with a phantom, that is to say, 
 with something that is incorrigible though it 
 may be exorcised. If they succeed in grafting 
 on their disembodied spirit a few odd slices of 
 human flesh, they will have accomplished as much 
 as they seem to desire, but we shall not mistake 
 the patched apparition for a human body. 
 
 The truth is that they are taking their public 
 schools too seriously. None of our reformers has 
 been particularly helpful. Some fourteen years 
 ago a well-known dramatic critic, disguised under 
 the name of " Kappa," wrote an indictment of 
 the existing system in a book entitled Let 
 Youth But Know. It was whispered that the 
 writer's son had recently failed to make a " first " 
 at the University, and one surmised that the 
 attack was partly self-defence after young 
 
 43
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 hopeful had failed to give convincing proof of 
 inherited abilities. The book, however, contains 
 some sound ideas, and it served to set rolling a 
 ball which has ever since been kicked vigorously, 
 if not always accurately, by Mr. Wells. In 
 The Undying Fire one can note that he has 
 done with mechanical science. Once he believed 
 in salvation coming with the aeroplane, but 
 when the aeroplane came it dropped bombs 
 over London, and the effect on him was almost 
 as disgruntling as was the Oxford honours' 
 list on " Kappa." Mr. Wells has changed his 
 curriculum. We are to have world-history and 
 logic now. Splendid : especially if we have 
 them again to-morrow. 
 
 What we have begun to feel is that our civiliza- 
 tion would not be seriously incommoded if 
 the public school system as we have known it 
 were to cease forthwith. In the great period 
 of the classics, when masters pored over the 
 humanities and were not expected to enter the 
 Rugger scrum, that might have meant the end 
 of scholarship. The same objection cannot be 
 advanced to-day. Long ago it was decided 
 that the old pedant, with all his store of meticulous 
 and often beautiful knowledge, must make way 
 for an instructor more vigorous and a shade 
 
 44
 
 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 more practical, and scholarships rather than 
 scholarship became the end in view. Lately, 
 too, we have made some strange discoveries. 
 We have found that men who know not the 
 " exact languages of Rome and Greece " can 
 produce English poetry. Others who never 
 learned to wield the cane as prefects have shown 
 capacity as leaders of men. The Eton and 
 Harrow monopoly of Prime Ministers has been 
 broken. Neither art nor science would greatly 
 mourn were the public school ghost to be finally 
 laid. Of course, the old public school man is 
 acknowledged to have a nice taste in dress, 
 and would never commit the solecism of wearing 
 a white tie with a dinner jacket, or flannels and 
 brown boots with either, but I would put it 
 to any parent that an hour's private tuition with 
 a good tailor or waiter could set a son on the 
 right path with some saving of expense. 
 
 Athletics would, perhaps, suffer from the 
 change. I am told that we simply must teach 
 lawn tennis at our schools if we are to hold our 
 own against the Czecho-Slovaks, but I am not 
 wholly convinced. Is it not possible that the 
 game is popular just because it was never made 
 a monotonous task ? Fielding once wrote that 
 public schools were the nurseries of all immorality, 
 
 45
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 and the charge, invariably contradicted by those 
 who ought best to know, is still from time to 
 time repeated. For the sake of avoiding argu- 
 ment let it be agreed that things have altered 
 for the better, but it remains that virtues are 
 harder to reform than vices. The cult of play 
 is a joyful thing, and the cult of athletics healthy. 
 Since Cleisthenes won the chariot race as champion 
 of the gods in the Pythian games it has always 
 seemed that prowess in sport is in itself somehow 
 virtuous. But its modern votaries have grown 
 either hysterical or pompous. One remembers 
 a chapter in The Hill, where Mr. Vachell's ideal 
 house-master is so overcome by excitement that 
 he dare not watch the close finish of a cricket 
 match. The incident was no novelist's exaggera- 
 tion. The author had in mind "Bob" Grimston, 
 a real Harrow master, who found his nerves 
 untrustworthy on such occasions. 
 
 In a recent work on education Dr. Lyttelton 
 made the rather obvious statement that it was 
 a mistake to suppose masters had not as many 
 faults and failings as their fellow men. True 
 enough ; but it is not their faults which have 
 brought their work to its present pass. Rather 
 one would blame their colourlessness than any 
 scarlet sin. If one consults Who's Who for 
 
 46
 
 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 particulars as to the headmasters of our leading 
 public schools, one sees an alarming sameness 
 in their tastes. Golf, cricket, fishing, and 
 mountain walking occupy the leisure of most. 
 Their eccentricities are rare and small. He 
 of Uppingham ventures to belong to the National 
 Liberal Club, and he of Sherborne has edited 
 Wordsworth, which is about as far as a headmaster 
 can be expected to go in English literature with- 
 out positive loss of decorum. Yet one could 
 wish that two or three of this careful company 
 would do something dangerous enough to save 
 one the trouble of searching works of reference 
 for elementary information as to what they stand 
 for in the world. 
 
 Maybe they stand only for the public school 
 system, and there would be no collapse of educa- 
 tion were most of them to go with it. A little 
 confusion at first ; a good deal of re-arrangement 
 afterwards ; at least a new hope born. The 
 gain might well outweigh the loss. It might be 
 found that they were no more necessary to the 
 British Isles than were the Hapsburgs to Europe. 
 Educational leaders would, perhaps, arise with 
 a clean slate to use, and write on it the lesson 
 that mediocrity must no longer content us. 
 
 Meanwhile, the final confession of the public 
 
 47
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 schools' impotence as an agent in forming 
 character has been published by one of its 
 unsuspicious champions. A certain Mr. E. C. 
 Arnold, long a master at Eastbourne College, has 
 written a letter to the editor of The Observer. 
 Its object is a defence of " shore shooting " 
 against those who would have more stringent 
 protection for bird life, but with that controversy 
 I am not here concerned. The reason of his 
 defence is what touches me. " The holidays," 
 says he, " are a ticklish time for budding 
 youth." Of games, he tells us, the boys are 
 " a bit tired." When for a few weeks they are 
 allowed to enter a bisexual world, he fears for 
 them the lures of the rink and such like awful 
 places. Hence his cry that we must not dis- 
 courage their sport with guns. Seemingly, the 
 only choice is between flesh and blood. 
 
 " The holidays are a ticklish time." The 
 boy may be made to behave moderately well at 
 school, but his training is such that he cannot 
 be trusted outside the school precincts. And 
 yet, in a year or two, perhaps in a few months, 
 he is to be set at large. 
 
 Side by side with the bankruptcy of the old 
 system, experiments in a new order are, most 
 happily, being tried, News comes to me from 
 
 48
 
 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 one school in the North where a whole form is 
 successfully governing itself. The master has sus- 
 pended his powers of punishment, and is simply 
 a teacher. He and the boys elect " officers " 
 to preserve discipline, and discipline is, in fact, 
 kept by all because none wants a return to the 
 ways of the past. There, too, it is no longer 
 held criminal for a boy to talk or to walk with 
 a girl in the town. Self-restraint goes hand in 
 hand with self-reliance. 
 
 " Budding youth " is not, after, all quite the 
 feeble article that Mr. E. C. Arnold thinks it, 
 and that most masters make it. Co-education 
 is almost universal in the United States, and 
 has been tried here timidly but with good results. 
 The faults found in it can all easily be remedied. 
 Mr. J. L. Paton, no mean authority on education, 
 has written that those who believed in the 
 intrinsic goodness of boys and girls have been 
 justified of their children. When we can rid 
 ourselves of the incubus of the public school 
 tradition and all its bolstering of premeditated 
 humbug, we may finish with the unnatural 
 segregation of the sexes, and there may be less 
 ticklishness about the holidays. Masters may 
 no longer have to moan that first sight of a 
 female turns their young charges into rakes. 
 
 49 D
 
 THE BRASS HATS 
 
 THE brass hat has gone out of fashion, and 
 if ever it is to be rehabilitated it will have 
 to be worn with a difference. Other cumber- 
 some forms of headgear may for a while be 
 restored to favour because of the pleasant hint 
 they convey of all being well again with the world 
 of their wearers. But no such fancy lingers 
 round the brass hat. Its fate is sealed. Even 
 in Whitehall and thereabouts the man beneath 
 it walks with the air of one who wishes he were 
 less conspicuously marked. Further, one knows 
 that the future haunts him ; he foresees an 
 inevitable moment when grandchildren will ask 
 him what he did in the great war. Better for 
 him if he had been demobilized with one or two 
 modest pips on his arms. Better if he could 
 tell how he served as a full private, or, after 
 mighty efforts, became an acting-lance-corporal- 
 unpaid. Such men, he knows, will be held in 
 unquestioning esteem, but how is he to make 
 confession to the rising generation which will have 
 read the revelations of Lord French and all the 
 counter-revelations that are going to make hay 
 
 50
 
 THE BRASS HATS 
 
 and hash of so many of the higher reputations ? 
 And then the next question : " Were you one 
 of those who nearly lost the war ? " 
 
 The declension of the brass hat has been 
 gradual. Its final stage is reached when, in Pall 
 Mall or Piccadily, one meets the general under 
 whom one has served, and sees him a common- 
 place being in undistinguished mufti. One gives 
 the last gasp of wonder. Of course he has always 
 been an ordinary person with that perfectly 
 correct ordinariness which a good public school, 
 followed by Sandhurst, so often succeeds in 
 creating. One had frequently suspected as 
 much, but until the last moment remnants of 
 awe had stayed. It is hard to realize that the 
 arbiters of one's fate are not somehow gigantic. 
 That is why one grows so impatient of the 
 brass hat, for it is the symbol of a delusion. 
 
 Undoubtedly, and as was natural, the civilian 
 public took its generals very seriously during 
 the war, even though it only made, and conse- 
 quently only deposed, one positive hero. Its 
 caution came from South African memories, 
 yet there was much quiet confidence. In case 
 of a change, say Haig taking the place of French, 
 it was commonly conceded that an Amurath 
 had succeeded an Amurath, and little more was 
 
 51
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 said about it. If a leader came home, the official 
 plea of ill-health was almost taken at face value. 
 Lay criticism seemed impertinent. When the 
 course of war did not run smoothly, the lawyers 
 were blamed. The unknown is always magnifi- 
 cent, and a curtain of mystery came down like 
 a Channel fog between the people at home and 
 the army abroad. 
 
 At a nearer view one was less dazzled. Even 
 in the ranks one began to doubt the omniscience 
 of the mighty ones, to suspect that cunning 
 adversaries could hoodwink them. The not 
 altogether unintelligent recruit might note how 
 his platoon, notoriously bad at drill but with 
 plenty of brawn, was hustled off the square to 
 dig a trench on the morning of the brigadier's 
 inspection. Later, he observed different bills 
 of fare for different visitors of importance as 
 he and his fellows underwent days of special 
 training and polish to meet their various idiosyn- 
 crasies. For one it would be all blood-lust and 
 bayonet ; for another bombs ; for a third it 
 was possible to go easy on brass and boots. 
 Only the arrival of a strange general caused 
 real anxiety, but even for him, as one found 
 in time, there was a recognized dope in plenty 
 of whitewash on the ropes put up to receive it, 
 
 52
 
 THE BRASS HATS 
 
 and a sound brand of whisky in the mess. 
 On all such occasions the good regimental officer 
 bore in mind Bismarck's saying that one can do 
 anything with children if one will play with them. 
 Experience of military life but enlarged one's 
 first suspicions. Passage through a cadet school 
 to a commission assured one that winning the 
 war and killing Germans were not quite the only 
 things that mattered. Long before the word 
 " camouflage " became current coin, the British 
 Army had known the value of the thing called 
 eye-wash. After a time, however, one perceived 
 new possibilities of utility in one's generals. 
 There was never an hour so dark that the latest 
 news of General Hunter Weston could not dispel 
 its despondency. It was necessary to keep 
 the troops cheerful. Had he not telegraphed 
 to his corps the news of his glorious victory 
 in North Ayrshire to nerve them to emulative 
 successes ? Generals, it was discovered, had 
 interests in life which were not wholly military. 
 Pleasant evenings, maybe, were spent in the 
 theatre of " Le Brass 'At," where the enthusiasm 
 of General St. John Parker, as general manager, 
 had made the company what it was, the best 
 variety troupe in France. It would be idle to 
 ask whether a second lieutenant with theatrical 
 
 53
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 antecedents could not have done as well. The 
 Financial Adviser at General Headquarters 
 probably saved the country many millions, 
 but he had to be made a brigadier before anyone 
 would listen to him. Once upon a time, when 
 it appeared we were not winning the war in 
 correct English, a subaltern was appointed to 
 edit routine orders and suchlike publications, 
 but the experiment failed. In the Army one 
 could not with impunity weld the split infinitives 
 of a superior. 
 
 Times have changed. Most of us are civilians 
 now, and the civilian in us is asserting himself. 
 The general whose nods and frowns have been 
 a law has to submit to the cross-examination 
 of Mr. Hogge. Every week something new arises 
 about which the public wants to know. Slough 
 and Amritsar and the confidential circular 
 about strike-breaking are simply three of many 
 instances. " A soldier," cried Uncle Toby, " is 
 no more exempt from saying a foolish thing 
 than a man of letters," and Corporal Trim 
 replied, " But not so often, an' please your 
 honour." That was the eighteenth-century 
 view, but to-day one is wondering whether 
 the corporal was not too optimistic. Few 
 French officers were more respected by the 
 
 54
 
 THE BRASS HATS 
 
 Germans after the war of 1870 than General 
 Faidherbe, but they put down his failures to 
 there being too much Morocco about him. About 
 our own military leaders there is still too much 
 India. Besides, for some years past they have 
 been privileged to tell a great part of the nation 
 to go to hell, and it may be that they have not 
 quite realized the change in circumstances. In 
 The DeviVs Disciple Mr. Shaw wrote that he 
 never expected a soldier to think. The war, 
 one imagines, may have made the British people 
 more exacting, anyhow in regard to the highest 
 ranks. 
 
 What to do with our generals may yet become 
 a pressing problem. Our future Army, whatever 
 its size, will but absorb a few of them, and not 
 many will care to descend to mere colonelcies. 
 Hitherto there have been well-marked paths for 
 senior officers on their retirement. The more 
 vigorous have frequented the suitable service 
 clubs, and in their precincts have for some hours 
 daily resumed the authority of their rank in 
 such matters as cuts from the joint, choice of 
 easy chairs, and the last word in retrospective 
 discussion of a hand at bridge. The rest have 
 betaken themselves to Cheltenham, Bedford, 
 and the northern suburbs of Oxford, places 
 
 55
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 where they have been thoroughly at home, 
 and where they have interested themselves in 
 croquet, Christian Science, and the cultivation 
 of chrysanthemums. That men who have 
 served their country long and well should so 
 end their days shows no lack of dignity. On 
 the contrary, it is the only dignified thing to do. 
 It is the jack-in-the-box, he who will not accept 
 retirement as something definite, who shows 
 a petty spirit. 
 
 It is more than doubtful, however, whether 
 the old tradition can longer be maintained. 
 Many of our generals now are young, or com- 
 paratively young, and the war, which has taken 
 such a toll of real youth, has made others feel 
 far younger than they are. There are going to 
 be generals in the City, in politics, in journalism. 
 It would be monstrous to cavil at their invasion 
 of civilian spheres, especially as we of late have 
 been passing through some of their preserves, 
 but a few words to them as new recruits might 
 not be out of place. In the years of war all 
 men entered the Army equal and alike. Emin- 
 ence in the arts of peace did not save one 
 from the sergeant's chiding if one marched out 
 of step, or from universal contumely if one 
 made a mess of the stew. It was better to 
 
 56
 
 THE BRASS HATS 
 
 forget what one had been. To-day the posi- 
 tions are reversed. Is it too much to ask our 
 generals to forget their days of despotism, to 
 forget India, to forget that they ever wore 
 brass hats ? On that condition, we, on our 
 side, may be willing to forget also. 
 
 57
 
 THE DIPLOMATISTS 
 
 IN the opinion of the common man, a diplo- 
 matist is a person employed to tell lies 
 for his country. This view, like most views 
 taken by the majority, is correct as far as 
 it goes, but it does not go all the way. 
 Besides talent in prevarication, sundry other 
 qualifications have been demanded in various 
 ages and countries. An Italian of the Renais- 
 sance wrote that a diplomatist should be 
 well versed in Plato, Aristotle, and theology, 
 whilst a Dutchman of the next century held 
 that he should be rich and munificent. Ability 
 to drink the natives under the table used to 
 be a high credential for envoys to the Courts of 
 Northern Europe, and youth and good com- 
 plexions were advisable in members of an embassy 
 to Catherine the Great. More recently, the late 
 Sir Hamilton Seymour, when giving evidence 
 before a select committee of the House of Com- 
 mons, confessed that he had no idea of a man 
 being a good diplomatist who did not give good 
 dinners. 
 
 The good dinner theory, which really sum- 
 
 58
 
 THE DIPLOMATISTS 
 
 marises most of the others, had in it elements of 
 reason, and remains in force. If polite society 
 no longer discusses divinity and philosophy, it 
 still likes to be entertained at meals by informa- 
 tive talk on, for example, polo and the ballet. If 
 heavy drinking is no longer the fashion, a host's 
 ability to provide a good vintage is the more 
 appreciated, and wealth is more necessary than 
 ever to the internal satisfaction of epicures. 
 To the less grave, the board which is not sur- 
 rounded by beauty and handsome presences, 
 though it offer Tokay and quails in aspic, promises 
 but a barmecide banquet. When whole countries 
 were no more than the personal estates of their 
 sovereigns, or even when some half-dozen semi- 
 constitutional Ministers held mankind in their 
 hands, the touch of Lucullus might make the 
 whole world kin. The first league of nations 
 was the holy alliance of the gourmets. 
 
 Considering what has been and is expected 
 of the diplomatist in social intercourse, the 400 
 on which our Foreign Office insists as the mini- 
 mum private income or parental allowance for its 
 neophytes is barely adequate, especially as a 
 first salaried appointment as " third secretary " 
 carries with it but an annual salary of 150. 
 Vulgar riches by themselves are not, however, 
 
 59
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 desired in the service. A " nomination " is 
 also required, and it is laid down that a recom- 
 mendation " should assume the form of a private 
 letter to the Secretary of State, containing a few 
 personal notes on the candidate's qualifications." 
 In advancing the claims of young Noudelle- 
 Gosling it would doubtless be well to mention 
 that he would maintain that tradition of " smooth 
 and soft manners " of which Mackintosh wrote, 
 and to hint guardedly of his skill at cards and 
 dancing as likely to make him popular in those 
 circles where it is hoped he will move. No 
 amiable accomplishment is, indeed, to be despised. 
 One peer, who long represented Britain in Vienna 
 and Berlin, gained celebrity as Lord Fiddle-de- 
 dee, and wrote operas of which some were actually 
 performed, though not in those musical capitals. 
 Coleridge, when in Rome, was suspected of 
 being an English agent, but the charge was with- 
 drawn because it was generally agreed that the 
 English Government sent to courts abroad none 
 but fools of gentlemanly birth, or, occasionally, 
 a clever libertine. If it was not a Noudelle- 
 Gosling, it was a Lord Scampcallous. What 
 the foreign critic did not mention was that most 
 other States made a similar practice, and, 
 consequently, that his Britannic Majesty's 
 
 60
 
 THE DIPLOMATISTS 
 
 interests did not suffer greatly. The story of 
 diplomacy in later years does not show any notable 
 reform. Embassies and legations are still filled 
 by men and women of various nationalities and 
 of one class, who form a perambulating club 
 for mutual entertainment. Mrs. Eraser has put 
 it on record that in Vienna there were lately 
 four hundred families known as hoffdhig, or 
 presentable at Court, each so known because 
 it could show sixteen quarterings. During her 
 husband's official residence there, they comprised 
 all the Austrian society she met. Never once 
 did she come within speaking distance of any 
 member of those outer circles which contained 
 the capital's artistic, financial, and professional 
 elements. 
 
 If the gentlemanly fools were not ready made, 
 the etiquette of the service would soon create 
 them ; yet there are no signs that the diplomatists 
 are willing to break their bonds. When the 
 Third Republic was established in France, they 
 continued to throng to the entertainments of the 
 Faubourg St. Germain, and only saw as much 
 of the newly democratised official life of Re- 
 publican France as duty required. That the 
 bourgeois atmosphere of the Elysee should have 
 been preferred to the Imperial glitter of the 
 
 61
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 Tuileries was not to be expected, but that the 
 envoys of foreign powers lacked the intelligent 
 curiosity to acquaint themselves with the new 
 orientation of politics, or to hear a second side 
 of political questions, remains surprising. The 
 Musee de Cluny attracts one, yet life is better 
 studied in the Jardin d'Acclimatation. A 
 graver charge, however, against diplomatist and 
 diplomatess is that at Presidential receptions, 
 when they were obliged to attend, their very 
 manners forsook them. Mme. Waddington 
 writes in her reminiscences that their criticisms 
 of the " dress, deportment, and general style 
 of the republican ladies " could sometimes be 
 overheard and always felt. 
 
 One result of the nomination and 400 a 
 year was to preserve British support for many 
 years for the gentlemanly races of Turkey and 
 Austria, as well as for Germany which, though 
 its people might seem unpolished, was prolific 
 in producing princelings. It is difficult to fore- 
 cast what is to happen in the new Europe. A 
 fresh type of diplomatist must be evolved. 
 Frau Ebert has the right to expect as much 
 courtesy as was ever offered to a Hohenzollern 
 Empress. We do not want envoys who will be 
 paying their respects to unemployed monarchs 
 
 62
 
 THE DIPLOMATISTS 
 
 or dancing attendance on retired Grand Duchesses. 
 Even the language test will have to be enlarged. 
 Positively, it may be necessary to insist that 
 our future representative in Petrograd shall speak 
 Russian. That the ordinary ambassador is 
 without the right kind of intelligence for address- 
 ing the Upsilon Sigma Alpha Society of an 
 American university has long been realised, 
 and it may soon be as hard to find suitable 
 representatives for the European capitals as 
 it is for Washington. On the other hand, if 
 reform begins at the Foreign Office itself, it may 
 no more be necessary to send abroad so many 
 circulars instructing the charge d'affaires to have 
 his despatches written in a neater hand, as the 
 officials at home are elderly and very tired. 
 
 Possibly, we, like the Americans, may decide 
 to do without any professional service of diplo- 
 macy. " The sure way to make a foolish 
 ambassador," said Coleridge, " is to bring him 
 up to it." The mysteries of the chancelleries 
 are not really so deep as Mr. Le Queux would 
 have us think. Bismarck's offer to instruct 
 Bieberstein in his duties was declined, the new 
 man saying he would pick up the details as 
 he went, and that foreign affairs had always 
 been his hobby. Time, too, is making some of 
 
 63
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 the details less intricate. The advice of Lord 
 Lyons to a French minister's wife, never to invite 
 an ambassador and a cardinal to the same dinner, 
 as neither could yield precedence to the other, 
 was given in the ripeness of experience, but 
 already seems to have lost some of its original 
 importance. Cardinals and ambassadors may 
 be as punctilious as ever, but there are now so 
 many other peolpe to consider. 
 
 Untrained men have proved their worth in 
 the general scheme of diplomacy. America 
 has been well represented in the chief European 
 capitals. At Washington, Lord Bryce was a 
 conspicuous example of the right man in the 
 right place. Others, of course, have failed. 
 Lord Birkenhead brought back few laurels 
 from across the Atlantic, and Colonel Will 
 Thome was no brilliant success in Russia, but 
 it would be unfair to say that these gifted 
 amateurs surpassed the blunders of sundry 
 professionals of the old school, such as the late 
 Lord Sackville. The stereotyped training and 
 traditions of diplomacy have not been justified 
 by their fruits. A liberal minded, powerful, 
 and unconventional man like Morier, a man 
 qui a roule Bismarck, is rare in diplomatic annals ; 
 when one reads them one is reduced to agreeing 
 
 64
 
 THE DIPLOMATISTS 
 
 with the old Spaniard who wrote that a diplo- 
 matist could think his work well done if he had 
 done no mischief. 
 
 Express trains and the telegraph have robbed 
 the Noudelle- Goslings of the importance they 
 may once have possessed. A minister to Mexico 
 could now hardly break off relations with that 
 republic on his own initiative because of a brawl 
 at a dance. Even the ambassadorial dinner- 
 table has lost its practical importance, since it 
 can scarcely be made large enough to accommo- 
 date a whole people. Worse still, for the diplo- 
 matist, most of his secrets have become public 
 property. It is useless for him to get up in the 
 morning, like one of his old Austrian brothers, 
 and say " No ! " three times loudly in case he 
 should have uttered indiscretions overnight. 
 He, who used to resent the Foreign Office 
 List as giving information to his compatriots 
 about pensions and salaries, has read the secret 
 treaties in the world's press. In them he has 
 seen, too, his own death warrant. His downfall 
 is, in a way, regrettable. As ambassador or 
 charge d'affaires he was, after all, the man on 
 the spot. He had opportunities for knowing 
 the countries to which he was sent, and of sending 
 good counsel to those at home, but he missed his 
 
 65
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 chance. In taking leave of him I will quote again 
 from Mme. Waddington : " There is no profession 
 so banal as diplomacy." The diplomatist has 
 proved her right. Nothing is left for him but 
 his old pastimes of inventing new cyphers, which, 
 in a year or two, are always deciphered by 
 someone else, and collecting a few more foreign 
 decorations before he dies. 
 
 66
 
 THE BENCH OF BISHOPS 
 
 "1VT R ' CRISPARKLE " said the Dean f 
 
 A JL Cloisterham, " keeping our hearts warm 
 and our heads cool, we clergy need do nothing 
 emphatically." Had Charles Dickens lived to 
 finish Edwin Drood, he would have done 
 something more than clear up the mystery of 
 Datchery. He would, probably, have shown 
 how Mr. Dean, walking delicately, behaving 
 circumspectly, advanced to the final earthly 
 reward of lawn sleeves, which in nine cases out 
 of ten is reserved for those who avoid the error 
 of emphasis. Passing time has done nothing 
 to alter the value of the advice and example 
 he gave to the impetuous Minor Canon. The 
 history of the Church of England shows that we 
 have had many varieties of bishops, but in the 
 episcopate of to-day one would look in vain for 
 many of them. Dr. Codex, for instance, has 
 disappeared. To have annotated Aristophanes 
 or to have Horace by heart is no longer a qualifi- 
 cation for promotion. Goodenough, the botanist, 
 would certainlv not be chosen to fill a see were 
 
 
 
 he alive in our century, for it is widely recognized 
 
 67
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 that bishops have not the time to be studious. 
 No more can we meet a Brownlow North appointed 
 to Lichfield at thirty by his brother, the Prime 
 Minister, who did not expect to be in office when 
 the young man grew older. The political cleric, 
 beloved of the early Georgian Whigs, who could 
 put his pen at the services of a Townshend 
 or a Walpole, seems almost equally archaic. 
 The gaitered contingent held coldly aloof when 
 a while ago Lord Halsbury was seeking volunteers 
 to line the last ditch. Apart, indeed, from the 
 two or three rare but prominent radicals of the 
 type of Dr. Perceval, the Anglican bishops 
 have prided themselves for many years on being 
 above the party hurly-burly. 
 
 Even piety is by itself an insufficient recom- 
 mendation when bishoprics fall vacant. Tact 
 and knowledge of the world are, it is said, equally 
 weighty considerations, and were the saintly 
 Ken with us now he would surely be allowed to 
 end his days in a country vicarage. Several 
 types have passed or been modified out of 
 recognition, but one remains unchanged. The 
 Dean of Cloisterham has become a bishop ; 
 almost he has become the whole bench of bishops. 
 He is safe and sound ; will never provoke a 
 crisis ; will match the late Duke of Devonshire 
 
 68
 
 THE BENCH OF BISHOPS 
 
 in acting as a drag on the wheel ; will by his 
 very attitude of benign patience shame the raw, 
 rash zealots ; can be counted on to leave the 
 Church of England as by law established in 
 much the same outward shape as it was on the 
 day when he was ordained deacon. 
 
 When Archbishop Manners Sutton bade 
 farewell to Heber on the latter's departure 
 for Calcutta he told him to preach the gospel 
 and to put down enthusiasm. How the two 
 charges can be accomplished together has caused 
 surprise to some, yet the miracle has been 
 constantly performed. Desire for this kind of 
 ministration may explain what Sydney Smith 
 meant when he said that what bishops liked 
 best in their clergy was " a dropping down 
 deadness of manner." Continued cold douches 
 have had their natural results. Wesley was 
 discouraged, and the Methodists seceded. New- 
 man and Manning were allowed to go. The 
 dignitaries of the Church in their dread of 
 disturbance of the status quo could only see 
 arson in so much spiritual fire. In times of 
 religious stress they had little to offer but " com- 
 mon sense eked out with law," and the two 
 together have never had the value of a moment's 
 vision. They are still as cautious as ever. With- 
 
 69
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 in the last few months the Bishop of Coventry 
 has inhibited a Warwickshire vicar from preaching 
 in a Congregational chapel, and the Bishop 
 of Truro has had an embroilment with a parish 
 priest exceeding the regulation allowance of 
 ritualism. In neither case does it seem as 
 though any great principle is involved. It is 
 simply to be noted that two of the clergy have 
 stepped left and right from the via media which 
 to episcopal eyes is the via sacra. 
 
 The middle way, it may be said, is broad 
 enough for all reasonable beings, but, since 
 its boundaries are unmarked, its breadth 
 avails little. The individual parson, whose 
 steps meander from the beaten track, may 
 be occasionally censured, but our bishops are 
 chary of moving from the particular to the 
 general. Kikuyu was one of several incidents 
 in modern Church history which should have led 
 to a clear and definite pronouncement. On 
 its morrow one should have known whether 
 confirmation was, or was not, a necessary pre- 
 liminary to Anglican communion. Instead, 
 there was a tendency to hush up the business 
 as painful. With downdrooping eyes it was 
 remarked that " holy strife of disputatious 
 men " had a bad effect on the crowd. The 
 
 70
 
 THE BENCH OF BISHOPS 
 
 scene of the incident was remote. These Bishops 
 of Rum-ti-Foo were a nuisance, and one can 
 mark in the writings of the present Bishop of 
 Hereford, thorough Protestant as he is, how a 
 member of what may be called the pukka 
 episcopacy can resent the incursions of missionary 
 brethren. The Kikuyu incident, as presented 
 in the serio-comic press, raised a laugh because 
 the name of the place appealed to some sense 
 of the ridiculous. It was forgotten for a labour 
 dispute which, to quote the impartial authority 
 of The Annual Register, was " of more pressing 
 interest." 
 
 Bishops, it would seem, will from time to 
 time allow the breath of their disapproval to 
 stir diocesan tea-cups and even agitate the 
 papers with a wholly clerical circle of readers, 
 but they dread to set the Thames on fire. The 
 elder among them can, perhaps, recall the 
 hubbub of the Machonochie case and the dis- 
 turbance of Essays and Reviews. They fear 
 a repetition of such unpleasantnesses, but they 
 deceive themselves most sadly. Almost any 
 thing should be welcomed which might show 
 public concern with the affairs of the Church 
 of England, even if it took the form of badger- 
 ing an evangelical preacher at the cross-roads or 
 
 71
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 rolling a high-church curate with his vestments 
 in the gutter. However, such things are not 
 to be. 
 
 From publicity of a sort, occupants of the 
 episcopal bench do not shrink. At the present 
 time people appear to be considerably interested 
 in spiritual matters, whilst the bishops have the 
 air of caring for almost anything else from 
 boxing to the birth-rate. One of their number 
 is almost sure to rise to the bait if Lord North- 
 cliffe or one of his editors wants an opinion 
 expressed on the morality or otherwise of the 
 fox-trot, or a voice authoritatively raised about 
 Lady Godiva's dress in a pageant. In any 
 such stunt a bishop can be counted on to make 
 a useful move, but, in the unlikely event of a 
 reporter being one day sent to an episcopal 
 palace for a pronouncement on a point of doctrine 
 or an application of canon law I think he would 
 be sent empty away. The ethical significance 
 of the barmaid is a subject fit for the highest 
 ecclesiastical treatment, but such a question as 
 " Do the dead return ? " is left for discussion 
 to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Mr. Wells. 
 
 In the last century Anglican churchmen saw 
 dangers coming from Nonconformist growth, 
 Roman inroads, or advancing science. These 
 
 72
 
 THE BENCH OF BISHOPS 
 
 alarms are forgotten, and the trouble is recognized 
 as internal. Like the heroine of a mid- Victorian 
 novel, the Church is said to be going into a decline. 
 In hope of arresting the malady, a little fresh 
 air has been recommended and the " Enabling 
 Act " has received the Royal assent. It is not a 
 very brave measure, but, with a trifle of optimism, 
 one may see in it a promise of better things 
 to come, especially if one takes it in conjunction 
 with the Bishop of Peterborough's recent state- 
 ment that the stattis quo is too heavy a price 
 to pay for establishment. 
 
 When archiepiscopal and episcopal minds are 
 found to be busy even with the mildest reforms, 
 there is room for hope that the younger clergy, 
 as well as those veterans who have contrived to 
 keep their zeal undamped, will be up and doing. 
 Lord Haldane, somewhat curiously for a man 
 of his political tradition, has warned them against 
 taking a step towards disestablishment, but the 
 dead weight of Erastian opposition may yet 
 induce them to take two. Mr. St. Loe Strachey, 
 a more obvious adversary to reform, himself 
 owned that rejection of the " Enabling Act " 
 would be followed by a secession, but, like the 
 fabled kitchen maid, he apologetically added 
 that it would only be a little one. Little or 
 
 73
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 big, this is no time for churchmen to be talking 
 of withdrawals. If past example goes for any- 
 thing, it shows that a seceder is usually the man 
 who cannot be spared. 
 
 Courage is, and long has been, the thing 
 needed among the higher clergy. Of several 
 other qualities there is enough and to spare. 
 The Primate, for instance, is a statesman who 
 would adorn any Cabinet, and, did he not occupy 
 the chair of St. Augustine, he would be well 
 placed at the Foreign Office. As ambassador from 
 one Church to another, he has visited Scotland 
 and been welcomed as persona gratissima. The 
 most accomplished diplomatist, however, is 
 bound in the end to fail if he has not the nation 
 behind him, and it is unfortunately true that the 
 Anglican Church is no longer an important factor 
 in the life of the people. Respect for it has 
 become a matter of courtesy rather than of con- 
 viction, whilst interest in it is a minus quantity. 
 Its most devoted members confess that it is 
 crumbling, and deplore its present condition 
 the most loudly, though they as often declare 
 that by this means or that it is being set right. 
 Outsiders feel that they can have too much 
 of a house that is always being put in order. 
 The perpetual presence of plumber and decorator 
 
 74
 
 THE BENCH OF BISHOPS 
 
 offers poor inducment to the wanderer in search 
 of a permanent home. 
 
 If anything is to be saved, a drastic policy must 
 be adopted. What is to be done must be done 
 quickly. In the country at large there is no 
 enmity to the Church, and opposition to a 
 really boldly conceived plan, designed to secure 
 the ideal of a free Church in a free State, would 
 be negligible, but the Bench of Bishops with its 
 divided counsels and its makeshifts will receive 
 no wide support. The " Enabling Act," despite 
 the hopes founded on it, will fail of its purpose 
 because it is too much like an effort to get the 
 best out of two worlds. In some particulars it 
 is not straightforward, and, though it hints 
 penitence for an Erastian past, it is a riddling 
 confession which can only expect a riddling 
 shrift. "The Church of England," said John 
 Inglesant, *' is a compromise," and compromises 
 the English race is said to love. It would be 
 nearer the truth to say that it is very patient in 
 tolerating them. 
 
 75
 
 THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE 
 
 TORY DEMOCRACY is one of those poli- 
 tical posibilities to which for several 
 generations men have looked with recur- 
 ring hope. Its programme is always attrac- 
 tive. It promises reform without faddism ; 
 conservation without anachronism ; liberality 
 to everybody without extortion from anybody ; 
 evolution without tears. It attracts almost 
 all the clever young men in whom socialism 
 has not been born with original sin. In every 
 new Parliament a group of members, said to 
 be inspired by its ideals, are discovered to be 
 the only persons in the House of Commons 
 who really voice the aspirations of the country. 
 Not until one begins to examine its practical 
 manifestations does one begin to doubt. 
 
 As an example of Tory Democracy in working 
 order, the Primrose League at once and inevitably 
 conies to mind. Founded in 1883, the avowed 
 object of the League is to spread Conservative 
 principles among the working classes of Great 
 Britain. Given an unprejudiced mind, no one 
 can complain of this piece of missionary enterprise, 
 
 76
 
 THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE 
 
 but one or two little matters remain to be 
 investigated. One should, for example, pay 
 some heed to the methods employed ; to the 
 characters and records of sundry personages 
 who influenced the shaping of the original 
 scheme ; and, finally, to those who in later 
 days have carried on the good work. 
 
 With the foundation of this Primrose League 
 three names are particularly connected, and of 
 these that of the Earl of Beaconsfield is the 
 first in fame. Everybody knows the story of 
 the primrose having been his favourite flower, 
 but few, perhaps, realise how providential was 
 his taste. Whatever it may have been to Peter 
 Bell and the poet, the little yellow blossom is 
 to all Leaguers an esoteric symbol of Empire. 
 Nothing could be more simple or more charming ; 
 for its five petals, not to mention its five stamens, 
 its five-toothed calyx, and its five-valved capsule, 
 represent in the Imperialist's language of flowers 
 the five great divisions of the British heritage 
 in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Oceania. 
 To how many clod-stirring discourses has this 
 piece of symbolism given the text ! 
 
 But perhaps there were some who in the League's 
 early days overrated the posthumous influence 
 of Disraeli in its activities. Any study of that 
 
 77
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 statesman's life reveals his enormous belief in 
 the political influence of secret societies ; and, 
 at least in the " Young England " period, his 
 vivid imagination ran riot over hidden hands, 
 Jesuits, Carbonari, and Rosicrucian survivals. 
 Whilst the Primrose League was yet in its 
 infancy, a Roman Catholic bishop solemnly 
 warned his flock against joining the new and 
 dangerous association, and it took a ducal patron 
 to convince the worthy prelate that he was 
 not faced by an English edition of the Mafia 
 or of the Fenian Brotherhood. Spread of 
 Conservative principles amongst the working 
 classes was not to be accompanied by armed 
 risings of the peasantry in defence of manorial 
 rights, nor even by holding up to ransom the 
 radical grocer. The young Disraeli might 
 have played gleefully with such romantic ideas, 
 but the League itself was to be nourished by 
 men of another stamp. 
 
 Credit for the original plan seems to have been 
 due to the late Lord Glenesk, for in the first place 
 it was mooted in the Morning Post. What 
 that newspaper had to do with democracy it 
 would be hard to say, but of its changeless 
 Toryism there is no doubt. Perhaps its pro- 
 prietor saw in the Orange Lodges of Ulster a 
 
 78
 
 THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE 
 
 working model on which the proposed habitations 
 could be formed, and perhaps he reflected com- 
 fortably that the strong, raw spirit called Boyne 
 Water was little to the taste of English people. 
 However well the British Unionist is pleased 
 with his friends across the water, he is yet 
 better pleased that the water is between them. 
 Anyhow, tea and small beer have always 
 been the accepted beverages of the Primrose 
 fete. 
 
 For the League in its completed shape one has 
 most to thank Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, 
 a man of mischievous humour and a political 
 diplomatist who made no secret of his cynicism. 
 Under his care and with the aid of a number of 
 ladies, mostly of title, the Glenesk idea came to 
 maturity. Honorific distinctions were devised 
 with prodigality, and brought within the reach 
 of the most modest purses, though not with the 
 foolish lack of discrimination which tends to make 
 Lord Chancellors as cheap as sprats. A duly 
 ordered hierarchy was planned. The Associates 
 were ranged, humbly yet honorably, beneath 
 a Jacob's ladder, at the top of which gleamed 
 the Grand Master himself. On the rungs were 
 Knights and Dames of various degrees. Won- 
 derful possibilities existed. Who, [looking 
 
 79
 
 upwards, could realize unmoved that one day 
 he might become a Knight Harbinger ? 
 
 Badges, brooches, and other articles of inex- 
 pensive jewelry were brought within the reach 
 of members, and served for something besides 
 personal adornment. They were talismans open- 
 ing gates to their privileged wearers on suitable 
 occasions. At the annual picnic in my lord's 
 park, for instance, where the speeches were 
 followed by the swings and roundabouts, peer 
 and farm tenants met on terms of practical 
 equality, and even the labourer and his wife 
 were permitted to walk round the walled gardens 
 and see the peaches with their own eyes. Lily 
 fingers found their way to horny palms, and an 
 era of general good-fellowship was established 
 even before my lady, somewhat to the relief 
 of all concerned, had made way for the 
 fireworks and ale. 
 
 All was excellently conceived ; a place for 
 everybody and everybody in his or her place, 
 although the gradations, since there were so 
 many of them, were scarcely felt. Be sure the 
 moralist was present to dwell on the loss it would 
 be to all if the levelling tendencies of the age 
 were to prevent repetition of such happy days. 
 Only a gardener or two grumbled about the nut- 
 
 80
 
 THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE 
 
 shells and orange-peel scattered by the revellers 
 at an unguarded end of the lawn. And on the 
 next Sunday the choir put new gusto into 
 the singing of the hymn about the rich man in 
 his castle and the poor man at his gate. In 
 the towns, perhaps, the energies of the League 
 bore less picturesque results, but in the 'eighties 
 it was the counties that were the ticklish question, 
 Hodge was soon to have the vote, and even the 
 farmers were suspected of a sneaking gratitude 
 to the Liberal Government for its Hares and 
 Rabbits Act. 
 
 Time has brought few changes in the methods 
 of the Primrose League or in its objects. Its 
 members are still sworn to maintain with dis- 
 cretion and fidelity the estates of the realm, the 
 British Empire, and religion. As to what 
 religion they are to maintain there is discreet 
 silence, but one would suspect it is the variety 
 recommended by Disraeli " Church and State, 
 my boy, like strawberries and cream, always 
 best together." If one looks to see at the head 
 of this organization for spreading Conservative 
 opinion among the working classes any states- 
 man of even mildly democratic tendency, one 
 will be disappointed. Perhaps, however, to the 
 mere Associate or average Knight Harbinger, 
 
 81 F
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 there is satisfaction in belonging to a body 
 of which Earl Curzon of Kedleston is the Grand 
 Master and head. 
 
 Lord Curzon, too, one feels, approves mightily 
 of the ordered hierarchy beneath him. Not 
 so long ago the writer of this book was in the habit 
 of dining at a club in France where that noble- 
 man's butler acted as head waiter, and one of 
 the latter's duties was to enforce a rule that 
 there should be no smoking before a quarter 
 to nine. Very well and impartially he performed 
 his task, until one night an officer of unusually 
 high rank lighted a large cigar on the stroke 
 of half-past eight. Half the diners waited 
 breathless. Would respect for rank or rule 
 predominate ? Training told. Walking solemnly 
 to the end of the room, the imperturbable 
 functionary mounted a chair and advanced the 
 hands of the clock by fifteen minutes. Rank 
 and rule had both been respected, and who 
 could have dreamed that it could have been 
 otherwise with one who had served the Grand 
 Master of the Primrose League ? 
 
 Long ago, one of the Victorian Tories cried 
 that " we must educate our masters." The 
 process of political education has now been many 
 years in hand, though it has not run precisely 
 
 82
 
 THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE 
 
 on the lines which the originally designed " we " 
 would have favoured. The populace has out- 
 grown Primrose League methods. Titillation of 
 the weaker side of human nature, the gratification 
 of small vanities, occasional condescensions 
 from on high, are all very well for a time, but 
 as permanent substitutes for political policy 
 they will not do. Moreover, the Order of the 
 British Empire has weakened the Primrose 
 League's first attraction. Mr. Lloyd George's 
 Government has paid the final tribute of sincerest 
 flattery to the cunning scheme of Sir Henry 
 Drummond Wolff, and in the process has ham- 
 mered the last nail into its coffin.
 
 THE TEMPORARY CIVIL SERVANT 
 
 HISTORIANS who in the future write of 
 our own times, will wish to explain 
 to their readers how retrenchment followed on 
 the heels of peace. Foreseeing that they may 
 find themselves in difficulties, I want to call 
 their attention to a passage in The Pickwick 
 Papers, which may serve them for an allegorical 
 illustration. In that admirable work one may 
 read how, in a moment of general excitement, 
 Mr. Winkle once made a terrific onslaught on 
 a small boy who happened to stand next him. 
 Thereupon Mr. Snodgrass, in truly Christian 
 spirit, and in order that he might take no one 
 unawares, announced in a very loud tone that 
 he was going to begin, and proceeded to take 
 off his coat with the utmost deliberation. Be- 
 tween this famous incident and the opening 
 moves in the economy campaign, proclained 
 at Deauville and practised in Whitehall in the 
 year 1919, the thirtieth-century Gibbon may 
 find a fairly close parallel. When he turns to 
 facts, he will conceivably relate how, at a time 
 
 84
 
 THE TEMPORARY CIVIL SERVANT 
 
 when the country's daily income stood at about 
 half its daily expenditure, the Civil Service was 
 made to cost us less by the dismissal from the 
 War Office of Cissie Smith, aged thirteen and 
 a half. 
 
 Cissie, thus sacrificed, obviously matches Mr. 
 Winkle's victim. She will be regarded as a 
 pathetic, almost noble, figure. From motives 
 of patriotism, she was at an early age removed 
 from school, and set to do work of national 
 importance by piloting strangers through the 
 corridors of a Government department. As she 
 once contrived to mislay me for the best part 
 of a morning, thus saving five minutes of the 
 valuable time of a staff captain whom I desired 
 to interview, and enabling him to escape to his 
 luncheon, I can say from personal experience 
 that she was an adept at her task. Many could 
 confirm my evidence on her behalf, yet now, in 
 requital of her services, she has been turned 
 adrift on a world where there is no particular 
 demand for her highly specialized skill. The 
 need to save money being urgent, and the time 
 of staff officers being less valuable than it was, 
 one must not, however, complain of her treat- 
 ment. Use for her no longer exists. Yet that 
 her departure should have been made an occasion 
 
 85
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 for loud rejoicing seems to show some lack of 
 proper and generous feeling. Are we not, 
 indeed, inclined to be somewhat ungrateful 
 to one and all of our temporary Civil 
 Servants ? 
 
 Into no profession or calling do persons seem 
 to fit themselves more quickly or easily than 
 into the Civil Service. Between professional 
 and temporary soldiers there was always an 
 unbridged gulf. The two classes did not in 
 the least wish to be confused, and each held 
 as firmly as possible to certain original attributes. 
 In Whitehall, on the other hand, the new-comer 
 made himself at home. There was something 
 irresistibly sedative in the atmosphere. If you 
 have ever consulted one of those booklets which 
 seek to guide youth in choice of an occupation, 
 you must have noted that the Civil Service is 
 never called exhilarating or interesting or 
 ennobling or even lucrative. Invariably it is 
 recommended for its safety. In days before 
 the war its youngest entrant was an aspirant 
 for a pension, whilst even those who held its 
 most coveted posts could not be described as 
 of immodest means. From Whitehall windows 
 its members must have watched a worrying 
 world with some of that snug wonder which 
 
 86
 
 THE TEMPORARY CIVIL SERVANT 
 
 one imagines the Dormouse to have felt for 
 the Mad Hatter. 
 
 One has heard that the air of Rome brings 
 melancholy and lassitude to pilgrims from other 
 climes. In the presence of the eternal, one 
 begins to suspect that it is futile to hurry, and 
 the permanent Civil Servant never doubted 
 that his department would outlast most human 
 institutions. To breathe the same air with him 
 was to absorb bromide. During the war, the 
 Press decided that the public was tired of King 
 Log and desired the rule of King Stork. Notori- 
 ous hustlers were introduced everywhere, and, 
 of course, they hustled a great deal. Of the 
 many public works they inaugurated, the future 
 historian will doubtless remark that they may 
 be seen unto this day, and concerning their 
 purpose he will dispute as we have disputed 
 about Stonehenge. Bureaucratic remains at 
 Loch Doon will one day form an interesting 
 subject for study, but it is hard for us to take 
 so detached a view of these monuments more 
 enduring and more costly than brass. Charit- 
 ably, one must assume that at an early stage 
 of their construction the Whitehall atmosphere 
 overcame the hustler and he fell asleep. It 
 must have seemed a perfectly safe thing to do. 
 
 87
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 According to all the traditions of the service, 
 Whitehall would still be there when he awoke 
 and he would be there too. 
 
 Perhaps the main difference which survived 
 between the old type of Civil Servant and the 
 " live " man who was summoned to aid or to 
 supplant him was that the former slept soundly, 
 whilst the latter appeared to be a somnambulist. 
 In no other way can one account for some of 
 his performances. Of the two varieties the first 
 is preferable, but the public should remember 
 that not long ago the second was in great 
 demand. In saying farewell to temporary Civil 
 Servants of all grades, a note of kindliness 
 might have been introduced by recalling how 
 eagerly their services were once sought. Not 
 very long ago it was popularly held to be almost 
 indecent for men, women, or children to remain 
 in their normal states of life. If an old man 
 placed himself at the State's disposal and a 
 post was not immediately found for him, 
 national indignation vented itself in the next 
 morning's papers. Responding to appeals for 
 " every fit woman," young misses arrived from 
 town and country to form a queue from the 
 Houses of Parliament to Trafalgar Square. 
 They were greeted as heroines. In those days 
 
 88
 
 THE TEMPORARY CIVIL SERVANT 
 
 the two unforgivable sins were to stay at home 
 and to mind one's own business. It did not 
 much matter what one did as long as it was 
 somebody else's job, and, if possible, a job 
 under Government. 
 
 Not all our volunteers, civil or military, 
 were necessarily in love with the work they 
 undertook. Some may have felt that they were 
 doing an unpleasant duty, others have been 
 influenced by social pressure or simple restless- 
 ness. Even the flappers did not always have 
 the " time of their lives " as that phrase was 
 once understood, and I know one or two of 
 them who were glad to go home when the war 
 ended. All, however, had not homes which 
 could conveniently receive them, and on those 
 " swollen staffs " there may, too, have been 
 some men who did not feel the first year of 
 peace a particularly good one in which to seek 
 fresh employment. Their private concerns were 
 no affair of ours, but we might at least have 
 been polite to them. They entered the Civil 
 Service in the public interest, and in the same 
 interest they had to leave it ; but it was bad 
 manners and very foolish to represent them as 
 so many vultures gorging themselves on the 
 body of Sir John Bradbury. The cry of the 
 
 89
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 country in danger from a foreign enemy made 
 many men and woman act altruistically. The 
 cry of the country in danger of financial collapse 
 merely makes the majority of human beings 
 look to their own immediate security. In an 
 ideal world where everybody had a proper 
 education in civics, it would not be so. Holders 
 of war loan would be petitioning to have their 
 interest reduced ; demobilized soldiers would 
 refuse their gratuities ; Mr. Churchill would 
 have resigned his last car and taken a season 
 ticket on the Underground. In that Utopia, 
 temporary Civil Servants would abscond unpaid 
 at the Treasury's first hint of trouble. 
 
 As things are, it is evident that His Majesty's 
 Ministers must follow the example of Mr. 
 Snodgrass and even go beyond it. Officially, 
 they have been told to make drastic reductions 
 in their staffs ; unofficially, one or two of them 
 have been warned that it would not be amiss 
 if they were to retire into private life, their 
 whole departments disappearing with them. It 
 was even suggested that the Air Ministry might 
 well leave the earth for its native element, 
 and it was darkly asked whom and what the 
 Ministry of Supplies was supplying. One must 
 not look for too much in this direction. What- 
 
 90
 
 ever paring may be done will be done as far 
 from the head as possible. The little girls with 
 pig-tails were first doomed, and the slightly 
 older young ladies, now stigmatized for their 
 tea-swilling and cream-bun devouring propen- 
 sities, are following. In due course a number 
 of masculine understrappers of various ages 
 will be removed. Only firmness is required to 
 dislodge these so-called limpets. But higher up 
 the rocks, in less accessible places, with higher 
 functions, stronger connections, and considerably 
 higher salaries, are the Tite Barnacles. Even 
 those of them who have been there but a few 
 years have acquired the old instinct of contempt 
 for the public. Like their famous ancestor, they 
 mention that obscure body with reluctance, and 
 think of it as their natural enemy. They have, 
 of course, read the Premier's letter on reduction 
 of personnel. Being what they are, they have 
 assuredly noted it, and one may be reasonably 
 confident that they have had it filed. To 
 imagine that any one of the Barnacles has taken 
 it as a notice to quit with a personal application, 
 is totally to misunderstand the mentality of 
 those who have had a few years' intensive 
 training in the great art of how not to do it. 
 Mr. Lloyd George has already received the 
 
 91
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 Order of Merit from the King. Another dis- 
 tinction may yet be added to him. It used to 
 be said that the great British Order of Merit 
 was the Legion of the Rebuffed of the Circum- 
 locution Office. 
 
 92
 
 THE IMPERIALIST 
 
 OLD JINGO is dead. The war killed 
 him. Even in August 1914 you could 
 see there was something wrong with him, though 
 he himself did not realize what was the matter. 
 Really, though subconsciously, he was wishing 
 we had not gone to war with Germany, for 
 then he could have put all his energies into 
 abusing a Radical Government which had shame- 
 fully betrayed national honour, as he had always 
 declared that it would. The fact that Sir 
 Edward Grey and all the people at whom he 
 had scoffed were doing what he had to acknow- 
 ledge as the right thing, upset him. Besides, 
 he had always rather admired the German 
 Empire with its oratorical Kaiser, its military 
 discipline, and its penetrative and expansive 
 ways. He had had a taste for Blucher boots, 
 and had always prided himself on being a 
 Teuton, and as such born in superiority to the 
 decadent Latin and erratic Celt. Of course he 
 was upset. Worse days came for him when 
 people began to say that his Dardanelles policy 
 of 1878 had been a mistake. He had not much 
 
 98
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 spirit left in him, but he continued for a while 
 to jeer at President Wilson's neutrality. When 
 the news of American intervention arrived, he 
 gave up the ghost, and they covered his face 
 with a sheet of his favourite newspaper. 
 
 Old Jingo is dead, but his ghost is with us, 
 for it has returned to inhabit the bodies of 
 certain persons calling themselves Imperialists. 
 Had I the pens of Mr. Belloc and Mr. Chesterton 
 I might endeavour to show that Jingo and 
 Imperialist had a common ancestry in Jewry, 
 and that the Treaty of Berlin and the last Boer 
 War were both due to one and the same Oriental 
 impulse. The suggestion, for what it is worth, 
 is offered to the British-Israel Association. For 
 present purposes it is enough to point out that 
 Imperialism has long ceased to be an English 
 policy in any true sense of the word. The 
 last places in the world of which its modern 
 advocates seem to think are those British Isles 
 to which, when they do remember them, they 
 refer contemptuously as little specks in the 
 Atlantic Ocean. In the near Continent of Europe 
 they have seldom displayed any intelligent 
 interest. Talk to them of, say, Esthonia, and 
 you will find that their sole concern about it 
 is its possible inconvenience to Germany. The 
 
 94
 
 THE IMPERIALIST 
 
 only parts of the earth for which they have a 
 regard are those which are, or could be, coloured 
 red on those excellent maps which one used 
 to connect with the name of the late Sir Howard 
 Vincent. Very nearly they cut us off from the 
 whole of Christendom. They know no higher 
 boast than that which announced us the greatest 
 of Moslem powers. The Cape to Cairo railway 
 was their desideratum ; the Channel tunnel 
 their bugbear. 
 
 It was in a spirit of high adventure that the 
 Empire beyond the seas was founded. The 
 Elizabethans may have been but splendid pirates 
 and the Puritans no nicer in their dealings 
 with Massachusetts Indians than with Irish 
 Papists, but there was nothing in the ethics 
 of their age to make them other than they were. 
 Modern Imperialism has retained their defects 
 and shed their qualities. Now and then an 
 effort is made to revive the original romance, 
 and at given moments it may succeed with a 
 public that likes to be called insular and street- 
 bred. One remembers the late Poet Laureate's 
 lines his only lines one does remember in 
 which he cheered the Jameson raiders for their 
 riding to the rescue of the hetairai of the gold 
 reef city. The pretence, however, cannot long 
 
 95
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 be maintained. We no longer seek El Dorado ; 
 we have found and annexed it. We are less of 
 pioneers and more of exploiters than we were. 
 We no longer can go to the Indies with the hope 
 even of making our own fortunes, though we 
 may still assist there in adding to the fortune 
 of some person or persons with a London office 
 and a seat in Surrey. But, whenever there is 
 unemployment, young men are urged to 
 emigrate, and so the troublesome problem of 
 colonizing England is indefinitely postponed. 
 
 The finest possibility in Empire building, the 
 carrying of civilization to more or less barbarous 
 races, is not one which appeals to our most 
 vocal Imperialists, or, at leasts, as they tell us, 
 it must be kept strictly within bounds. A 
 certain amount of instruction they do find it 
 convenient to allow, but they are chiefly apt 
 to praise it when it is, as Mr. Kipling sang, 
 " translated by a stick." A century ago we all 
 had the same belief in regard to wives, walnut 
 trees, and spaniels, and it is unfortunately true 
 that a few years in India or the Tropics often turn 
 a herald of progress into a champion of medise- 
 valism, just as they debilitate his internal organs 
 of digestion. Material benefits from his presence 
 he does not grudge the natives. He protects 
 
 96
 
 THE IMPERIALIST 
 
 the wealth of some. After preliminary skir- 
 mishes, he has taught them the blessings of 
 peace. Most gallantly he has laboured for them 
 against famine and disease. But all talk of 
 their further education is anathema to him. 
 
 As his chosen bard has written, " The 'eathen 
 in 'is blindness must end where 'e began." Be- 
 yond this gleeful denial of all possibility of 
 progress, the average Imperialist will not budge. 
 Discuss the matter with him and he will quote 
 scores of cases in which the educated native has 
 been a ghastly failure, likely instancing Mr. 
 Grish Chunder De of the Kipling story, though 
 he has no need to go to fiction for examples. 
 One knows of these calamities, and is sorry about 
 them. He knows them and is glad. Nothing 
 would disturb him more than the success of 
 Mr. G. C. De, and the idea that the great-grand- 
 children of Mr. De may succeed sometimes keeps 
 him awake at night. 
 
 The position of the white man as tutor to 
 the man of colour is only beginning to be 
 acknowledged, but the League of Nations 
 Covenant has made it a piece of practical 
 politics. Certain lands are to be held in trust 
 for their inhabitants by the mandatory Powers. 
 The arrangement is temporary. Tutor and 
 
 97 G
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 trustee are to retire when their work is done, 
 and it is surely implied that they are to do all 
 they can to hasten that day. Everything that 
 was ever noble in the spirit of Imperial expansion 
 is here, but there are to be no vested interests 
 in other peoples' property, and only a triumph 
 when one day we haul down the flag and sing 
 a Nunc Dimittis. What is honourable for us 
 in South-West Africa and Samoa, cannot be 
 shameful in Burmah and Egypt or anywhere 
 else. 
 
 To the Imperialists, in whom is old Jingo's 
 ghost, the new task is as ridiculous as novel. 
 He retains his motto of what I have I hold, and 
 what I have not I get. Impossible for him to 
 see that it is a greater thing fco bear a mandate 
 from civilization than to extract the last ounce 
 of margarine from the niggers' coconuts. At 
 bottom he has always gone back to think of 
 colonies in terms of commerce and of depen- 
 dencies in terms of profit. For all his tall 
 talk and telescope, he has remained at heart 
 as much the shopkeeper as the man who has 
 never looked further east than Whitechapel. 
 He has been oratorical about the white man's 
 burden. Let us see if he will lift it now with 
 a good grace. Empire makers there have been 
 
 98
 
 THE IMPERIALIST 
 
 who would have risen to the task, for at one 
 end of the story of expansion there is the name 
 of William Penn and at the other that of Sir 
 Harry Johnston. 
 
 Imperialism in the countries of the coloured 
 races was put out of court by the League of 
 Nations. In the self-governing Dominions it 
 is unwise to use the word too much. General 
 Smuts prefers to speak of a commonwealth, 
 not because he is of Dutch origin, but because 
 he rightly objects to use a term which has become 
 misleading. The presence of Dominion repre- 
 sentatives at the Peace Conference proved, if 
 proof were needed, that, call us what one will, 
 we are a collection of Allied States of which 
 none is willing to delegate its freedom of action 
 to another. In the Globe, indeed, a shrill, small 
 voice cried that Mr. Hughes ought to be the 
 plenipotentiary of England, but I noticed no 
 cablegram asking in reciprocity that Mr. Maxse 
 should plead the Australian cause among the 
 nations. 
 
 Of course, it is hard for a generation which 
 but yesterday was so proud of talking of the 
 lion's whelps, to realize that the whelps have 
 come to maturity and may resent the old name, 
 but the fact has to be faced. Preferential 
 
 99
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 trade in pianos will not make any difference, 
 nor will any tinkering with tariffs deflect the 
 younger nations from following their own com- 
 mercial policy, their own military and naval 
 policy, and their own foreign policy. We should 
 be grateful to Mr. Hughes for having made 
 this much plain and indisputable, for where 
 there is no misconception there can be no 
 misunderstanding. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's 
 Empire with its principle of " rally round 
 Downing Street when I am in office, but ignore 
 it when I am out," cannot be revived. Colonies 
 can no longer be used as pawns in party politics. 
 Fellowship between peoples who have blood 
 and language in common there should always 
 be, but the Zollverein scheme was about the 
 last and almost the worst of our adaptations 
 of German statecraft. In practice it would 
 have shown the British nations not united by 
 regard for each other, but banded against the 
 rest of the world for trade warfare. It was 
 Imperialism in its meanest aspect, and the 
 decrepit Jingo was behind it. 
 
 100
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN 
 
 SUPERSTITIONS die hard, yet many of 
 them, and not always the worst, have 
 been destroyed. Of those which still partially 
 survive none is more remarkable than that 
 which surrounds the man of business. In 
 certain civilizations his place has been admitted 
 to be secondary in the scheme of things, and at 
 times he has suffered temporary and almost 
 total eclipse, but within memory of the middle- 
 aged his supreme importance had until quite 
 recently never been called seriously in question 
 by any save professed malcontents. Belief in 
 him has become almost the first article in the 
 plain person's creed. In direct descent from 
 King Midas, who when he bathed in Pactolus 
 turned its sands to gold, his distant progenitors 
 were in Babylon and Jerusalem in the temples. 
 Other prophets, priests, and kings had their 
 vogue and went, or were permitted to stay on 
 condition they exercised none of their original 
 functions. The man of business alone remained 
 a sacrosanct figure with which there must be no 
 
 101
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 more than the minimum of interference. He 
 appeared a second Samson whom it was dangerous 
 to annoy lest he might commit suicide in a 
 temper, destroying us and the State in the ruin 
 his fall would bring. 
 
 Far be it from me to deny that he has done 
 estimable service to mankind, and still serves 
 a useful purpose in his own sphere. In Homeric 
 times, when he was almost unknown, Glaucus 
 gave a hundred oxen for his suit of armour, 
 which must have been an extremely cumber- 
 some transaction, and I am grateful to a class 
 which has perfected simpler methods of obtain- 
 ing the necessities of life. The business man, 
 however, is not content with being the best- 
 paid servant of the public, for even at his wealthi- 
 est a spark of divine discontent burns in him. 
 According to Andrew Carnegie, millionaires who 
 laugh are rare. Somewhere in them is a troubled 
 fancy that buying and selling and all the profits 
 thereof do not raise them quite to the old 
 priestly or kingly level. Money, for a part of 
 their lives, may be to them what Italy was to 
 the company of ^Eneas, " that to which the 
 rowers steered," but though its acquisition 
 automatically gives them power, it does not in 
 itself seem to command reverence. When their 
 
 102
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN 
 
 Italy is reached, though to reach it they have 
 hardened their hearts like Rameses and morti- 
 fied their flesh like anchorites, that final reward 
 may be denied them. 
 
 The other day I saw on a stall of second-hand 
 books a volume called The Romance of Trade, 
 and its date of publication was the year in which 
 Tennyson, saluting the jubilee of his queen, 
 glorified her reign for its *' fifty years of broaden- 
 ing commerce." In earlier ages there had been 
 attached to the business man, not exactly oblo- 
 quy, but an imputation that his main object 
 in life was to provide handsomely for himself 
 and his family. When the Phoenicians visited 
 our shores, the Britons knew them for the 
 traders they were, bartered tin with them, 
 and were more or less content to be swindled 
 by them, but it is not thought that they dedicated 
 groves to them. In the days of Mr. Gradgrind 
 we did not fully grasp all the wonder, heroism, 
 and romance, that lay hid in the building of a 
 big business, but we were well on the way to 
 realization. I like to think of the pleasure 
 that book I saw and left on the stall must have 
 given to many who from the days of their 
 industrious apprenticeship had toiled without 
 spiritual reward, and of what solace it brought 
 
 103
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 them in an old age which material well-being 
 might else have made monotonous. 
 
 In its glowing pages the business man must 
 have read much he had scarcely suspected of 
 himself. Some awake to find themselves famous, 
 but he, always wide awake about his own affairs, 
 suddenly discovered that someone had added 
 an aureole to the silk hat he habitually wore 
 to the City and to church. In all subsequent 
 consideration of him one has to deal, not with 
 a common citizen, but with a legendary figure. 
 Every ancient lore and myth has been pillaged 
 to find epithets for him and similes for his 
 instruments. He who was once called trades- 
 man, and took no shame in his calling, has 
 become knight, pioneer, and captain. If his 
 interests lie in shipping, be sure his grimiest 
 cargo boats are argosies, and if rails are his 
 concern he has the pleasant knowledge that 
 he is hero of the romance which brings up the 
 nine-fifteen. He is the new Themistocles ; if 
 he cannot fiddle, he can turn a poor village into 
 a great city. He is hailed as backbone of his 
 country, and told daily what a mass of inverte- 
 brate jelly it would be without him. 
 
 Alone of the men of his time, he has established 
 a religion in which any large number of people 
 
 104
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN 
 
 believe. It is, indeed, a very ancient faith, 
 but its wide acceptance was long delayed by 
 prevalence of other and often contrary beliefs. 
 Having but a single tenet, it has the advantage 
 of simplicity. Timon's merchant put it into 
 a phrase : "If traffick do it, the gods do it." 
 Those eight words are the business man's credo 
 and his help in time of trouble, strengthening 
 him against every calamity tho,t may befall. 
 When war began, they gave him the assurance 
 to placard his streets with the motto of " Business 
 as Usual," and, with armies yet but nibbling 
 at one another, they inspired him to proclaim 
 " the war after the war," that really serious 
 affair with trade instead of trenches to be 
 captured, and shares and golden sovereigns 
 instead of silver medals for the victors. Heart- 
 ened by this new device, the soldiers left England. 
 In the new crusade, " Business as Usual " was 
 to shine for them as In hoc signo vinces. 
 
 The British public has a way of taking people 
 at their own valuation if the valuation has been 
 made high enough. One after another, the 
 business men were called to assist in the councils 
 of the nation. Some of their names have es- 
 caped me, but there was a Stanley who had once 
 been something else, and someone who was 
 
 105
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 shortly to be known as Inverforth ; there was 
 a Geddes who could run a railway, and was 
 ready to run anything on earth ; there were 
 others who had struck oil, sold coal, or shown 
 financial ability in directing a group of news- 
 papers. On the day before any appointment 
 was made, the man in the street might without 
 great show of ignorance have confessed to know- 
 ing nothing of the Empire's coming saviour, but, 
 when the appointment was announced, he had 
 no misgivings. He accepted it as a good Catholic 
 accepts the election of a new Pope. 
 
 Only religious awe can account for the blind 
 trust we placed in our business Ministers. If 
 we put confidence in Mr. Asquith or Mr. George 
 it is not because they are more or less distinguished 
 members of the legal professions. If we have 
 hopes for M. Paderewski in Poland, it is not 
 because he once charmed us at the Queen's 
 Hall. Had we reflected at all on what we knew 
 of the class to which those others belonged, we 
 might have decided that, however capable they 
 were in their own sphere, it was, on the whole, 
 unlikely they would have that breadth of sym- 
 pathy and mind desirable for conducting 
 affairs of State. Sir Isaac Harman, in the 
 novel by Mr, Wells, is a character typical of 
 
 106
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN 
 
 those who succeed in commerce and industry. 
 " Anybody in his line of business who wanted 
 to be generous, who possessed any broader 
 interests than the shop, who troubled to think 
 about the nation or the race or any of the deeper 
 mysteries of life, was bound to go down before 
 him." Yet, if any demurred to the new appoint- 
 ments, they were told that these men had made 
 England what it was, and with that cliche 
 the argument for the time ended. 
 
 Whether the business man should be held 
 responsible for some of our present troubles 
 is a question worth examining. Concentration 
 on the welfare of his firm or company, with 
 the resulting belief that volume of trade is the 
 measure of a nation's happiness, have hidden 
 from him much that is pikestaff plain to others. 
 Whilst the workers were only asking for more 
 wages, his opposition was tinged with sympathy. 
 He and they were both in what Stevenson called 
 the handicap race for six-penny pieces. Now, 
 when they have won a few coins, he sees what 
 they want to do with them. Leisure, which a 
 French writer has styled " greatest and most 
 beautiful of men's conquests," is what they 
 propose to buy, and the business man, who 
 may never have had that luxury, is uncompre- 
 
 107
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 hendingly angry. If it had been gramophones 
 or beer or ostrich feathers, anything he could 
 manufacture or import, it would have been 
 another matter. Diogenes was doubtless told 
 by his friends, if he had any, that he was a fool 
 not to obtain better housing and home comforts 
 from Alexander, and the same information is 
 freely given to modern workers. Fools they 
 may be, yet they are so many that their point 
 of view has to be considered. Seeley, the busi- 
 ness man's historian, wrote that war was for 
 England an industry and the most profitable 
 of all investments, but events have belied him. 
 One wiser than he said that all warlike people 
 were a little idle, and, for a nation largely com- 
 posed of ex-soldiers, the captain of industry 
 is neither the best nor the most tactful governor. 
 Like Humpty-Dumpty, the man of business 
 has been set in an unnaturally exalted position, 
 but his balance is now precarious. If he fall 
 there will be no mending him, and his will be 
 the most lost of all lost causes. It would be 
 a kind and wise act if somebody were to move 
 him from the wall's top and lay him gently 
 on the humble earth to which he belongs, and 
 which for a while has belonged to him. 
 
 108
 
 THE COUNTRY HOUSE 
 
 A LITTLE while ago the Duke of Marl- 
 borough made a somewhat disconcerting 
 communication to the Press. His letter con- 
 tained a threat. Attention of its readers was, 
 in the first place, called to the lavish manner in 
 which the class to which the Duke belongs had 
 exercised the " traditional English virtue of 
 hospitality." Secondly, one was reminded how 
 many public services had been freely performed 
 by that same class. Thirdly, and lastly, it was 
 suggested that its members, to escape the in- 
 cidence of taxation, might decide to quit lands 
 and houses and to join the ranks of the idle 
 rich. At first glance there did seem to be 
 something rather alarming in this prospect, for 
 few things could be more deplorable than a 
 further depopulation of the countryside, and 
 one had an uneasy vision of an emigrant ship 
 conveying the owner of Blenheim and other 
 sons of the soil to some asylum in the south 
 of France. Reflection allayed dismay, or, 
 rather, it brought one to see that the worst 
 
 100
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 prophesied by the Duke is already a matter 
 of history. 
 
 The great territorial landowners, for whom 
 alone he has a right to speak, have never been 
 the flesh, bone, and fibre of the counties. At 
 best they have been but birds of passage. At 
 stated seasons of the year rural England has 
 enjoyed their presence, but the exigencies of 
 their lives have compelled them always to 
 pass a great deal of their time elsewhere. May- 
 fair and a moor in the Scottish highlands have 
 claimed them, and there have been weeks of 
 recuperation on blue water or in foreign parts. 
 Somehow or other, when blinds are drawn in 
 hall or castle and the flag no longer flutters 
 from the tower, existence in the village seems 
 to lose only its froth and nothing of its essence. 
 The magnates, whose departure is foretold, 
 have rated too highly their importance in the 
 agricultural community. Their hospitality, to 
 which attention has been called, has always 
 had about it a flavour of the town. It has been 
 an affair of invitations and set occasions, never 
 of the open door which among your true country- 
 men is the mark of a hospitable house. As 
 to public services, they have been mostly per- 
 formed at Westminster, which, as they say 
 
 110
 
 THE COUNTRY HOUSE 
 
 in Sleepy Hollow, is a very distant place, and 
 never did much for the likes of us. In the days 
 of their greatest power the territorial nobility 
 was in its whiggery nearer to the metropolis 
 than to the countryside where the king over the 
 water was still being pledged in home-brew. 
 To-day, its influence in local politics is largely 
 vicarious. Even on the county bench, so long 
 a preserve for the landed interest, its members 
 have been notoriously prominent by their absence. 
 Not in Blenheim Palace or any such lordly 
 mansion would one have sought the men who 
 in old days were, for good or ill, moulding the 
 destinies of most English England. In the 
 social history of those times the houses of most 
 account were those of the squires, they who from 
 year's end to year's end seldom moved more 
 than a dozen miles from their gates, had their 
 hearts in flock and field, in rough sport, in the 
 hail-fellowship of neighbours of their kind. 
 " The little independent gentleman of three 
 hundred pounds per annum," as the antiquary 
 Grose styled him, was a salient figure in the life 
 of the land. To the county town he went only 
 for elections and assizes ; to church he went 
 regularly ; to the ale-house often enough. 
 Walking, as well as riding, he carried a whip 
 
 111
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 that he might smack it, and he gave warning 
 of his coming by the view-halloo. In his young- 
 days he was generally a great fellow with the 
 wenches, and if he had not the Frenchman's 
 droit du seigneur, that, maybe, made small 
 difference. His literature was the weekly 
 gazette, The Complete Justice, and a book on 
 Farriery. With so much learning he was natural 
 arbitrator in all disputes concerning the govern- 
 ment of the parish. 
 
 " Alas ! "' wrote the excellent Grose, before 
 the eighteenth century had ended, " these men 
 and their houses are no more . . . the estate 
 is conveyed to the steward of the neighbouring 
 Lord, or else to some Nabob, Contractor, or 
 Limb of the Law." The American war, followed 
 by the French war, not to mention increasing 
 taste for luxury, meant the end of the old order. 
 It would be easy to draw a parallel with changes 
 in our own age, but it would be only specious. 
 When the old-fashioned merchant or attorney 
 bought his place in the country, he came to it 
 with intention there to pass the rest of his 
 years, and regarded himself as founder of a 
 family which should take root in his newly 
 bought acres. The latest purchasers of land 
 are of another kidney, and their motor-cars are 
 
 112
 
 THE COUNTRY HOUSE 
 
 symbols of their transience. Anywhere within 
 sixty miles of a great town they are likely to 
 be mere week-enders, persons to whom wood, 
 arable, and watered meadow are so much 
 pleasure ground. If their property prove, as 
 it often does, a disappointment, they will move 
 to another shire, leaving behind but a trail 
 of dust. 
 
 The country house, with such occupants, 
 may for a little while blaze with light and ring 
 with gaiety, and the folk of the district are 
 agreeably awed by the ostentation of wealth. 
 The nouveau riche, with a weakness of which 
 he could never have been suspected in the City, 
 makes his bid for social prestige, and up to a 
 point he finds his poor neighbours submissive, 
 but secretly they despise him. One cannot 
 honour a man who does not know a field of 
 wheat from a field of barley, and cannot 
 distinguish bull from bullock. Moreover, when 
 " trade's unfeeling train usurp the land," a 
 crop of troubles usually arises. The old squire 
 may have been a stickler for every right given 
 him in the faded ink of his parchments, and 
 his interpretation of the game laws was not 
 always wise or liberal, but he had a decent 
 respect for such rights as law or custom allowed 
 
 113 H
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 to others. His successor, with character formed 
 in the school of competition, believes in the 
 weakest going to the wall, and has no other 
 precedent to guide him. If he has bought the 
 soil of a piece of common as appanage to his 
 sporting estate, he will resent the ancient women 
 who from time out of mind have come thither 
 to gather kindling-wood. If an immemorial 
 right-of-way lies through his property, he will 
 see it only as a path for the convenience of 
 poachers, and will put a hedge or wall across 
 it. Should cottages, dilapidated but not neces- 
 sarily beyond repair, have been included in 
 his purchase, he will view them as so much 
 brick and slate for the erection of garage or other 
 modern convenience at the manor house he is 
 renovating. 
 
 Quickly won and quickly lost is the popu- 
 larity of the city gent turned country gentleman. 
 He comes from what Cobbett called the Wen, 
 and to the Wen he often returns, vowing ven- 
 geance against the prejudice, ingratitude, and 
 opposition he has met in the rural community. 
 One does not regret his going, and yet, if the 
 country house is to be inhabited at all, who 
 is to live there ? The squireen, the original 
 Tony Lumpkin, went long ago to happier hunting 
 
 114
 
 THE COUNTRY HOUSE 
 
 grounds, but what has become of those who 
 took his place ? Where are the descendants of 
 the marchand enrichi, of whom Montalembert, 
 on a visit to England some sixty years ago, 
 still could write so hopefully ? Some of them, 
 by judicious marriages and investments away 
 from land, have joined the ranks of the territorial 
 nobility, and as such are but half countrymen 
 or less. Others, who had not their good fortune 
 or wisdom, who had put their all at the hazard 
 of harvests, were broken by the agricultural 
 depression of the 'eighties and 'nineties. The 
 few who by cutting down every expense con- 
 trived to hold to their homes from sheer love 
 of them, and in defiance of every principle of 
 business, are lonely figures on the English map 
 to-day. A copse, a field or two, a paddock 
 of rank grass, may be all they hold outside the 
 house which for three or four generations has 
 sheltered their people. Taxation will not spare 
 them, but they will not be able to plead with 
 tales of costly entertainment or distinguished 
 public services. They are proud as poor, and 
 poor as pleaders. They are those who have 
 drawn into their shells, and they do not delude 
 themselves with an idea that the world will 
 be deeply moved if they perish in their shells. 
 
 115
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 Mr. Gladstone once hinted broadly that land 
 owning was an occupation only suitable for those 
 who did not look on it as a source of revenue, 
 or, in other words, for those who had made, 
 or were making, their money elsewhere. Doubt- 
 less it is suitable for them, but recent experience 
 does not show it to be suitable for the land, 
 nor for those around them whose livelihood, 
 whose very lives, are in the land. Purchasers 
 of property, even if their wealth saves them from 
 the temptation of rack-renting, are seldom pure 
 philanthropists. A big head of game looms 
 larger in their ambition than a model village, 
 and their notion of good cultivation is three- 
 parts cover for partridges, under a tenant who 
 uses neither snares nor ferrets. There is better 
 hope in the farmer himself when he chooses 
 to become landlord. If he has not the means 
 to inhabit such country houses as those of which 
 Mr. Galsworthy writes, nor to imitate the state 
 of a Sir Aylmer Aylmer, he is often a man of 
 moderate riches. Too much a materialist, 
 perhaps, to satisfy those who have dreamed of 
 a new dawn for " England's green and pleasant 
 land," he will yet avoid the cruder mistakes of 
 strange invaders. He understands the earth's 
 nature, and has at least some sympathy with its 
 
 116
 
 THE COUNTRY HOUSE 
 
 people. What he lacks to-day is confidence. 
 He is doubtful about buying ; doubtful about 
 bringing up his sons in the old life. But, if 
 the gap is to be filled, I know no other than 
 the farmer who can fill it. 
 
 Possibly the whole of our land system will 
 in the next score of years or so come under 
 revision. Park and chase, woodland and wide 
 fields, may all presently be turned into so many 
 allotments under peasant proprietors or State 
 ownership, and then the country house will, 
 if it exist at all, be merely the sleeping quarters 
 of a townsman no longer concerned even to play 
 at rusticity. Such a change may prove to be 
 for the greatest good of the greatest human 
 number, but I hope that in an intensively 
 cultivated England asylums will yet be kept 
 for bird and beast. I hold small brief for the 
 pheasant and none for the fox, both too long 
 a fetish with the powers that were, but for 
 solemn rooks, gay squirrels, and all the company 
 of songsters I would ask protection from those 
 who may come to work or dwell where the 
 old house so long stood embowered by its trees. 
 
 117
 
 THE RATIONALIST 
 
 RATIONALISM is a spent force. In its 
 heydey, Lecky could write that educated 
 people received accounts of miracles with a 
 derisive incredulity which dispensed with all 
 examination of the evidence. He wrote in an 
 age which revered law and order. Sometimes 
 he shivered at the thought of growing demo- 
 cracy, but the shivering fits were not so serious 
 as to disturb the train of his philosophic thought. 
 In politics and economics certain things had 
 been put beyond the limits of intelligent dis- 
 cussion. There were the estates of the realm 
 and free trade ; there were supply and demand 
 and the rights of property. From time to time 
 these things might need a little furbishing, a 
 trifling adjustment, but, essentially, they were 
 for all time. He who tried to break through 
 them was an anarchist. He might be sent to 
 prison, but Bedlam was the right place for him. 
 Other laws, too, had been established in other 
 spheres, and they, also, were beyond dispute. 
 The ways of Nature were regulated by them. 
 She was progressive, broadening from precedent 
 
 118
 
 THE RATIONALIST 
 
 to precedent, but she did not jump. All the 
 grave investigators, the solemn jury of the 
 scientists, poured scorn on the suggestion that 
 she ever had been, or could be, skittish. Noah's 
 ark was put away with the other toys of child- 
 hood, and the old wives' fables were put into 
 annotated editions for the use of those who would 
 study the weaknesses of primitive humanity. 
 If one had told the educated person of super- 
 natural occurrences in the garden and fairies 
 dancing on his lawn, he would only have walked 
 to the window under pressure of courtesy, or 
 because it is always well to humour lunatics. 
 Inevitably, he would then have said that he 
 saw nothing, and he would finally have lost 
 patience if one had replied that his vision 
 might be defective. Fairies, he knew, did not 
 exist, and, if they had existed, it would have 
 been necessary to suppress them as notorious 
 violators of law and order. There was only one 
 class of beings more pernicious than non-existent 
 fairies, and it consisted of the fools who claimed 
 to see them. 
 
 Human energy, moreover, had been bringing 
 to pass things which magic had never attempted. 
 The oldest inhabitant who used to babble of a 
 murrain put on somebody's cow, and recalled 
 
 119
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 the incident as a landmark of his youth, had 
 to own that in his later days he had seen stranger 
 portents which were due neither to infernal 
 nor divine intervention. Flame came up out of 
 the earth. Monsters belching smoke and sparks 
 ran from end to end of the country. Whole 
 tracts of green land had been turned into clinker- 
 covered wildernesses. Rationalism, according 
 to one of its own historians, rose with com- 
 mercialism, and with industrialism came to 
 maturity. In those years people grew like 
 Caesar's Germans, for they worshipped only 
 those gods from whom they were deriving material 
 advantage. Applied science fed, clothed, and 
 warmed them, and lighted them to bed. It 
 took them from Manchester to Birmingham, and 
 was capable of taking them to Chicago. As 
 it so conveniently solved the problems of daily 
 life, it would probably solve the riddle of the 
 universe when it had time. After seeing a 
 blast furnace, it was difficult for a man of common 
 sense to believe in miracles. What was not 
 realized was that when he had seen a blast 
 furnace a few times more, it would be impossible 
 for him to keep his senses at all if he did not 
 believe in miracles. 
 
 Such, however, was the truth. If anything, 
 
 120
 
 THE RATIONALIST 
 
 we have grown too credulous. A little while 
 ago, when there was neither a war nor a strike 
 to provide the public with excitement, the walls 
 of a country parsonage began to exude oil. 
 Eminent persons at once suggested this was the 
 work of a malicious spirit. It does not matter 
 whether they were right or wrong, nor need I 
 more than mention that some weeks earlier 
 I had myself identified the domestic servant 
 with the Poltergeist. The notable point is that 
 in these days people of the highest education 
 do not reject accounts of miracles without 
 waiting for evidence. On the contrary, at any 
 strange happening they advance a miracle to 
 account for it, before the evidence has even been 
 collected. 
 
 Spiritualists have, of course, their own way of 
 explaining this change of sentiment, but I de- 
 cline to believe it due to any of their missionary 
 efforts. Bergson, coming out of the mysterious 
 East, with appeals to intuition on matters beyond 
 the range of ascertainable fact, may have had 
 a little to do with it, but not much. That 
 Professor Planck should have breached the 
 fortress of Newtonian mechanics is momentous, 
 but there are very few people who know, or 
 care, anything about Professor Planck. Success 
 
 121
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 of opinion, if I may quote Lecky once more, 
 depends less on the force of its arguments than 
 on the predisposition of society to receive them. 
 In his day, it had been made ready for rationalism ; 
 at present, it is ready for almost anything else. 
 Science, colossal in the last century, is now 
 recognized as a child, considered promising by 
 some, and disappointing by others. It concocts 
 poisonous gases, and teaches how they may 
 be used to overwhelm an army corps. It an- 
 nually advances medical knowledge, yet in the 
 cure of human ills it does not keep pace with 
 theoretical progress. In old days the Rationalist 
 butted against shams and overthrew tyrannies, 
 but, unconsciously, he paved a way for other 
 shams and tyrannies to follow. When once 
 the idea was grasped that man and ape had 
 common ancestry, it seemed more legitimate to 
 treat man as though he were an ape. " Survi- 
 val of the fittest " made an excuse for aggressive 
 wars and all the horrors of industrial competition. 
 Birds of paradise were exterminated, whilst the 
 cockroach increased and multiplied. Francis of 
 Assisi was flouted as a person of unenlightened 
 views. The hard rock of facts had been found, 
 and it was found to be very hard indeed. To- 
 day, the world's movement is to get away 
 
 122
 
 THE RATIONALIST 
 
 from it at full speed, even by the most irrational 
 courses. 
 
 Attempting to recover his position, the Ration- 
 alist has lately taken to advertise his wares. 
 In parts of the newspapers where one is accus- 
 tomed to find requests to buy somebody's toffee 
 or to sell one's false teeth, a new and striking 
 query is often to be found : "Of all the Isms, 
 have you studied Rationalism ? " It is a clever 
 appeal to jaded appetites. If you happen to 
 be for the moment out of tune with botulism, 
 socialism, cannibalism, or whatever may have 
 been your latest occupation or recreation, here 
 are people ready to cater for you, and a throb 
 of interest is aroused. For me the next step 
 was to write for further particulars, and by 
 return of post I received a copy of a publication 
 called The Literary Guide. It was six months 
 old, but I am ready to think it was sent to me 
 because it was a particularly good number. 
 The first article in it was by Mr. Joseph McCabe, 
 and it dealt with the League of Nations. The 
 writer alluded to Poland as "an annexe of the 
 Vatican," and dismissed Lord Robert Cecil as 
 a mystic. This did not seem very helpful, so 
 I turned to the end of the paper and found a 
 letter from an anonymous individual who had 
 
 123
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 lost religion. It read rather like a paragraph 
 lifted from the War Cry, emasculated by a 
 sub-editor, and inverted by a mischievous com- 
 positor. The rest of the contents was not 
 specially notable, except for a joke about Abra- 
 ham's bosom, which, I understand, was current 
 in the patriarch's own age. More illuminating 
 was a pamphlet giving the aims of the Rationalist 
 Press Association. In this it was stated that, 
 " so far as can be judged informally from 
 correspondence received," the majority of mem- 
 bers are not Theists. It was clearly implied 
 that it did not matter whether they were or not. 
 The old order of Rationalists included many 
 great men, and most of them, perhaps, were 
 inclined to violence. Huxley, " knocking an 
 imposture on the head," is a figure large enough 
 to give distinction to a whole age, and to such a 
 man, be he dead or alive, I would always take 
 off my hat. I have heard of " Bradlaugh and 
 blasphemy " as an alliterative tag in vogue with 
 platform speakers in the 'eighties. There were 
 giants in those days, and they were so absorbed 
 by the question of religion that some of them 
 had to attack it with hammer and tongs. One 
 would hope to find in their successors a remnant 
 of size and strength, a touch of passion, or, at 
 
 124
 
 THE RATIONALIST 
 
 least, an indication that they cared greatly 
 about the things for or against which one supposed 
 them to be fighting. Instead, one meets Mr. 
 McCabe approaching a world problem in the 
 spirit of a pernickety district visitor looking for 
 trouble, and, finally, one comes on the announce- 
 ment that to be or not to be a Theist is of no 
 moment. The new Rationalists have a tameness 
 as shocking as that of the beasts on Alexander 
 Selkirk's island. They touch the level of 
 Addison's young man, who had doubts about 
 immortality, and by his subsequent talk at 
 the table contrived to frighten his sister and 
 to debauch the butler. 
 
 125
 
 THE FABIAN SOCIETY 
 
 EVERY intelligent boy and girl who has 
 been given sufficient education to reach 
 the matriculation standard must, at some time 
 between the seventeenth and twentieth year, 
 put to him-, or her-, self a certain momentous 
 question. With a horizon daily expanding, an 
 hour must arrive to ask, " What is a Fabian ? " 
 Take the case of the undergraduate at Oxford 
 or Cambridge. At latest on the first day of his 
 first term, he is faced with this problem, but, 
 having several others to solve, he may fail to 
 give it the consideration it deserves. His 
 breakfast table is probably laden with invitations 
 to have his photograph taken by Messrs. Hills 
 and Saunders, to obtain socks and gown from 
 Mr. Shepherd, tobacco from another, books 
 and wine from a fourth and fifth. So much 
 attention is flattering, but the really sensitive 
 mind is yet more pleasantly titillated by the 
 circular which casually suggests membership of 
 the Fabian Society. It is difficult to resist the 
 call. Yesterday a schoolboy, and to-day asked 
 to associate one's unimportant ego with the 
 
 126
 
 THE FABIAN SOCIETY 
 
 beneficent yet mysterious work of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Sidney Webb ! New visions arise, and one 
 dreams of basking in the brilliance of G. B. S. 
 himself. Wherefore the real question in many 
 cases goes unanswered. Should one become 
 a Fabian, one would immediately begin a course 
 of investigating the whole world, and conse- 
 quently have little leisure for close inquiry into 
 the meaning of oneself. Should one miss the 
 chance, there would be nothing for it but to 
 affect the pose of ignorance that it had ever 
 existed, or, anyhow, that it did not matter in 
 the least. For all whom it may concern, however, 
 this answer is given : a Fabian is a principle on 
 two legs. 
 
 The Fabian Society likes to enlist its members 
 young, whilst they can yet be moulded. Those 
 who in later life are received into its bosom, 
 if one may use such a word of a body that is by 
 nature flat-chested, have probably done some 
 independent thinking, and independence is of 
 all things the most distrusted at 41, Grosvenor 
 Road, Westminster. If it has gone far enough 
 to give you an individuality, you are well nigh 
 a hopeless case. In that great blue book to 
 be compiled in the Fabian future, wherein will 
 be enumerated all the inhabitants of these islands 
 
 127
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 who can be classified according to types, you will 
 have no place. Instead, you will be listed in 
 its appendix, a black book, which it is hoped 
 will be slender, wherein will be the names of all 
 those who cannot be classified at all. In the 
 state arranged on Fabian lines, you will do 
 everything by rule ; rise, dress, work, take 
 nourishment and recreation, see the stars, repro- 
 duce the species, and, above all, think, according 
 to rules and time-tables drawn up by those 
 who have made lifelong study of these several 
 activities. A present difficulty is that even 
 recognized experts occasionally differ. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Webb are not agreed on dietary, while 
 the conclusions reached by Mr. G. D. H. Cole 
 in economics are painfully heterodox. Such 
 divergences are regrettable, but, after all, one 
 should remember that a generation ago the 
 Fabian Society had scarcely begun to regulate 
 mankind. 
 
 Moreover, differences among the elect are 
 confined to such as can be tabulated. Under 
 the heading " carnivorous ' Mr. Webb is to 
 be found, whilst his slightly better half is 
 among the " herbivorous." Even Mr. Cole is 
 not a lonely figure, for the card index will direct 
 you to him among the heretical schools, with 
 
 128
 
 THE FABIAN SOCIETY 
 
 cross references to Mr. Orage and syndicalism. 
 It is felt, too, that if Mr. Webb had in youth 
 enjoyed the educational advantages of a Fabian 
 summer school he might be as sound on nuts 
 as he is on figures. Similarly, had Mr. Cole 
 for a few years sat patiently at the feet of the 
 right people in London, instead of consorting 
 with minor poets at Oxford, the kink in his 
 views might have been straightened. Influence, 
 applied early and often, counts for much, whether 
 one is dealing with young persons or with Govern- 
 ment departments, and with it is linked the 
 habit of forgathering for the exchange of ideas. 
 One remembers the plaint of Altiora Bailey 
 in The New Machiavelli, that the new, crude 
 socialists who arrived in town after the 1906 
 election could not be tempted to assemble. 
 They were not malleable ; they were provincial, 
 silent, and suspicious. An idea to a Fabian is 
 what a postage stamp is to a philatelist ; it is 
 something to be collected, catalogued, bartered 
 for another, put in a book with a piece of 
 gummed paper, and quietly removed when a 
 better one is found. 
 
 Measurable eccentricities, as has been noted, 
 are allowed, but one must add that they are 
 allowed only to those who can afford them. 
 
 129 I
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 Mr. Belloc once pointed out that Fabianism aimed 
 at the socialization of the poor alone, and not 
 of the whole community, but this absorption 
 with the welfare of the proletariat is not to be 
 taken as a sign of sympathy or love, for a principle 
 cannot feel, any more than a type, or collection 
 of types, can be loved. Human passions, eruptive 
 and unsystematized, must not be allowed to 
 sway in the battle against dirt, drink, waste, 
 and congenital disease. Poverty is attacked 
 because it is a factor in producing these things, 
 but no Fabian fancies his work will be done when 
 the goal of the " equalitarian " state, to which 
 Mr. Webb is driving, has been reached. Every 
 adult and child will then have been put beyond 
 fear of hunger, and none will have more than a 
 modest competence, but the poor, though far 
 less poor, will still be the poor, and, therefore, 
 they will be disorderly and extravagant. They 
 will buy patent leather boots and silk blouses 
 if the Fabian manager is not there to preach, 
 even to enforce, the wearing of sandals and 
 cellular clothing. 
 
 " Trust the people " is the one saying which 
 for ever condemns you in Fabian circles to be 
 classed as doctrinaire, Liberal and dotard. No- 
 body is to be trusted, least of all the British 
 
 130
 
 THE FABIAN SOCIETY 
 
 workman. Inspect him, make him sanitary, 
 pay him through a savings bank, house him in 
 a civilian barrack, ration him, keep him from 
 playing skittles, decide whether he is to marry 
 and, if so, whom, give him a number, and make 
 a careful note of it ; that is the Fabian pro- 
 gramme. I have often wondered whether a 
 Fabian hand was not pulling some strings at 
 the birth of Dora and during the years of her 
 growth. Who knows ? Did some emissary 
 from Grosvenor Road say a word in season to 
 Lord Haldane, who repeated it to Sir John 
 Simon, who passed it to a permanent official ? 
 Certainly, the depositing of the soldiers' war 
 gratuities at the post office was due to Fabian 
 inspiration. It was considered the only way to 
 thwart a natural desire to get drunk on the 
 spot- Such is malism. 
 
 The equalitarian State under Fabian managers 
 might have commanded a fair measure of support 
 in past years whilst we were still under the spell 
 of something called German efficiency. It stands 
 no chance now. Security of bed and board is 
 inadequate compensation for freedom curtailed 
 to vanishing point. Experience of the compara- 
 tively mild discipline demanded by military 
 martinets does not predispose one to the sort 
 
 131
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 of regimentation which Mr. Webb and his friends 
 would substitute for our present dependence 
 on the capitalist. Faulty, or vicious, as the 
 present system may be, it allows us our intervals 
 of liberty, and the man who has just shed his 
 identity disc and achieved emancipation from 
 the sergeant-major will have no tampering with 
 them. In the industrial unrest of to-day there 
 is something not wholly material. " Men who 
 are men again " will not sell their birthright for 
 any mess of pottage, let alone lentil pottage. 
 Some writers for whom I have the highest 
 respect, among them Mr. E. T. Raymond, have 
 likened the Fabians to the Girondins, but I 
 am obliged to disagree. Surely the strongest 
 characteristic of the Girondins was love of 
 freedom. Their only other fixed idea was a 
 furious patriotism, or, if you will, nationalism. 
 For the rest they were sadly deficient in principles, 
 and in their lives liberty tended to licence. The 
 true Fabians, on the other hand, although their 
 women may for hygienic reasons abjure corsets, 
 can be correctly described as strait-laced. They 
 have the " painful mind " of Robespierre, with 
 all his beliefs in disciplining the mob, in tart 
 morality, in " golden mediocrity " as a political 
 and economic aim. With him, they dislike 
 
 132
 
 THE FABIAN SOCIETY 
 
 the swagger of red caps and the revolutionary 
 tutoiement which has for modern equivalent 
 the comrade-calling speech of the stump orator. 
 Of course, it will be objected to such a comparison 
 that the Fabian is a gentle and moderate being 
 who would turn sick at once if an electrically 
 driven guillotine were set up in Trafalgar 
 Square to-morrow. Quite true, but Robespierre 
 resigned his judgeship at Arras rather than 
 condemn a man to death. His later career 
 simply proves that nothing is as pitiless as a 
 principle. One may be sure that a Fabian 
 tribunal would be lenient to a man accused of 
 singing " God Save the King," having shares 
 in a railway company or having voted for Lord 
 Hugh Cecil, but would one feel one's neck 
 equally safe if one were a possible instrument for 
 transgressing the latest decree of the eugenists, 
 or had been informed against for smoking a 
 foul pipe in one's bedroom ? Judgment would 
 be given without animosity ; the sentence would 
 be entirely on principle. I would rather be a 
 profiteer in a hungry crowd, and trust my life 
 to luck or a joke. 
 
 Busier than ever in arranging the affairs of 
 others, and flushed by certain recent successes, 
 the Fabians cannot be expected to realize that 
 
 133
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 their day is past. They have probably never 
 felt more alive than they do now. In fact, as 
 they ramify into committees and enquiries and 
 the very offices of Whitehall, they may be 
 excused for a notion that they are the only 
 people of substantial importance in Britain 
 in this year of grace. Like delusions have been 
 cherished by others. Mr. L. P. Jacks once wrote 
 of the contempt which ghosts entertain for 
 human beings. Ghosts, he said, were sceptical 
 of our reality, and supported their doubts by 
 pointing to the triviality of alleged communi- 
 cations from our world, whilst even the most 
 credulous admitted that our intelligence was 
 limited and our antics were revolting. So it is 
 with the Fabians. They see the mass of man- 
 kind as trivial, stupid, and absurd, and with 
 no more desire to be trained than unbroken 
 colts in a field. Entirely on principle, they 
 lecture us from time to time on our follies. Then, 
 they go home to dine on principles and such 
 creature comforts as their principles allow them. 
 
 184
 
 THE WAR POETS 
 
 IN the years between the death of Tennyson 
 and the beginning of the war we were 
 repeatedly told by all the academically minded 
 that England had ceased to produce great poetry. 
 They were not content with saying we had no 
 great poets ; they invariably added a rider 
 that the littleness of the times prevented a poet 
 from being great. For a few years there was, 
 indeed, depression. One had gloomy satis- 
 faction in noting how Mr. Dobson supported 
 the pessimistic view by writing perfectly turned 
 verses on antique trivialities, and the genius 
 of Francis Thompson, which would have upset 
 all current criticism, was conveniently left undis- 
 covered. Such a state of affairs could not last 
 long. New men began to write, and, stranger 
 still, a new public began to read their work 
 with an admiration which the faint praise of 
 the professors could not quell. A shop was 
 opened for the sale of their books, and, I regret 
 to say, there was a boom in poems. 
 
 Superior people who had sat at the feet of 
 Arnold or stuffed themselves with Spencer, 
 
 135
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 would probably have died protesting that we 
 were decadent and could produce nothing that 
 would last, had not war caused them suddenly 
 to recant. From study of dead letters sometimes 
 comes a certain hostility to life, and the majority 
 of dons and doctors of philosophy seem to be 
 more bloodthirsty than the rest of human kind. 
 In the last years of peace, we, as a race, had been 
 growing in gentleness and consideration towards 
 the weaker elements in creation. The natural 
 world was still beautiful. Birds sang, flowers 
 bloomed, lovers walked in the lanes, the hills 
 stood ; but they who professed culture said 
 there was no " immediate stimulus " to poetry. 
 Was ever greater nonsense talked or written ? 
 Then, at the first report of a gun, some literary 
 wirepuller leaps to his study table with a tag 
 from " Coriolanus " to declare that peace was 
 " mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible," and war 
 was " spritely, waking, audible, and full of 
 vent." All take up the baying. The new 
 Osborn judgement is pronounced ; the young 
 men, for some obscure reason to which history 
 gives no clue, are called Elizabethans. The 
 " crowded hour of glorious life " figures in all the 
 anthologies which appear to celebrate carnage. 
 Here was the outburst of " national energy " 
 
 136
 
 THE WAR POETS 
 
 for which the Muses were said to have been 
 waiting. From the study window there did 
 seem to be worse things than war. 
 
 So much for the mentors. The bards them- 
 selves rose to the occasion in various ways. 
 Mr. Cannan wrote on the spirit of England, 
 Mr. Chappell, of Bath railway station, delivered 
 a frankly abusive hymn of hate, Mr. W. L. 
 Courtney struck for life and liberty in the 
 Daily Telegraphy and Mr. Begbie thanked God 
 for something or other. To many, however, 
 even amongst those who went most quickly into 
 print, one can still feel gratitude. Mr. Hewlett, 
 for example, did good service by somehow 
 making the geographical fact that England is 
 an island seem extraordinarily jolly, even though 
 one did not expect the enemy's air force to 
 respect our sea-girt security. For others, such 
 as Mr. Hodgson, who refrained from taking 
 part in the chorus, words of thanks are inade- 
 quate ; but their number was very small. 
 The boom in poetry reached unprecedented size. 
 Mr. Birrell made himself disliked by calling for 
 a truce of pens. 
 
 Publication of Rupert Brooke's sonnets was 
 held to strengthen the case for those who had 
 prophesied that in war the spirit of English 
 
 137
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 poetry would find itself. The writer's death 
 spread his fame, for the academical school of 
 reviewers cannot bear to see a star until it has 
 set, and when the poet was dead they could 
 feel that he was almost one of themselves. 
 Some of his lines inspired by the war 'have 
 incontestable beauty, but of others, had fate 
 spared him, he might have repented. Anyhow, 
 it was absurd to write as though war had made 
 him. He who had written " The Great Lover " 
 was in need of no shrill clarions to arouse him, 
 and one cannot help feeling that the artist in 
 him would have revolted against turgid applause 
 given to work which could be quoted in the daily 
 press as of "topical interest." 
 
 Since then, the Muse in Arms has expressed 
 herself in many ways. At first there was a 
 revival of the " Tommy " school of versifying 
 which treated the soldier as a splendid scoundrel 
 who spoke queer dialects and was mildly blas- 
 phemous. It touched on war as on a bank 
 holiday outing, and advertised the Army as the 
 one part of our social system in which a man 
 could be truly free and would have unlimited 
 drinks to drown his memory of a wretched past 
 in civilian clothes. Doubtless, the writers were 
 well-intentioned, and, like the designers of posters, 
 
 138
 
 THE WAR POETS 
 
 may have been of assistance to the recruiting 
 sergeant. They may have been under no false 
 impression as to the artistic value of their work, 
 but they fell into several glaring errors. I 
 once heard a French soldier explaining to his 
 female friends that he did not really care to be 
 called the hairy one, and there were a good many 
 in the Kitchener armies who were not exactly 
 nattered by the description some rhymers gave 
 of them. They did not say much, but I 
 believe they considered that the tradition 
 of " The Private of the Buffs " had had its 
 day. 
 
 The best that can be said for the " Tommy " 
 school is that it only endured for a month or 
 two. Later verses on the war were mainly 
 written from the front, and were in a very 
 different tone. There were poets in all the 
 forces, combatant and non-combatant, and some 
 of what they wrote is almost certainly imperish- 
 able ; but that they would have been mute 
 or composed inferior work, save for experience 
 of active service, is unlikely. The verse that 
 came from the battlefields was, however, re- 
 markable in more ways than one. It adminis- 
 tered a wholesome shock to those who had 
 prated of joyous, careless boys seeking glory 
 
 139
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 with songs on their lips. The soldier poets were 
 anything but what they had been expected to 
 be. By turns, they were sad or savage, but 
 always, in some way or another, at war against 
 war. At moments one inclines to praise even 
 the crudest of them, but they who wrote unspar- 
 ingly wished to be read without sparing. It is 
 the duty of a bomber to throw bombs, but 
 throwing bombs is not poetry. Neither is 
 throwing rhymed lines to be called poetry, and 
 if the lines are called vers libre because they 
 neither rhyme nor scan, they are apt to be still 
 less like poetry. Even throwing trench-mud 
 at the white waistcoat of the obese chairman 
 of a " Get-on- with-the- War " meeting was not 
 necessarily poetry, though it had much else to 
 recommend it as spiritual exercise and bodily 
 relief. 
 
 Factories of munitions began to close soon 
 after the Armistice, and it would have been 
 well had there been also a halt in the making of 
 certain brands of verse. A year or two might 
 have been spent in thought, until the emotions 
 of the past could be recollected in that tranquillity 
 which Wordsworth advocated for successful 
 composition. Instead, there has been a steady 
 flow of little books containing poetised memories 
 
 140
 
 THE WAR POETS 
 
 and impressions of the war. In the past there 
 were truths which no soldier could put into 
 stark prose ; they had to be disguised in a literary 
 form which to the majority at home seemed a 
 vehicle for exaggerations, bizarre fancies, or 
 everything except reality. One had, therefore, 
 the strange spectacle of journalists giving the 
 world romance in the ordered columns of a 
 prosaic newspaper, whilst cold verities could 
 only be dished up with a majuscule to garnish 
 every line. The old excuse has disappeared. 
 What a man has to write, he can now write 
 plainly. Further, would not a return to 
 Dry den's theory that giving delight is poesy's 
 chief function be welcome ? When a poet 
 becomes oratorical, satirical, or simply in- 
 formative, is he not trespassing on grounds 
 which do not properly belong to him ? 
 
 Because, to use Mr. Bottomley's phrase, he 
 has failed " to churn out " an ode on peace, a 
 silly attack has been made on the Poet Laureate, 
 and one has heard sneers because he had no 
 verbal felicities with which to greet the changing 
 fortunes of our late campaigns. Had a certain 
 section of the Press and public had its way, 
 he would undoubtedly have " gone out " with 
 the Prime Minister to ^whose fine taste his 
 
 141
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 appointment was due, and the mythical butt of 
 sack would have been awarded by acclamation 
 to Touchstone of the Daily Mail. It can be 
 readily understood that standing silent on a 
 peak of Darien is not a habit admired by 
 those who prefer headlines to literature and 
 find wisdom's last word in the Major's late 
 wire ; but from the rest one looks for a 
 higher standard. Probably, there is no poet 
 in the land, from humblest to greatest, who 
 does not in theory honour the reticence 
 of Dr. Bridges, but there is yet something 
 else to demand. Cannot his example be 
 followed ? 
 
 Verses of occasions, even of great occasions, 
 are not a poet's business. He is under no 
 obligation whatever to sing either of the sorrows 
 of war or of the triumph of a victorious peace. 
 If he is impelled to write of these things, let 
 him write, and then let him put in a drawer 
 what he has written, and keep it there for at 
 least twelve months. If, by the end of that 
 time, he has not decided to use it for lighting a 
 pipe, it will be worth his while to publish it. 
 What our poets have to say may be much 
 to the point, and they may have the means 
 to infuse art into their message ; but good 
 
 142
 
 THE WAR POETS 
 
 work does not spoil with keeping. I am not 
 afraid to face a year without new verse, for 
 I believe there would be a reward of poetry 
 at the end. The boom, by the way, is all but 
 finished. 
 
 143
 
 KINGS IN EXILE 
 
 WHEN Candide met the six kings dining 
 at the hotel in Venice, and had given 
 alms to one of them, he was moved to express 
 wonder at the portent. It was left to Martin, 
 his phlegmatic friend, to assure him that the 
 honour of their company had been a bagatelle 
 unworthy of attention, and that there were some 
 millions of men on earth more to be pitied than 
 the deposed monarchs. What may be the exact 
 number of princes now wandering about Europe 
 or resting in retirement, I do not know. There 
 are two who have been emperors, whilst Greece, 
 Portugal, Bavaria, Saxony, Wurtemburg, and 
 Bulgaria, provide a half-dozen to match the 
 tale of Candide's fellow guests. The list can 
 be almost indefinitely prolonged if one adds to 
 it the motley throng of minor sovereigns, heirs 
 apparent and presumptive, grand dukes and 
 pretenders, not to speak of their women folk. 
 Some of the best hotels in Switzerland should be 
 able to advertise attractions at least equal to those 
 which amazed Voltaire's ingenuous hero in the 
 Venetian week of carnival. That they would 
 
 144
 
 KINGS IN EXILE 
 
 reap rich reward is certain. Seeing the lions 
 feed is an entertainment which never palls. 
 
 Not many have Martin's fund of sound sense. 
 Contact with royalty, even if it be only with an 
 ex-prince of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, would seem 
 cheap at any price business management might 
 exact for it, especially if the stump of a cigar 
 with the impress of a royal heel, or some such 
 souvenir, were guaranteed. It must grieve the 
 true democrat to know that this kind of snobbery 
 still exists. But let him comfort himself. Only 
 the very youngest in this country were not born 
 in an age of rampant royalism. If, in the Victorian 
 period, it was not actually held that kings could 
 do no wrong, it was generally taught that at 
 least those of them who were related to our late 
 queen did do no wrong, and, as few of them could 
 not claim cousinship or nearer kin, the old doctrine 
 was re-established with but a slight alteration. 
 Then, and for some years afterwards, the crowned 
 heads of Europe, with their families, were exhi- 
 bited to us as often as possible, and an imposing 
 show they sometimes made. Men trained in 
 republican principles were heard to admit that 
 a black-coated president in such an assembly 
 would have been as incongruous as a barn-door 
 fowl among peacocks, and could have brought 
 
 145 K
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 no credit on his country. The world was 
 mesmerized. London sightseers do not cheer 
 from motives of deep policy, yet, when Germany 
 had become a politically unpopular nation, a 
 Hohenzollern was still given a rapturous recep- 
 tion. Now, when a black coat seems more 
 reputable wear than several brilliant uniforms, 
 we can be said to be mending our opinions, but 
 the threadbare fabric of our old imaginings is 
 still visible between the patches. 
 
 A strange remnant of our reverence for 
 royalty as royalty is seen in the English demand 
 for hanging the Kaiser, or, at least, for bringing 
 him to public trial. We pay him the tribute 
 of believing that he remains a person of impor- 
 tance. Abroad they have lost this delusion. 
 In Paris, whilst he was the " All Highest," 
 Wilhelm's blood flowing in the Rue de la Roquette 
 would have gratified the multitude, yet would 
 have seemed to desecrate a spot made memorable 
 by so many criminals of a less offensive type. 
 But interest in Wilhelm ceased with his fall. 
 Over there, perhaps, they have shrewder ideas 
 than we have of the value of public punishment 
 for such offenders. Did not their own imperialists 
 make St. Helena a shrine, whilst at Chislehurst 
 they could only find a mausoleum ? Looking 
 
 146
 
 KINGS IN EXILE 
 
 to Germany, there is the same lesson for us in 
 another shape. Having talked glibly for months 
 of the new German Republic, we were sharply 
 reminded at Versailles that the German Empire 
 still exists. An Empire without an Emperor 
 may appear at first sight somewhat like the 
 play of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, 
 but, after all, it is only the royal ghost that has 
 been eliminated from the tragedy. Our late 
 enemies cling to what they think useful in 
 their past. They make no mistake about a 
 Hohenzollern being indispensable. 
 
 In our desire to see justice done to the terrible 
 War Lord, we have unduly flattered the wood- 
 cutter of Amerongen. Otherwise, the kings have 
 for the most part been allowed to depart with 
 commendable absence of fuss, and cries of hatred 
 for them have been almost as rare as gushes of 
 regret. Their old subjects have kept their heads, 
 and Hapsburgs, Coburgs, and the rest, have, 
 consequently, been allowed to keep theirs. The 
 Russian murders break a good record, and lead 
 one to ask whether violence of revolution will 
 not lead there and elsewhere to violence of 
 reaction. In countries under Bolshevik rule, 
 the laudator temporis acti is, of course, given 
 a magnificent chance to set people sighing for 
 
 147
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 the comparatively gentle methods of an Ivan 
 the Terrible. Even in lands governed on the 
 most approved principles, reaction sometimes 
 seems faintly possible. In France, for instance* 
 M. Leon Daudet and M. Maurras hint daily of 
 the crown as the symbol of order, honesty, 
 and strength, and their readers are often carried 
 away as far as to take a piece of chalk to write 
 " Vive le Roi " on the next wall they happen to 
 pass. It is so easy to find the faults in a democratic 
 government. Where the smallest bribe cannot 
 be given without fear that it will be common 
 property in a week, where there is no Bastille 
 to place the virtuous individual whom every- 
 body has forgotten to corrupt, there is always a 
 crop of scandals. If they did not exist, they 
 would have to be invented because they are all 
 so highly probable. If M. Daudet and General 
 Page Croft have ever been brought together, 
 what a lot they must have told each other ! 
 Since the days of King Wamba, there can 
 have been no part of Europe where good people 
 have not met, shaken their heads, and said 
 they did not know to what things were coming, 
 giving their voices just that inflection which 
 promises that they know rather more than they 
 care to own. A crown, if it happen to be un- 
 
 148
 
 KINGS IN EXILE 
 
 occupied, is a rallying point for them. The 
 time has gone by when a German princeling 
 was automatically provided for every vacancy, 
 and there are more republics than monarchies 
 in the world to-day, but it does not follow we 
 have heard the last of royalist plots. Against 
 their success the chief barriers are the characters 
 of the gentlemen who sooner or later would 
 have to be brought forward to perform the 
 leading parts. The one word which stems the 
 Continental Monarchist's tide of talk is the name 
 of his rightful liege. He has been sketching for 
 you the ideal ruler, the " patriot king," as seen 
 against a crowd of sanguinary adventurers or 
 chuckleheaded deputies, and you bring him to 
 pause by mentioning a person whose only title 
 to regard is his place in that international 
 directory of the cemeteries, the Almanack de 
 Gotha. The mere pretender, indeed, may be in 
 a better position than the dethroned sovereign. 
 If there be many who know not Joseph, it may 
 be distinctly to Joseph's advantage. 
 
 To what point royal obscurity should be 
 carried is, however, matter for debate. Some 
 approve a revision of the Almanack de Gotha to 
 include the new postal addresses of several 
 regal personages who have lately changed abodes, 
 
 149
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 or, if that be undersirable, the most convenient 
 poste restante. One of their late majesties was 
 last reported driving round and round a forest, 
 he, unlike the Shakesperean Richard, having 
 obtained a horse, and even a cab, in exchange 
 for his kingdom. Others are said to be willing 
 to reside anywhere out of sight of German 
 territory ; but such information is almost too 
 discreetly vague. Their own people, particularly 
 those of the loyalist party, may not regret the 
 veil assumed by these august or serene travellers, 
 but between Bayswater and Tooting Bee there 
 are braver hearts. Already, I fancy, they are 
 willing to forget misunderstandings begotten 
 of the war. They remember that the Princess 
 Hildegarde of Ruritania, of whom so many 
 photographs were published a few years ago, 
 must now be of an age to marry, and they tell 
 themselves that she, descended from our own 
 early Georges, is almost half English. Once, 
 they had a framed postcard of her on the mantel- 
 shelf, but it was removed when her father made 
 the mistake of his life by drawing the sword 
 against Britain and democracy. Previously, she 
 had seemed almost one of the family, and now 
 they wish they had temporarily turned her picture 
 to the wall, in the way once traditional for 
 
 150
 
 KINGS IN EXILE 
 
 erring daughters, instead of banishing it so 
 thoroughly that it was lost in the next year's 
 spring cleaning. In Switzerland, on the door- 
 step of the Hotel des Rois en Exil, an enter- 
 prising photographer even now awaits her. 
 
 Swiss and Dutch are hospitable people, yet 
 they complain of a surplus of itinerant royalties. 
 If by the end of the next decade half of them are 
 not in our home counties, it will be surprising. 
 We are ready to hang them or to kiss their 
 hands, but we cannot get it out of our heads 
 that they must have abnormal attentions. Like 
 Samuel Pepys, we expect them to bring us good 
 weather. That their own subjects have expelled 
 them as undesirables makes no difference. The 
 society journalist still delights to record how a 
 horse show or tennis tournament has been 
 visited by the " King of Portugal," though the 
 cheery young man of whom he writes has no 
 more claim to the title than has Mr. Snowden 
 to be styled the Honourable Member for Black- 
 burn. Trust in the universal benignity of princes 
 may have passed, but a lively interest in them 
 remains, and the society journal keeps it alive 
 with pages on which Gertie Golightly of the 
 Gaiety simpers cheek by jowl with His or Her 
 Highness of nowhere in particular. In no other 
 
 151
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 country of this hemisphere is there the absence of 
 humour which permits this type of publication 
 to flourish. The French proverb has it that all 
 the dead are not in the tomb, and long ago the 
 wits of the boulevards laughed Wilhelm into 
 limbo. They will never understand the yearning 
 of John Bull to raise him high as Haman. Nor 
 will they ever fathom the mentality of Mrs. 
 Bull, his respectable spouse, who divides her 
 devotions so equally between crowns, courts, 
 and corybantes. 
 
 152
 
 MR. BERNARD SHAW 
 
 METTERNICH once spoke of Canning as 
 a malevolent meteor hurled by divine 
 Providence upon Europe. In a far part of the 
 country I have a friend who for the last five 
 and twenty years has held a somewhat similar 
 view of Mr. Bernard Shaw, although doubting 
 whether the force which launched the eminent 
 publicist on us may not have been infernal. 
 Why such strong language should have been 
 used, even by an enraged Teuton, of a statesman 
 who can now only be imagined as wearing a 
 halo of mildness in an aroma of respectability, 
 cannot be easily understood. Equally, it is 
 hard to see why Mr. Shaw should still in some 
 quarters enjoy a reputation for being dangerous, 
 and be allowed to live on it as on an unearned 
 increment. " Unearned " is perhaps rather a 
 harsh term, but let me explain. In the 'nineties 
 or thereabouts it may have been right to regard 
 him as a " revolutionary writer," so any notoriety 
 he then gained was honestly acquired. It became 
 his capital. Despite really conscientious efforts 
 he has added nothing to it, has, indeed, lost 
 
 153
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 a part of it, and is now existing on its diminishing 
 interest. It must be left to some pundit of 
 Socialism to decide whether this state of affairs 
 is either moral or economic, asking his pardon 
 in advance for here using two words which to 
 him will sound synonymous. 
 
 As Mr. Shaw has said, " the novelties of one 
 generation are only the resuscitated fashions 
 of the generation before last," and in the next, 
 I would add, they are often tiresome. The " Life 
 Force," when Mr. Shaw began to write about it 
 in The Irrational Knot, seemed a tough customer, 
 a bull amidst the domestic crockery, but it is 
 now the tame cat of all the best suburbs. When 
 Mr. Shaw started to rend the sheets of the 
 double bed, there were plenty who shrieked 
 sacrilege, but to-day every one of my maiden 
 aunts shares his abhorrence of that piece of 
 furniture. Beyond question, he has influenced 
 his coevals. Look at all the retired professional 
 men and elderly Anglo-Indians who, when their 
 physicians failed to heal their gout and livers, 
 hearkened to his exposures of medical humbug 
 and followed Mrs. Eddy. Again, take the 
 Superman. I admit that being incurably a 
 man without a prefix I used to be nervous of 
 that. Perhaps I am only less fearful now. 
 
 154
 
 MR. BERNARD SHAW 
 
 Mr. Shaw called for the Superman. Then, the 
 whole ha'penny press yelled for the Superman. 
 You all know how nobly the Geddes family 
 responded, and are still responding, to the cry 
 for their services. 
 
 In the stage directions for the most brilliant 
 of his comedies Mr. Shaw wrote that because of 
 its lack of upholstery the hall of the Ptolemies 
 would appear bare and ridiculous to a rich English- 
 man. Five minutes later Caesar was testily 
 ordering a chair, because even the most Shavian 
 Roman of them all did not relish sitting on the 
 floor. We have got beyond that sort of thing. 
 There is no need to go to ancient Egypt for 
 lessons in simple living. For a small charge 
 the underground railway will take you to see 
 the Shavian Englishman at Golders Green sitting 
 without a murmur on anything but a cushioned 
 sofa. Considering how many worthy people 
 Mr. Shaw has influenced in one way and another, 
 it would be foolish to deny that, like Ruskin, 
 Carlyle, and his own Father Keegan, he has done 
 something to improve the mind and to raise 
 the tone of his age. For all this he has neither 
 asked nor received the credit he deserves. 
 Instead, we are still told to think of him as 
 subversive and shocking, but one questions 
 
 155
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 whether even the dramatic critics or the censor 
 can be deceived again. Years have elapsed 
 since he gave them their last stage fright. When 
 Elizabeth Dolittle said her naughty word, a 
 good many recalled how in their lost youth it 
 had been classical at our ancient seats of learning, 
 and speculated as to how soon it would pass 
 into the vocabularies of Somerville and Newnham. 
 It is understood that they did not have long to 
 wait. 
 
 Perhaps the best explanation of Mr. Shaw 
 as he is can be found by recognizing that he has 
 got into the writing habit. A story is told of 
 Mr. Chesterton that he refused, despite his 
 splendid physical equipment, to be a special 
 constable, giving as his reason that, in the event 
 of civil trouble, he could imagine no revolution 
 which he would not prefer to the Government. 
 That, of course, was not to say he would be 
 heart and soul with every popular outbreak ; 
 it would be a choice of evils. Mr. Shaw is in 
 exactly the opposite position. He must have 
 disliked every government under which he has 
 lived, but I cannot imagine a revolution he would 
 not dislike more than any of them. Writing 
 matter that was once revolutionary is, in conse- 
 quence, more congenial to his nature than 
 
 156
 
 MR. BERNARD SHAW 
 
 renovating his programme. At the Methodist 
 school in Dublin he may have heard sung the 
 hymn which affirms that doing ends in death, 
 and there is, anyhow, the Puritan in him to 
 make him set the merit of faith above works. 
 In theologians such belief may, or may not, be 
 excellent, but it is a bar to efficiency in those 
 engaged in promoting revolutions or anything 
 else except companies. 
 
 Seven or eight years ago, Mr. Holbrook 
 Jackson, one of his warmest admirers, remarked 
 that Mr. Shaw had for twenty years been saying 
 the selfsame things. He has continued saying 
 them, and it appears to me that a person with 
 such a passion for repetition must forfeit his 
 claims to be treated as a revolutionary writer. 
 To be revolutionary one must revolve, even 
 if only on one's own axis, and, though Mr. 
 Shaw has been accused of standing on his head, 
 he has never been taxed with facing both ways. 
 By any just use of words he must be called a 
 stationary writer. Once, he wrote that " when 
 a man has anything to tell in this world, the 
 difficulty is not to make him tell it, but to prevent 
 him from telling it too often," and to this difficulty 
 he has succumbed. By never keeping his birth- 
 days, he may have retained a youthful spirit, 
 
 157
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 but he has missed much. He has avoided growing 
 old with his contemporaries, but he has missed 
 keeping young with the generation which fol- 
 lowed them. He has missed realizing how much 
 of his lecturing has become superfluous, because 
 those who came into the world after him seized 
 at a glance what he was laboriously learning all 
 through his twenties. Finally, he has missed 
 his exit. 
 
 Socrates was poisoned by the Athenians when 
 they had had enough of him, and Aristides was 
 ostracized when he had become a bore. Mr. 
 Shaw has suggested the lethal chamber for those 
 whose eccentricities have become unbearable to the 
 commonwealth. I deprecate extreme measures, 
 but agree that Mr. Shaw is sometimes annoying. 
 As long as he played the part of gad-fly, he 
 merited all encouragement, but the temptation 
 has lately been to think of him rather as the 
 bluebottle against the window pane, which 
 exasperates but is ineffective. His chafing, for 
 instance, against the beef-eating, game-playing, 
 habits of the normal, " healthy," Englishman, 
 is monotonous. In the first place he knows 
 well that normality is always in a minority. 
 Secondly, the class he attacks had good mettle 
 in it, as is proved by it never producing a passably 
 
 158
 
 MR. BERNARD SHAW 
 
 good waiter. Mr. Shaw's war against sentimen- 
 tality has, also, lasted too long. Sentimentality 
 is not a bad thing in its way. Mr. Shaw has no 
 need of it, yet it may make duller people do 
 the things of which he approves. It is a target 
 for wit on the stage, but " any fool can make any 
 audience laugh." If it had done nothing but 
 cause Sir Frederic Banbury to take up the cudgels 
 against the vivisectors, it would have shown 
 itself a force at which no sane reformer should 
 scoff. 
 
 When Mr. Shaw wrote that Cleopatra's guards- 
 men were more civilized than modern British 
 officers because they did not dig up and muti- 
 late their dead enemies, he must have asked him- 
 self whether we would be dense enough to be 
 angry or would spot that he was writing provoca- 
 tive nonsense. His tongue was in his cheek. 
 Civilization, he said to himself, is striding since 
 its latest children have given up mutilating the 
 living. Half the time, of course, he, like the 
 baby in Alice in Wonderland, only does it to 
 annoy. As one of the Irish garrison in England, 
 he is more concerned to worry the natives than 
 to better their lot. His dual nationality compli- 
 cates the estimate of his methods and intentions. 
 His manner, if I may a little misquote him, 
 
 159
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 is frivolous, because he is nearly an Englishman ; 
 but he sometimes means what he says because 
 he is almost an Irishman. Anyhow, he is very 
 much the British Islander as he has described 
 him : " seeking quarrels merely to show how 
 stubborn his jaws are." Consequently, he was 
 one of the war's first casualties. He went over the 
 top at the wrong moment. He damaged himself 
 irreparably with the public by untimely sayings 
 which with unquestioned propriety appeared a 
 month or two later in every smug leading article. 
 His sporting instinct may be gratified by know- 
 ing he was first in the field by a short neck, 
 but life in England, strange as it may seem to 
 him, is not all sport. It is nothing that his 
 judgment may have been just. Mr. Shaw has 
 said that a judge must not even be misunderstood. 
 
 160
 
 MR. HILAIRE BELLOC 
 
 WHILST the country was at war the 
 advisability of reading Mr. Belloc was 
 clear, and the advantage of agreeing with him 
 was almost equally patent. In days when all 
 conversation had a way of turning to military 
 discussion, the peaceful citizen was in need of a 
 guide. When he wanted information on such 
 points as the juncture of Russky and Brussilov, 
 or how the Fourth Division had stood in regard 
 to the Le Cateau-Cambrai line on the 25th August, 
 he went as readily to the works of Mr. Belloc 
 as, when leaving London for his sea-side holiday, 
 he went to the works of Mr. Bradshaw. In 
 both cases he acted under fear that worse things 
 might befall him. He did not really like the 
 way in which either of his authorities set the 
 facts of the case before him. Secretly, he 
 resented the dogmatic, more than pontifical, 
 fashion in which they answered his queries by 
 groups of letters and figures. With words he 
 could, and commonly did, argue whenever he 
 found them in print, rebutting them to his own 
 satisfaction with others he had found in print 
 
 161 L
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 elsewhere, but for those people who confronted 
 him with symbols, which once divorced from 
 their context became meaningless, he could 
 not pretend to be a match. On the other hand, 
 experience had taught him that neglect of the 
 time-table always brought in its train dire 
 humiliations, and he soon learnt that failure to 
 follow Mr. Belloc's teaching had equally un- 
 pleasant results. 
 
 Imagine him, for instance, at his club, button- 
 holed by a man who insisted on telling him what 
 would happen when A.B., an irresistible German 
 force, met C.D., an immovable French object. 
 Unless he could counter this by observations 
 on the importance of W.X.Y.Z., the open 
 strategic square, he might have to admit himself 
 worsted by one who was politically unsound, 
 notoriously a bore, and to whom he could give 
 a stroke a hole. After one such contretemps 
 his course of reading had nothing whatever to 
 do with his normal tastes. In the past, war had 
 pleasantly stirred his mind when he had looked 
 at a picture by Mr. Caton Woodville or heard 
 the " Charge of the Light Brigade " recited ; 
 but now he had to learn about it anew, and with 
 such pains as he had not known since his first 
 exercises in algebra. In most cases, however, 
 
 162
 
 MR. HILAIRE BELLOC 
 
 the Belloc student found himself rewarded. 
 If he did not precisely understand all that was 
 toward, his pretences became at least plausible. 
 Sometimes, perhaps, his master misled him. 
 In the third year of war a journalist made a 
 list of Mr. Belloc's mistakes, and so paid him 
 unconscious tribute. People did not catalogue 
 the blunders of other military critics ; they 
 had neither the requisite time nor paper. 
 
 Widely was Mr. Belloc accepted in those days 
 as a teacher, and there is no gainsaying his 
 qualifications. It is enough to mention here 
 but two of them a good grasp of his subject's 
 technical side, and the ability to write of it 
 intelligibly. There is no difficulty in explaining 
 his success, but I have, unfortunately, to turn 
 to the question of his failures in other fields. 
 Mr. Belloc has spent most of his adult life in 
 addressing the British public, yet only for a 
 few years, when we were living in abnormal 
 circumstances, has he been given serious hearing. 
 To the small minority which delights in literary 
 style some of his books are a joy for ever, but 
 the larger number to whom one might expect 
 his controversial work to appeal has merely 
 gaped at him. In 1906 he entered Parliament 
 as one of the Liberal victors. The elections of 
 
 163
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 that year were a triumph of the Nonconformist 
 conscience ; the greatest and, perhaps, the last 
 of its triumphs in England. Mr. Belloc thought 
 the polls ought to have been a pronouncement 
 in favour of liberty and democracy. He imagined 
 the country was ripe for its Danton ; as a 
 matter of fact it was hardly ready for its 
 Campbell-Bannerman . 
 
 The rising young man appeared at Westminster 
 at the wrong hour, and the result was his attack 
 on the party system. At the time of its publica- 
 tion one could read his book on that subject 
 with a good deal of sympathy, but reading it 
 now one may find that sympathy has waned. 
 The author reminds one how in days of old every 
 move in the Parliamentary game was arranged 
 between the two front benches. Nowadays two 
 men may be sitting on the same front bench 
 and each be making a move of which the other 
 is in happy ignorance. Indeed, observers have 
 of late noticed more than one Minister with his 
 right hand chastizing his left for surreptitious 
 activities. Already one may doubt whether 
 the change has been for the better, and suspect 
 that the old system had some of the very virtues 
 Mr. Belloc most hotly denied it, to wit, firm 
 principles, openness, and regard for the people. 
 
 164
 
 MR. HILAIRE BELLOC 
 
 In that same book was a denunciation of party 
 newspapers, with their wearisome repetition of 
 stale cries and their devotion to vested interests 
 in game or groceries. They were not all they 
 should have been ; but can one really prefer 
 the modern journal with a new cry every week, 
 and devotion to no interest at all save that of 
 its circulation department ? 
 
 In the general upheaval, however, Mr. Belloc 
 should have found a place for himself in public 
 life. Instead, he is once more in his Cave of 
 Adullam, preaching, but with no more than 
 two or three of the converted gathered together 
 as his regular congregation. More than once 
 whilst writing this article I have had to remind 
 myself that I have come to bury Mr. Belloc not 
 to praise him, but this I cannot help noticing, 
 that the number of his disciples does not increase. 
 He is an enigma to most Englishmen, and as 
 such, is distrusted. Perhaps he is too revolution- 
 ary for our temper. Those others who from time 
 to time are indicted as Bolshevists in leading 
 organs of private opinion, pursue their evolu- 
 tionary way, looking for socialism to succeed 
 capitalism as day succeeds night. Do big 
 businesses hold the field ? So much the better : 
 they are but milestones showing how near we 
 
 165
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 are to that earthly paradise prophesied by 
 Saint Marx. 
 
 Such opportunism is not in Mr. Belloc's 
 nature. He is a second Omar in his desire to 
 grasp our sorry scheme of things and to shatter 
 it to bits. Afterwards, of course, we are each to 
 acquire a morsel, and his programme as outlined 
 in The Servile State and elsewhere, is to me 
 attractive. I should like to see him settled 
 on his three acres of hop garden, and using his 
 great talents as chairman of the guild which 
 would own the local oast-house. But, just as 
 he is too revolutionary for the Extreme Left, 
 so he is too reactionary for the Extreme Right. 
 Reaction has its friends, yet, when they are 
 examined it is found that they wish to return 
 to the days of Mr. Gladstone, or, in a few desper- 
 ate cases, to Lord Melbourne. For Mr. Belloc 
 reactionary is never the correct term. He is 
 a resurrectionist. In the age he would revive, 
 no temporal peer held an acre of church land, 
 and the Stock Exchange had not been built. 
 Many persons whom one does not commonly 
 rank among the progressives are ready to use 
 the latest implements of modern warfare should 
 his threats of a return to our bad old days ever 
 materialize. 
 
 166
 
 MR. HILAIRE BELLOC 
 
 The apparent paradox of Mr. Belloc might 
 have left the public in the position of Buridan's 
 ass, did it not chance to have straight in front 
 f it another bundle of hay, which, though it 
 be poor stuff, it continues to munch grumblingly 
 in the manner of all other intelligent asses. In 
 consequence, our philosopher and his problems 
 have been neglected. Probably he never under- 
 stood the nature, that is to say the nationality, 
 of the beast. Mr. Belloc may be a Sussex man, 
 but nobody makes the mistake of thinking he 
 is English. The Channel, that sacred strip 
 of blue water to the native, means nothing to 
 him. Has he not written of the woods which 
 stretch from Tay to Roncesvalles ? He is the 
 last of the Romans. Racially and spiritually 
 he ought, then, to be a good European, even, 
 in its widest sense, a citizen of the world. To 
 the struggle between the nations has succeeded 
 a yet greater struggle for unity among the 
 peoples ; but in every land the torch-bearers of 
 the new movement are hard pressed. Here is 
 no petty question for party whips and chapel 
 deacons ; here is a cause for which men can 
 live, yet where is Mr. Belloc to-day ? Now, 
 if ever, should he be in the arena, but as I 
 have said, he is in his Cave of Adullam. For 
 
 167
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 his own comfort, one can only hope that it 
 has been well censed to avoid any contamina- 
 tion which may have been left by its original 
 Jewish occupants. 
 
 Some there are who say that Mr. Belloc stands 
 for himself alone, but that is injustice. One 
 kind of unity he understands ; it is the unity 
 of his church. One high vision he possesses ; 
 it is the vision of the French Revolution. The 
 combination has possibilities so magnificent that 
 one would not lightly dismiss it, but it has 
 never been blessed by fortune, and it is as 
 suspect beyond the mountains as it is in the 
 Jacobin Club, or, indeed, in almost any known 
 habitation of men which lies between. Behind 
 every man who believes that by it can the 
 world be regenerated, looms the sad and warning 
 figure of Felicite de Lamennais fleeing from 
 La Chenaie into the wilderness. The cap of 
 liberty hoisted on a cross is a standard which 
 has before led to catastrophe. The lesson was 
 learned long ago. One does not go to Mass 
 wearing a carmagnole. 
 
 168
 
 THE ANARCHIST 
 
 IT is not easy for an Englishman to under- 
 stand either the character or importance 
 of the Anarchist. He is one of those persons of 
 whom a precise misconception has long been 
 established. His eruptions have disturbed our 
 common round of existence no more than have 
 those of Vesuvius, but the stage and fiction have 
 made us imagine familiarity with him. In 
 moments of panic the average special constable 
 or citizen guard might be tempted to arrest 
 almost anybody who wore a cloak and had dark 
 hair and eyes and a swarthy complexion. Trading 
 on these romantic fancies, the National Union 
 of Railwaymen some months ago published a 
 sketch of a presumably typical member, to 
 which was affixed the legend : "Is this man 
 an anarchist ? " The question was, of course, 
 rhetorical, and, as they say in the Latin grammar 
 books, expected the answer " No." Mr. 
 Dyson had drawn an individual stripped to his 
 shirt-sleeves, and surrounded by his family. 
 Landing in America, he might have been classed 
 as a desirable type of Swedish emigrant, but 
 
 169
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 here we recognized him as British to the core, 
 and the desponding droop of his moustache was 
 conclusive sign of his integrity. Had its ends 
 been waxed in the style affected by Mr. Cramp, 
 the picture might have had a mixed reception. 
 But the cartoonist knew his public. It was sheer 
 bad luck that his honest workman did, in fact, 
 facially resemble a once notorious terrorist of 
 the name of Koenigstein, although it in no way 
 detracted from the success of an excellent piece 
 of pictorial propaganda. In popular imagina- 
 tion this man remained everything that the 
 anarchist was not. 
 
 In childhood I was taught that bombs were 
 as necessary to the practice of anarchy as a bat 
 and ball to a game of cricket. When I was 
 able to carry out a little independent investiga- 
 tion, I found this was not strictly true. I dis- 
 covered that certain persons, such as Reclus, 
 Prince Kropotkin, and Mr. Bertrand Russell, 
 whilst evidently anarchists, were in many ways 
 model citizens to whom Europe must presently 
 erect monuments. The pages of Proudhon 
 positively assured me that the Social Revolution 
 would come with enlightenment and not with 
 explosions. I began to see that I had not only 
 been led to malign anarchism, but to underrate 
 
 170
 
 THE ANARCHIST 
 
 it. Regicide and such-like incidents were, I 
 gathered, mere pranks of the irresponsible, meant 
 at most as tweaks to the nose of organized 
 society. The big men might condemn them 
 for reasons of policy or humanity, but they 
 despised them because they themselves had 
 much larger schemes in mind. Nobody with a 
 head on his shoulders thought that the removal 
 of a king or two or even the assassination of a 
 private citizen who had offended delicate 
 sensibilities by buying his clothes at too good 
 a tailor, was bringing nearer the year one of 
 freedom. The anarchist with a brain was the 
 first to deride such foolery. Tweaking at society 
 might amuse boys, but his ideal was its total 
 destruction. 
 
 Mr. Bumble, who was a beadle all over, once 
 let fall the remark that the law was an ass, and 
 it is not for a moment to be supposed that he 
 was suffering from what Mr. Frederic Harrison 
 calls the vims Snowdenicum, or from any of its 
 earlier varieties. Parochial officers of his stand- 
 ing have always been immune from such irritants. 
 In part, one may account for his aphorism by 
 the fact that he was a " literary character," 
 but chiefly by the assumption that he held it 
 to express an obvious truth ; and a truth must, 
 
 171
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 indeed, be obvious when it can be assimilated 
 by beings as widely sundered as a beadle and an 
 anarchist. When Fourier said that civilization 
 was the enemy, he and Bumble were in virtual 
 agreement, for law and civilization are generally 
 regarded as interchangeable terms. Only a few 
 years ago, it was possible to find excuses for the 
 Fourier state of mind, or to blame it solely for 
 its pessimism. Civilization seemed to have come 
 to a dead end where one could but see Park 
 Lane on one side and a slum on the other. The 
 " Empire of old Mammon," despite Carlyle's 
 prediction, looked to be as strong as ever. 
 Mr. Nevinson, with all his specialized experience 
 of revolutions, could write that a revolutionist 
 need never be afraid of going too far. 
 
 Wealth and the State between them controlled 
 the machine from which daily bread issued. 
 Half the population seemed too inert for action 
 of any sort, and the herd spirit could be trusted 
 to unite most of the remainder in crushing the 
 divergent rebel. To say that one saw the an- 
 archist's point of view need not mean that one 
 endorsed it. He beheld civilization much as an 
 artist beholds the Albert Memorial. Here, he 
 said, is something irremediably bad ; let it be 
 destroyed. Yet, with these fine words in his 
 
 172
 
 THE ANARCHIST 
 
 mouth, and, perhaps, finer visions in his eye, 
 he had deep in him a sickening feeling that the 
 destruction would never be. All he really ex- 
 pected was that, if he could distribute enough 
 mental dynamite in the crowd, a few of the 
 excrescences on modern society might be re- 
 moved. His speech and methods were strong, 
 but in practical politics he was less dreaded than 
 the mildest mannered liberal reformer. The 
 era of successful revolutions, as distinct from 
 military risings, seemed to have definitely ended. 
 Except in Russia, few thought it worth while 
 even to attempt revolt. 
 
 Happily, however, a couatry without rebels 
 is unimaginable on this side of the millennium. 
 Even if England possessed none demanding 
 immediate attention, our natural craving nearly 
 succeeded in inventing several. When Mr. 
 Asquith was solving a constitutional crisis by 
 methods which to anybody outside the legal 
 profession might have seemed pedantic and 
 meticulous, he was hailed as the engineer of a 
 daring coup d'etat. To reach the front rank 
 of contemporary revolutionaries, it was only 
 necessary to commit a nuisance in the presence 
 of a press agent, and Miss Pankhurst and Sir 
 Edward Carson did not let their opportunities 
 
 173
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 slip. Churchwardens signed insurgent covenants 
 and premediated treason. Women with proved 
 records of domesticity threw stones at windows 
 and liked to hear the glass break. It took, 
 indeed, an experienced rebel to realize how 
 much of the noise was stage thunder, and that 
 the big drums being beaten were, if possible, 
 hollower than big drums usually are. But to 
 him it was evident that such sounds would not 
 bring down the walls even of the jerry-built 
 Jericho in which civilized society was sheltering. 
 Most of the cacophanists were members of the 
 garrison out for a half-holiday. 
 
 Where the true-hearted and dejected rebels 
 of those days were most in error was in their 
 belief in the sagacity of Governments. They 
 saw their enemy's overwhelming superiority in 
 organization. Their propaganda, whether by 
 word or deed, availed nothing against it. It did 
 not occur to them that society and its rulers were 
 about to hold a gigantic auto-da-fe in which 
 their whole citadel was to be set in flames and 
 brought to ruin in the hope of securing the 
 salvation of some of its inhabitants. In his 
 wildest dreams, the most ferocious anarchist 
 may have imagined himself with enough explosive 
 and inflammable material to produce some such 
 
 174
 
 THE ANARCHIST 
 
 holocaust ; but he had believed himself a monopo- 
 list in dreams of that description. We now know 
 how wrong he was. Two or three autocrats, 
 with most of mankind as accessories after the 
 fact, did the anarchist's work for him, and did 
 it thoroughly. After the years of war, what 
 is left of civilization is small and fragmentary. 
 The only useful task left is carefully to pick over 
 the pieces, certain that many must be rejected, 
 but hoping that some worth preserving may be 
 found. 
 
 Standing in the world's wreckage, it is self- 
 evident that the anarchist has lost his raison 
 d'etre. I have heard it said of some pompous 
 buildings that their destruction has been, at 
 least aesthetically, a gain to mankind, but I 
 have never heard it said that they could be 
 further improved by planting a dozen more 
 shells in the wreckage. For the rebel there 
 is to-day as much need as ever, and far more 
 scope. All originality, all progress, is rebellion ; 
 all creation, if it be anything more than repetition, 
 is rebellion. Without it, we should still be in 
 the stone age, or, rather, should not be recogniz- 
 ably human at all. It is the leaven which pre- 
 vents us all from becoming permanently 
 lumpish. But the modern rebel, like many 
 
 175
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 other people, can afford to own that his spirit 
 has been chastened by events. If his chief 
 or only interest remains in destruction, it is 
 because he has neither learned nor forgotten 
 anything in the last five years, and his place is 
 with the Bourbons. Anarchism as preached 
 by Godwin and Bakunin might have been salu- 
 tary if practised in their own age, but intelli- 
 gence rejects it in ours. The more slowly moving 
 mind of the honest workman in Mr. Dyson's 
 picture has but recently discovered it. Poten- 
 tially, he is an anarchist. If the remains of 
 society and its laws are not so pieced together 
 as to give the lie to Fourier and Bumble, he will 
 be the most dangerous anarchist there has ever 
 been. 
 
 176
 
 SONS OF TOIL 
 
 WITHIN the last few months I have read 
 some dozens of articles which professed 
 to examine the causes of labour unrest. Some 
 of them were instructive, but, taken together, 
 they were confusing. Whether they found the 
 reasons to be economic or political, whether 
 they blamed the greedy capitalist or the grasping 
 socialist, there was not one of them whose writer 
 did not seem to be at least a little lacking either 
 in acumen or frankness. Only a partial truth 
 was ever told. Nobody appeared willing to 
 admit that behind almost every strike as motive 
 power was a genuine, heartfelt, dislike for " base, 
 mechanic toil." We have been taught that 
 Adam delved when he had been expelled from 
 Eden. For close on six thousand years, accord- 
 ing to the most conservative estimate of time, 
 man has been engaged in manual labour. It 
 had never, perhaps, been seriously questioned 
 until the present year that this was a permanent 
 state of affairs. 
 
 On the other hand, there are signs that it 
 had always been resented by the most enlight- 
 
 177 M
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 ened races. Had men been blindly industrious 
 animals, there would never have been an institu- 
 tion of slavery among the Greeks. Pharaoh 
 would never have had his trouble with the 
 Israelites. In our own highly developed country, 
 hard labour would never have been decreed 
 as a punishment for crime. Even the oft-told 
 tale of the industrious apprentice, when properly 
 analysed, leads to the same conclusion. To 
 the best of my recollection, that youth began his 
 career by working twelve hours a day, with 
 twenty minutes off for lunch. The second 
 chapter ought to have told us how he worked 
 for thirteen hours, and reduced his luncheon 
 interval. The whole story should have been 
 one grand crescendo leading up to the point 
 where only a religious scruple prevented him from 
 working twenty-four hours on the seventh as 
 well as on every other day of the week. Truth, 
 however, will out even in a narrative with a 
 moral. The apprentice, as we all know, finally 
 became a member of the leisured class, and 
 had others to work for him. No hint is given 
 that he was inconsolable. One is left to gather 
 that the only excuse for toil is the hope of 
 obtaining eventual ease. 
 
 In a book written by one Louis Martin, a 
 
 178
 
 SONS OF TOIL 
 
 French Anglophobe of the nineteenth century, 
 a statement is made which to most readers may 
 seem rather like a feeble joke. The author 
 declared his conviction that we were what he 
 called " a feminine race." At first glance that 
 sentence has only a flabbergasting effect. 
 England has so long been personified by sturdy 
 John Bull, and France by such a variety of 
 charming ladies, that a reversal of the roles 
 strike one as preposterous. M. Martin, however, 
 explained himself with some ingenuity, and the 
 force of his arguments has been gradually brought 
 home to me. Just, he said, as women subjugate 
 men for the sake of having bread-winners in the 
 house, so do the English bring other races into 
 their empire in order to exploit their labour. 
 It would be easy to show that the illustrations 
 he used were as unjust as they were ungenerous, 
 but his main contention would remain. Deep 
 in him was a belief that we had a natural propen- 
 sity, amounting almost to a genius, for making 
 others do our work. He named the Jew as our 
 only possible equal or superior. 
 
 Certainly the Briton who returns from Africa 
 or India is apt to say, with a somewhat lordly 
 air, that this or that is not a white man's job. 
 Not precisely an idler, he has come to the con- 
 
 179
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 elusion that certain occupations which involve 
 the merely mechanical employment of his hands 
 and feet, are unworthy of him. It has never 
 been necessary to take his idiosyncrasies very 
 seriously. He has been treated as an excep- 
 tional being, probably the victim of some obscure 
 tropical disease. Usually the possessor of a 
 pension or a fixed and independent income, his 
 fastidiousness has not disturbed the labour market. 
 We are only beginning to recognize the truth 
 about his state of mind, and, even now, we 
 scarcely dare to speak it. What if he were not 
 exceptional ? What if he were simply the man 
 who had the courage to say what for generations 
 we had all felt ? What if half the world's work 
 be derogatory to a white man, or to any sort 
 of man who respects himself ? 
 
 For a long time one has heard of the dignity 
 of labour, but I am afraid that phrase has always 
 enshrined a polite fiction. At the best it has 
 been the exaggeration of a mole hill of truth 
 into a Himalayan chain of humbug. Were 
 the British people to be made judges at a show 
 where prizes were to be given to the most dignified 
 personages in the British Islands, I cannot help 
 thinking that the highest award would be made 
 to Mr. Speaker. In the privacy of his home 
 
 180
 
 SONS OF TOIL 
 
 his energy may be unbounded. Within the 
 circle of his intimate friends it may be an open 
 secret that he does physical training on all 
 fours, or has a hobby in gardening. Unknown 
 to any of them, he may have, and with difficulty 
 suppress, a longing to steal out at night and 
 help in sweeping the streets of Westminster, 
 or, in the early morning hours, to take a hand 
 with the porters at Covent Garden. Our whole 
 idea of his dignity is simply founded on what 
 we can see of him in public, and he serves to 
 illustrate our latent belief that dignity and 
 immobility go together. Were it otherwise, 
 we should not insist on wrapping him up in robes 
 carefully designed to impede all bodily activity, 
 nor should we place on his head a wig which 
 would cumber any honest workman. Instead 
 of seating him in a glorified armchair, we should 
 expect him constantly to patrol the gangways, 
 as a policeman patrols the Embankment, now 
 and then laying a hand on the shoulders of 
 members whom his perambulations failed to 
 keep awake. Finally, to show he was not 
 work-shy, he would be as ostentatiously inse- 
 parable from his mace as an old-time navvy 
 from his pick. Allowing it to lie untouched for 
 hours on the table would be the signal to a 
 
 181
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 horrified House of Commons that Mr. Speaker 
 had downed tools. 
 
 Sceptics can put the whole matter to a very 
 simple test if they so desire. Let them first 
 think of some task which they commonly pay 
 others to execute for them, and, for preference, 
 one which will make them perspire and make 
 them dirty. Cleaning the kitchen chimney is 
 as good as any I can recommend. Next, let 
 them go and do it, and, then, let them present 
 themselves before their usually respectful and 
 dutiful children. The reception they will get 
 may be either one of contemptuous horror or 
 of such laughter as few but Mr. George Robey 
 can habitually provoke, but in either case it 
 will convince them that the dignity of labour 
 is as yet insufficiently appreciated. 
 
 The same lesson is enforced by the cases of 
 those who from time to time voice the miseries 
 of the middle classes. Popular novelists and 
 others who are passing poor on their four-figured 
 incomes do not enter into this discussion, but 
 the three-pound-a-week man whose calling 
 necessitates a frequent change of linen is signi- 
 ficant. In theory he is attracted by the happy 
 affluence of many manual labourers, but does 
 he ever strive to attain it by joining their ranks ? 
 
 182
 
 SONS OF TOIL 
 
 Does he willingly bring up his sons to be plumbers, 
 miners, engine-drivers, or ploughmen ? On the 
 contrary, he proves himself capable of every 
 heroic sacrifice in order to prevent them from 
 having to follow the comparatively profitable 
 occupations of these others. Should one of 
 them, gripping his courage in both hands, 
 determine to abandon coat and collar for the 
 sake of better wages, it almost always means 
 emigration. Such shame must be hidden in 
 distant lands which have not our standard of 
 seemliness. All the while, too, the ambitious 
 children of the well paid workmen are hastening 
 to enter the overcrowded, underpaid band of 
 those who keep up appearances at the cost 
 of keeping down their appetite. To talk of a 
 disappearing middle class is absurd. Even if 
 it cease to breed, it will never lack recruits. 
 Make no mistake about it. The class which is 
 disappearing is the class of those whom we used 
 to call the horny-handed sons of toil. 
 
 It is, of course, a bewildering situation with 
 bewildering prospects. In the last century, the 
 " great triumph of fact " was Coketown, the 
 hive of industry. You might hate it, but there 
 did not seem the remotest possibility of getting 
 away from it. Every one of its swarming popula- 
 
 183
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 tion seemed also to be a fact ; taken collectively 
 they were about the hardest fact in creation. 
 The system under which they lived might be 
 detestable, and could, perhaps, be bettered, 
 but that it should perish utterly seemed incon- 
 ceivable. The picture of an England in which 
 there was neither toiling nor spinning would have 
 been treated as Utopian. Bare mention of it 
 to any man of common sense would have pro- 
 voked the immediate request to face facts. 
 " How," he would have asked, " could England 
 or the world get on, if the majority of mortals 
 did not toil and spin ? " 
 
 I have not found an answer to his question 
 yet, but I am facing facts, and the fact of the 
 hour is that the world's work is not being done, 
 or, anyhow, no great part of it is being done in 
 Britain. Perhaps we are the feminine race we 
 have been called, but there seems no immediate 
 prospect of finding a masculine race willing to 
 support us. The ghost of the horny-handed 
 one merely gibbers at us. " After me," he 
 says, " the deluge." After all, he is not the 
 first despot to make that remark, yet the earth 
 is still habitable in places. 
 
 184
 
 THE ORANGEMAN 
 
 SOME seven years ago I was in Ulster. 
 Were I to write that seven years ago 
 I had been in Bedfordshire, Birmingham, or 
 Berlin, and had observed this or that, I should 
 be rightly told that my observations had for 
 some time ceased to have any bearing on 
 practical politics, and, in that curiously con- 
 structed phrase, reminded that " there had been 
 a war on." No such objection, however, can 
 be raised to my Ulster memories. In that part 
 of the world they have a different scale of 
 historical values, and, among the Orangemen, 
 its most vocal representatives, things are much 
 as when I saw them last, and not very different 
 from what they were in the years of the Boyne 
 and Aughrim. One of Sir Edward Carson's 
 latest contributions to Irish debate has been 
 to liken Sir Horace Plunkett to an individual 
 who gained some notoriety in the past by trying 
 to betray Derry to King James. Into the 
 justice of the comparison one need not go, 
 but it appears to be far-fetched ; fetched, in 
 fact, from two hundred years ago. A character 
 
 185
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 in " Mr. Britling," once spoke of Sir Horace as 
 a doctrinaire dairyman, showing that, despite 
 political virus, she kept an open eye on current 
 events, including co-operative creameries. But 
 the Orange leader will have none of this cant 
 of modernism and living and learning. He is 
 angry because some people in England have 
 lately altered their ideas on the propriety of 
 resisting the law by force of arms, and tries 
 to abash them by proclaiming that he never 
 changes his views. Will some opponent please 
 strike a blow at the Belfast linen industry by 
 never changing his shirt, and trying to persuade 
 the public to follow his example ? 
 
 Seven years ago I saw in Ulster squads of 
 respectable citizens forming fours almost as well 
 as the average British Territorials of those days. 
 No secret was made of their accomplishments, 
 and I saw no reason to doubt that they had 
 almost as many guns as they told me they had. 
 Possibly they have as many now, and probably 
 they drill much better, for many of them have 
 been in the regular army. That they are as 
 dangerous as they were is, however, untrue. 
 In those days, they thought they had British 
 opinion behind them, and that their front line 
 would consist of British bayonets. One of their 
 
 186
 
 THE ORANGEMAN 
 
 leaders boasted that they had the professional 
 army in their pockets. In certain eventualities 
 more than half the senior officers on the active 
 list would have asked to be relieved of their 
 commissions, and many of the juniors were 
 willing to go further. Young men who had only 
 played at war were daring, and the women 
 they met at dances were encouraging. A military 
 friend of mine, who knew nothing of politics 
 and cared less, but was a hot Nationalist when 
 roused, put his name to any number of coven- 
 anting documents when he was given to under- 
 stand that the cursed English Government 
 meditated some harm to old Ireland. A couple 
 of years later, when his battalion was sent to 
 the Ulster Division, he made amends by leading 
 his men into their new camp to the tune of the 
 Shan Van Vocht. However, in 1913, the situa- 
 tion was really formidable, and the Orange 
 leaders did not hesitate to exploit it. " What we 
 want," said a colonel of volunteers, " is to frighten 
 our little king." He never put an envelope 
 into the post without sticking on the back a 
 red, white and blue seal, inscribed with the 
 motto, " Support Loyal Ulster." 
 
 The fighting spirit of the Orangemen may 
 be as strong as ever, but in other breasts it has 
 
 187
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 weakened. Most of us have had a surfeit of 
 war, even including those who, so to speak, 
 were born soldiers. General Go ugh has become a 
 champion of conciliation, and whatever chieftains 
 may repair to the Curragh of Kildare, he will 
 not be of them. Sir Henry Wilson, one fancies, 
 may, after his friendship with Marshal Foch, 
 have come to think more charitably of Papists. 
 With the income tax at its present level, and 
 the price of clothes still soaring, Lady Catherine 
 Milnes-Gaskell might have fewer customers than 
 of old for those orange lilies she used to sell 
 in aid of Ulster's plan of campaign. The time 
 has been when the Orange Lodges could look 
 for a good deal of support from financial interests 
 in England, anxious to embarrass any Cabinet 
 of which Mr. Lloyd George was a member. 
 That desire is dead. Stalwarts of Belfast, 
 Bally money, and Bally men a, have proved what 
 splendid soldiers they are, and have made great 
 sacrifices in a great cause. Also, they are 
 deeply religious, but neither courage nor creed 
 prevents them from having a due respect for 
 Mammon. The time has come when if Ulster 
 were to fight, Ulster would not be right in expect- 
 ing her battle to be a paying proposition. 
 Visitors to Belfast can never avoid seeing 
 
 188
 
 THE ORANGEMAN 
 
 the Town Hall. Usually, there is an Orange- 
 man present to say that ninety per cent, of its 
 cost was paid in Protestant money, and he 
 generally adds the information that ninety per 
 cent, of the paupers in the local workhouse are 
 Catholics. I once questioned a member of the 
 Order on what were his real fears for the future 
 under Home Rule. He began by contrasting 
 the native Irish unfavourably with Kurds, 
 Albanians, and other strange folk who were then 
 held to be first-class practitioners in frightfulness. 
 He ended by saying that a Dublin Government 
 would reduce the number of posts he had a 
 day from three to one, and he let me know 
 that that would be bad for his business. Amongst 
 Orangemen money talks. It talks even more 
 loudly than Sir Edward Carson. Merchants 
 and manufacturers may consign the Pope to 
 hell before breakfast, but they like to find their 
 letters waiting for them at the office afterwards. 
 Nobody dreams of asking the War Office or 
 the Admiralty to coerce Ulster* It is the Post- 
 master-General who holds the key to the situation. 
 Men who would sing " Boyne Water " if the great 
 gun of Athlone were pointed in their faces, 
 would sing small after a week's interruption 
 of mail orders. 
 
 189
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 Coercion, even postal coercion, is a thing of 
 which one is sorry to talk, but the Orange- 
 man is making himself a nuisance. The eternal 
 drumming by which he keeps his convictions 
 hot is an abominable din in other ears. One 
 is tired of his talk about Aughrim and the 
 Boyne and his other glorious victories, not for- 
 getting Dolly's Brae, that disreputable scuffle 
 where his grandfathers killed an idiot boy. 
 Others say sarcastically that Queen Anne is 
 dead, but were one to telegraph the news to 
 Ulster it would presumably cause turmoil, for 
 there still seem to be places there where her 
 accession to the throne has not yet been notified. 
 Eminent divines have cried out against the 
 habit of toasting King William as almost akin 
 to the Popish practice of praying for the dead, 
 but your true Orangeman merely says, " A fig 
 for the Bishop of Cork," spits on the floor of 
 the lodge hall, and takes another drink to the 
 memory of the Great Whig Deliverer. A few 
 years ago an Ulster pastor talked of asking 
 William's aid for his threatened flock. Unkind 
 people said he meant the Kaiser ; of course he 
 meant the Dutchman. 
 
 Those of us who live a little more in the 
 present or future feel that the Orange ghost 
 
 190
 
 THE ORANGEMAN 
 
 must not be allowed to stalk the land much 
 longer. For obvious reasons, one cannot hope 
 to put it to rest by the usual formula of priest 
 and holy water, but in days which are already 
 dark enough " putting out the sunrise with a 
 bucket of the Boyne " cannot be endured. 
 The ghost has done too much mischief in the 
 past, and it threatens more. It still scares 
 timid souls by standing in every alley that can 
 lead to peace and friendship with the Irish 
 people. A ridiculous survival of seventeenth- 
 century bigotry, it pits itself against an under- 
 standing with the United States and the con- 
 summation of man's noblest hopes in the League 
 of Nations. Sir Edward Carson has stood easy 
 whilst thousands of Lutherans are handed over 
 to the rule of Catholic Poland. His simple 
 followers are taught that a raffle for their watches 
 has already been held at the chapel against the 
 day when Ireland is a nation once again. That 
 is why the Pope has such a bad name in Porta- 
 down. 
 
 Seven years have added only one argument to 
 the Orangeman's stock. He says that he has 
 fought for the Empire, and so can do what he 
 likes in it. The same thing has been said by 
 colliers, policemen, and burglars in respect to 
 
 191
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 their several intentions of striking or working, 
 but the convenience of the rest of the population 
 must occasionally be studied. " We will not 
 brook interference in our affairs," says Sir 
 Edward Carson, late law officer of the Crown, 
 " by any country, however powerful." Roger 
 Casement in the dock said, " Put me before 
 a jury of my countrymen." Both made the 
 same mistake. Neither realized the great truth 
 of our times, that no country, not even Ireland, 
 or a part of it, lives to itself alone. 
 
 192
 
 THE DAILY NEWSPAPER 
 
 THERE are two opinions about the news- 
 papers of to-day. According to one, it 
 would be possible to improve them ; according 
 to the other, it would not. The latter is the 
 opinion of the cynic. Personally, I owe much 
 to newspapers, and am fond of them. For the 
 good of my health I have worn them next my 
 skin under a damp shirt, and in ill-constructed 
 huts have used them to keep out wind and snow. 
 Both at home and abroad I have lighted innu- 
 merable fires with them. When living in dis- 
 tricts uncomfortably close to the fighting area, 
 I have walked miles in order to see what Mr. 
 Garvin or Mr. Gardiner thought about the war. 
 Once, when camped on Salisbury Plain, I was 
 given an unforgettable thrill by picking up a 
 paper and reading in it that at that very 
 moment of the day it was high water at 
 London Bridge. If I had but a penny in the 
 world I should consider spending it on a news- 
 paper, in the hope that it would sustain me 
 longer than the amount of food, drink, or 
 tobacco to be bought for that sum. The daily 
 
 193 N
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 press, indeed, seems to me to be such a neces- 
 sary institution, and in essentials so admirable, 
 that I find it hard to fathom those who can jeer 
 at it without wishing it better. 
 
 In the days of our forefathers, a just and general 
 pride was taken in the newspaper. Information 
 was presented with sobriety and with some 
 apparent reference to its importance to the 
 nation. By no chance whatever were the de- 
 liberations of Parliament treated as secondary 
 to the matrimonial squabbles of persons who 
 would have lived and died in obscurity had they 
 not entered the Divorce Court. The affairs 
 of even a minor foreign State were not dwarfed 
 by the account of a prize fight at the National 
 Sporting Club or a football match at Chelsea. 
 Art and literature were still given almost as 
 much attention as the " sport of kings." Com- 
 ment on the news always seemed to be addressed 
 by a man of intelligence to his peers. Bitterly 
 partisan it may have been, but there was meat 
 and marrow in it, and the bitterness was scarcely 
 more than sauce to a sound dish. Enlightened 
 children of the twentieth century may be out 
 of sympathy with the high Toryism of Gifford 
 in the Standard, and with Eyre Crowe's radicalism 
 in the Dickensian Daily News, but these men 
 
 194
 
 THE DAILY NEWSPAPER 
 
 did represent great volumes of opinion in the 
 country. Their ideals were, probably, the 
 highest in their respective camps. They believed, 
 too, that it was a leader-writer's duty to lead 
 the public and not merely to chivy it by writing 
 words which, if spoken, would sound like the 
 opening of ginger-beer bottles. Most important 
 of all, they knew whither they were leading ; 
 they had a policy. 
 
 For the change which has come over journalism 
 in the last twenty-five years, many reasons have 
 been given. The most amusing is that which 
 attributes it to the scattering over Fleet Street 
 of Jowett's pupils, and the most common is 
 that we live in a democratic age. Neither 
 explanation satisfies me. It was not, I fancy, 
 the flower of Balliol which first decided that 
 Balfour Must Go, that Tariff Reform meant 
 Work for All, or that the Liberal programme would 
 be more attractive without its two final letters. 
 But if Oxford is not to have the credit, is it 
 fair to saddle democracy with these things ? 
 That persons who work in pits should have no 
 desire to follow the thoughts and acts of Lady 
 Sneerwell and the British Plush Protection 
 Society, so faithfully reported in the Morning 
 Post, is fairly obvious, but it does not follow that 
 
 195
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 " the working man " has much less literary taste 
 than " the aristocrat who rides and shoots." 
 Cheap reprints of the English classics rather 
 suggest that the former's tastes are different, 
 but not lower. At first he may have been 
 deluded by hearing that a new species of news- 
 paper had been devised for him, but he should 
 by now have discovered that he only represents 
 one of the three classes at which it was aimed. 
 The other two were the professional and com- 
 mercial men who think they are too busy to 
 read, and the women who want nothing but 
 the feuilleton and such items of news as resemble 
 it. It was mainly these two classes which set 
 the fashion for what the so-called " popular " 
 newspaper should be. Homeric accounts of 
 league competitions and the struggle for cups 
 may, indeed, be sops to the proletariat, but the 
 other columns are not primarily designed to 
 catch the labourer's coppers. Those who believe 
 that a healthy press makes for a healthy nation 
 should realize that the worst enemy is he who 
 claims that he has only time to skim the paper. 
 For him have truth and logic been curtailed in 
 head-line, leaderette, and snappy paragraph. 
 Let none be deceived by his pose of weary 
 Titan. His overtaxed brain can still concentrate 
 
 196
 
 THE DAILY NEWSPAPER 
 
 on the intricacies of a game of bridge or of 
 form at Newmarket. His overwrought nerves 
 still permit him to dance to whatever substitute 
 for music a jazz band may provide. It may 
 be impossible for a writer to discuss him without 
 some of that prejudice which I imagine a qualified 
 physician feels for the confirmed taker of patent 
 medicines, but, to give my opinion for what it 
 may here be worth, I believe him to be one of 
 the greatest impostors of our age. 
 
 Feminine influence has been less baneful. 
 The page of fashions can be easily avoided by 
 those whom it does not concern, and there is 
 no compulsion to read the great, new serial by 
 Miss Ruby M. Ayres. The column of social 
 gossip, which connects Suburbiton and Mayfair 
 as by a Bridge of Sighs, is but an extension of 
 the old court circular, and there is no proof 
 that the more spiced chronicles of scandal are 
 provided for women only. If we take decreasing 
 pride in the press, the person most to blame is 
 the busy man with lazy mind. A perverted 
 edition of Oliver Twist, he asked for less, and 
 less was given him. Keeping in view the three 
 classes of buyers for whom the modern journa- 
 list was to cater, the Harmsworth brethren and 
 their imitators sought and found the lowest 
 
 197
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 common denominator of the three types. 
 The genuinely democratic newspaper does not 
 yet exist. Even the staff of the Daily Herald, 
 though it include Mr. Siegfried Sassoon himself, 
 has failed to create it. That a daily paper could 
 be both intelligent and popular was, however, 
 once proved by that group of writers who at 
 the beginning of " the change of things " made 
 the Star shine so brightly. 
 
 Too much, perhaps, has been said of, and 
 against, the newspaper proprietor. So much 
 talk may one day force him to put on his hat 
 with a shoe-horn. He is engaged in a com- 
 mercial venture, and, if it succeeds, his profits 
 are, from the commerical point of view, justifi- 
 cation of his methods. All one can reasonably 
 wish is that he could be brought within scope 
 of some Food and Drugs Act which should 
 restrain him from selling deleterious matter, 
 and compel him to include in his wares a fixed 
 percentage of mentally nourishing substance. 
 Still less are the members of his staffs to be 
 censured. They are at least as intelligent as 
 those whom the gallant Captain Shandon gathered 
 round him to start the gazette which was to 
 be written by gentlemen for gentlemen. The 
 only fresh fault to be found with them is in 
 
 198
 
 THE DAILY NEWSPAPER 
 
 their belief that everything about a newspaper 
 matters more than what is written in it. Com- 
 position of a leading article is, for instance, 
 now regarded as of minor importance. Whether 
 it shall be printed on the first or fourth page 
 is, on the contrary, treated as crucial. 
 
 Here again, I see the alleged busy buyer 
 intervening. As he does not read, it clearly 
 matters little what is written for him, but, as 
 he has been seen occasionally to turn the sheets, 
 the question of " make-up " is vital. Find a 
 way of sparing him that trouble, and your 
 fortune in journalism is secure. So much atten- 
 tion being devoted to this one pampered person- 
 age, editors and others have not been required 
 as of old to formulate definite policies in regard 
 to the politics of the State. I can still depend 
 on the Daily Telegraph to behave in all circum- 
 stances with propriety, and, at least once a 
 week, to bow to Buckingham Palace. I can, 
 also, open the Morning Advertiser in confidence 
 that it will not have weakened on temperance 
 questions. Elsewhere, consistency is to seek, 
 yet there is a certain new nervousness in Fleet 
 Street. One part of its population has long 
 played see-saw twice a day, but in certain quarters 
 there is another tendency to be seen. There 
 
 199
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 is an inclination to sit on the fence, less because 
 it is a fairly comfortable seat, than because 
 of the sporting chance that one may eventually 
 fall on the right side. This nervousness, this 
 taking thought for the morrow, is a sign of 
 grace. It hints a new-born idea that, after 
 all, newspapers are not only printed, circulated, 
 sold, and finally utilized in the by-ways of 
 domestic economy, but may sometimes be read 
 and inwardly digested. If that idea can be 
 driven home, it may occur anon to some influential 
 person that they should once again be made 
 worth reading. High hopes of immediate change 
 cannot, however, be built. Horace Greeley 
 hailing the press as " sunbeam of truth " and 
 " chosen champion of freedom " still seems one 
 half inflated fool and the other half deflated 
 humbug. The future of the newspaper depends 
 on whether the next generation is educated to 
 spell out sentences or to the point of being able 
 to read. 
 
 200
 
 THE ACTOR-MANAGER 
 
 THE actor-manager and under this general 
 title one must place the prevalent actress- 
 manageress has had a long reign. Without 
 troubling about archaic details, one can begin 
 to think of him at the period of the Bancrofts, 
 for everybody knows what they did for the only 
 Profession which spells itself with a capital P. 
 They obtained it social recognition. Chronicles 
 tell us how they cleared the green room of all 
 the old rogues and vagabonds, and instituted 
 half-guinea stalls, from which one portion of 
 well-bred humanity could gaze upon another, 
 sensible that, though the footlights divided them, 
 they were united by a bond of correctness in 
 clothing, accent, and demeanour. The " poor, 
 degraded stage " ceased to be the occupation at 
 mention of which a dame of right feeling must 
 draw her shawl about her figure ; and in due 
 course came the first theatrical knighthood. 
 In public esteem, the theatre has been raised 
 almost to the level of the brewery. 
 
 Adam Smith once explained that the " exorbi- 
 
 201
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 tant rewards of players " were paid not only 
 for the rarity and beauty of their talents, but 
 also as recompense for the discredit attached 
 to those who offered them for public hire. With 
 the sting of reproach removed, there was reason 
 to be hopeful. When actor and actress could 
 emerge proudly and by light of day from their 
 lairs in St. John's Wood, it should have followed 
 from the economist's theory that they would be 
 almost supercilious about money matters. Exiles 
 in Bohemia they had needed compensations, 
 but now surely had come the time for high 
 thinking and plain living. In short, they could 
 devote themselves to the advancement of art, 
 and for some years audiences were hypnotized 
 into believing that our native genius had found 
 new life in Robertson's cup-and-saucer comedies, 
 whilst the Lyceum Shakespeare was, of course, 
 given the reverence owed to fragmentary remains 
 and relics of the great departed. To individual 
 pieces Clement Scott gave his blessing or refused 
 it, but in an era of general complacence, nobody 
 suspected that things were about to happen, 
 of which the like had not been seen since the 
 days of Etheldred the Redeless. Then, Ibsen 
 and the Vikings in their dragon ships came up 
 the Thames, with Mr. Shaw for pilot. The 
 
 202
 
 THE A C T O R - M A N A G E R 
 
 theatre was in labour ; " The Second Mrs. 
 Tanqueray " was produced. 
 
 Further historical details are not needed. 
 Our actor-managers, with carpenters, costumers 
 and other allies, have rather carefully avoided 
 making history, though four or five more knight- 
 hoods stand to their credit. The hopes engen- 
 dered by Adam Smith's words scarcely seem 
 to have been fulfilled ; but, if much money has 
 been gained, much also has been spent. He 
 who aims at becoming Sir William de Stratford 
 suffers, it may be, from an over-developed 
 conscience. He can well be imagined saying 
 to himself that it will not be fair if the honour 
 fall on him when he has risked no more than 
 half what his last knighted brother had pledged 
 to fortune. And so it is no use to present him 
 with a play which would be good if it had not 
 the cardinal defect of being inexpensive. No 
 use to ask him for a Shakespeare without cuts, 
 since that would leave no time for the ballets 
 and the tableaux and the scene-shifting by which 
 alone the gilt edge can be put on Elizabethan 
 gold. Only if he can feel that his production 
 is the costliest in town will he sleep in perfect 
 calm. Awake, he lives like Damocles, with 
 a sword ever ready to fall on him. When it 
 
 203
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 has fallen, quite gently, on his shoulder, and he 
 has been bidden rise as Sir William, he is too old 
 or too honest to change his methods. He will 
 even spend a little more than he has spent before. 
 The old Puritan who cried, " Behold the sump- 
 tuous theatre houses, a continued monument 
 of London's prodigality and folly," was, of 
 course, an enemy to the drama ; yet its warmest 
 friends repeat the cry to-day. Within the last 
 twenty-five years a number of brilliant plays 
 have been written, and, in spite of everything 
 that is said of low public taste, several of them 
 have proved to be commercial successes, not, 
 perhaps, of the mammoth type, but as profitable 
 as the ordinary bedroom farce, which has lost 
 its wit in crossing the Channel. Although it 
 was Sir Herbert Tree who told us not to despise 
 the valour of indiscretion, it is not to the West 
 End managers that we owe our first acquaintance 
 with Shaw, Houghton, or Drinkwater, to mention 
 only three writers whose work has already won 
 popular applause. One is tempted to question 
 whether Sir William and his brethren really 
 know their own business so much better than 
 do the literary hotheads who offer them so much 
 gratuitous advice. Hindle Wakes can be seen 
 to-day on the " pictures," and I take it that 
 
 204
 
 THE A C T O R - M A N A G E R 
 
 admission to the repertory of the cinema is 
 strong token of a play's popularity ; but it had 
 to dribble from Manchester to the London stage 
 doors by way of Notting Hill and the Stage 
 Society. But your knight, or would-be knight, 
 dare not risk a shabby little failure in work-a- 
 day dress. If he is not exactly a knight errant, 
 he has something of the spirit of the Cavalier, 
 who, if he had to fall, wished to fall in purple 
 and fine linen. Rather plaintively he tells us 
 from time to time how much he would like to 
 do a little crusading, but it is always evident 
 that his apparel is in the way. If he learnt 
 nothing much from Ibsen, he at least seems to 
 remember the moral of Dr. Stockmann's case, 
 that a man should never put on his best trousers 
 when he goes out to battle for truth and freedom. 
 And so he either stays at home, or goes out to 
 battle for something else. 
 
 In choice of parts, as in choice of plays, lack 
 of acumen is often displayed by the actor- 
 manager. Shakespeare is said to have played 
 Benvolio because he was bald and had a head 
 shaped like an egg, but one has seen a modern 
 Romeo whose only clear qualification was an 
 amorous imitation of Juliet's habit of speaking 
 and saying nothing anyhow, nothing audible. 
 
 205
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 Also there have been strange Falstaffs, reminis- 
 cent only of the man in Poe's story, who went 
 mad with the idea he was a pumpkin, and per- 
 secuted the cook to make him into pies. But 
 I can fancy some reader asking pertinently why 
 so many attacks are launched on poor Sir 
 William, or questioning whether the stage is 
 in worse state than, say, literature. In the first 
 place, I would answer frankly that going to the 
 theatre merits exceptional rewards, because it 
 is accompanied by exceptional penalties. For 
 various persons it may entail one or more of 
 several unpleasantnesses, such as booking seats, 
 or standing in a queue, changing clothes, going 
 out at night, realization of the traffic problem, 
 a too hastily eaten dinner, deprivation of tobacco, 
 sitting next to a young woman whose opinions 
 on life and toilettes one had not originally paid 
 to hear. That is why an indifferent play annoys 
 one more than a bad book, and one reason why 
 actor- managers are more assailed than publishers. 
 Accidental trifles may make one's demands 
 more exacting in the playhouse than elsewhere, 
 but the real complaint against the actor-manager 
 is that he is by profession an actor. Of the 
 wholly commercial entrepreneur one has no 
 right to make a grievance. The box-office is 
 
 206
 
 THE A C T O R - M A N A G E R 
 
 the all-sufficient guide for him as to whether, 
 for the nonce, the dashing automata of Edmond 
 Rostand shall hold the boards in place of what 
 the Americans call a girl-and-music show, and 
 it is natural for him to direct his plans accordingly. 
 To the artist turned administrator one cannot 
 be equally lenient. Every one of his offences 
 is assumed to be a sin against the light within 
 him. Yet, when he deigns to answer the fault- 
 finders, he neither shows the smallest sign of 
 penitence, nor does he appeal to human sympathy 
 and humour with a wink On the contrary, 
 he quotes Shakespeare for the defence, lets fall 
 the name of Garrick, poses as a priest of deep 
 mysteries, and speaks contemptuously of literary 
 pedants. To every objection he has a ready 
 response, each excellent in its way, though 
 perhaps mutually destructive if taken together. 
 Defending the star system with a phrase about 
 the " happy inequality of man," he is the 
 blandest aristocrat. Confuting the high-brows 
 by a count of seats, he is the complete and in- 
 dignant demagogue. He is incurable, but the 
 cause of the drama is not lost. Because there 
 are some who still believe with Webster that 
 " such vices as stand not accountable to law 
 should be cured as men heal tatters, by casting 
 
 207
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 ink upon them," one must still sharpen pens 
 against him. 
 
 When rumours came from Moscow of the art 
 of one Gordon Craig, and, as the rumours grew 
 louder, the actor-managers of London were 
 seen to be pricking up their ears, somebody 
 suggested that Sir William ought to spend 
 a month abroad out of every twelve. Would 
 not eleven be better ? A good deal of his holiday, 
 long or short, will be spent in Paris. Four 
 weeks will only allow him time to consider 
 what of the Palais Royal fare may be suitable 
 for adaption, whereas in the longer period he 
 could learn how the French act the pieces of his 
 choice. On his return home, he would receive 
 an ovation which might induce him for ever to 
 leave Shakespeare alone. The strictly commercial 
 producer would fill the ordinary bill quite capably 
 in his absence, and somebody else would have a 
 better chance to deal with such plays as interest 
 the captious but not inconsiderable minority. 
 
 208
 
 THE SUPERMAN 
 
 is the ape for man? A 
 
 ing stock or a source of painful shame. 
 And that is what man must be for the super- 
 man." There is always a part of the human 
 race that enjoys being cuffed as much as another 
 part of it enjoys being patted. Even a single 
 individual may read with satisfaction in Shake- 
 speare that he has God-like apprehension, and 
 half-an-hour later be listening with comfort to 
 Dean Inge. Perhaps there is in every man 
 a consciousness that the buffets are meant not 
 for him but for his neighbour, yet I fancy there 
 are some who actually take pleasure in being 
 called worms of earth or compared with chim- 
 panzees. However that may be, the average mor- 
 tal was by no means offended when the German 
 professor whose words I have quoted began to 
 preach Supermanhood as the world's goal. 
 Until recently we accepted his teaching with- 
 out protest, or only objected when his country- 
 men claimed a monopoly in superiority. Only 
 from the Devil in Mr. Shaw's play did a word of 
 warning come. " Beware," he said, " of the 
 
 209 o
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 pursuit of the Superman ; it leads to an indis- 
 criminate contempt for the human." As a rule 
 one does not quote approvingly the sayings 
 attributed to this personage, but it has always 
 been admitted that there are times when he 
 should be given his due, and a Shavian Devil is 
 exceptional. I am glad to think that the human 
 element in the world is beginning to assert 
 itself again, and to wonder why it so long 
 submitted to contempt. 
 
 Doubts exist as to how and when the idea of 
 the Superman was first popularised in England. 
 Some time before Mr. Shaw and Mr. Wells had 
 won anything more than literary recognition, 
 the idea was in the air. It can be felt in the 
 most widely read novels of the late eighteen- 
 nineties. Seton Merriman's romances abound 
 in strong, silent men who would have been dull 
 dogs on the mortal plane, yet were accepted as 
 heroes by patrons of the circulating libraries. 
 Why poverty of conversation should have been 
 taken as a sign of genius, or of anything but the 
 lack of something to say, is beyond me ; but 
 taciturnity was for a while the rage. One Con- 
 tinental celebrity was particularly admired for 
 being silent in seven languages. To chatterers 
 whose tongues had never been curbed by the 
 
 210
 
 THE SUPERMAN 
 
 smallness of their own vocabularies, he doubt- 
 less appeared unnatural. It needed but little 
 to make him seem supernatural. 
 
 More sophisticated portions of society were 
 soon to be prepared for the coming of our con- 
 querors. Gradually they were accustomed to 
 the mention of Nietzsche, but the rising sun 
 of the Far East at first attracted more attention. 
 Strange Oriental words began to creep into the 
 English language. A little earlier, Japan had 
 been the provider of tasteful crockery for deca- 
 dent tea-drinkers, and a little later she was to 
 be a dangerous competitor in textiles, but for 
 the time being her export was the heroic theory. 
 Pedagogues inculcated the manly virtues by 
 calling their pupils' attention to her knightly 
 code, and a fair judgment of a man's age can 
 still be made when one has heard whether he 
 was brought up on Japan or Sparta. In the 
 sixth form and at the universities the new cult 
 brought glory and some satisfaction to those 
 who followed it. It not only excused, but 
 positively ordained, a thoroughly cavalier treat- 
 ment of fags, freshmen, and anybody who did 
 not happen to be in one's own exclusive set. 
 Vulgarly, one might be called " blood," " athle- 
 tocrat," or whatever else envy dictated to those 
 
 211
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 whose socks and souls were invariably of the 
 wrong shade, but from socks to soul one knew 
 that one belonged to the Samurai. 
 
 The newness of this new aristocracy was a 
 point always emphasized. Its members were 
 quick to deny any mental relationship with the 
 Came-over-with-the-Conqueror people whose pre- 
 tensions had already worn threadbare. Theore- 
 tically, one might be a new aristocrat and a 
 boot-black, but in practice it was well to have 
 an unearned income, since the right spending of 
 it could take so much of one's time and thought. 
 It was not always a path of roses for the young 
 Samurai ; floral carelessness in life was not 
 for them. Supermanhood denied that the lower 
 orders had any rights, but on itself it imposed 
 duties. How to be in the forefront of Bond 
 Street's fashions without encouraging anybody 
 in an unproductive occupation was just one 
 of the troubles to be faced earnestly. How to 
 be " equestrian " whilst driving the most power- 
 ful Panhard then on the market was another. 
 The bushido of the adolescent Englishman was 
 a very complicated business. 
 
 The really serious difficulty, however, lay in 
 the fact that none could settle satisfactorily 
 how the new class should be recruited. No 
 
 212
 
 THE SUPERMAN 
 
 sooner had hereditary principles been rejected 
 than a new set of hereditary principles had to 
 be adopted. If man was something that had 
 to be surpassed, one had to think about breeding 
 Supermen. A commonplace of debate was the 
 future government of the country by a House 
 of Lords with scientifically selected pedigrees. 
 In the literature of the subject, such words 
 as " wife " and " marriage " were seldom used, 
 but " mate " and " mating " were of constant 
 occurrence. A due regard for coming genera- 
 tions was thus displayed, but the needs of the 
 present were not wholly forgotten. Several edu- 
 cational establishments began to announce that 
 they had a staff of experts in teaching the art 
 of aggression. Specimen testimonals showed how, 
 after a course of twelve postal lessons, an office- 
 boy could glare a managing director into giving 
 him a rise of five shillings weekly, and how 
 hitherto unsuccessful men of letters had brow- 
 beaten editors into refusing columns of adver- 
 tisement in order to make space for their effu- 
 sions. What happened when two fully trained 
 aggressors met each other was always matter 
 for speculation, but, though these educational 
 ladders all led to supermanhood, their lure was 
 mainly for those who, at the beginning of the 
 
 213
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 ascent, possessed middle-class minds. Others 
 neglected them from a mastering conviction 
 that they themselves were premature births 
 of the awaited master race. Disdaining the old 
 fetish of representative institutions, the new 
 aristocrats assumed the purple and its privi- 
 leges after having quite simply selected them- 
 selves. 
 
 Many of them were, and still may be, heroes 
 to their valets. It would be hard to think of 
 any other class of beings in whose estimation 
 their stock has not sunk, but at the outbreak of 
 war we were all more or less under their thrall. 
 " Wanted, a Man " was a cry which revealed 
 our confidence that the Supermen were ready 
 and waiting for the invitation to save us. For 
 a while the public saw none but Lord Kitchener. 
 That he was a capable soldier and an excellent 
 organizer, is generally agreed, but his supre- 
 macy was not due to the qualities he is now 
 granted. The public was awed by his reputa- 
 tion for silence. His colleagues were over-awed 
 because he could silence others. Since those 
 days we have seen pass the train of his successors. 
 Lord Northcliffe, voluble in seven or seventy 
 newspapers, followed by force of reaction, and 
 Lord Beaverbrook, last of the Canadian barons, 
 
 214
 
 THE SUPERMAN 
 
 had his spell of fame. Sir Auckland Geddes, 
 fearlessly changing " definite " into "definitive," 
 and then burning the pen, has finally proved 
 how. far the supermind can soar beyond our 
 weaker understanding. 
 
 Germany, too, has had a long list of Super- 
 men. She deserved them, but it revives my 
 belief in German good-nature to note how many 
 of them are being allowed to write their own 
 epitaphs. War was thought to be the one thing 
 necessary to show the world the worth of the 
 higher intelligence, of the esprit fort. The old, 
 old story was told again ; only the exceptional 
 beings, the Alexanders, Caesars, and Napoleons, 
 ever made history. Curiously enough, the war 
 has served to restore faith in democracy. In 
 all the armies, common soldiers and obscure 
 regimental officers acquitted themselves with 
 more than ordinary credit. Thousands of un- 
 distinguished civilians evinced capacity in their 
 limited spheres of influence. Only in the higher 
 commands, military and civil, did ordeal by battle 
 find many weak spots. Faith in democracy, 
 by the way, need not mean faith restored to 
 any particular one of its sects. From the Super- 
 man's standpoint, Mr. Walter Long is even 
 more hopelessly of the crowd than is Mr. Lans- 
 
 215
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 bury, and of all those whose names Sir Bernard 
 Burke so carefully catalogues, there were never 
 more than a dozen or two standing head and 
 shoulders above the masses. Even Mr. Wells, 
 in whose New Utopia, the Superman played so 
 large a part, has gone far towards recantation. 
 I shall always remember that monstrously effi- 
 cient individual in The Research Magnificent, 
 who would not take a walking tour in Surrey 
 without " several sheets of the ordnance map," 
 yet so nearly caught a severe chill through for- 
 getting that the English climate in April does not 
 allow one to sleep with impunity under nothing 
 but the stars. What better illustration could 
 one have of the supermind's blind side ? And 
 yet, as another Shavian character said in answer 
 to the Devil, " the superman is a fine concep- 
 tion ; there is something statuesque about it." 
 I wonder whether the statue with which for all 
 future time we shall connect it, will not be the 
 wooden idol of Hindenburg, decaying in Berlin ? 
 
 216
 
 THE DOMESTIC SERVANT 
 
 CERTAIN ghosts there are which trouble us 
 by too often appearing ; others can only 
 be evoked with extreme difficulty and by con- 
 jurations and sacrifices. To the latter class 
 belongs the domestic servant. She, for it is 
 with the female of the species that most of us 
 are concerned, like others of the genus ghost, 
 is peculiarly shy of suburban villas, country 
 cottages, and the smaller flats, showing some 
 preference for the statelier homes of England, 
 where, presumably, she can be more bounteously 
 entertained. Sceptics aver that she does not 
 exist at all, but their denial is in the main cyni- 
 cism. Others affirm that, after due invocation, 
 she has appeared to them in the likeness of that 
 efreet in the Arabian Nights, whose hands were 
 as winnowing-forks, and that they, like the 
 King's daughter, have cried, " No welcome to 
 thee," and have engaged with her in mortal 
 combat. 
 
 By legend, picture, and tradition, it is proved 
 that she once existed in the flesh. It has been 
 
 217
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 handed down by our mothers that she per- 
 formed a number of useful functions, and com- 
 parison of her storied past with modern instances 
 is conclusive in showing that the being with 
 whom we have to deal now is at best but a wraith. 
 Her departure from mortal life is mourned by 
 many. Those who seem to have been the most 
 to blame for it are often loudest in their lamenta- 
 tions. Approaching the question with an open 
 mind, one cannot deny that the whole business 
 of the domestic servant has for a long time 
 been abominably managed. A few years ago 
 it could have been cited with equal effect on the 
 platforms of Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Humphry 
 Ward. To the party of the former it would 
 have served as a strong argument to rebut the 
 contention that woman's proper sphere of activity 
 was in the home, whilst the anti-suffragists might 
 surely have claimed that as women had failed 
 in control of the one department entrusted to 
 their care, further extension of power was likely 
 to be disastrous. 
 
 Idyllic tales of domestic bliss in bygone times 
 must be taken with some caution. The majority 
 of them merely express the opinions of employers, 
 and even the employers were far from unanimous. 
 Strife between mistress and maid began with their 
 
 218
 
 THE DOMESTIC SERVANT 
 
 first relations, but, as long as the demand for 
 women's labour was limited to few callings, the 
 mistress had, in more than a figurative sense, 
 the whip hand. Thomas Fuller, a worthy of 
 the seventeenth century, left it on record as a 
 proverb that England was the purgatory of ser- 
 vants. We know how during the Fire of London 
 Mr. Pepys had time to be incensed against the 
 girl Mercer who, without formality of notice, 
 had fled to her mother's house, and how Mrs. 
 Pepys tracked her, soundly beat, and finally 
 dismissed her. A few years afterwards Mrs. 
 Hannah Wolley in her Guide to the Female Sex 
 was deploring that in " this depraved later 
 age " the tide of corruption and self-indulgence 
 had overtaken Abigail, whilst Colley Gibber 
 flatly stated that " in all the necessaries of life 
 there is not a greater plague than servants." 
 
 The cloud of witnesses could easily be increased, 
 but from all the evidence only two conclusions 
 can be drawn. In the first place it will be noted 
 that at no given moment of history are servants 
 ever as good as they have been. Secondly, 
 that whilst they were yet comparatively good, 
 no right steps were taken either to improve 
 them or to keep them as they were. The chas- 
 tisements of Mrs. Pepys were as ineffective 
 
 219
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 as the catechizings of the Countess of Warwick, 
 her Puritan contemporary. Nobody seems to 
 have realized that the combination of body and 
 soul in cook or housemaid did actually make the 
 sum total of a human being. On the contrary, 
 it was widely and notoriously held that a good 
 servant's three properties were the back of an 
 ass, the tongue of a sheep, and the snout of a 
 swine. The very word servant, sharing common 
 ancestry with the adjective servile, is objection- 
 able, and it has certainly not been bettered in 
 the modern slang of slut, salt, or skivvy. The 
 French bonne, with its amiable, even flattering, 
 suggestion, is altogether pleasanter, though 
 whether it could be truthfully applied to-day is 
 another matter. Maybe the German Poltergeist is 
 the correct designation for sundry domestic assis- 
 tants by whom the twentieth-century house-wife is 
 haunted. Maids they may be called by courtesy ; 
 servants by custom ; domestics by irony. 
 
 Whether even now the human side of the 
 question is fully understood is doubtful. Miss 
 Honeyman, in The Newcomes, had a curious 
 habit of calling all her servants Sally, in com- 
 plete disregard for the expressed wishes of their 
 god-parents. She was a dear old lady. One 
 reads of her that she admired the word gentle- 
 
 220
 
 THE DOMESTIC SERVANT 
 
 woman more than any other in the language, 
 and made all around her feel that such was her 
 rank. One cannot imagine that she would have 
 willingly wounded the feelings of any living 
 creature, yet among the trivial things of life I 
 know none more annoying than to be called 
 by a name other than one's own. It grates when 
 it implies confusion with another person ; it 
 grates more if it means that one is merged in the 
 speaker's imagination with the class to which 
 one belongs, since all classes, as their members 
 know, are, taking them in a lump, bad. Miss 
 Honeyman, at the worst, was thoughtless, but 
 recent correspondence in the newspapers shows 
 that a new generation of employers shares her 
 failing. Violet, Petunia, and Keren-Hapuch have 
 all written to express their indignation that on 
 entering " service " they have been deprived of 
 their baptismal names and dubbed Mary Anne 
 or Jane. Sensitive, class-conscious imaginations 
 have seen here an affront. Their names, they 
 fancied, did not accord with the humility ex- 
 pected of retainers, and the change was designed 
 to take them down a peg or two. I am not sure 
 that they were wrong. Snobbery comes near to 
 being chief and most cherished of our national 
 vices. 
 
 221
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 Another point of difference lately made public 
 is the question of dress. The maid servant is 
 in revolt against the wearing of cap and apron, 
 and a wall of solid opposition here faces her. 
 The mistress, when approached on this subject 
 invariably sidetracks discussion by saying that 
 this changeless uniform is most becoming to 
 its wearer. She talks, in fact, as though she were 
 the most masculine of uncomprehending males. 
 On any night in the week cast an eye on the 
 chronicles of Corisande in The Evening Standard, 
 or the musings of Olivette in The Evening News, 
 and you will discover that what is becoming is 
 only a secondary consideration in woman's wear. 
 Novelty is much more important. No two Eng- 
 lish words go more easily together than change 
 and fashion, and, indeed, without the first one 
 would scarcely gather what the other meant. 
 George Morland's painting of " The Family Maid " 
 is a charming and beautiful picture, though in 
 some " places " exception would be taken to 
 the decollete style of her gown, but it is none 
 the less true that the uniform of cap and apron 
 has long ceased to satisfy those who are supposed 
 to wear it. As Signor Marinetti said of Parsifal 
 and the tango, " ce n'est plus chic" Is not 
 Abigail also a daughter of Eve ? 
 
 222
 
 THE DOMESTIC SERVANT 
 
 Wages and hours of work have never been at 
 the bottom of the difficulty, so one need not 
 dwell on them. In other occupations they have 
 caused grumbling, unrest, strikes, but they have 
 never brought about the disappearance of a whole 
 class of workers, and, despite occasional appari- 
 tions, it is clear that the domestic servant is 
 likely soon to be as extinct as the dodo. Is it 
 too late to recall her to life ? At least for the 
 sake of the aged and infirm, it is to be hoped 
 that something can be done. There is nothing 
 particularly degrading or unpleasant about house- 
 hold labours, but if they are to attract the young 
 women who have tasted liberty they must be 
 ordered with more sympathy than even the 
 modern Mrs. Pepys seems willing to show. In 
 that quality the very best mistresses always 
 seem to have been lacking. Moreover, the hos- 
 tility of an old feud still lingers. " Do not 
 rashly believe a wife complaining of servants," 
 wrote Dionysius Cato in an early century of our 
 Christian era. Dare one venture to suggest 
 that the hour has struck for male intervention ? 
 Men never understand women ; women under- 
 stand women just well enough to dislike each 
 other. 
 
 223
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 
 
 LORD ACTON once praised the House of 
 Lords for its " wish to carry into the 
 future the things of the past," and for its "capa- 
 city to keep aloof from the strife and aims of the 
 present hour." With variations, his words are 
 still used by our cautious constitutionalists when- 
 ever the mending or ending of the second cham- 
 ber is mooted, and they still carry weight. After 
 the barbarism of war, some of us are more than 
 ever inclined to cling to our old civilization. 
 When Mr. Tom Mann tells me that Parliaments 
 have served their purpose, all the bourgeois 
 blood in me runs cold, and I begin to ask for the 
 shelter of serried ranks of coroneted persons, 
 yet on second thoughts I realize that they form 
 a dangerous salient in our line of defence. I 
 do not know if anybody has yet noticed the 
 inverted resemblance, but a Soviet is simply a 
 House of Lords turned upside down. The House 
 of Lords implies government by one privileged 
 class ; the Soviet simply means government by 
 another. He who pleads for the first will before 
 long find himself inadvertently pleading for the 
 
 224
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 
 
 other, and it is safer for those who would preserve 
 a link with the past to remember that there is 
 also a House of Commons, a fairly venerable 
 institution, which needs their aid against the 
 raging heathen. In Asquithian days, defenders 
 of the Upper House habitually belittled the 
 Lower, and I hope they are pleased when they hear 
 their taunts echoed by the platforms of the 
 extreme left. 
 
 Quite possibly they do not hear them at all. 
 The capacity of the peers to keep aloof from the 
 strife and aims of the hour is truly wonderful, 
 but I am not sure that it is a good recommenda- 
 tion for them. It may account for more than one 
 mistake they have made. One ingenuous scribe 
 has written that their chamber is to the living 
 what Westminster Abbey is to the dead, and we 
 have recently heard Viscount Astor's protest 
 against his premature burial. The atmosphere 
 of funereal pomp and monumental dignity is 
 inimical to sympathy between governors and 
 governed. I am almost afraid that it will be 
 as difficult for me to interest my readers in a 
 discussion on the gilded chamber and its occu- 
 pants as in a dissertation on extinct volcanoes. 
 
 For months on end we live in forgetfulness of 
 the House of Lords. Even when in session, its 
 
 225 P
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 debates rarely receive more than a brief notice 
 in the Press. In one way and another its indi- 
 vidual members are brought more or less pro- 
 minently before the public by their births, deaths, 
 marriages, and divorces, or by their activities 
 in philanthropy, philosophy, war, trade, and 
 sport, but as legislators they seldom trouble us. 
 They do not, you see, seek notoriety after the 
 fashion of low-born demagogues. Only on great 
 occasions do they assert themselves ; only at 
 hours of crisis do they muster in force. Usually 
 they are content to be represented at West- 
 minster by about a fifth of their number, who them- 
 selves ordinarily refrain from doing more than 
 move mild amendments to measures in which 
 the public is profoundly uninterested. Their 
 modest abnegation is a perpetual surprise to 
 foreigners, but to us others its purpose should 
 be evident. Whilst the House of Lords is doing 
 nothing in particular, we are almost all agreed 
 that it is doing it very well, and we let sleeping 
 peers lie. 
 
 The adventure with the " People's Budget " 
 was so calamitous that it gave their lordships a 
 lesson in circumspect behaviour. If ever they 
 call attention to themselves to-day, it is to pro- 
 claim their impotence. " Look at us," they say. 
 
 226
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 
 
 " How fallen from our high estate ! How power- 
 less to protect you from the unfaithful Commons ! " 
 Every now and then the need for a stronger 
 second chamber is impressed on us by persons 
 whose passion for the Constitution at home is 
 only matched by their zeal for military dictator- 
 ship abroad, and we are warned that since the 
 Parliament Act there has been nothing, absolutely 
 nothing, between us and the ruinous passions of 
 the multitude. Many a good citizen must often 
 awake in a tremble at thought of a bulwark 
 destroyed, and yet, if he will examine the matter 
 coldly, he may discover that the Upper House 
 has not been quite as idle and as feeble as its 
 friends and members would have him believe. 
 The case of Ireland is very much to the point. 
 Had it not been for the lordly function of delay 
 the Home Rule Act would have been in force 
 before either the Kaiser or Carson could dis- 
 turb the peace. Sinn Fein would still be eluci- 
 dating early Gaelic texts. John Redmond might 
 still be alive, and living would be the firm friend 
 of England and the League of Nations. Three 
 years of licensed obstruction were long enough 
 to make England again too late, and to give red 
 revolution its chance. Blame the Westminster 
 Abbey atmosphere if you will. 
 
 227
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 Not yet has the time come when the House of 
 Lords should be either forgotten or forgiven. 
 Although its head may be buried in the sand, 
 it is foolish to forget its presence. It is still 
 strong enough to do us harm, and it is also 
 weak enough to do us harm. Few maintain to- 
 day that it in any way approaches the ideal of 
 a second chamber. Mendel's law has shattered 
 the faith which our simple ancestors placed in 
 a hereditary legislature. Mendel may have been 
 just as fallible as the rest of our law-givers, but 
 his theories have been so widely accepted that 
 we cannot altogether ignore them. Heredity, 
 according to him, is a much trickier business 
 than we used to think it. Except in the art of 
 legislation we no longer affect to put any trust 
 in it. We know that Lord Hawke used to be a 
 first-class cricketer, but we never expected him 
 to command the North Sea Fleet. We know 
 that the Duke of Leeds is descended from a 
 draper, and the Earl of Dudley from a goldsmith, 
 but we feel no confidence that they would " make 
 good " at their ancestral trades. Before long, of 
 course, England may see certain of its noble 
 lords displaying marked talents for musical 
 comedy or amassing dollars, but in no individual 
 case would it be safe to bet on such a reversion. 
 
 228
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 
 
 Cecils and Churchills with the characteristics 
 of their great progenitors are, indeed, amongst 
 us now, but even these modern instances afford 
 no help to defenders of the peerage. Whilst 
 the family titles have descended according to 
 the law of primogeniture, the abilities which 
 should have accompanied them have most in- 
 considerately cropped up in the cadet branches. 
 Since Haselrigg, stout republican as he was, 
 declared his preference for an Upper House 
 whose members " depended on themselves," the 
 hereditary principle has never lacked its cham- 
 pions. Under pressure, they admit that the 
 peers may be dull fellows, but, say they, the 
 secure tenure of their seats gives them indepen- 
 dence. Calmly, and without truckling to the 
 mob, they can plan their country's good. Were 
 this the whole truth, I should have nothing more 
 to say, but somewhere in the argument I sus- 
 pect a suppresio veri. Is a peer's independ- 
 ence really greater than mine or the next man's ? 
 True, that he has no need to go seeking votes, but 
 there are some persons, notably his banker, to 
 whom he is in tight bondage. When our great 
 soldiers and sailors are ennobled, grants have to 
 be made to them lest their progeny should bring 
 their titles into disrepute by poverty, and these 
 
 229
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 " signal marks of favour " seem to be arranged 
 strictly on a scale of rank. To each of the two 
 earldoms created for active services in the late 
 war a sum of 100,000 was allotted, and half 
 that sum to each of the three viscountcies, 
 whilst the four military barons had to content 
 themselves with 30,000 a piece. The figures 
 speak for themselves. 
 
 Lord Morley of Blackburn would, I fancy, 
 be yet a commoner if he had not been childless. 
 He, it was realized, would to the end of his 
 days be able to live in circumstances which, if 
 not luxurious, would not be exactly penurious, 
 but grandchildren of a man of his means might 
 easily become bank-clerks, and their offspring 
 fall to manual labour. The House of Lords 
 and all those who maintain it understand that 
 it can only exist on its present basis as long as 
 its members " keep up appearances." More than 
 most sections of the community, they are bound 
 hand and foot to money. When poverty comes 
 in at the window of a noble mansion, it is the 
 recognized duty of heir or owner to bring in an 
 heiress at the door, so can we expect a peer's 
 vote to be freer than his choice of a bride ? Were 
 any large section of the peerage to let appear- 
 ances and the wherewithal go hang, the lower 
 
 230
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 
 
 middle classes would cease to bow and the days 
 of the Lords would be done. 
 
 Wealth, even if it be only the modest wealth 
 which can keep neither a steam yacht nor a 
 racing stable, is the corner-stone of the Upper 
 House. Let us have done with talking of in- 
 dependence, and examine another witness for 
 the defence. Experience, I am told, has proved 
 some sort of second chamber to be advisable. 
 Incidentally, it also shows ours to be by no means 
 the most maleficent in the world. Cromwell 
 called a unicameral legislature, " the horridest 
 tyranny that ever was," but, of course, he had 
 no prevision of the United States Senate. The 
 tyrannies and follies of majorities are deplorable, 
 but they are as nothing to those of minorities. 
 If the people of Yorkshire were to show a brutal 
 disregard for the lawful aspirations of the people 
 of Rutland, I should protest against such injus- 
 tice, but were the positions to be reversed I 
 should feel that frantic absurdity had intensified 
 the wrong. In America, however, they put up 
 with that sort of thing daily, and in their Senate 
 the broad, but mostly uninhabited acres of 
 Wyoming and Nevada can at any time defy the 
 population of New York or Pennsylvania. Of 
 course, it is their own affair, but I do not think 
 
 231
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 we shall imitate their " masterpiece of the 
 constitution makers." Any sort of Senate, 
 however, has, I suppose, to be accepted as 
 better than no Senate at all. 
 
 The ideal second chamber does not exist, 
 and I doubt whether one can be devised, but, 
 having written on the House of Lords, I shall be 
 expected to produce a scheme for its reform. 
 Let us agree with Cromwell that one chamber 
 is not enough, and think experimentally. What 
 about a Senate with an educational test for 
 candidates and voters ? I am not sure whether 
 I did, or did not, originally draw this idea 
 from Gilbert and Sullivan, but, anyhow, I am 
 not ashamed of it. I did not adopt it until I 
 had compared it with the senatorial systems of 
 several countries, and had found it less ridiculous 
 than most. In Britain, Sweden, and the Nether- 
 lands, the qualification is monetary. In France 
 and Italy it appears to be approaching senility. 
 In Norway it is hygienic the voter shows his 
 vaccination marks. Under the scheme I have 
 elaborated from Strephon's sketch, all voters 
 must be up to matriculation standard, and candi- 
 dates would have to show themselves capable 
 of taking at least a pass degree in some subject 
 of their own selection. The main difficulty 
 
 232
 
 THE HOUSE OF LORDS 
 
 would be to secure impartial examiners. Could 
 we expect Mr. J. A. R. Marriott to be quite fair 
 when marking Professor Gilbert Murray's paper 
 on the " Growth of the British Empire " ? 
 And if the roles were changed would not Pro- 
 fessor Murray find himself in an unpleasant 
 position between the devil of imperialism and 
 the deep sea of temptation ? I see the flaws in 
 my proposal, but willingness to prepare for the 
 examinations, and to sit for them, would be 
 splendid proof of civism. Perhaps the chief 
 merit of the scheme is that it will never be put 
 into practice. 
 
 233
 
 THE PUBLIC HOUSE 
 
 OVER no English institution could the word 
 " Ichabod " be more aptly written than 
 over the Public House. Our taverns and inns, 
 with their richly storied past, should command 
 from us something more than common respect, 
 and we ought to be able to grant it them with- 
 out regard to our taste in drinks. Agnostics 
 and Seventh-Day Adventists unite in instinc- 
 tive reverence for the old cathedrals wherein 
 their common ancestors have worshipped, and 
 those who prefer water to the stronger liquors 
 should, with the rest, be able to honour those 
 hostelries wherein so much of our native genius 
 was nurtured. Pious pilgrims from America, 
 reared on legends of Tabard, Mermaid, and Blue 
 Boar, visit our inns as dutifully as they visit 
 Westminster and Stratford-on-Avon. If, in the 
 end, they go home more resolute than ever to 
 support prohibition, who can wonder ? 
 
 My comparison of church with ale-house 
 may in these days seem to smack of profanity, 
 but such was not always the current view. An 
 actual bond between the two used not to be 
 
 234
 
 THE PUBLIC HOUSE 
 
 considered scandalous, nor was it limited to the 
 urgent task of returning to Parliament a candi- 
 date favourable to both their interests. In hun- 
 dreds of parishes brewing was under the super- 
 intendence of the clergy and the wardens. It was 
 the duty of the latter to buy malt for the wakes, 
 and of the former to see to it that at feasts of the 
 church the ale was well and wisely consumed. 
 As the ensuing profits were commonly set aside 
 for the relief of the poor, the arrangement seems 
 to have suited everybody. In further proof of 
 the lively interest taken by those of godly life 
 in the bodily welfare of the laity, retailers of 
 the liquor which made glad the heart of Eng- 
 lishmen were under the specially benevolent 
 protection of St. Theodotus who, prior to his 
 martyrdom, had himself been a member of 
 "the Trade." 
 
 Only in our own times has the idea of a " dry " 
 England come even on the borderland of practical 
 politics, but the degradation of licensed victual- 
 ling has been a long process. It began soon 
 after the Reformation, and the stern, strict 
 zealots of the next century frowned on such 
 churchmen as still gave a blessing to conviviality. 
 It is not to be wondered at that their disapproval 
 culminated under the Protectorate. Cromwell, 
 
 235
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 let it be remembered, was both a Puritan and a 
 brewer. Am I wronging him if I fancy that he 
 foresaw how religious disapproval would pre- 
 sently aid his business ? Licensing legislation 
 has failed to make our people sober, for the 
 simple reason that it has never been based on the 
 people's will. Puritan and brewer have gener- 
 ally seemed to pull different ways, but of their 
 joint responsibility for the present state of the 
 liquor traffic in our country, and in the lands we 
 have colonized, there can be no doubt. It is 
 now so bad that persons in whom there is ordin- 
 arily no trace of fanaticism are almost ready to 
 advocate its complete extinction. At one time 
 it has been regulated by Puritans who have 
 hoped to empty the Public Houses by making 
 them as sordid and wretched as possible. At 
 another it has been regulated by the brewers, 
 who have known that the more miserable the 
 bar, the more would its frequenters drink, and 
 the more prosperous would be the brewery. 
 
 The poet Shenstone, who found his " warmest 
 welcome at an inn " has frequently been pitied. 
 Unhappy in many ways he may have been, but, 
 putting his reminiscences to the test of modern 
 experience, we are like to find that he was in one 
 way enviable. I cannot truthfully say that I 
 
 236
 
 THE PUBLIC HOUSE 
 
 have ever detected much warmth in the recep- 
 tion given me on licensed premises in England. 
 My requests for a drink in exchange for so much 
 copper or silver have usually been met, but it has 
 been a business transaction of the most formal 
 order. Here, perhaps, I should own that my 
 purchases have usually been modest. Persons 
 who consume champagne are, I understand, 
 occasionally privileged to shake hands with the 
 landlord, or, if the regularity and quantity of 
 one's potations atone for their inferiority, one 
 may, I am told, receive from him a word or 
 a nod. The stranger the man for whom inns 
 were originally designed must not expect such 
 favours if his orders run only to half-a-pint of 
 bitter. Should he have other wants which are 
 not alcoholic, it is well for him to conceal them. 
 The hungry man demanding bread and meat 
 will be curtly informed that he has come to the 
 wrong shop. The tired traveller asking for a 
 chair will be made to feel that he desires something 
 for nothing, and had better go to a philan- 
 thropic institution. 
 
 For the degeneracy of our hostelries, the 
 poor publican ought not, however, to be blamed. 
 In nine cases out of ten he is merely an em- 
 ployed person. He dreads chairs and food be- 
 
 237
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 cause those who sit and eat in comfort consume 
 less liquor than others who tope in the per- 
 pendicular position favoured by his lord and 
 master, Mr. Bung, He distrusts strangers be- 
 cause their vagaries may get him into trouble 
 with the law. He abhors merriment, because 
 a single sober merry-maker is more dangerous 
 to his licence than a dozen silent, sodden crea- 
 tures who find no joy in their cups. To attract 
 custom, he may place behind his bar a woman 
 with piled hair and powdered nose, but in con- 
 versation or flirtation with her he sees that the 
 real business of the house may be neglected, 
 and he is energetic in curbing the young man 
 with a tendency to drink only with his eyes. 
 When a customer has drunk all he can be induced 
 to drink, his room becomes preferable to his 
 company. In some taverns the traditions of 
 hospitality are openly disavowed by a printed 
 notice to the effect that in a place of business 
 it is well to do one's business quickly. Returning 
 from abroad, I am able to wonder why Samuel 
 Johnson so triumphed in England's felicity in 
 inns, or claimed to Boswell that the French 
 had none as good as ours. 
 
 It is not, however, only his testimony that we 
 have in favour of our old hostelries. Publicans 
 
 238
 
 THE PUBLIC HOUSE 
 
 whilst they existed as a race of independent 
 men were people of good repute, and as willing 
 to serve the hungry as the thirsty, since from 
 both they made a fair profit. They were, more- 
 over, sociable beings, and, in the true sense of 
 the word, entertainers. English literature from 
 Chaucer to Dickens is one long testimonial to 
 their qualities, and, whilst men united in their 
 praise, they strove to keep the good name they 
 had won. Only when the brewer became despot 
 and insisted on the monotonous, rapid, and over- 
 whelming flow of liquid refreshment, did they 
 fall in general esteem. Puritans had, of course, 
 always eyed them askance, but Puritanism, after 
 all, had been but a blight on national character. 
 Its attempt to divorce soul and body, and so 
 to usurp the place of the Angel of Death, had been 
 rejected by our more healthy instincts. As for 
 the innkeeper, whilst the good Vicar of Wake- 
 field and such worthies thought it no shame to 
 frequent his house, he was not greatly troubled 
 by the kill- joys. Now he is without stay or 
 comfort. Even those who support him for 
 political reasons would be scandalized to see a 
 cleric at his bar. His house is officially declared 
 unfit for children. Convention forbids a self- 
 respecting woman to cross his threshold. 
 
 239
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 American " spell-binders," bent on extending 
 compulsory teetotalism from their land to ours, 
 are in our midst. They would have a compara- 
 tively easy task were it not that the Labour 
 Party, much to the disgust of all prophets of the 
 pump, is talking of nationalization and will 
 soon insist on public houses being run in the 
 public interest. As it at present stands, the 
 Public House is an epitome of all our native 
 vices. In the first place it stands for com- 
 mercialism and inebriety. Its saloon bar ex- 
 emplifies our snobbery, and its private bar our 
 hypocrisy. Tolerance of the public bar and all 
 its reeking squalor merely shows to what craven 
 state industrialism has brought the masses. Yet 
 I believe we shall in time muster enough good 
 sense to destroy the Public House of to-day 
 without submitting to a " bone-dry " England. 
 In France one soon grows familar with a poster 
 which represents the drunkard and his family, 
 and on which are written the words : " Quand 
 supprimera-t-on Valcool ? " It is not total pro- 
 hibition for which the sane French reformers 
 are asking. In the land of light beers and the 
 vine, they would laugh to scorn such furious 
 folly, but I have begun to question whether there 
 are any temperate people in the English speaking 
 
 240
 
 THE PUBLIC HOUSE 
 
 races. Probably they exist, but the brewers 
 and distillers, ably supported by Mr. Pussyfoot, 
 will not let them be heard. Longfellow, once a 
 force in moulding American thought, wrote 
 that " Bacchus was the type of vigour, and 
 Silenus of excess," and I shall always admire 
 the New York clergyman who, a while ago, 
 dared to tell Dr. Saleeby that, despite all laws, 
 the working man would in the end insist on 
 having his beer. It was not the first occasion, 
 and, perhaps, it will not be the last, on which 
 a representative of religion has upheld an un- 
 changing verity against a scientist's ever shifting 
 bigotries. In modern England, however, it is 
 to Labour one must look for deliverance from 
 Bung and the fanatics. 
 
 " Love of temperance," Mr. Balfour has said, 
 " is a polite name for hatred of the publicans." 
 Such a remark from such a man almost makes 
 one despair. Would he have said that love of 
 peace meant hatred of the soldier, or that sani- 
 tary houses were built from a dislike of the 
 physician ? Love of temperance is hatred of 
 nothing but intemperance, and this would be 
 plain to the meanest intelligence had not Liberal 
 and Tory, Puritan and brewer, emmeshed the 
 question in a tangle of party politics, prejudices, 
 
 241 Q
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 and profits. I do not even hate brewers, but 
 I do resent them having been allowed, and 
 actually encouraged, to grow fat during the 
 years when so many of us were growing lean. 
 In one year of war the Allsop firm multiplied 
 its profits by five, and Messrs. Ind, Coope, 
 actually increased theirs a hundredfold. With 
 beers of low gravity I have no quarrel, but I 
 do object to paying exorbitant prices for water. 
 The soaring value of brewery shares provokes 
 natural indignation, and gives " Pussyfoot " his 
 chance. There is almost universal condemna- 
 tion of the system on which " the Trade " for 
 years past has been conducted. But why in the 
 name of temperance should we cut off our noses 
 to spite somebody else's face, or deny our thirst 
 its due to annoy the men who have already 
 annoyed us more than enough ? 
 
 242
 
 THE POOR LAW 
 
 IN the train between Fenchurch Street and 
 Tilbury, passing through districts which are 
 neither blessed nor beautiful, I set myself to 
 read one of the little grey books. Do not jump 
 to the conclusion that it was a publication of 
 the Pelman Institute, and that I was learning 
 how to become a colonel at twenty-seven or a 
 member of Parliament at twenty-eight. It was 
 only a " Reconstruction Pamphlet " issued by 
 the Government, yet it encouraged me to hope 
 that if I were to become a pauper I might get 
 better treatment than was given to the paupers 
 of the past. It was entitled The Reform of the 
 Poor Law, and it should, perhaps, be added 
 that its author was a professional optimist. He 
 had a childlike belief in Royal Commissions. 
 He seemed to fancy that their reports presaged 
 extraordinary activity, whereas practical experi- 
 ence teaches that about a month after issue they 
 are commonly mislaid in departmental lumber 
 rooms. Further, though the writer was well 
 informed, he seemed to me to have a secretive 
 temperament. 
 
 243
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 With the famous " forty-third of Elizabeth," 
 for instance, he dealt too briefly, for, despite its 
 fame, the contents of this Act are not as well 
 known as they ought to be. After the dissolu- 
 tion of the monasteries, poverty and distress 
 grew rapidly in England, and the law was an 
 honest attempt to cope with a social situation 
 that had become alarming. Seeing how it has 
 been administered at various times, including 
 our own, there are some who imagine it must 
 have been a bad Act. Others, who have troubled 
 to read it, have concluded that it must have 
 been repealed before they came into the world. 
 Both assumptions are incorrect. As Acts go, 
 it is a remarkably good Act, and it is still on the 
 statute book. Unfortunately, candidates for the 
 Board of Guardians have never been obliged to 
 pass an examination in it as a test of their eligi- 
 bility for office, nor have electors ever extracted 
 from them a promise to carry out its provisions 
 in the event of their candidature being suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 Were some of its forgotten clauses to be put 
 into practice, we should imagine there had been a 
 revolution. One of them positively ordains that 
 the Guardians shall set to work all those who have 
 no visible means of subsistence, and shall raise 
 
 244
 
 THE POOR LAW 
 
 weekly from the parish such sums and materials 
 as they require for the purpose. The intelli- 
 gent reader may ask whether this does not con- 
 stitute a " Right to Work Act," and I am bound 
 to reply that it does. For over three hundred 
 years we have possessed this " measure of social- 
 ism," and have forgotten to have it executed. 
 Were we to start now, there would be a great 
 outcry from ratepayers, private employers, and 
 the aristocrats of the Trade Unions, who would 
 see all their particular interests threatened if 
 able-bodied paupers were productively employed. 
 Whilst we remain the two hostile nations of rich 
 and poor, of which Disraeli wrote, the old Act 
 must stay a dead letter. 
 
 The Elizabethans who drafted it were what 
 we should call men of very advanced views. 
 They went as far as to say that the children of 
 those who were unable to maintain their off- 
 spring must be put out as apprentices. They 
 did not say they were to be unloaded on the 
 market as casual labourers, or sold into slavery 
 as in the days of Bumble. Using the word 
 " apprentice," they clearly meant the young 
 pauper to be prepared for following a skilled 
 trade, which would give him as good a chance 
 in life as had the children of a prosperous artizan, 
 
 245
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 From this same Act I gather that Boards of Guar- 
 dians are neglecting their duty when they do not 
 build houses in which the poor can live. Nothing 
 is said about erecting the sort of gaol in which 
 the paupers of the parish are now commonly 
 herded. The Elizabethan extremists had in mind 
 the building of separate cottages for separate 
 families. One is almost driven to conclude that 
 their design was to restore self-respect to the 
 needy, rather than to make relief an engine for 
 destroying its last, tattered shreds. 
 
 Some day a reformer will arise to demand that, 
 instead of another Royal Commission, we are 
 given the Act, the whole Act, and nothing but 
 the Act. Meanwhile, let us admit that its 
 framers and early apologists were sadly ignorant 
 of what we call sociology. Take Sir Mathew 
 Hale for example. He figures in history as 
 having been, among other things, a persecutor 
 of witches, but I am only concerned here with 
 his defence of the lines along which the poor in 
 his age were being helped. There were, he said, 
 a number of weighty reasons for their relief, 
 among them being love of God and one's neigh- 
 bour, and also because, as he had noted, poverty 
 weakened the fibre of men. His opinion on 
 this last point has, of course, been questioned. 
 
 246
 
 THE POOR LAW 
 
 Most of us have been taught to believe that it is 
 not poverty, but its relief, which creates moral 
 weakness. Perhaps our teaching has been false, 
 but, anyhow, I find something very shrewd and 
 worldly wise in another of his arguments. Not 
 long ago there was an economist who said that 
 it was convenient for a part of the population 
 to be unemployed and destitute, as it served 
 for a pool from which labour could be drawn 
 for a " boom " in trade. Sir Mathew would 
 not have agreed with him. Sir Mathew said 
 that if there were a multitude of poor, there 
 could be no long safety for the rich. Had his 
 words been more heeded, Robespierre and Trot- 
 sky might yet be unknown to fame, but it is, 
 of course, acknowledged that he was far from 
 being a scientific sociologist. 
 
 Guardians of the brighter kind may want to 
 tell me that instead of gushing about Tudor 
 times I should remember that there is such a 
 thing as the Poor Law Amendment Act. I 
 have heard of it. It set up three gentlemen 
 who were disrespectfully called the Three Bashaws 
 of Somerset House. My little grey book says 
 that it " laid down no principles," but it cer- 
 tainly contrived to instil them. It turned the 
 guardians of the poor into guardians of the poor 
 
 247
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 rate, and so they have remained from that day 
 to this. The great idea drawn from it was that 
 the situation of the able-bodied paupers must be 
 made " less eligible " than that of independent 
 labourers of the lowest class. They could not 
 be given less nourishment without causing them 
 to die of hunger, but they could be given their 
 food in a more distasteful form. Applicants for 
 relief were to be given the " offer of the house," 
 or, in other words, of loss of liberty. Guardians 
 were left with discretionary powers, and " out 
 relief " was not abolished by this Act with no 
 principles, but Boards, remembering their self- 
 appointed task of safeguarding the ratepayers' 
 interests, have a way of deciding that discretion 
 is the better part of beneficence. If they put 
 it to an applicant that he or she must either go 
 without relief or become a workhouse inmate, 
 there is always the sporting chance that the 
 former alternative will be taken. Despite all 
 our Acts, Royal Commissions, and care for the 
 poor, deaths from starvation do occur now and 
 then. When Blackstone wrote of the Eliza- 
 bethan law, he added that " the further any 
 subsequent plans for maintaining the poor have 
 departed from it, the more impracticable and 
 pernicious these attempts have proved." 
 
 248
 
 THE POOR LAW 
 
 In one respect, however, the idea of imprison- 
 ing the indigent did show an advance on all 
 earlier policies. It hinted a dawning belief that 
 poverty was a crime, but, by some perversity, 
 it enacted that for this particular crime the 
 victim should be punished. Extension of such 
 a practice might lead to several injustices. I 
 should at least be fined forty shillings and costs 
 were I to be run over by a callous or careless 
 motorist. Some may refuse to recognize the 
 parallel. The late Miss Octavia Hill declared 
 that the thrifty never came on the rates, and that 
 debt and want of character were the causes of 
 pauperism, so, if we accept her evidence, at first 
 glance it may seem that I am wrong in describ- 
 ing our workhouse inmate as more sinned against 
 than sinning. Does he come on the rates from 
 his own fault ? Debt is due to various causes, 
 among them being the extravagant tastes in 
 grog and gramophones, to foster which impor- 
 tant industries exist. A debt clearly has two 
 parties to it, and, if a debt be a fault, there are 
 two parties to the fault, though the Board of 
 Guardians punishes one only. As to want of 
 character, I must refer again to Sir Mathew. 
 Poverty, he thought, destroyed character, so if 
 we punish people for its lack, may we not 
 
 249
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 really be punishing them for the accident of 
 having been born in poor homes and bred in 
 poor surroundings ? 
 
 The little grey book did not examine these 
 questions. It was remiss in several ways. It 
 told me nothing about old soldiers, though I 
 fancy it was largely meant for their consump- 
 tion. Going elsewhere for information, I found 
 that a little while before the war twenty per 
 cent, of our vagrant population were drawn 
 from this class. Vagrants had been mentioned 
 briefly in the reconstruction pamphlet. In Russia 
 they used to be called " the bells of God," but 
 in this country, it seems, there is a scheme afoot 
 to place them in detention colonies. These 
 natural gypsies, the people who, traditionally, 
 come of a race older than Adam and are not 
 under that primal curse which makes some of 
 us sweat to earn our bread, are to escape no 
 longer. Perhaps this is as it should be, but I 
 do not like the idea that at least one-fifth of them 
 may be men who have directly served the State. 
 Can the much lauded discipline of the barrack 
 and the square do no better ? The discharged 
 soldier, having been fed on rations by the ravens, 
 taught to rejoice in freedom from responsibility, 
 accustomed only to act on orders, becomes the 
 
 250
 
 THE POOR LAW 
 
 casual of the highway. " You are not here to 
 think, my lad," is a saying which from recruit 
 days has sunk into his soul. After all, he may 
 not have been a natural vagrant ; yet a deten- 
 tion colony awaits him. With our poor law 
 wiseacres imprisonment is a panacea. 
 
 When all room has been left for controversy, 
 it remains that the general mixed workhouse, 
 that stronghold on which all the unimaginative, 
 incompetent, guardians of the rates have so long 
 relied, is in the last crumbling stages of decay. 
 Sir Donald Maclean's Committee condemned it, 
 and it was condemned in the reign of William 
 IV. If all the evidence against it were printed 
 in a single line it would stretch easily from White- 
 hall to the man in the moon and persuade him 
 to take action. How many more Royal Com- 
 missions must give judgment against it ? Even 
 those who urge that it is cheap, acknowledge 
 it to be nasty ; but, of course, it is not cheap. 
 There are children in it. Often they are in the 
 same dormitory with imbeciles, with women 
 advanced in senile decay, with girls stricken 
 by contagious disease, and they grow up awry. 
 No farmer looking for future profits would keep 
 his young stock in such conditions. " The great 
 fault in our Constitution," said Peter Pounce, 
 
 251
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 " is the provision made for the poor," and he 
 bewailed that he himself would come to the parish 
 in the end. His objections to the working of the 
 Poor Law were not the same as mine ; but his 
 final prognostication provides an argument which 
 may make even the most careless interest them- 
 selves in reform. 
 
 252
 
 THE SPORTSMAN 
 
 THE sportsman is a man who devotes to 
 sport what he considers the best part 
 of his life. He who for the sake of old 
 times occasionally watches a match at Queen's 
 Club, or spends an hour or two at the 
 Oval because the skill and symmetry of cricket 
 appeal to his eye, is unworthy of the title. 
 Equally invalid are the claims of those who 
 in middle life start to go golfing for the good 
 of their figures, and of others who from their 
 youth up have found at tennis a satisfactory 
 way of spending Sunday afternoons in the sub- 
 urbs. The sportsman despises them as every 
 enthusiast must despise the dabbler and the 
 Laodicean. For him the whole year and all the 
 changes of the months have a meaning which 
 escapes us others. Never has he been able to 
 understand the poet's wish to be in England in 
 April which is a close season and offers only 
 restricted chances even for playing games. Sum- 
 mer he can turn to some account, but he is eager 
 for the fall of the leaf, for not till then will he 
 be able to get to work with the pheasants. Hard 
 
 253
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 frosts of mid-winter, interrupting his pursuit 
 of the fox, again depress him. 
 
 Within reason, sportsmen and poets may both 
 have a right to indulge their tastes. Both are 
 entitled to their opinions on the merits of April 
 or October, but the time has come to realize 
 that neither should be allowed to over-ride 
 the interests of others. Were I to find half a 
 dozen young men had trampled my cabbages 
 and geraniums because from certain points in 
 my garden could be had an exceptionally good 
 view of the rising sun which they desired to 
 greet with an ode, I should receive public sym- 
 pathy. If I resisted their encroachments with 
 barbed wire, my neighbours would approve my 
 action. If I prosecuted them, the magistrate 
 would commend me for having drawn the law's 
 attention to an outrage, and the fact that I had 
 possibly marred six poetical masterpieces would 
 draw no biting comments from the local Press. 
 Yet, when the trespassers happen to be on horse- 
 back and accompanied by hounds, I shall get 
 nothing but execration if I resist or resent them. 
 Should they gallop over my tennis-lawn, and so 
 interfere with another, though, it may be, an 
 inferior form of sport, I should be regarded as a 
 curmudgeon if I protested. Since they would 
 
 254
 
 THE SPORTSMAN 
 
 have been following a fox, my objections would be 
 met at first with bland surprise and, later, with 
 indignation. Formal complaint to the hunt's 
 secretary might lead to a supercilious offer of 
 inadequate compensation, and I should thence- 
 forward be branded as no gentleman. 
 
 Sport is always defended on the two broad 
 grounds that it is English and manly. Why 
 " English " I do not know. Sport is as inter- 
 national as socialism. In parts of the world 
 where the fox does not abound, or is treated with 
 contempt, his place is taken by boar, stag, 
 tiger, bull or rat, and all these animals are harried 
 and killed because pleasure is found in harrying 
 and killing them. To describe sport as " manly " 
 also conveys a false impression, but it has a sort 
 of archaic justification. When first our rude 
 forefathers quitted their caves and wattle-huts to 
 slaughter edible animals, their wives were left 
 at home to keep the pot boiling. That these 
 expeditions were agreeable is by no means sure. 
 Not until the human could feel that his weapons 
 of offence and defence gave him a distinct superi- 
 ority over his prey, did he go hunting for any 
 reason save necessity. When fun began to supple- 
 ment, or to supersede, hunger as motive for the 
 chase, the Amazon made her appearance in the 
 
 255
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 field, and she came to stay, though for a while 
 Nimrod maintained a jealous attitude. A meet 
 of hounds without women is now unthinkable, 
 and in nearly all sports, either separately or 
 together, both sexes take active part. Bull fight- 
 ing is, perhaps, an exception. In Spain they have 
 the curious idea that a contest is unsporting 
 when the odds are more than ten to one in favour 
 of the human competitor slaying the animal 
 without injury to himself. In consequence, the 
 primitive tradition survives that women are 
 better out of the way and as mere spectators of 
 masculine prowess. 
 
 English sportsmen often call their Spanish 
 brethren barbarians, and the Spaniards respond 
 by calling us degenerates. Both are right. As 
 I am not a vegetarian, I am in no position to 
 object to the taking of animal life, but from 
 nearly all the blood sports of this country the 
 original excuse or reason has departed. One 
 does not take a Scottish grouse-moor to reduce 
 the butcher's bill. One does not rent a Hamp- 
 shire trout-stream because the larder would 
 otherwise be empty. None of the motives which 
 would have made shooting or fishing appeal to 
 me is left, and I get my food from shops in the 
 High Street without pretending that I am a 
 
 256
 
 THE SPORTSMAN 
 
 virile creature who has gone back to nature by 
 killing hand-reared pheasants. Two or three 
 times I have been obliged to see oxen slaugh- 
 tered, and, though the sight was not pleasant, 
 I recognized that humane methods were being 
 used. Death was instantaneous. Infinitely 
 worse things are to be seen if one passes through 
 a covert on the evening after a big battue. And 
 yet in our language " Sportsman " is used as 
 a term of praise, whilst " butcher " is abusive. 
 The hunting of the fox, that most sacred 
 institution against which Oscar Wilde blas- 
 phemed, was once also a beneficent act. The 
 fox was recognized as an enemy to the common 
 weal. Slings and bows and arrows were useless 
 as weapons, and the neighbourhood united against 
 him with dogs and horses. To-day, when I see 
 the unspeakable riding after the uneatable, I 
 have a momentary feeling of surprise such as 
 I should have had if I had seen reinforcements 
 with harquebuses, instead of the latest Lewis 
 gun, sent against the Germans. The spectacle 
 is picturesque, but it smacks of inefficiency. 
 Speaking subject to correction, I assume that the 
 object in view is to kill a fox or foxes, and I know 
 these vermin are a nuisance to the countryside. 
 A few determined fellows, armed with modern 
 
 257 R
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 weapons, could do the work so much more 
 thoroughly, but, of course, there would be lack- 
 ing that artificial pother which has beguiled 
 Mr. Masefield into forgetfulness of his real man- 
 hood. Given a little aniseed, one could further 
 arrange for men, women, hounds, and horses 
 to have as much healthful exercise as ever a 
 fox gave them. When this form of sport was 
 covertly introduced some years ago in a southern 
 county, the master was heartily congratulated on 
 a series of excellent runs. When it became 
 known that the scent had been provided by a 
 specially prepared red herring, people spoke 
 as though a disgraceful scandal had been brought 
 to light. The more I think on the nature of the 
 thing called sport, the more it baffles me. 
 
 In many parts of the country, hunting is simply 
 a public nuisance. Its devotees are no longer 
 content with the chance of finding a wild fox to 
 chase, and tame creatures, so little frightened 
 of man that they will raid farm-yards in the 
 middle of a summer morning, are freely turned 
 down in the woods. Their destruction, except 
 in the approved and antiquated style, is regarded 
 as a blackguardly business. It required a legal 
 decision by Lord Justice Coleridge to convince 
 the hunt's followers that a pink coat did not 
 
 258
 
 THE SPORTSMAN 
 
 make its wearer immune from the ordinary 
 operation of the law of trespass. Although 
 those who ride to hounds are an insignificant 
 minority of the population even in a hunting 
 shire, one is regarded as selfish if from humani- 
 tarian or any reasons one interferes with their 
 amusements. The sportman's point of view is, 
 moreover, accepted by the majority. What was 
 good for the community a few hundred years 
 ago is still thought good. We move in thought 
 so slowly. 
 
 Nothing about the sportsman is more wonder- 
 ful to me than his inconsistency. Pitiless to the 
 bird or beast whose pursuit, agonies, and death 
 can bring him pleasure, he still preserves a sort 
 of love for animals. The dog at his heels and the 
 horse he sits so easily both know him far better 
 than I ever shall, and they seem to think him an 
 admirable and lovable creature. An act of 
 cruelty to either of their breeds will rouse him 
 to white heat of fury. His support for any 
 movements to protect bird or beast is certain, 
 unless, of course, it infringes on what he con- 
 siders legitimate sport. I have an old volume 
 of the Sporting Magazine which shows that a 
 century ago, when men's minds were less tender 
 than they are now, he was in the forefront of those 
 
 259
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 who had begun to oppose certain base cruelties. 
 It is no use to be blind to this side of him, but it 
 gives no proof that his sports are ennobling 
 occupations. All butchers whom I have known 
 intimately have been great lovers of dogs, but 
 it will not be claimed that they learnt their love 
 in the shambles. Into these mysteries of the 
 heart I cannot penetrate. Perhaps the sports- 
 man is simply " le brute humaine " that Octave 
 Mirbeau called him. Perhaps he asks no more 
 questions of himself than does the terrier now 
 lying at my feet. Of conscious cruelty I can 
 acquit him. He hates no living creature unless 
 it be a person like myself who tries to spoil his 
 sport by pointing to its seamy side. All he 
 asks is to be let alone ; but it is no use. Time is 
 conquering him. His life is founded on a pre- 
 tence that what was at the beginning must 
 remain until the world's end, and that human 
 nature ought not to change with conditions of 
 human life. 
 
 Bear baiting has gone, and fox hunting will 
 go soon. The more democratic sport of ratting 
 may survive awhile, for Labour candidates are 
 already pledging themselves to resist interference 
 with the sports of the people, but in a few cen- 
 turies we shall all content ourselves with hunting 
 
 260
 
 THE SPORTSMAN 
 
 the slipper and shall wonder why our forefathers 
 took such delight in " the image of war." The 
 sportsman, of course, reads the future in another 
 fashion. He is a sentimental atavist who 
 believes, and hopes, that we shall always 
 retain a certain bloody-mindedness. He has the 
 conservative temperament which some call 
 pessimism. 
 
 261
 
 THE COUPON GOVERNMENT 
 
 THE early decline of so lusty a young giant 
 as the one which a while ago Sir George 
 Younger raised before our wondering eyes from 
 its cradle of the ballot box gives cause for justi- 
 fiable surprise. All the good fairies were present 
 at its birth. Victory was there, and Peace and 
 Prosperity were announced. Liberty came with 
 Dora drooping on her arm, and Equality and 
 Privilege were made to embrace in public. But, 
 as sometimes happens on these auspicious occa- 
 sions, the bad fairy appeared uninvited, and, 
 according to formula, pronounced her male- 
 diction. It was not the first Coalition she had 
 cursed, and it may not be the last. In words 
 which may be familiar to those who read history, 
 she decreed that it should " partake of the vices 
 of both its parents." 
 
 What those vices were had long been concealed 
 by all good Party men, but it is not disputed 
 to-day that there were defects on either side. 
 In the Conservative parent was ingrained the 
 vice of doing things. A few years previously 
 it had been exemplified by the organization of 
 
 262
 
 THE COUPON GOVERNMENT 
 
 a rebellion in Ulster. The Liberal parent, on 
 the other hand, had the vice of not doing things, 
 and this had come to the surface in the failure 
 to suppress that same by no means privy con- 
 spiracy. In the fusion of the two parties opti- 
 mists saw a hope that these tendencies would 
 cancel one another, but the wicked fairy willed 
 it otherwise. Under her curse the Coupon Gov- 
 ernment has laboured from its first days. It has 
 had a passion for large ventures, and its record 
 is studied with great tasks begun. It set up a 
 commission on coal mines, and its composition 
 indicated that it was intended to report favour- 
 ably for nationalization. The commission did 
 what was expected of it, and then saw its main 
 report set on one side. Subsequent efforts to 
 pacify the Duke of Northumberland without 
 mortally offending Mr. Smillie have, of course, 
 been futile, but it may be argued that they are 
 acceptable to the always moderate majority. 
 Here is a reasonable line of defence. One may 
 discard either from strength or weakness ; but 
 study of other hands played by the Coalition 
 does not suggest that Mr. Justice Sankey was 
 discarded for the former reason. 
 
 There is a monotonous regularity about some 
 of the Government's doings. Looking to Russia 
 
 263
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 one is reminded of Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- 
 man's conundrum as to when a war is not a war. 
 When it is a campaign directed by Mr. Churchill 
 and ending in an evacuation is, of course, the 
 answer. The situation in Ireland affords the 
 same proof of weakness. Mr. Macpherson takes 
 his stand for law and order, and law instantly 
 vanishes in martial law, whilst in place of order 
 we are given the sack of Fermoy. Sinn Fein 
 leaders intermittently go to gaol, take a few 
 weeks to recuperate their energies, and walk 
 out again. Sir Edward Carson continues his 
 rampage without interruption. Still nearer home 
 we have had a taste of the Coalition's methods 
 in dealing with the profiteers. On account of 
 those birds of prey Sir Auckland Geddes is under- 
 stood to have postponed his journey from Basing- 
 stoke to Montreal, and one should, perhaps, be 
 grateful to him. His disguise as a scarecrow 
 must have involved no small sacrifice of pro- 
 fessorial and family dignity, but that it will 
 alarm any but the smallest and most ingenuous 
 fowls is doubtful. 
 
 Firm government has points in its favour, 
 and so has laissez faire, for under either system 
 one knows approximately what to expect. The 
 Coalition is consistent only in raising hopes and 
 
 264
 
 THE COUPON GOVERNMENT 
 
 in disappointing them. Even in its muzzling 
 order its timidity was made manifest. Anything 
 for a quiet life is a sound maxim of govern- 
 ment, but, to quote Lord Morley, it is not the 
 only sound maxim. Occasionally it defeats its 
 own ends. The railway strike showed how com- 
 pletely it could do so. Nobody believed that 
 the Government meant what it said. Doles 
 and subsidies may placate labourers who do not 
 labour and needy capitalists who cannot support 
 their own industries. They may keep certain 
 deserving classes of the community from being 
 out at elbows, but they react in the end by put- 
 ting the whole nation out of pocket, and the 
 harmless, necessary taxpayer out of temper. 
 Fear of offending too many people at once, or 
 of setting too many dogs snarling at the same 
 moment, postpones trouble by making it inevit- 
 able. It is poor comfort for a Prime Minister 
 to have saved his own skin when he realizes that 
 like Balzac's peau de chagrin it is shrinking 
 rapidly all the time. 
 
 From the first the Coalition Front Bench 
 looked more like a union of all the interests 
 than of all the talents, yet, on one item of con- 
 structive policy its occupants expressed agree- 
 ment. Their avowed intention was to lead us 
 
 265
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 into a new world. Others have of old professed 
 the same desire, notable among them being the 
 builders of the Tower of Babel. Then as now 
 absence of a common language frustrated an 
 interesting experiment. There is no need to 
 doubt the sincerity of His Majesty's Ministers, 
 nor the ability of at least some of them. As 
 patriots, they may have buried many an ancient 
 difference, but that they are often compelled 
 to consult an Esperanto dictionary at their 
 meetings I can well believe. Only by some 
 such cumbersome means, I imagine, did Mr. 
 Barnes explain in Mr. Fisher's sympathetic ear 
 the disadvantages of a university training to a 
 democratic leader. Thus, too, must Mr. Cham- 
 berlain commune with Sir Alfred Mond on 
 tariffs, and Mr. Montagu instruct Lord Curzon 
 on his Indian schemes. Valuable time must be 
 lost whilst they look up the meanings of such 
 blessed words as " intellectual," " key-industry," 
 or " diarchy," but, with national unity as their 
 object, one should not be too impatient. On 
 these grave colloquies, however, Ministers find 
 it hard to concentrate. They talk and listen 
 as men who are timing the arrival of the next 
 shell. At any moment news may come that 
 the Secretary of State for War has found a 
 
 266
 
 THE COUPON GOVERNMENT 
 
 new continent to conquer, or that the Lord- 
 Lieutenant of Ireland is writing a new book. 
 
 Whilst the Prime Minister was abroad there 
 was a feeling that these troubles must be taken 
 philosophically. On his return he would set 
 all things in order. That much was taken for 
 granted, yet some were asking where he would 
 be politically, and there was a perceptible note 
 of anxiety in their voices. The question has 
 now been answered. Mr. Lloyd George is found 
 to be exactly where for some time past he has 
 been. He is to be found in the future, which, 
 by all accounts, is a much more comfortable 
 period than the one in which the remainder of 
 us live. We are, I suppose, an unimaginative 
 people. Promise of jam to-morrow ought to 
 fill us with a sort of spiritual enthusiasm, but it 
 only makes us conscious of bodily emptiness. 
 One small house built by Dr. Addison in England 
 attracts more would-be tenants than apply for 
 all the castles in Spain constructed by the rest 
 of the Premier's staff of futuristic journalists 
 and orators. 
 
 The coupon candidates were given a mandate 
 to make peace. They have made a sort of peace, 
 and its most promising feature was the work of 
 one who is not a member of the Government, 
 
 267
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 but we are told it was the best peace they could 
 make. As nobody imagines it can last without 
 several structural alterations, it will be well if 
 somebody else is soon given a chance of effecting 
 them. Mr. Lloyd George fought a good fight 
 at Versailles, but never received the Parlia- 
 mentary backing on which Mr. Hughes could 
 always rely. He was, moreover, manacled by 
 Ireland, and still wears the handcuffs. In conse- 
 quence, our lectures to Rumania and any other 
 naughty States who do not know their four- 
 teen points by heart are received abroad with but 
 cynical attention. The voice is the voice of 
 Chadband, but Machiavelli counts ventriloquism 
 among his accomplishments. Our foreign friends 
 know how the English tourist away from the 
 ties and responsibilities of home can abandon 
 himself. They smile when the English sense of 
 justice selects Hungary or Fiume or the Saar 
 Valley as a place on which to descend. The 
 Americans have a blunt trick of speech, but the 
 rest are too polite to mention Dublin Castle. 
 
 Public opinion, despite Peel's scornful saying, 
 is not quite a tideless sea. The country may not 
 be seething with indignation at its rulers, but 
 there is plenty of smouldering anger and a quiet 
 contempt with which there is no arguing. The 
 
 268
 
 THE COUPON GOVERNMENT 
 
 tide has set against the Government, and its 
 members are drifting to deep waters on an un- 
 seaworthy craft. What will happen ? Will the 
 coupon holders decide by majority vote to drop 
 the pilot ? Or will the officers and crew decide 
 to throw overboard the superfluous passengers ? 
 Will Mr. George, or another, follow the example 
 of Gilbert's elderly naval man by devouring the 
 rest, since by that method perfect unity could be 
 achieved ? All these courses are possible, but 
 I do not think it is the Nancy Brig on which the 
 Coalition voyages. I have in mind another 
 ship on which once served a yet more famous 
 and more ancient mariner. According to Cole- 
 ridge it had at one time none but dead men to 
 navigate it. 
 
 269
 
 CERTAIN ARTISTS 
 
 " A CREATIVE painter or designer," says 
 X^. Mr. Wyndham Lewis, " should be able 
 to exist quite satisfactorily without paper, stone, 
 or paints, or without lifting a finger to translate 
 into forms and colours his specialized creative 
 impulse." 
 
 This statement, if it means anything, must 
 mean that painters can cease from painting, 
 and that a creator can count his creation complete 
 when he has told his friends that he has given 
 birth to a new idea. We shall soon hear, perhaps, 
 that the Mansard Galleries have been taken for 
 a show of ideas. There will be a catalogue and 
 frames and a shilling admission, but there will 
 be neither visible pictures nor statuary. From 
 the catalogue the visitor will learn that frame 
 number one encloses somebody's conception of 
 an earthquake in E flat, whilst the table in the 
 centre of the room supports another's notion of 
 the odour of human sweat carried out in white 
 marble. These things will not, so to speak, 
 be there, but if, after a few moments of study, 
 you do not perceive them with all ^your five 
 
 270
 
 CERTAIN ARTISTS 
 
 senses at once, you will be branded as an 
 ignorant ass. 
 
 Personally, I welcome the prospect of such an 
 exhibition, for it would be the logical outcome of 
 everything that has been preached in the school 
 of non-representative art. It has been insisted 
 there a thousand times that the secret of art is 
 unlikeness from nature. By book and brush 
 they have said it. Observe the portrait of a poet, 
 which they consider one of their masterpieces. 
 You know whose portrait it is, because, with no 
 little pride, the poet tells you about it himself. 
 It is not, of course, what our grandparents 
 would have called a speaking likeness, but 
 despite a malformation of the mouth and a 
 tendency on the part of the left eye to grow 
 rather above than below the accompanying eye- 
 brow, it is evidently a human head. In works 
 devoted to rare and curious diseases, there are 
 to be found photographs of persons who seem to 
 suffer from the same malady. To my way of 
 thinking, this is but a half-hearted picture and 
 must have been painted by an individual without 
 the courage of his or her convictions. If he, 
 or she, did not mean to represent the poet so 
 that he should be recognizable to his friends, it 
 was illogical to paint a head which all the world 
 
 271
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 could recognize as more than half human. An 
 apple or a pine tree or a centipede would have 
 betokened more sincerity, yet to all three there 
 are objections. Apples and heads are both 
 approximately round, and the other two objects 
 named may both have points of resemblance 
 to poets if only we search long enough for them. 
 The only way to be thoroughly non-representa- 
 tive is to paint nothing at all. Leave a blank 
 space on the wall, and explain in the catalogue 
 what is supposed to be there. When once we 
 have grown accustomed to exhibitions of ideas, 
 we shall be able to do away with the frames, 
 and a little later to cease visiting the galleries. 
 A catalogue by post will be enough. At my 
 writing table I shall imagine the poet's portrait ; 
 and in his studio the artist will be hard at work 
 imagining it too. 
 
 Unfortunately, Mr. Wyndham Lewis and his 
 friends seldom mean what they seem to say. 
 Their meaning is as elusive in print as in paint, 
 and in all probability they have no intention of 
 holding the exhibition which their theories should 
 foreshadow. Pitifully, they will shrug their 
 shoulders, and say that I do not understand 
 them. So be it ; but it is their fault. It is their 
 business to make themselves understood by me 
 
 272
 
 CERTAIN ARTISTS 
 
 and by mankind, for the day is done when art 
 could be the property of a coterie. Half a dozen 
 supercilious critics and a grande dame or two 
 are no longer enough to be a painter's public. Art 
 has to be democratized. Its finer points may be 
 reserved for the few, and its very finest for the 
 creating artist himself, but its mass-impression 
 must be for the world. With art it is the same 
 as with a woman. Something of her should be 
 reserved for her lover alone, something else for 
 the small number of her intimates, but, when she 
 walks in the street, her beauty, and at least a 
 portion of her beauty's meaning, should flash 
 on all who in passing see her. 
 
 Art as expounded by Mr. Lewis and those others 
 is as meaningless to me as the law laid down in 
 the office of Messrs. Lewis and Lewis. I am, 
 however, morally certain that the famous firm of 
 solicitors almost always comprehends its own 
 jargon, but I am not so sure that as much can 
 be said for those who used to hold forth in the 
 pages of Blast. I will even go further and ex- 
 press a doubt whether any of the vorticist, 
 cubist, hexagonalist, poet-neurotic, neo-diabolic 
 distortions of art are artistically comprehensible 
 to any West European man or woman, or to 
 anyone whose family has lived for three or four 
 
 273 s
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 generations under West European conditions of 
 life. Had the war continued for two or three 
 more years, the prolonged horror of it might 
 have eaten right into our heads, and either given 
 us a new sense or else deprived us of some of 
 those senses we still possess. We might have 
 come to believe that beauty was hideousness, 
 hideousness beauty, and that the making of a 
 new hell on the old earth was an aim to which 
 art should substantially contribute. The war 
 ended just in time. Shell shock is susceptible to 
 cure. It is not among our own countrymen, 
 not among the races culturally near to us, that 
 the great innovators are to be found to-day. In 
 the work of a Mestrovic or a Meninski one can 
 see a new world emerging, though the pain of 
 the old world's travail is still about it. Lesser 
 men from the East End of Europe, whose appren- 
 ticeship to civilization has, may be, been spent 
 in the scarcely less fearful East End of London, 
 produce what at first sight may seem mere 
 pogroms in paint, but theirs is a comprehensible 
 barbarism. Their honesty is at least as evident 
 as their talent or their genius. They chisel or 
 paint something that in very truth they have 
 seen and felt, and with their materials they reveal 
 to us their visions. Mestrovic's only failure 
 
 274
 
 CERTAIN ARTISTS 
 
 was his head of Rodin, and that because of Rodin, 
 a West European, we had already a fixed idea 
 essentially different from that of the Jugo-Slav 
 and one that was naturally more truthful. Before 
 the pictures painted by Russians, Poles, or 
 Eastern Jews, I realize that they and I have 
 no common ancestry. Behind them are genera- 
 tions of terror, cruelty, and torture of soul and 
 body ; behind me, centuries in which wars, 
 rebellions, and persecutions have been, not the 
 stuff of life, but its scattered interludes. It is 
 impossible to imagine that we could share the 
 same idea of beauty. It is evident that we do not. 
 
 These others outrage our traditions with 
 the zest of serfs who burn the lord's hall, of 
 sansculottes ravaging Versailles, of rick-burners 
 chortling over the blaze which ends the farmer's 
 harvest. 
 
 Manet used to say that one year one painted 
 violet and everybody screamed, and that next 
 year everybody painted more violet. The scream- 
 ing to-day is not over colours or shades of colours. 
 The new men from the East are nothing if not 
 iconoclasts. The type of physical perfection 
 which Greece saw in a race not its own, is abhor- 
 rent to them from memories of repression and 
 victimization. It is not a freak of the studios, 
 
 275
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 the passing of the golden-haired girl and the blue- 
 eyed boy ; it is the end of a dynasty. It is the 
 end of a dynasty enthroned in Europe through 
 all the ages we call civilized. These alien artists 
 from the far parts of the earth have a significance 
 which bursts beyond frame and canvas. Soci- 
 ally and politically, the least of them are so 
 ominous that questions about their place in art 
 are impertinences. 
 
 When their pictures have been shown in 
 France, the French have smiled enigmatically 
 and called them interesting. When a French- 
 man has tried to paint in the same style, his com- 
 patriots have shrugged their shoulders, called 
 him fumiste, and passed by on the other side. 
 In their opinion, he has forgotten what art is. 
 He has, perhaps, confounded soot with paint, 
 but, anyhow, there is no need to take him seri- 
 ously. In England we have not established a 
 standard by which to judge whether a man is 
 a mountebank or not. There has been an 
 English school of painting, or, rather, there have 
 been many, but we have not settled what is the 
 object of art. We have not, as Sizeranne said, 
 pinned our faith to le Beau sans phrases, le 
 Beau sans intentions, and so we are always 
 liable to go astray. When somebody says to 
 
 276
 
 CERTAIN ARTISTS 
 
 us of his picture that that is " how he sees it " 
 we have no apt reply. We cannot even tell him 
 that a man with his extraordinary perception 
 for the ugly has a choice open between suicide 
 and a visit to the oculist. 
 
 But we of the West French, British, or 
 whatever we be must keep intact our idea of 
 beauty, and in our art we must pursue it. The 
 non-representative painters, and the painters 
 who are always representing something else, 
 have been anaesthetized. Their orgies in oils 
 may be meant for revolutions in embryo, but 
 they are more like jig-saw puzzles in disorder, 
 and their affectations of Scythian savagery do 
 not even redden Chelsea's lamp-posts. All their 
 deformations of the human form amount to no 
 more than the grotesqueries of nature with which 
 showmen have always amused the vulgar. The 
 half-barbaric art of the East may be the begin- 
 ning of a new culture, but we can no more acclima- 
 tize it in London than we can make the Volga 
 flow by Maidenhead past the Tate Gallery. 
 A sense of humour should forbid the experiment, 
 but our eccentrics are not conscious humorists. 
 They have not even enough of it to carry out 
 their own theories and to hang their empty 
 frames upon the walls. 
 
 277
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 " The arts and humanity " says Mr. H. J. 
 Massingham, " must become man and wife." 
 Never, perhaps, have they been further apart 
 than they are to-day. Mr. Wyndham Lewis 
 would have the big public " not taught, but 
 policed," whilst " the few thousands " must be 
 trained to be "a responsive chorus." Between 
 these two ideals we shall have to choose, and it is, 
 I think, Mr. Massingham who points to the 
 better, though the harder, way. From the fall 
 of Rome, through the Middle Ages, art kept 
 civilization alive, and art may do the same 
 again now that the barbarian hordes are loose 
 once more. Beauty is nature's subterfuge for 
 promoting union of the sexes. The artist, too, 
 though he can free himself of " intentions," will 
 bring the arts and humanity together when 
 creation of the beautiful is his first aim and 
 his last. 
 
 378
 
 DOCTORS AND NURSES 
 
 SURGEONS and physicians have frequently 
 been styled the priests of humanity ; 
 especially surgeons. Why the surgeon has com- 
 manded a greater share of reverence than his 
 learned brother of pill and potion I do not know, 
 but it is certain that his priestly character has 
 more often been proclaimed. Perhaps it has 
 been because he is cleanshaven, or, perhaps, 
 because the multitude still connects its idea of 
 a priesthood with sacrifices of blood. Slowly, 
 however, we are veering towards a new view. 
 Gradually we are beginning to think of the 
 medical profession in a new light. To-day there 
 are some bold enough to say that it would be 
 better for us all if, by legislation or any other 
 means, the men of medicine could be turned 
 from being the priests of humanity into being 
 its ministers. 
 
 In the profession itself, the tradition of priest- 
 liness is still somewhat fiercely maintained. No 
 claims of Rome have ever been as sweeping. The 
 dogma of medical infallibility is not limited by 
 its application to the President of the Royal 
 
 279
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 College of Surgeons or to any other single person, 
 but is spread in public view to cover every indi- 
 vidual who has qualified to practice the art and 
 mystery and has not actually been unfrocked. 
 In camera, of course, the faults of poor old Dr. 
 Jones, or the follies of young Mr. Brown, may be 
 largely discussed. Mortality among their patients 
 may be terrific, but esprit de corps forbids any 
 kind member of the profession to proclaim to all 
 and sundry the truth that Jones is uncleanly, 
 senile, or drink-sodden, or that Brown's experi- 
 ments, interesting as they are, show more thirst 
 for knowledge than scientific exactitude. Ex- 
 communication, the expunging of a name from 
 the register, is a rare event. More often the 
 extreme step seems to be taken for an offence 
 against the profession than for a mishandling 
 of the patient. Doctors, like Popes, occa- 
 sionally commit crimes, but that they err in 
 diagnosis or treatment is seldom or never part 
 of the evidence put before a jury. 
 
 A thousand years hence medical knowledge 
 may be standardized. We may then know that 
 certain treatments cure, or, better still, prevent, 
 certain ills of the flesh, just as two and two make 
 four, not sometimes, but always. I have a 
 friend who is about to undergo a serious opera- 
 
 280
 
 DOCTORS AND NURSES 
 
 tion at the hands of one of London's most famous 
 surgeons. He is, I suppose, lucky to be able 
 to afford it, but that operation is stigmatized 
 as a fraud in the lectures which another of our 
 most famous surgeons delivers to his pupils. 
 These things in the year 1920 cannot be wholly 
 concealed from the world. The medical student 
 at his hospital is taught certain theories, but, 
 whilst he learns them, he trembles lest they may 
 be anathema to those who anon will examine 
 him. Again, it is notoriously easier to obtain 
 a qualification from one corporation than from 
 another. We are surrounded by medical men 
 who have not even started from the same 
 level. Some begin on the bare minimum of 
 knowledge ; some on something more. They are 
 at odds with each other on matters which are 
 life and death to us. They are doing their best, 
 each in his own way, but all of them cannot be 
 infallible. The only honest course is to admit 
 that their science has as yet scarcely passed from 
 its chrysalis stage. 
 
 Mr. Bernard Shaw has said that medicine is a 
 conspiracy, but that it is no more a conspiracy 
 than are all the other professions and other 
 businesses. He has understated his case. In 
 politics the differences of parties are loudly 
 
 281
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 proclaimed, and in religion the clash of creeds 
 is not concealed. Even in letters, no social dis- 
 abilities are as yet attached to those who own 
 to preference for Miss Sitwell over Mr. Shanks. 
 Unfortunately, there are, practically, no avowed 
 dissenters in medicine. The individual does not 
 openly break away from the crowd, for if he 
 does so, the heresy-hunt will be hot on his heels. 
 Hypnotists who are not humbugs and bone- 
 setters who are not bunglers are known to exist, 
 but it is for their very abilities that they are per- 
 secuted by the orthodox. It is the spirit of 
 ca'canny. None must obviously break the uni- 
 formity of the ranks, lest others without the gift 
 or skill should be discredited. The general prac- 
 titioner in Peckham and the specialist in Old 
 Parr Street make a show of using the same 
 methods. Both speak the same language which 
 is Greek to the public, and which in very fact 
 is Greek of sorts. The Old Parr Street man may 
 speak it far more fluently than his cousin of the 
 suburbs, but the two unite against the audacious 
 fellow who would baffle them both with Bantu 
 or Chinese. 
 
 No salvation outside the British Medical 
 Association is graven on the backs of thou- 
 sands of brass plates. Not long ago a woman 
 
 282
 
 DOCTORS AND NURSES 
 
 with a sick child took it for treatment to a 
 hospital. Also she took it to Lourdes, though 
 this change of air had not been included in the 
 prescription. Strange to say, the child made a 
 complete recovery, and in the devout household 
 there was a talk of a miracle. Between the 
 partisans of divine and human healing there 
 was acrimonious discussion. The doctors said 
 " Mumbo Jumbo " ; they also said " Hocus 
 Pocus." What the priest said I have not heard, 
 but, perhaps, it was " Pseudo-Paraplegia," or 
 something which sounds equally abusive. No- 
 body suggested sharing the honours. Nobody 
 hinted that it was a matter of taste about which 
 there should be no disputing. There was not a 
 pot that did not boil over with calling the kettles 
 black charlatans. 
 
 Nothing in the medical conspiracy is more 
 remarkable than the care the higher ranks have 
 for the lower. The specialist frowns on the 
 patient who rings his front-door bell without 
 having previously submitted himself to the doctor, 
 or doctor by courtesy, who earns a living from his 
 cure of bodies in the district where the patient 
 resides. It is as though a candidate for con- 
 firmation were found kneeling at the Bishop's 
 feet without a proper introduction from the 
 
 283
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 parish priest. The lower ranks reciprocate with 
 a care for the higher that is pathetic. The 
 medical student who may have to spend his life 
 in one desperate struggle to make both ends 
 meet in a villa not large enough for one of them, 
 will fulminate against schemes for a State Medical 
 Service which will insure him a living wage, but 
 may tend to make the big-wigs think in terms 
 of the Ford rather than of the Rolls-Royce. If 
 this be not pure altruism, it is altruism syndi- 
 cated. From top to bottom the profession dreads 
 State Control, but it is bound to come, and it 
 is vain for the medical man to talk of his inde- 
 pendence. He is not independent now. He is 
 under the necessity of cultivating the rich lady 
 of middle-age who is safe to be ailing for the 
 next score of years. Just as in the days of Dr. 
 Brand Firmin, there is a path for him to success 
 through courtship of rank and wealth. Once 
 at the top of the tree, he can, of course, be free, 
 but he can never hope to reach those upper 
 branches unless he begins life with an unearned 
 income or a double dose of asceticism in his 
 nature. The newly qualified man is usually 
 human, and, at twenty-seven or so, is, probably, 
 thinking about marriage and a home. That 
 means general practice, mediocrity and pro- 
 
 284
 
 DOCTORS AND NURSES 
 
 longed care for other people's stomach aches, 
 unless he has money behind him. The necessary 
 years of financially unproductive study which 
 lead to the eminence of Old Parr Street are out 
 of the question for the average young medico. 
 He has to shut out of his vision the idea of ever 
 being able to tell the hypochondriac to go pinch 
 himself or of warning sufferers from the fidgets 
 against wasting his time and their money. 
 
 Most of what he has learned he will soon for- 
 get in the traintrain of cut fingers, obstetrics, 
 and death certificates, but it is to him that most 
 of us have to resort. The rich can afford better 
 advice. The hospitals can deal with but a frac- 
 tion of the poor, and for the sake of their finances 
 must give preference to those who have letters 
 of recommendation from subscribers. That there 
 should be not one but several grades of medicine 
 for the community is as absurd as though pure 
 water was provided for the Duke of Westminster, 
 whilst unfiltered Thames was considered good 
 enough for me. I know no more glaring example 
 of the truth that we have not as a nation yet 
 begun to understand the A B C of demo- 
 cratic principles than this calm acceptance of 
 inequality in the means of preserving bodies. 
 
 The doctor of the future, paid by the State, 
 
 285
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 will be, amongst other things, a St. George 
 against the dragon of insanitary conditions. 
 His interest will be not merely to keep us alive, 
 but to keep us in such good health that he can 
 spend at least half his days on the links and 
 nearly all his nights in bed. His forerunner, the 
 Medical Officer of Health, is too often the victim 
 of a compromise, and still may have to eke out 
 his living by private practice. Local Authorities 
 have been known to appoint him because he is 
 reputed to have no olfactory nerves, and, conse- 
 quently, will make no fuss about their drains. 
 Should his sense of smell suddenly develop, he 
 will not have the benefit of their children's 
 next attack of measles. The National Officer of 
 Health must be put beyond such temptations, 
 and then, and not till then, will he be the minister 
 we need. The only other alternative is that 
 the doctor should be in very truth a priest, and 
 a celibate priest at that, under vows of poverty. 
 Of the two evils I do not doubt the profession 
 will choose the least, or that which is the least 
 to them. 
 
 My medical friends tell me, by the way, that a 
 doctor on a fixed salary will neglect his patients 
 when no extra guineas or half-crowns are to be 
 drawn from them. They underrate human nature, 
 
 286
 
 DOCTORS AND NURSES 
 
 including their own share of it. But if some 
 few show themselves unworthy, let them be 
 brought before a Court Medical and expelled 
 with ignominy from the service of their kind for 
 conduct unbecoming to a good citizen and a 
 servant of humanity. " When," as Herrick says, 
 " the learned doctor sees not one hope but in 
 his fees," it is time to leave the invalid to die 
 in the decent privacy of the family circle. 
 
 Talking of such matters, I am reminded that 
 the nurses, who really form another branch of 
 the medical profession, have recently formed a 
 trade union. Good luck to them. They have 
 long been shamefully underpaid, but I am afraid 
 they cannot have it both ways. They cannot 
 at once be good trade unionists and ministering 
 angels as well. A woman may tend the sick for 
 a substantial fee and do her work efficiently, 
 or she may tend them for love and do it divinely. 
 The present situation is indefensible. Nurses are 
 ill-paid, and even an abstract love of humanity 
 is not encouraged by their training and by the 
 scolding and bullying they endure in their novici- 
 ate. They are tried to prove their worth, but 
 theirs is a trial which does not refine but coarsens. 
 Miss Tennyson Jesse was right when some months 
 ago she wrote that nursing, as at present prac- 
 
 287
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 tised, brings out all that is worst in woman's 
 character, that worst being a love of authority 
 and of domination ; of driving instead of leading. 
 
 The professional nurse dares not be pitiful. 
 If she has to be hard in the operating theatre, 
 equally must she be hard by the bedside ; it is 
 ten to one she will be hard everywhere else, 
 even if she has the luck to marry the house- 
 surgeon. If I could not have one who loved 
 me to be my nurse, I would have a sceur de 
 charite who, in place of loving me, loved God 
 and His Mother, and if I could have neither, 
 I would have one of those cheerful looking V.A.D. 
 girls whom I used to see about the camps, for, 
 possibly, she might treat me as a man and a 
 brother. Failing all these, send some male being 
 to look after me, for then, if he were to browbeat 
 me, I could, and would, swear at him, though a 
 credo or a confiteor were more proper to my 
 station on the edge of life. Only from that 
 professionalism which lies ambushed behind stiff 
 bibs and aprons, which would treat me as a 
 case, whilst itself expecting to be treated as a 
 lady, may I always be delivered. 
 
 Nursing was long held to be almost the only 
 profession suited to the average woman. It is 
 almost the only one from which, in existing 
 
 288
 
 DOCTORS AND NURSES 
 
 circumstances, I would exclude nine women out 
 of ten. Let nurses be paid as well as really good 
 cooks or moderately good ballet dancers, and then 
 will be removed from them the temptation to feel 
 that in smoothing my pillows they are conferring 
 a favour on men and on the human race to which 
 I belong. Finally, let it be realized that none is 
 fit to be a professional nurse save that rare one 
 who with strength of mind and body combines 
 indestructible gentleness of soul. 
 
 289
 
 THE LITERARY CRITICS 
 
 RATHER more than a hundred years ago 
 there was published at Oxford a pam- 
 phlet entitled Advice to a Young Reviewer. 
 Its author, Copplestone, then fellow of Oriel, 
 and afterwards Bishop of Llandaff, was a 
 man of wit and learning, and the plan he 
 followed was that of Defoe in his Shortest Way 
 with the Dissenters. Ironically advocating all 
 the common tricks which critics were, and are, 
 capable of using when, as Dr. Johnson wrote, 
 they stand " Sentinels in the avenue of fame," 
 he reduced them to absurdity. At the end of the 
 pamphlet he showed how, with a little ingenuity 
 and a few facetious touches, a poem by Milton 
 could be made to seem no more than balderdash. 
 Reviewers, young and old, probably took it all 
 as an excellent joke, and forgot it as soon as their 
 serious work began again with the arrival of a 
 new volume. 
 
 There are, as he pointed out, a dozen or more 
 easy ways in which a critic can make himself 
 appear clever whilst demonstrating that his 
 victim is a fool. If the author be amusing, he 
 
 290
 
 THE LITERARY CRITICS 
 
 can be censured for levity ; if he be serious, he 
 can be pilloried for dulness. Should he be 
 modest, he is a nobody ; should he write of himself 
 and his opinions, he is a conceited egoist. If 
 his subject is unknown to you, pillage his pre- 
 face, and give yourself an air of wisdom by refer- 
 ences to the authorities he quotes himself. Above 
 all, do not forget that his work is bound to con- 
 tain phrases which, if torn from the context, 
 will appear absurd. Finally, to show your good 
 heart, say that he will make a passable success 
 if he will in the future only do this or that for 
 which he obviously has no inclination. 
 
 Almost I am tempted to wonder whether 
 Copplestone, like Defoe, may not by some have 
 been taken seriously, and his advice followed to 
 the letter. So unfortunate have been the critics 
 in their struggles with the creators that many 
 are deceived into imagining the former as a tribe 
 of simpletons. Nothing could be further from 
 the truth. Literary criticism has ever attracted 
 men of high talent, well versed in books and 
 affairs. What should be realized is that nine out 
 of ten of them have always represented the party 
 of tradition, or, at least, of things as they are. 
 They are the defenders. Great creative writers, 
 on the other hand, are commonly breakers of 
 
 291
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 fresh ground and of rules. They are the aggres- 
 sors, and the world has seldom been prepared 
 for them. Conflict between such forces is in- 
 evitable, and so is its result. Only when the 
 world stands still will the conventional critic 
 be right in the end. 
 
 Reading carefully the savage criticisms which 
 Blackwood's reviewers once directed at the 
 " Cockney School," one can see they are no mere 
 riot of ink-slinging. The " Prometheus Un- 
 bound " was called a " pestiferous mixture of 
 blasphemy, sedition, and sensuality," but this 
 attack, or, rather, counter-attack, was not made 
 by a dolt. The writer was blind to no poetic 
 excellence. He acknowledged magnificence in de- 
 scription, sublimity in eloquence, and " beauties 
 of the highest order." He was, in fact, a reason- 
 ably good judge of literary merit, but, being a 
 shrewd man, he saw in Shelley the prophet as 
 well as the poet. When he turned to Keats 
 and Leigh Hunt, he simply wrote of the " drivel- 
 ling imbecility " of the one, and of the " low 
 birth " of the other. They might be overturning 
 poetic traditions in which he had been reared, 
 but outside bookish circles their influence would 
 be nil. He might loathe, but he did not dread, 
 them. They, he trusted, might be laughed out 
 
 292
 
 THE LITERARY CRITICS 
 
 of court, but, on the more dangerous Shelley, 
 he thought it worth while to pour the mingled 
 stream of invective and flattery. 
 
 Jeffreys, bemoaning in the Edinburgh that 
 Moore's verses were an insult to female 
 delicacy, or telling Wordsworth that " this will 
 never do," is an only less significant figure. At 
 a later date, the reviewers in the Quarterly are, 
 however, seen yet more clearly to be on the 
 defensive. In 1848 Charlotte Bronte was accused 
 by them of " the highest moral offence a novel 
 writer can commit, that of making an unworthy 
 character interesting in the eyes of the reader." 
 In a poet, perhaps, this would have been no 
 offence. Milton could make Lucifer the hero 
 of an epic, but the novelist, with a presumably 
 wider public, must use more restraint. Jane 
 Eyre, moreover, was said to be " pre-eminently 
 an anti-Christian composition," and the reason 
 frankly given is that it contains " murmurings 
 against the comforts of the rich and against the 
 privations of the poor." Surely it must have 
 been the same critic who twelve years afterwards 
 took George Eliot to task for writing " fictions 
 which fill the mind with details of imaginary 
 vice and distress and crime." The use of the 
 word " imaginary " is subtle. The defender of 
 
 293
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 the England of 1860 asked his readers to believe 
 that vice, distress, and crime were but things 
 imagined. 
 
 If a new Copplestone should write a pamphlet 
 telling authors how to please critics, he would first 
 instruct them to avoid originality. He would, 
 also, implore them to resemble, at least super- 
 ficially, somebody, or anybody, with whose works 
 every reviewer is supposed to be familiar. " Give 
 them," he would say, " a chance to show their 
 knowledge of the classics whilst praising you, 
 and praise you they will." Almost the last of 
 our poets to gain wide and rapid recognition 
 from the critical brotherhood was Stephen Phillips. 
 For the sake of his " Paolo and Francesca," Mr. 
 Churton Collins in the Saturday Review gave him 
 kinship with Sophocles and Dante. In the World 
 Mr. William Archer declared that in " Herod " 
 he heard " the elder Dumas speaking with the 
 voice of Milton." An anonymous contributor 
 to the Daily Chronicle found that " Christ in 
 Hades " was a union of Sophoclean simplicity 
 and Lucretian solemnity, with Vergilian result. 
 
 It may occasionally be well to astonish the 
 bourgeois, but the English writer who desires 
 a " good press " must spring no surprise on the 
 reviewers. A few years before the Stephen 
 
 294
 
 THE LITERARY CRITICS 
 
 Phillips boom, Francis Thompson had been 
 guilty of this mistake. I have by me an old 
 number of the Quarterly in which he is curtly 
 mentioned in an article on " Minor Poets." His 
 affection for strange words provokes some lines 
 of adverse comment, and he is rated as inferior 
 to Messrs. Kipling and Gilbert, as the equal of 
 Sir Edwin Arnold and Mr. Le Gallienne, and only 
 definitely above the versifiers of the Referee. 
 Had he been a Russian, a Scandinavian, or a 
 Hindu, he would have fared better. Novelty, 
 obscurity, even lunacy, may be welcomed in these 
 people. Mere acquaintance with them is a feather 
 in the reviewer's cap. Knowing that he is not 
 expected to understand them, he displays his 
 true feelings of Athanasian reverence for their 
 incomprehensibility, but from his countrymen 
 he demands all the simplicity promised by 
 the advertisers of the hire-purchase system of 
 furnishing. 
 
 No doubt it will be claimed that in this " young 
 man's age " a change has come over the critical 
 spirit. Undergraduates have become the guard- 
 ians of Parnassus, and the amusing prattle of 
 Miss Daisy Ashford commands the attention of 
 a literary world which seems to be slipping into 
 its second childhood. Did this mean that Eng- 
 
 295
 
 lish criticism had suddenly become receptive to 
 new ideas, one could forgive even its most glar- 
 ing faults, but the truth is far different. Any old 
 idea will do, and complete absence of ideas is 
 by no means unpardonable ; only in the writer's 
 name is novelty demanded. At thirty or there- 
 abouts, one feels old in this land of letters. Al- 
 ready one has seen the bubble reputation pricked 
 so many times ; so many more bubbles are being 
 blown to vanish. Mr. Wells and Mr. Bennett 
 have both been condemned to death as " com- 
 mercial " novelists, for success with the public 
 is of all things the most odious to the reviewing 
 coterie whose power it destroys. Mr. Galsworthy, 
 too, has fallen from favour. Every esprit fort 
 who has composed a battle song in a govern- 
 ment office rails at him for maudlin sentiment. 
 Others, whose reputations were only in the 
 making when war began, are simply forgotten. 
 Mr. Conrad, of course, continues to be rever- 
 enced, but Mr. Conrad had the fortune to be 
 born a Pole. Had he been born in Kent or 
 Cumberland, he, too, might have been relegated 
 to the shelf. 
 
 One reputable critic has recently assured his 
 readers that " What we like, we really do like." 
 It would scarcely have been possible to own in 
 
 296
 
 THE LITERARY CRITICS 
 
 print that " What we like, we really don't like," 
 yet of the reality of critics' likes and dislikes I 
 am always a little doubtful. Are the Russians 
 and those others truly beloved ? Does Mr. 
 Squire verily desire to tar and to feather Mr. 
 Shaw, or is the editor of the London Mercury only 
 celebrating his coming of age by a bonfire of 
 his infancy's tutelary idols ? These questions 
 must go unanswered, but the new Copplestone 
 must add one cautionary passage to his " Advice 
 to a Young Author." He must give warning 
 that the warmer a reviewer's praise, the shorter 
 is its duration. 
 
 The average length of a reputation in this 
 century seems to be from three to five years. 
 Should you, in critical company, mention any- 
 one who has been writing for a longer period, 
 you are met by an effort at polite attention and 
 by a very bored smile. You and the author 
 you quote are vieuxjeu. Recently, an American 
 poet has had some of his work published in 
 England, and in several quarters has been rightly 
 acclaimed as a man of high talent, a head and 
 shoulders above most of our own puling bards 
 
 and nursery rhymers, but his enormous debt 
 
 
 
 to Mr. Chesterton has fbeen barely noticed. 
 Mr. Chesterton belongs to yesterday. He is 
 
 297
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 mutton to the critics. The old affect to have 
 forgotten him, and the young would have us 
 believe they have never read him. 
 
 Is it, I wonder, jealousy ? Not conscious, 
 calculating, vulgar jealousy, but just dislike of 
 the thought that any man or woman should 
 gather more than the little bunch of laurels 
 presented by the critics themselves ? For the 
 little talents they have their golden rain of 
 adjectives, but of the thing that is big, and may 
 grow bigger, they are afraid. When the first 
 shower of classical comparisons and of hyper- 
 bolism is over, the reviewer is as one penitent 
 after a debauch. He returns to his regular 
 business of planing down to mediocrity. " Thus 
 far shall they go, and no further," are, I think, 
 the words he writes on the blotting pad in front 
 of him. 
 
 Still he stands a " sentinel in the avenue of 
 fame," but, though he delay a few and plot to 
 let a few more pass, the last word is not with him. 
 Still he practices all the old tricks and irrele- 
 vancies. Even in the most reputable of the 
 critical organs I have lately seen a book damned 
 for a fault of the binder, and all, perhaps, because 
 its author was a straight speaking man without 
 respect for the little gods. On the whole, how- 
 
 298
 
 THE LITERARY CRITICS 
 
 ever, Mr. Sneer may be a trifle less malevolent 
 than of old, but Mr. Puff is more maleficent 
 than ever. Make no mistake ; Puff is the worst 
 of the twain. More talented writers die of 
 swelled head than of empty stomachs. It is 
 not, alas, every author who knows that " re- 
 views " only matter to him commercially, and 
 are no more relevant to him as a man of letters 
 than are his laundry bills. 
 
 299
 
 REVOLUTION ? 
 
 IT is said that Britain has passed through 
 a silent revolution. There has been no 
 storming of the Bastille, no Terror, no Ther- 
 midor, but those of us who for the last few 
 years have been abroad on active service are 
 asked to believe that in our absence some Pros- 
 pero has been at work on our island. Every- 
 thing has been altered. When the demobilized 
 soldier landed at Folkestone or whatever was his 
 port of disembarkation, he set foot in an un- 
 familiar country, and, if he had expected to see 
 " earth's increase and foison plenty," he was 
 probably disappointed. For having so set his 
 hopes, he is scarcely to be blamed. A thousand 
 times he had been assured that Britain would 
 always be his debtor, and that when peace 
 came nothing would be too good for him. A 
 civilian again, he looks for signs of a promise 
 faithfully fulfilled. He finds high prices, the 
 housing difficulty, and, in many walks of life, 
 scarcity of employment. Are these things the 
 fruits of revolution ? 
 
 As an ex-service man he has, also, his own 
 
 300
 
 REVOLUTION? 
 
 special grievances. That the care of the blind 
 should be left to Sir Arthur Pearson and private 
 benevolence, instead of being a first charge on the 
 State, may impress him unfavourably. That 
 " Village Centres " and other places for the train- 
 ing of the disabled should precariously depend 
 on charity, or, if one prefer the word, gratitude, 
 is equally unsatisfactory. In all such matters, of 
 course, tradition has been followed. " Easier 
 to plead from the kindly than to mulct the cur- 
 mudgeon." So it was after all the old wars, but 
 the Great War was supposed to be different from 
 the rest. Vaguely, fatuously, people say there 
 is " something wrong somewhere " when they 
 hear of a Mons veteran shivering from shell 
 shock in Newington workhouse, and " something," 
 doubtless, wilWbe done for the individual sufferer, 
 but one had expected the revolution to establish 
 a system under which there would be no need for 
 piecemeal beneficence. The appeals for un- 
 employed officers have become an affront to 
 national dignity. The world is moved to hear 
 of honours paid to the dead at the Whitehall 
 Cenotaph ; it ought not to be left to Mr. George 
 Robey, nor yet to Earl Haig, to plead the cause 
 of the living. That, at least, is the view taken 
 by one who has served. 
 
 301
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 After a few weeks at home the late soldier 
 notes a subtle change in the attitude adopted to 
 his order. A newspaper, after years of blandish- 
 ment, gravely warns him not to play the hero. 
 He is adjured to remember how much has been 
 done for him, and to be a good boy. Sudden 
 anxiety is evinced for those who have been 
 " carrying on " in England, though a little while 
 ago their services were unduly disparaged, and 
 they were accused, often unjustly, of shirking 
 their duties. Now, there is no tribunal to 
 question their indispensability. They know their 
 business from alpha to omega, whilst he who has 
 just put off khaki has probably forgotten all he 
 ever knew. The wretched character of the old 
 soldier is another British tradition not yet out- 
 lived. Faith in the intrinsic value of military 
 training has not filtered down from the higher 
 minds of Mr. Blatchford and Earl Curzon to the 
 majority of the employing class. 
 
 When the native returns, he wonders whether 
 the revolution might not have been postponed 
 until he could have had a hand in it. He charges 
 its authors with sins of omission and commission. 
 Old Prospero, retreating to his easy chair after 
 much vigorous waving of his staff, is also dis- 
 appointed. " The war," he used to say, " will 
 
 302
 
 REVOLUTION? 
 
 do so much good to us all ; particularly to those 
 who are young enough to fight in it." He had 
 talked and written earnestly of the comradeship 
 of the trenches. It was going to solve labour 
 problems more deftly than Lord Askwith and a 
 whole series of round-table conferences. Pros- 
 pero had conceived the syndicalist " hand " 
 splitting a last biscuit with the cotton thread 
 millionaire, and the cotton thread millionaire 
 vowing to go halves in everything with everybody 
 for evermore. And then, he had thought of the 
 Cockney cad losing his caddishness in admiration 
 for his company commander, and dedicating the 
 rest of a fine life to the service of the officially 
 designated officer class. Whenever he waved 
 his staff, he saw pictures like that. He even 
 thought it no bad thing that those brave fellows 
 should return to an island where they would be 
 given some chance to repeat their deeds of self- 
 sacrifice. 
 
 The only comradeship Prospero can now per- 
 ceive is a cohesion in resentment against himself. 
 Unreasonable demands are made on him. Do 
 these young men realize that the wealth of the 
 nation was blown to blazes a dozen times over 
 on the Somme, Ypres Salient, and Vimy Ridge ? 
 Have they no inkling of political economy to 
 
 303
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 tell them that all this was unproductive expen- 
 diture ? Do they not understand that the nations' 
 productive powers are all mortgaged up to the 
 hilt ? I sympathize with Prospero in his diffi- 
 culties, and am aware of the crushing weight 
 of the last straw ; also, that one cannot eat one's 
 cake and have it too. Unfortunately, the soldier 
 did not eat the cake ; he only consumed the iron 
 rations. The poverty of the land, moreover, 
 is far more real than apparent. Sometimes the 
 soldier suspects that the man who stayed at 
 home has still a slice or two in the cupboard, 
 and the suspicion strengthens his idea of a revolu- 
 tion engineered behind his back. 
 
 " War on a scale and for a cause such as this 
 war implies leads to high thinking." These 
 words, written at the time of the first battle of 
 the Aisne, are quoted from a weekly review of 
 some standing, and they fairly represent the opti- 
 mism of 1914. Was it naive or calculated ? Most 
 men got through their high thinking as rapidly 
 as the Germans got through Belgium. The 
 prophets had gone on the false assumption that 
 fine deeds beget fine thoughts. Experience has 
 shown that in war some calculate, more miscal- 
 culate, but that most, for good enough reasons, 
 do not think at all. There are alternating fits of 
 
 304
 
 REVOLUTION? 
 
 gaiety and brooding, but in neither is the in- 
 telligence employed. When it is all over, the 
 mass temperament remains emotional. It may 
 be foolish to talk of revolutions, past, present, 
 or to come, but one cannot escape the word* 
 Phlegm is no longer a British characteristic. 
 Its requiem was sung by the crowd on the night 
 of the Armistice. The throng which greeted the 
 two airmen who failed to fly the Atlantic, and 
 all but ignored the two others who a while later 
 made a successful crossing, were moved by emo- 
 tions that not long ago would have been styled 
 mad, hysterical, un-English. An anthropolo- 
 gist hints to me that our little, dark Iberian an- 
 cestor is at last conquering the big, blonde men 
 who so long held him in thrall. Years ago, Mr* 
 Balfour wrote that the growth of cities and the 
 emptying of the country could only have the 
 effect of de-Germanizing the people and shifting 
 the balance against the tall, fair element de- 
 scended from northern immigrants. The end of 
 Teutonism is not to be regretted, but there must 
 be a new policy for a new people. In all classes 
 of society there is a passion for " direct action " 
 and violence. The idea of the political strike 
 synchronises with the prevalence of the crime 
 passionel, and persons of the middle class pre- 
 305 u
 
 ABOUT IT AND ABOUT 
 
 fer to settle their disputes before Judge Lynch 
 rather than before him who sits in the Court of 
 Admiralty, Probate, and Divorce. A band of 
 well educated youths, from which the intelli- 
 gentsia of to-morrow is to be recruited, runs 
 amok at a u Pussyfoot " meeting, and is reproved 
 ty a Lord Chancellor who himself has a lawless 
 past. Tte Carpentier-Beckett fight is the focus 
 of attention for three whole days together, and 
 is discusse v i %at Lockhart's and the Ritz with more 
 general ^aowledge than has been displayed over 
 any other recent crisis in English history. One 
 revolution may have gone unheeded, but the 
 next, if it comes, will not be concluded silently. 
 Statesmen, presuming we still have statesmen , 
 can take steps to deal with serious causes of dis - 
 affection, but what can they do to avoid the dan- 
 gers which spring from mere levity ? Even in 
 art and literature, the vorticist and free- versifier 
 sway and dizzy us. " Empty feather heads 
 growing ever the noisier, in their own emptiness, 
 in each other's noise." Such rattle is an over- 
 ture with ominous associations. All Carlyle's 
 words in dispraise of the eighteenth-century 
 French fall heavily on the twentieth-century 
 English, and the cynic is already here to point 
 out that all the promised high thinking has led 
 
 306
 
 REVOLUTION? 
 
 only to Saturnalia. Some of us wish that we, 
 like the French, could say our revolution was 
 behind us. The new policy for the new people 
 is not easy to frame. Yet, after all, the idea of 
 the League of Nations was war-begotten, and 
 still survives as revolution's alternative. Hos- 
 tility or indifference of Senates and Parliaments 
 well nigh choke it, but it is kept alive wherever 
 there is a majority of the generation which has 
 been at war. Until it is made effective there 
 can be no great hope of return to an orderly 
 way of life. It is idle to ask men and women 
 to devote themselves to the serious details of 
 reconstructing civilization before the founda- 
 tions have been well and truly laid. 
 
 307
 
 Printed m Gnat Britain 6 
 
 UUWlJi BBOTHKRS, UMITKD 
 VOETKQ AND