THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 FIRESIDE AND SUNSHINE
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 The Life of Charles Lamb 
 
 The Open Road 
 
 The Friendly Town 
 
 A Wanderer in Holland 
 
 A Wanderer in London 
 
 A Book of Verses for Children 
 
 Highways and Byways in Sussex 
 
 Listener's Lure 
 
 The Works of Charles and AL\ry Lamb 
 Edited by E. V. Lucas. In 7 Volumes
 
 FIRESIDE AND 
 SUNSHINE 
 
 E) v.' LUCAS 
 
 O Hierc are life's least-shadow'd hours- 
 Beside the fire ; among the flowers. 
 And Death, if ever, seems a liar 
 Among the flowers ; beside the fire 
 
 T. Farcjuharson 
 
 METHUEN & CO. 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 
 LONDON
 
 
 First Published in iQob
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THOSE of the following essays that have a single 
 asterisk against them in the list of contents are 
 reprinted almost verbatim from Domesticities (Smith 
 Elder, 1900). Those with two asterisks are also from 
 Domesticities, but have been enlarged. The rest are 
 new, and consist of contributions to Good Wo7'ds in 
 its old form, the Outlook, the County Gentleman, and 
 other periodicals. For permission to collect them I 
 wish to express thanks. 
 
 E. V. L. 
 
 CO
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 From a Country Diary — I 
 The Town Week . 
 *A Word on Toast 
 ♦Concerning Breakfast . 
 ♦Footpaths and Walking-Sticks 
 **BiRDS and their Enemies 
 Benignus and the Flor Finas 
 *The Divine Leaf . 
 **School-Hampers and Fireworks 
 *The Poetry of Catalogues 
 *Clothes Old and New . 
 From a Seaside Diary . 
 ♦Fires 
 
 ♦*The Post . 
 Innkeepers and Little Carts 
 Cricket and the Backward Look 
 From a Country Diary — II 
 Albums and Crackers . 
 ♦A Gentle Adviser 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 20 
 
 26 
 
 39 
 50 
 61 
 
 77 
 
 82 
 
 91 
 106 
 117 
 127 
 134 
 145 
 164 
 180 
 197 
 215 
 225
 
 t> 
 
 FIRESIDE AND SUNSHINE 
 From a Country Diary — I o <^ o 
 
 T HAVE been sitting still for full twenty minutes 
 watching a mouse. 
 No one, not even its bitterest foe, can deny a 
 mouse the epithet pretty. It is as pretty a thing as 
 there is in nature. A mouse sitting up and washing 
 its face is irresistibly charming. It cannot make an 
 ugly movement. The rat is too large for sentiment : 
 a greater, coarser, more terrible mouse ; but the 
 mouse is perfect. The rat is furtive, vindictive, sus- 
 picious, evil ; the mouse is timid, coaxing, the most 
 engaging little creature in the world to watch. The 
 very run of a mouse is a miracle ; it is here, it is there, 
 and you cannot account for the intervening space. A 
 real mouse moves as much like a clock-work mouse 
 as is possible ; its feet (practically it has no legs) are 
 invisible. When not frightened or in a hurry, a 
 
 A I
 
 The Mouse 
 
 mouse moves in little jerks, half a yard or so at a 
 time. It is continually alert for danger, but a human 
 being is considered formidable only if he moves or 
 makes a noise. A passive observer excites no alarm : 
 in one of the novels of Richard Jefferies there is a 
 description of a farmer who used to fall asleep in the 
 kitchen and be overrun by mice as he slept. 
 
 A mouse to children is always a "little mouse" — as 
 if it would some day grow up. The oldest desperado 
 in the kitchen, hoary and decrepit, a veteran steeped 
 in depredation, the great-grandfather of hundreds of 
 young ravagers, even he to the children, if they 
 catch a glimpse of him, is that "dear little mouse." 
 How he must smile in his moustache, this old villain, 
 as he hears them ! The mouse has peculiar claims 
 on the interest of the child. It is quaint, and pretty, 
 and mysterious. It lives in a hole, and can disappear 
 through narrower cracks than anything else except 
 water ; and most children at one time or another 
 would like to live in a hole. Its life depends on its 
 successful avoidance of the cat on the one hand and 
 the cook and her traps on the other ; and the child, 
 being more or less of a sportsman, naturally sides 
 with so small a creature labouring against such odds. 
 Moreover, the mouse is inoffensive : it merely cats 
 
 2
 
 Our Educators 
 
 things in the larder and does not smell very nice — 
 that is the extent of the charge against it. It has no 
 fearsome stories attached to it, like the rat, of devour- 
 ing Bishop Hatto and springing at the throats of 
 pursuers. 
 
 .^> "^ -^z^ 
 
 T T would be pleasant to know that here and there 
 was a village schoolmaster who was whimsical 
 and eccentric enough to permit his scholars to know 
 as little as might be about spelling and dogma, and 
 give them instead fascinating lessons on the nature 
 around them. Under a very careless or eccentric 
 vicar this would be possible. 
 
 What has made me think of it is the total ignorance 
 of nurses concerning flowers, and birds, and animals, 
 and all the other things about which children ask 
 them questions. They know nothing ; or worse, 
 they know everything — wrong. Advice upon ethical 
 matters children may obtain — if they are fortunate — 
 from their parents ; but it is the nurse who takes 
 them walks and looks after them in the garden, and 
 is their authority during those years when most things 
 that are said by an authority linger in the memory 
 and provide it with material upon which to improvise 
 
 3
 
 Nurses' Fictions 
 
 a fanciful embroidery. This being so, how necessary 
 it is that nurses should know ! How necessary ! And 
 yet if all knowledge were forgotten, all Extension 
 Lectures eliminated, all schoolmasters destroyed, all 
 well-informed men removed, and we were forced back 
 upon nurses for a reconstruction of the system of facts, 
 the sun would exist merely to light the earth by day, 
 the moon to light it by night ; the earth would be fiat ; 
 and, what is far more important in the indictment, 
 thrushes would lay a small pink and white egg in a 
 hole in the bank, oaks would be beeches and elms 
 willows, dragon - flies would be butterflies, yellow 
 hammers would be bullfinches, and to be wet through 
 with sea-water would never lead to a cold. 
 
 I remember that when I was small and credulous 
 we had a nurse who told us that such was the delicacy 
 with which a moving train was balanced upon the 
 rails that if only a pin were placed in its way it would 
 be overturned. I believed this for years ; and then, 
 greatly daring, I tried it, and was criminously regretful 
 that no accident followed. Another nurse of a pious 
 mind dinned it into our heads that to carry a walking- 
 stick on .Sunday was to invite eternal punishment — a 
 doctrine which caused the more misery through in- 
 volving so many of our friends. These are quite 
 
 4
 
 Ptolemy Simplified 
 
 typical pronouncements. Coming to Natural History, 
 I remember pursuing swallows all down the road, on 
 the distinct understanding from my nurse that if a 
 swallow once settled on the ground it could not rise 
 again. A moment's observation would have told her 
 otherwise, but for such things she had no eyes. All 
 her faculties of vision were kept for high-water marks 
 on necks and holes in stockings. 
 
 <^ o o 
 
 T CAME upon a good specimen of what might be 
 called the homelifying or countrifying of poetry 
 in an old paper to-day. One week the following 
 epigram from the Greek of Ptolemy was printed : — 
 
 I know that I am mortal, and belong 
 To the vile sod I tread ; yet when I raise 
 
 My thoughts to heaven, and mingle in the throng 
 Of worlds that labour in close-ravelled maze, — 
 
 No longer then with the base earth I link, 
 But am with Jove indeed amid his ways, — 
 
 Share the same skies — from the same fountain drink. 
 
 A week or so later Ptolemy was thus served up in 
 the dialect of the simple : — 
 
 I know as how I'm mortal, and am fell 
 
 Through sin and that, — I knows this 'ere quite well ; 
 
 5
 
 Bedlingtons 
 
 And yet, Lord love you, Sir, tho' I'se no saint, 
 When I'se a-\valking of a frosty night 
 And sees them stars — I'm blest if 1 be'nt quite 
 
 Another individual, — "I ain't 
 Joe Dobson now," says I, "nor no such cove. 
 But blest if I arn't up along with Jove." 
 
 O <^ -O 
 
 "\ T TE have just suffered bereavement by the death of 
 a blue-grey Bedlington, who had lived with us 
 for four or five years, and in a way had become the 
 head of the establishment, and seemed likely to de- 
 prive us in time of all independent will. I have known 
 many dogs, but none so inflexible as this : a crystal- 
 lised bachelor clubman among dogs, doing nothing 
 that he did not want to, and standing a little aloof 
 from the world, and yet having just enough intensity 
 in his peat-stream brown eyes and his nuzzling nose 
 to elicit and retain as much affection as he needed. 
 
 Of course to keep a Bedlington terrier in London or 
 the South of England at all is a kind of cruelty ; for 
 the Bedlington is a miner's fancy, bred and nourished 
 for no idler purpose than to meet other Bedlingtons 
 in the waste and secret places of the North on Sunday 
 mornings and fight it out to the full. A dog so dis- 
 posed is not calculated to bring peace and blessing to 
 
 6
 
 A Conqueror's Decay 
 
 Kensington Gardens, and therefore our friend had to 
 be tamed into civility, or at any rate pubHc peace. 
 
 He was, however, disposed to accept his fate, until, 
 three years ago, we went to France for six weeks, 
 whither now no dog may go and come back again, 
 and I sent him as a boarder to one of those handy 
 men in the country who are prepared to do most 
 things. I did not know that he lived in a village 
 where the dogs were given to fighting and where the 
 butcher's bull -terrier too long had ruled. The result 
 was that at the end of the six weeks I led our friend 
 reluctantly back to his pacific quarters, dragging, like 
 Goldsmith's " Traveller," at each remove a lengthen- 
 ing chain, for his mind was set on recent triumphs 
 and much praise and the cowed contour of the 
 butcher's bull-terrier's bark, once so confident and 
 over-mastering. 
 
 He was never quite the same afterwards. He had 
 tasted blood ; he had " gone it " a little ; he was a 
 hero. A new mood of independence and solitary ad- 
 venture came upon him. In London he made some 
 effort to remain with his property whenever we walked 
 out ; but in the country, none. For the last few 
 months of his life he came home only for his meals ; 
 which is perhaps the least satisfactory thing that a 
 
 7
 
 Advocatus Angcli 
 
 dog can do. None the less he was our choice, and 
 had l)cen our good friend, and could always gaze or 
 cosset his way back, and we were prepared to stand 
 by him. Bui one day last month he ate some 
 poisoned bread, and died ; and yesterday there came 
 to live in the house, at our very heels, a black and 
 white spaniel, always in broad laughter, of a social 
 character so emphatic that he might be likened to 
 a shadow. It is the complelest contrast. 
 
 Advocatus Angeli o ,^ ,;:> ^> 
 
 "\70U call him rogue — it may be so ; 
 
 Betrayer of a confidence ; 
 A lukewarm friend ; a coward foe ; 
 A stranger to the moral sense. 
 All this and more : the charges grow, 
 And others share your vehemence. 
 
 'Tis true, perhaps ; but this I know : 
 That when he reaches home at night, 
 His dog is frantic with delight. 
 And licks his hand, and looks at him 
 With eyes that make his own eyes dim. 
 8
 
 Aiken's Sportsmen 
 
 'T^HE other day in London I was looking through 
 a collection of Aiken's drawings : a collection 
 particularly strong — for its owner is a shooting man — 
 in gunning scenes. Aiken's work has always had a 
 peculiar fascination for me ; it represents so much 
 that is pleasant to look back upon. Like " Pick- 
 wick," it stands for the good fellowship of the 
 beginning of the century. I like Aiken's sportsmen, 
 whether on horse or afoot ; I like their shrewd, 
 humorous faces, their clean-cut figures, their impos- 
 sible hats and bottle-green coats, their general air of 
 polite devilry and amused opportunism and open- 
 handedness. But, best of all, I like their sense of 
 sport. Armed with their long muzzle-loaders, and 
 attended by one or two dogs, they start out prepared 
 to go through so much in the pursuit of their game, 
 and yet to give their game a decent chance too. 
 
 I was thinking about these pictures, and what they 
 stood for, as I returned home in the train, and then, 
 walking through the park, it all came back to me 
 again with a rush. They have been rearing pheasant 
 poults in the park this year ; and you come suddenly 
 upon an open space, with dozens of hen coops, pro- 
 tected by flags and bushes, and in the midst of it the 
 little sentry-box in which the keeper stands and 
 
 9
 
 Questions of Sport 
 
 watches. Well, just as I came up to this rearing 
 ground the keeper emerged with a tin of meal and 
 began to whistle a peculiar low note ; and straight- 
 way from every part of his domain started up little 
 groups of young birds, all fluttering happily and 
 trustingly towards him. Meanwhile he was throwing 
 the food for them on the ground, just as one feeds 
 chickens. 
 
 So far so good. But the ist of October is coming, 
 and the thought occurred to me that when we breed 
 our quarry as carefully as this we are doing a hideous 
 wrong to the birds — a wrong we should never think of 
 extending to our fellow-creatures. To go out with a 
 gun, a muzzle-loader for choice, and a dog, and seek 
 your game — that is all right ; it is fair enough sport. 
 You find your game, fire at it, hit or miss it, as the 
 case may be, and the thing is over. The rushing 
 glimpse of the bird as it flies into range is the first 
 sight you have had of it. But to put a hen on eggs, 
 and feed the chicks, and get to know them and teach 
 them to know you (or your employees) ; in short, to 
 deceive them into the belief that you are their friends, 
 and then, on a given date of which they know nothing, 
 to turn round and pour shot into the confiding things 
 — that is degrading. Human nature is a very delicate 
 
 lO
 
 Pheasant and Hen 
 
 organisation, exceedingly susceptible to degradation, 
 and it cannot withstand many attacks upon it such as 
 this. After a while a man who would deceive a 
 pheasant might come to deceive his neighbours. 
 
 On my way out of the park, through a little 
 path in a wood, I had a curious illustration of the 
 slender line of demarcation that now separates a tame 
 bird from a game bird. I met first a pheasant, and 
 then a hen. The pheasant was fat and cumbrous, 
 and he made off with a great show of avoidance and 
 memory of last season's fusillade. The hen was 
 brisk and shapely, and she approached me without 
 any qualms. I was foe to one and friend to the 
 other : but it seemed odd that there should be this 
 difference, particularly as the hen was by far the 
 more spirited and active bird of the two. But had 
 I been a sportsman instead of a mere perplexed 
 observer, it would, I suppose, have been the fat, 
 ungainly pheasant that would have set my pulses 
 beating. 
 
 ■^> O '^' 
 
 T WAS the other day at Bemerton, George Herbert's 
 
 church near Salisbury, one of the sacredest little 
 
 churches I ever saw, and as I came out I noticed on 
 
 the wall of the vicarage opposite, since largely rebuilt, 
 
 II
 
 George Herbert 
 
 the lines which Herbert wrote for the mantel of the 
 chimney in the hall in his day — 
 
 To MY Successor. 
 
 If thou chance for to find 
 A new house to thy mind, 
 And built without thy cost : 
 Be good to the poor, 
 As God gives tliee store, 
 And then my labour's not lost. 
 
 It was pleasant to stand before the very house where, 
 on the Sunday before his death, holy Mr. Herbert 
 " sung such hymns and anthems as the angels, and 
 he, and Mr. Ferrar, now sing in heaven." 
 
 Rather a nice little anthology might be made of 
 verses inscribed on buildings, not a few of which 
 probably would be vicarages. And this reminds me 
 that in Mr. C. E. Byles' life of Hawker of Morwenstow, 
 just published, are quoted not only the lines which 
 that sturdy churchman and village autocrat cut in his 
 vicarage wall, but also the comment upon them which 
 a local satirist offered. These are Hawker's lines — 
 
 A House, a Glebe, a Pound a Day ; 
 A Pleasant Place to Watch and Fray. 
 Be true to Church — be kind to Poor, 
 O Minister ! for evermore, 
 12
 
 R. S. Hawker 
 
 And this is the gloss of the parishioner, probably 
 some Dissenter smarting from Hawker's scorn for 
 Nonconformists — 
 
 With all these benefits supplied, 
 A pound a day, and more beside, 
 How very good this man should prove, 
 How full of zeal, how full of love ! 
 
 But different the time we see, 
 Since Jesus walked in Galilee, 
 And did poor fishermen prepare 
 His holy Gospel to declare. 
 
 Nor purse nor scrip He bade them take, 
 But preach the Gospel for His sake, 
 And not a single word did say 
 Of house, or glebe, or pound a day. 
 
 Mr. Byles omits to say how Hawker met the criticism , 
 but no doubt with vigour. 
 
 •o 
 
 /^UR Jubilee bonfire was on a sandy hill over- 
 looking the Weald of Kent. Immediately 
 below it is the span of country between Penshurst 
 and Edenbridge ; due south is the forest ridge of 
 Sussex, and in clear weather, here and there in the 
 
 13
 
 The Hilltop 
 
 dips, the Lewes and Brighton Downs show through, 
 blue and indistinct. Far in the west Leith Hill is 
 visible, and to the remotest east the green Weald 
 stretches. South-east, ancient Saxonbury rises cone- 
 like from the flat. North of us are downs, two or 
 three miles away, and then sky, only sky. On the 
 other side of them, twenty miles off, is London. 
 
 So much for the position. Our fire was built on 
 Monday, and guarded jealously night and day. The 
 heart of it was three tar-barrels, and around these 
 were faggots of brushwood, twenty feet high, terminat- 
 ing in a point. A little passage led into the centre 
 of the fire, into which, just before lighting, paraffin 
 was dashed. From a few yards' distance the fire 
 resembled a wigwam. You expected some wild man 
 of the woods to emerge on hands and knees and 
 offer a peace-pipe. So pacific and gentle an air did 
 the pile wear, that in the afternoon I saw a hedge- 
 sparrow which contemplated another brood prospect- 
 ing for a good building-site among the twigs. 
 
 The word had gone round that all fires were to be 
 lit at ten o'clock, and by half-past nine our party was 
 complete : a few peasantry, a farmer or two, and 
 the gentry. The gentry were to light the fire. We 
 stood there waiting. The hot sun that blazed 
 
 14
 
 Waiting 
 
 throughout yesterday had baked the earth till it 
 groaned, and now, in the cool of the evening, it was 
 sighing its relief. Rich scents hung above the 
 ground like mists ; a breath of honeysuckle here, 
 of sweetbriar there, of bracken everywhere. Cau- 
 tious sounds and rustlings came from the neighbour- 
 ing wood. Meanwhile, at various points in the 
 Weald the dusk — there was no real darkness — was 
 being torn and jagged by rockets. They rushed up 
 into the night and burst into showers of stars. We 
 could hear nothing, we could only picture to our- 
 selves the little crowds at each spot, and feel en- 
 vious that no fireworks were ours to beguile the 
 waiting. Being British, we talked but little, 
 merely exclaiming as the distant rockets burst, and 
 now and then asking the time. The hands of the 
 watch crawled on. A few jokes circulated. One 
 farmer hoped as how the fire was insured. Some- 
 body said he suspected arson was abroad. Prob- 
 ably we all thought of the other little bands of 
 impatient fire-worshippers waiting just as we were, 
 watch in hand, all over the country. There is not 
 often such unanimity ! Five minutes more. In 
 five minutes this land would be alight ; thousands 
 of fires would leap into life at the same instant. 
 
 15
 
 Ten o'clock. 
 
 Meanwhile stragglers arrived, and the dusk was 
 continually wounded and gashed by sporadic 
 rockets. 
 
 Ten o'clock ! The young man in knickerbockers, 
 who is the pilot of the gentry, bends over the open- 
 ing and strikes a match. There is silence and sus- 
 pense. A crackling sound follows, that terrible 
 crackling which no one who has witnessed a fire 
 can ever forget, and a silver flame is seen strug- 
 gling inside the wigwam. It tears shrieking at the 
 sides, and then for a while is lost to sight, although 
 we can hear it fighting to be free. Meanwhile, 
 through crevices in the walls, great fat rolls of dingy 
 grey smoke are escaping silently, furtively, and 
 gliding away over the brake-fern like thieves. I 
 have never seen such smoke : so heavy, and guilty, 
 and fat. It crawled from the fire like a monstrous 
 reptile. And then suddenly the flame won its way 
 out and consumed the tail of the beast I And up to 
 heaven the tongues climbed, each raging to be there 
 first, and the surrounding pine trees stood out as in 
 a stereoscope. Wild flutterings were heard as 
 birds left their roosts in terror, and a cock-pheasant 
 called persistently in alarm close b)'. The flames 
 poured up. We could now see for the first time 
 
 i6
 
 The Bonfire 
 
 who was present on the scene, for no one can pre- 
 serve an incognito in the presence of a Jubilee 
 bonfire. 
 
 And then, turning from our own blaze to the 
 Weald below and the distant hills, we saw the an- 
 swering beacons. The country was gemmed with 
 points of orange and red fire : England had become 
 the setting of myriad jewels— of flaming diamonds ! 
 Wherever we turned our eyes, there were the burn- 
 ing symbols of the country's joy. For a moment 
 the Weald was transformed to a black, sombre 
 ocean, with ships riding at anchor. It resembled 
 nothing so much save that the lights gave no re- 
 flection. The fires from the distance at which we 
 stood burned each to itself; there was no glowing 
 aura : not a yard of surrounding scenery borrowed 
 and extended their light. The suddenness with 
 which they sprang into being was wonderful, almost 
 incredible, especially to anyone well acquainted 
 with the impenetrable darkness of these miles of 
 silent Weald at night. We counted sixty fires in a 
 few minutes. 
 
 No simile can do justice to the sight. It was 
 
 unique, indescribable. For the first time, it was 
 
 given us to see what Macaulay described so finely 
 B 17
 
 Armada Beacons 
 
 in his fragment of verse on the Armada, only 
 whereas liis fires flashed the tidings of war from 
 hill to hill, ours were the signs of peace and good- 
 will. Macaulay wrote — 
 
 Night sank upon the dusky beach, and on the purple sea, 
 Such night in England nu'cr had been, nor e'er again shall 
 
 be. 
 From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to Milford 
 
 Bay. 
 That time of slumber was as bright and busy as the day. 
 
 Southward from Surrey's pleasant hills flew those bright 
 
 couriers forth ; 
 High on bleak Hanipstead's swarthy moor they started for 
 
 the north ; 
 And on, and on, without a pause, untired they bounded 
 
 still : 
 All night from tower to tower they sprang ; they sprang 
 
 from hill to hill : 
 Till the proud Peak unfurled the flag o'er Darwin's rocky 
 
 dales, 
 Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales. 
 
 Last night's bonfires were not replenished. They 
 were built to ignite at once, burn bravely and tem- 
 pestuously for a few minutes only. By eleven o'clock 
 many of them were invisible, and by twelve our own 
 was merely heat and smoke. 
 
 i8
 
 " Encouragement " 
 Encouragement ^o o <:?^ ^o >^ 
 
 T7 NCOURAGEMENT? Nay, I have none. 
 
 Indeed, the future looms so drear, 
 I ahnost wish the drama done — 
 Yet, if you can, find comfort here : 
 
 That though of all the human race 
 
 Dismay and pain the portion are, 
 To other worlds that spin in space 
 
 Our world looks just a shining star. 
 
 19
 
 The Town Week o o •<:> ,0 
 
 T T is odd that " Mondayish " is the only word which 
 the days of the week have given us ; since 
 Monday is not alone in possessing a positive and 
 peculiar character. Why not "Tuesdayish" or 
 " Wednesdayish "? Each word would convey as 
 much meaning to me, " Tuesdayish " in particular, 
 for Monday's cardinal and reprehensible error of 
 beginning the business week seems to me almost a 
 virtue compared with Tuesday's utter flatness. To 
 begin a new week is no fault at all, although tradition 
 has branded it as one. To begin is a noble ac- 
 complishment ; but to continue dully, to be the tame 
 follower of a courageous beginner, to be the second 
 day in a week of action, as in Tuesday's case — that is 
 deplorable, if you like. 
 
 Monday can be flat enough, but in a different way 
 
 20
 
 Flat Tuesday 
 
 from Tuesday. Monday is flat because one has been 
 idling, perhaps unconsciously absorbing notions of 
 living like the lilies ; because so many days must pass 
 before the week ends ; because yesterday is no more. 
 But Tuesday has the sheer essential flatness of 
 nonentity ; Tuesday is nothing. If you would know 
 how absolutely nothing it is, go to a week-end hotel 
 at, say Brighton, and stay on after the Saturday-to- 
 Monday population has flitted. On Tuesday you touch 
 the depths. So does the menu— no c/ie/tvtr exerted 
 himself for a Tuesday guest. Tuesday also is very 
 difficult to spell, many otherwise cultured ladies 
 putting the e before the u ; and why not ? What 
 right has Teusday to any preference ? 
 
 With all its faults, Monday has a positive character. 
 Monday brings a feeling of revolt ; Tuesday, the base 
 craven, reconciles us to the machine. I am not 
 surprised that the recent American revivalists held no 
 meetings on Mondays. It was a mark of their astute- 
 ness ; they knew that the wear and tear of overcoming 
 the Monday feeling of the greater part of their audience 
 would exhaust them before their magnetism began to 
 have play ; while a similarly stubborn difiiculty would 
 confront them in the remaining portion sunk in apathy 
 by the thought that to-morrow would be Tuesday. It 
 
 21
 
 Wednesday- 
 is tills presage of certain tedium which has robbed 
 Monday evening of its "gHttering star." Yet since 
 nothing so becomes a flat day as the death of it, Tues- 
 day evening's gHttering star (it is Wordsworth's phrase) 
 is of the brightest — for is not the dreary day nearly 
 done, and is not to-morrow Wednesday the bland? 
 
 With Wednesday, the week stirs itself, turns over, 
 begins to wake. There are matinees on Wednesday ; 
 on Wednesday some of the more genial weekly papers 
 come out. The very word has a good honest round 
 air — Wednesday. Things, adventures, might happen 
 very naturally on Wednesday ; but that nothing ever 
 happened on a Tuesday I am convinced. In summer 
 Wednesday has often close finishes at Lord's, and it 
 is a day on which one's friends are pretty sure to be 
 accessible. On Monday they may not have returned 
 from the country ; on Friday they have begun to go 
 out of town again ; but on Wednesday they are here, 
 at home— are solid. I am sure it is my favourite day. 
 
 (Even politicians, so slow as a rule to recognise the 
 kindlier, more generous, side of life, realised for many 
 years that Wednesday was a day on which they had 
 no right to conduct their acrimonious business for 
 more than an hour or so. Much of the failure of the 
 last Government may be traced to their atheistical 
 
 22
 
 Thursday and Friday 
 
 decision no longer to remember Wednesday to keep it 
 holy.) 
 
 On Thursday the week falls back a little ; the stirring 
 of Wednesday is forgotten ; there is a return to the 
 folding of the hands. I am not sure that Thursday 
 has not become the real day of rest. That it is a 
 good honest day is the most that can be said for it. 
 It is certainly not Thor's day any longer — if my read- 
 ing of the character of the blacksmith-god is true. 
 There is nothing strong and downright and fine about 
 it. Compared with Tuesday's small beer, Thursday 
 is almost champagne ; but none the less they are 
 related. One can group them together. If I were a 
 business man, I should, I am certain, sell my shares at 
 a loss on Monday and at a profit on Wednesday and 
 Friday, but on Tuesday and Thursday I should get 
 for them exactly what I gave. 
 
 I group Friday with Wednesday as a day that can 
 be friendly to me, but it has not Wednesday's quality. 
 Wednesday is calm, assured, urbane ; Friday allows 
 itself to be a little flurried and excited. Wednesday 
 stands alone ; Friday to some extent throws in its lot 
 with Saturday. Friday is too busy. Too many papers 
 come out, too many bags are packed, on Friday. But 
 herein, of course, is some of its virtue : it is the 
 
 23
 
 Saturday 
 
 beginning of the end, the forerunner of Saturday and 
 Sunday. If anticipation, as the moralists say, is 
 better than the realisation, Friday is perhaps the best 
 day of the week, for one spends much of it in thinking 
 of the morrow and what of good it should bring forth. 
 Friday's greatest merit is perhaps that it paves the way 
 to Saturday and the cessation of work. That it ever 
 was really unlucky I greatly doubt. 
 
 And so we come to Saturday and Sunday. But 
 here the analyst falters, for Saturday and Sunday pass 
 from the region of definable days. Monday and 
 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, 
 these are days with a character fixed more or less 
 for all. But Saturday and Sunday are what we 
 individually make of them. In one family they are 
 friends, associates ; in another as ill-assorted as Socrates 
 and Xantippe. For most of us Saturday is not 
 exactly a day at all, it is a collection of hours, part 
 work, part pleasure, and all restlessness. It is a day 
 that we plan for, and therefore it is often a failure. I 
 have no distinct and unvarying impression of Saturday, 
 except that trains are full and late and shops shut too 
 early. 
 
 Sunday even more than Saturday is different as 
 people are different. To the godly it is a day of low 
 
 24
 
 Sunday 
 
 tones, its minutes go by muffled ; to the children of the 
 godly it is eternity. To the ungodly it is a day 
 jeopardised by an interest in barometers that is 
 almost too poignant. To one man it is an inter- 
 ruption of the week ; to another it is the week itself, 
 and all the rest of the days are but preparations for 
 it. One cannot analyse Saturday and Sunday. 
 
 But Monday ? There we are on solid ground again. 
 Monday — but I have discussed Monday already : that 
 is one of its principal characteristics, that it is always 
 coming round again, pretending to be new. It is 
 always the same in reality. 
 
 25
 
 A Word on Toast <::^ .o ^:^ o 
 
 T F bread is the staff of life, toast is its clouded cane. 
 
 The cheapest of the luxuries, and withal one of 
 
 the most exquisite and enduring, to set but a low 
 
 value upon toast is to expose one's deficiency in right 
 
 appreciation. 
 
 " To make dry toast properly," says the admirable 
 Mrs. Beeton, "a great deal of attention is required ; 
 much more, indeed, than people generally suppose. 
 Never use new bread for making any kind of toast, 
 as it renders it heavy, and, besides, is very extravagant." 
 A loaf one day old is the best material. Mrs. Beeton 
 continues : " Dry toast should be more gradually 
 made than buttered toast, as its great beauty consists 
 in its crispness, and this cannot be attained unless 
 the process is slow, and the bread is allowed gradually 
 to colour." Dry toast, one might add, should be thin 
 
 26
 
 When Toasters Disagree 
 
 as well as crisp. It should be eaten within, at the 
 most, ten minutes of leaving the fire. While awaiting 
 its turn on the table, each piece of toast should stand 
 alone, on no account being laid flat or placed so close 
 to another piece that it touches. Stale toast, or toast 
 from which the crispness has, as it were, thawed away, 
 is abomination. It is limp, and tough, and indigent. 
 Moreover, the mastication of it makes no sound. 
 Now the noise from good toast should reverberate in 
 the head like the thunder of July. 
 
 The Spectator, which has ever been an exponent of 
 the art of living, laid down, more than thirty years 
 ago, rules concerning toast. "True toast," it then 
 said (or, to be exact, the late Mr. R. H. Hutton 
 then said), " is classical — severe. . . . Toast, we need 
 not say, should be thm, crisp, wafer-like, as well as 
 embrowned, fresh and hot. Thick toast with solid 
 fleshy bread between the embrowned surfaces is a 
 gross and plebeian solecism ; for the true intention 
 of toast, its meaning or raison d'etre, is to extinguish 
 the foody, solid taste which belongs to bread, and to 
 supply in its place crisp, light, fragrant, evanescent, 
 spiritualised chips of fare, the mere scent and sound 
 of which suggest the crisp, pleasant, light chat of easy 
 morning or evening conversation." The Spectator's 
 
 27
 
 Amateur Cooks 
 
 enthusiasm is noble, but one begs to differ slightly. 
 Dogmatist replying to dogmatist would contest the 
 point touching the thoroughness of the toasting process. 
 Toast should not be wafer-like, nor crisp throughout. 
 On the contrary, it should be cut just thick enough to 
 leave in its very inward midst the merest tissue of soft 
 bread, if only by way of compliment to the butter 
 spread upon it, which thereby gains in flavour. 
 Toast, when it is a "chip," dry enough to snap, is too 
 dry. This central layer of soft bread lends it unity 
 and preserves enough moisture to influence the whole. 
 When the original bread intervening between the 
 toasted surfaces is more than a mere hint, then indeed 
 has the toaster failed with ignominy. " That," as the 
 Spectator says, " is an anomaly, like dancing in thin 
 boots surmounted with heavy gaiters." 
 
 Toast is one of the few delicacies that can be made 
 better by the amateur than the professional, and as 
 well by a man as by a woman. Cooks treat toast 
 perfunctorily : it does not interest them. Indeed, 
 toast might well be kept strictly to amateur ambition. 
 For several reasons : one being that its fragrance is 
 pleasant in a sitting-room ; another, that making it is 
 an agreeable diversion ; and a third, that whereas bad 
 toast produced in the kitchen leads to annoyance and 
 
 28
 
 Toasting Forks 
 
 irritation, bad toast produced by a guest or a member 
 of the family makes for mock abuse, sham penitence, 
 and good humour. 
 
 Just as every man beHeves himself to be excelled 
 by no one in arousing a dying fire, so does every man 
 believe himself to be the finest hand in the world at 
 making toast. That the first conspicuous failure as a 
 maker of toast was Alfred the Great is the one glowing 
 historical fact which is common to all grades of 
 intellect. It is as familiar to the night-school pupil in 
 Whitechapel as it was to the late Professor Freeman. 
 To burn toast is still a prevalent delinquency : there 
 are some absent-minded creatures who are always 
 to be caught resting the bread against the bars. 
 Blackened toast is not nice ; but compared with the 
 sin of smoking it, blackening toast is a bagatelle. 
 Burnt toast can be scraped and rendered passable, 
 but by no means can toast be cleansed of smoke. 
 
 The best toast is made with a toasting-fork, and the 
 good, the complete, toaster is known by the way in 
 which he places the bread upon the prongs.^ An 
 
 1 Toasting-forks have other uses. One of these is illustrated 
 in a letter of Charles Dickens to the late James T. Fields, the 
 American publisher. Dickens wrote : "I dreamed that some- 
 body was dead. It was a private gentleman, and a particular 
 
 29
 
 Dickens's Dream 
 
 immature, illogical toaster affixes it at a right angle 
 and confronts the fire squarely. This is unwise, since 
 there follows equatorial heat. The scientific toaster 
 arranges the bread so that he is enabled to sit out of 
 the line of heat and yet present the full surface to the 
 bars. When the toasting-fork is missing, or already 
 in use, a table fork is sometimes employed. After 
 toasting with a table fork for a minute or so, one's 
 hand knows exactly how Tom Brown must ha\e felt 
 when Bully Flashman held him to the fire.^ 
 
 friend ; and I was greatly overcome when the news was broken 
 to me (very delicately) by a gentleman in a cocked hat, top 
 boots, and a sheet. Nothing else. 'Good God!' I said, 'is 
 he dead?" ' He is as dead, sir,' rejoined the gentleman, ' as a 
 door-nail. But we must all die, Mr. Dickens, sooner or later, 
 my dear sir.' 'Ah!' I said, 'yes, to be sure. Very true. 
 But what did he die of?" The gentleman burst into a flood of 
 tears, and said, in a voice broken by emotion, ' He christened 
 his youngest child, sir, with a toasting-fork ! ' " 
 
 1 There is in luiglish literature, by the way, a much earlier 
 reference to the same practice. The first eclogue of another 
 Browne — William Browne, author of "The Shepherd's Pipe" 
 — which is otherwise a simple, idyllic poem, contains this 
 cannibalistic passage : — 
 
 "I will sing what I did heere 
 Long ago in Janiveere, 
 Of a skilful aged sire, 
 As we tested by the fire." 
 
 30
 
 The Art of Travel 
 
 In some houses a toasting apparatus is in use, 
 but toast thus prepared lacks individuahty. It may, 
 perhaps, be embrowned more evenly, but the human 
 element is lacking. In restaurants and clubs toast is 
 always prepared in a rack, and in spite of the means 
 employed, clubs have always good toast. Some club- 
 men leave wife and child and home, and seek Pall 
 Mall, less for the company, the whist, or the cellar, 
 than for the toast to be obtained there, such is its 
 fascination. Hotels, too, have usually good toast, but 
 the supply is seldom sufficient : hence the order of an 
 experienced traveller when breakfasting at an inn : 
 " Waiter, be perpetually bringing up fresh toast." 
 The best accompaniment to toast is butter, which 
 should not be spread over the piece, but applied to 
 each mouthful in turn. Toast elicits the essential 
 virtues of butter more successfully even than bread ; 
 so much so, that one might almost say that violence 
 is committed when marmalade is allied to it, or meat 
 paste. 
 
 To hot-buttered toast butter is absolutely the only 
 accompaniment ; the more butter the better. And 
 here the breach widens between the Spectator and a 
 writer who would fain quarrel with no one. "It is 
 impossible," thunders the Wellington Street arbiter, 
 
 3^
 
 Mrs. Gamp's Difficulty 
 
 " to conceive a more horrible degradation of a great 
 idea than buttered toast is of toast. Every great 
 quaHty of toast is turned into its opposite and contra- 
 dictory in buttered toast — lightness into heaviness, 
 crispness into swashy flabbiness, fragrance into a 
 sort of brooding butter-malaria, a Pontine marsh of 
 butter. . . . Buttered toast is the Pickwick's fat-boy 
 of victuals." True. But, granting all this, does not a 
 singularly seductive food remain ? Toast and buttered 
 toast are as distinct as the race-horse and the cart- 
 horse ; and both alike are admirable, each in its own 
 way. 
 
 Different persons favour different shapes in hot- 
 buttered toast. Some cut triangular pieces, others 
 square ; some divide the slice into four, others into 
 two. This is a matter of personal predilection, but 
 positive sin is committed when the crusts are not cut 
 off. " Likeways, a few rounds o' buttered toast," said 
 Mrs. Gamp, giving orders for tea to Jonas Chuzzlewit's 
 servant, " first cuttin' off the crusts, in consequence of 
 tender teeth, and not too many of 'em ; which Gamp 
 himself, Mrs. Chuzzlewit, at one blow, being in liquor, 
 struck out four, two single and two double, as was 
 took by Mrs. Harris for a keepsake, and is carried in 
 her pocket at this present hour, along with two cramp- 
 
 3 =
 
 The Butter 
 
 bones, a bit o' ginger, and a grater like a blessed 
 infant's shoe in tin, with a little heel to put the nutmeg 
 in." It is, says Alexis Soyer, wicked to cut through 
 half a dozen buttered slices at once, because when 
 that is done the butter is squeezed from the upper 
 pieces, while the lowest one is swimming in it. 
 Among the initiated (or, as the Spectator would have 
 it, the vulgar) there is, under these circumstances, a 
 struggle for the bottom piece. Each slice should, on 
 the contrary, be cut separately and laid lightly on the 
 dish. 
 
 Buttered toast should be thicker than cold toast, 
 and the butter should drench. It thus becomes 
 gloriously indigestible : as a dyspeptic influence re- 
 moved but one degree from the muffin. It is the 
 crumpet, however, that holds the historical record. 
 " ' One night,' said Mr. Weller, ' he wos took very 
 ill ; sends for a doctor ; doctor comes in a green fly, 
 with a kind o' Robinson Crusoe set o' steps, as he 
 could let down ven he got out, and pull up arter him 
 ven he got in, to perwent the necessity o' the coach- 
 man's gettin' down, and thereby undeceivin' the public 
 by lettin' 'em see that it vos only a livery coat he'd 
 got on, and not the trousers to match. "Wot's the 
 matter 1 " says the doctor. " Wery ill," says the patient. 
 "^ 33
 
 Crumpets 
 
 " Wot have you been a eatin' on ? " says the doctor. 
 " Roast weal," says the patient. *' Wot's the last thing 
 you dewoured ? " says the doctor. " Crumpets," says 
 the patient. " That's it," says the doctor. " I'll send 
 you a box of pills directly, and don't you never take 
 no more of 'em," he says. "No more o' wot?" says 
 the patient — "Pills?" "No; crumpets," says the 
 doctor. " Wy ! " says the patient, starting up in bed ; 
 " I've eat four crumpets ev'ry night for fifteen year, 
 on principle." " Well, then, you'd better leave 'em off, 
 on principle," says the doctor. " Crumpets is whole- 
 some, sir," says the patient. " Crumpets is not whole- 
 some, sir," says the doctor, wery fierce. " But they're 
 so cheap," says the patient, comin' down a little, "and 
 so wery fillin' at the price." " They'd be dear to you 
 at any price ; dear if you wos paid to eat 'em," says 
 the doctor. " Four crumpets a night," he says, " vill 
 do your business in six months ! " The patient looks 
 him full in the face, and turns it over in his mind for 
 a long time, and at last he says, " Are you sure o' that 
 'ere, sir?" "I'll stake my professional reputation on 
 it," says the doctor. " How many crumpets at a 
 sittin', do you think, 'ud kill me off at once ?" says the 
 patient. " I don't know," says the doctor. " Do you 
 think half a crown's vurth 'ud do it ?" says the patient. 
 
 34
 
 Death on Principle 
 
 " I think it might," says the doctor. " Three shillin's 
 vurth 'ud be sure to do it, I s'pose ? " says the patient. 
 " Certainly," says the doctor. " Wery good," says the 
 patient ; " good-night." Next mornin' he gets up, has 
 a fire lit, orders in three shillin's vurth o' crumpets, 
 toasts 'em all, eats 'em all, and blows his brains out.' 
 
 '"What did he do that for?' inquired Mr. Pickwick 
 abruptly ; for he was considerably startled by this 
 tragical termination of the narrative. 
 
 '"Wot did he do it for, sir?' reiterated Sam. 'Vy, 
 in support of his great principle that crumpets wos 
 wholesome, and to show that he couldn't be put out 
 of his way for nobody ! ' " 
 
 The most famous hot-buttered toast-house in the 
 world was "Tyson's Restaurant" in Rook Street, 
 Manchester, which still flourishes, but is no longer 
 animated by the crisp individuality of its founder, old 
 Tom Tyson, as he was known. Tyson, a born auto- 
 crat, knew that in their heart of hearts Britons, for 
 all their Rule-Britannia sentiments, like to be slave- 
 driven. So he established a restaurant wherein he, 
 an inflexible tyrant, might enforce laws of his own 
 making and win riches by this very enforcement. 
 He provided only chops, steaks, and Cumberland 
 ham, and served with them, instead of vegetables, 
 
 35
 
 Tyson's Toast 
 
 hot-buttered toast or bread. Most of his customers 
 took toast. People who asked for potatoes were un- 
 ceremoniously told that they should have brought 
 their own. Everyone who ate at Tyson's was com- 
 pelled also to drink. Ale, stout, coffee, and tea were 
 the only liquids. A customer asking for water was 
 referred to the " teetotal shop next door." 
 
 A host of good stories are told of Tyson. He 
 dominated the place in his shirt-sleeves, and nothing 
 escaped his vigilant eye. His duty to a customer, as 
 he conceived it, was done when good food had been 
 laid promptly before him ; after that the customer's 
 duty to the master of the restaurant began. Reading 
 was not permitted, at least in the middle of the day, 
 nor grumbling, nor a protracted sitting, nor smoking. 
 Tyson's strength was the excellence of his wares, his 
 cheapness, and his business-like despatch, and know- 
 ing this he played the Kaiser to the top of his bent. 
 A young man once calling, " Waiter, bring me a 
 steak at once," was amazed to find a raw steak 
 clapped on the table before him. To his expression 
 of disgust came the reply, " You can't e.xpect meat 
 to be cooked if you want it at once." Another 
 customer had the temerity to complain that his steak 
 was tough. A considerable space of time elapsed 
 
 3t>
 
 Tyson's Tyranny 
 
 before he came again, but Tyson, who forgot nothing, 
 was waiting for him. The grumbler called for a 
 steak. " Steaks are tough," was the reply. " Then 
 I'll have a chop." " Chops are tough." " Then what 
 can I have?" "Nothing. If you can't be satisfied 
 with food that pleases other people you can go 
 somewhere else." A customer daring so much as to 
 glance at a letter from his pocket was curtly informed 
 that "this is not a library." A customer who had 
 exceeded his welcome was bidden to go. To the 
 few who complained of incivilitj', Tyson's reply was 
 that he served his civility with his chops and steaks. 
 A branch of Tyson's was opened in London, near 
 St. Paul's, but, possibly through lack of its originator's 
 truculent yet attractive presence, it soon ceased to be. 
 
 Yet there is room for toast-houses. Who knows 
 but that the establishment of a good toast-house 
 might not restore the days of wit? In course of 
 time, if the toast-house became as notable as Will's 
 Coffee-house of old, another John Dryden or Dr. 
 Johnson might be forthcoming to dominate it ; and 
 we need another Dr. Johnson. The experiment, at 
 any rate, might be tried. 
 
 Toast is more than a delicacy : it is a friend, a 
 sickroom ally. Toast-and-v/ater is cooling as the 
 
 37
 
 Nomenclature 
 
 wind of the morning across fields of dew, and it is 
 toast, swimming in beef tea, that constitutes the first 
 soHd food which a patient may take. In the nursery 
 and at school toast is a recognised concomitant of 
 an invalid's tea, and many a boy has malingered to 
 achieve it. Otherwise schoolboys have few oppor- 
 tunities of tasting this luxury, toast made over a 
 gas-jet being a very inferior article. A gas-jet, 
 however, has been known to embrown cheese very 
 pleasantly, and here one might put a question that 
 for too long has been a cause of vexation : Why is 
 "Toasted Cheese" a less honourable nickname than 
 "Candle Ends"? It will be remembered by students 
 of The Hunting of the Snark, that the baker, 
 having no fixed name, was called by his intimate 
 friends Candle Ends, and by his enemies Toasted 
 Cheese. To the ordinary non-Carrollian mind it 
 would seem that more of a compliment, more of 
 affection, was carried by the name chosen by the 
 baker's enemies. 
 
 38
 
 Concerning Breakfast ^ 
 
 .<3» 
 
 T T OUSES where everyone is punctual for break- 
 fast are not good to stay in : the virtues so 
 flourish there. A Httle laxity in the morning is 
 humanising. For dinner, punctuality by all means, 
 punctuality severely to the minute ; but for breakfast 
 let there be liberty to tarry on the way. To be late 
 for breakfast is so natural an act that instinctively 
 one feels it to be right. There is a kind of half- 
 wakeful sleep following the precarious folding of the 
 hands to which the Comfortable resort when they are 
 first called, that is more precious than all the deep 
 somnolence of the night. The poet knew. How runs 
 his wisdom ? — 
 
 "When the Morning riseth red, 
 Rise not thou, but keep thy Bed ; 
 When the Dawn is dull and grey, 
 Sleep is still the better way. 
 
 39
 
 The Percys' Breakfast 
 
 Beasts are up betimes? But then 
 They are Beasts, and we are men." 
 
 And— 
 
 " Morning Sleep avoideth Broil, 
 Wasteth not in greedy Toil, 
 Doth not suffer Care or Grief, 
 Giveth aching Bones relief. 
 Of all the Crimes beneath the Sun, 
 Say, Which in morning Sleep was done?" 
 
 Yet breakfast in bed is not the joy some persons 
 would have us think it. There are crumbs. 
 
 The breakfast appetite varies strangely. Some 
 persons are content witli a cup of coffee and a piece 
 of toast ; others make it the most determined meal 
 of the day. Once it was formidable indeed. In Sir 
 John Hawkins's History of Music is quoted a sixteenth- 
 century manuscript belonging to the House of Nor- 
 thumberland, which gives the breakfast arrangements 
 of the Percy family both for Lent and for flesh days ; 
 and oh, how some of us have fallen away in trencher 
 work ! Here is the simple Northumbrian scheme : 
 " Breakfast for my Lord and Lady during Lent — First, 
 a loaf of bread in trenchers, 2 manchets [a manchet 
 was a small loaf of white bread], a quart of beer, a 
 quart of wine, 2 pieces of salt fish, 6 baconn'd herring, 
 
 40
 
 Outlaws and Anglers 
 
 4 white herring, or a dish of sprats. Breakfast for my 
 Lord Percy and Master Thomas Percy — Item, half a 
 loaf of household bread, a manchet, a bottle of beer, a 
 dish of butter, and a piece of salt fish, a dish of sprats, 
 or three white herring. Breakfast for the nursery, for 
 my Lady Margaret and Master Ingeram Percy — 
 Item, a manchet, a quart of beer [this for the nursery !], 
 a dish of butter, a piece of salt fish, a dish of sprats, 
 or three white herring." At ordinary times my Lord 
 and Lady fared thus : " First, a loaf of bread in 
 trenchers, 2 manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of 
 wine, half a chine of mutton, or else a chine of beef 
 boiled ; " Lord Percy and Master Thomas Percy dis- 
 posed of " half a loaf of household bread, a manchet, 
 I bottle of beer, a cheeking, or else 3 mutton bones 
 boiled ; " while to the thirsty nursery went " a 
 manchet, i quart of beer, and three mutton bones 
 boiled." 
 
 In Hall's Seventh Year of Kmg He?try viii. we 
 find what constituted the breakfast of outlaws. " Then 
 sayde Robyn Hood, Sir, outlawes brekefaste is veny- 
 son, and therefore you must be content with suche 
 fare as we use. Then the Kyng and Quene sate 
 downe, and were served with venyson and wyne by 
 Robyn Hood and hys men, to theyre great conten- 
 
 41
 
 Calverley's Omission 
 
 tacion." " Contentacion " is a splendid word; it 
 might be reserved for red-letter breakfasts. Izaak 
 Walton and his honest scholar made brave breakfast 
 off a piece of powdered beef and a radish or two, as 
 they sat beneath a sycamore. Considering that this 
 was at nine o'clock and they began fishing soon after 
 five, they deserved it. " All excellent good," said the 
 honest scholar as he wiped his mouth, "and my 
 stomach excellent good too." Walton's collaborator. 
 Master Charles Cotton, was less indulgent. " My diet," 
 he said, " is always one glass [of ale] so soon as I am 
 dressed, and no more till dinner," which, compared 
 with the excesses of the Percy children, is asceticism 
 itself. \' iator, in the same work, took even less. " I 
 will light a pipe," he said, " for that is commonly 
 my breakfast too." Viator, however, was misguided. 
 Had he eaten breakfast first and lighted his pipe 
 after, his lot would have been more enviable. No 
 pipe is so gracious as that which follows break- 
 fast. Calverley sinned when he omitted this season 
 from his ode to tobacco. " Sweet when they've 
 cleared away lunch," he sings. True ; but sweeter, 
 nay, sweetest, when they are clearing away break- 
 fast. 
 
 To the child breakfast means bread and milk, or 
 
 42
 
 A Child's Guide 
 
 porridge, and the beginning of another day. To me 
 it meant this and nothing more until at an early age 
 a reading-book was embarked upon, which consisted 
 of a long dialogue between father and children con- 
 cerning the nature and the source of the articles upon 
 the breakfast table. The conversation, which was 
 continued through several breakfasts, proceeded in 
 the manner of the catechism. One child asked where 
 coffee came from, and papa replied that it came from 
 Arabia. Another was struck by the whiteness of the 
 salt, and said so. Papa at once explained the white- 
 ness of the salt and passed easily to a lecture on 
 salt-mining. The aim of the book was to show that 
 the antipodal peoples of the earth meet at the break- 
 fast table ; that energy must be expended in both 
 hemispheres before Henry and Susan can enjoy their 
 bread and treacle. This reading-book was epoch- 
 making. Henceforward breakfast was an educative 
 meal ; and I have only quite lately lost the feeling 
 that at any moment a searching question might be 
 asked concerning the origin and manufacture of 
 everything eaten. From the children's books of to- 
 day, it might be noted, the well-informed parent is 
 departing. 
 
 Oatmeal marks not only the child's breakfast, it is 
 
 43
 
 Oats : Quaker and Wild 
 
 the favourite food of Edinburgh Reviewers. Thus do 
 extremes meet. It is best with cream, which indeed 
 might be defined, after a well-known model, as the 
 stuff which makes porridge insipid if you eat it without 
 it. If the hoardings are to be believed, the form of 
 porridge now most in vogue is of Quaker origin. 
 Quaker oats, one supposes, should be the very anti- 
 thesis of wild oats. Porridge — homely, honest fare 
 though it be — is the cause of more strife than any 
 other dish. The great salt -T'^r.r?/^- sugar battle is 
 eternally waged above it ; for some take salt and 
 some sugar, and they that take salt are the scorn of 
 those that take sugar, and they that take sugar are 
 despised of those that take salt. Quakers being a 
 pacific folk, their oats should have stopped this war- 
 fare. 
 
 The egg, as egg, belongs properly to the breakfast 
 table, in spite of the beautiful anthropomorphic story 
 (which too many parents claim to have participated 
 in) of the little girl who asked her mother what God 
 has for dinner. " God," said her mother, " has no 
 dinner." The little girl was for a moment silent, 
 thoughtful, sad. Then she brightened : " Oh, I 
 suppose He has an egg with His tea." In a poem 
 in praise of frugality, his Holiness Pope Leo xiil. 
 
 44
 
 Mustard and Cress 
 
 laid down this rule (which reached EngHsh readers 
 vict Mr. Andrew Lang) — 
 
 " Fresh be thine eggs, hard-boiled, or nearly raw, 
 Or deftly poached, or simply served au plat; 
 'There's wit in poaching eggs,' the proverb says, 
 And you may do them in a hundred ways." 
 
 Buttered, they give, perhaps, most " contentacion." 
 
 Personally, I like to begin the day's eating with 
 watercress. It is so sharp and awakening. Indeed, 
 to show to fullest advantage, to scintillate as Nature 
 intended it to, it is at breakfast that watercress 
 must be eaten, newly picked, with salt and bread-and- 
 butter. The bread must be white and new, and the 
 butter mild and fresh. The ecstasy of the surprise 
 of watercress to the palate and tongue ! The lively, 
 pricking sensation of the mustard-like sharpness, the 
 fragrance of the sap, and, above all, the cleanness, 
 the good-humoured, bright cleanness of the herb ! 
 Watercress, if it tastes of anything, tastes of early 
 morning in spring. It is eloquent of the charm of its 
 native environment. Nothing else — lettuce, radishes, 
 cucumber, land cress, or celery — speaks or sings to 
 the eater, as watercress does, of cool streams and 
 overhanging banks and lush herbage. The water- 
 
 45
 
 Many Marmalades 
 
 cress has for neighbours the water-lily, the marsh 
 marigold, and the forget-me-not. The spirit of the 
 rivulet abides in its heart. 
 
 No matter of what the breakfast consists, marmalade 
 is the coping-stone of the meal. Without marmalade 
 the finest breakfast is incomplete, a broken arc. Only 
 with marmalade can it be a perfect round. E\ery- 
 one's home-made marmalade is notoriously the best ; 
 but where the commercially-manufactured article is 
 used opinions differ. Her Most Gracious Majesty 
 Queen Victoria (it is stated so on the pot) preferred 
 a viscous variety which is impossible to Oxford 
 men bred on Cooper's. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, 
 it will be remembered, favoured Keelwell's ; or, 
 at any rate, it was this maker who assisted in 
 the embellishment of little Sorrow's grave. The 
 Universities are nobly loyal to marmalade. At 
 Cambridge there is a saying that no man can 
 pass his Little-go until he has consumed his own 
 weight in it, while Oxford first called it Squish. 
 The attitude of women to marmalade has never 
 been quite sound. True, they make it excellently, 
 but afterwards their association with it is one lament- 
 able retrogression. They spread it over pastry ; 
 they do not particularly desire it at breakfast ; 
 
 46
 
 Breakfast Talk 
 
 and (worst) they decant it into glass dishes and fancy 
 jars. 
 
 Where there is no marmalade, shift may be made 
 with honey or jam ; and treacle is not entirely out 
 of favour, although the enterprise of Bonnie Dundee 
 has dealt it so hard a blow that you may fare far 
 in your quest of the golden syrup. The great charm 
 of treacle is in its transit from the pot to the plate ; 
 with no other liquid, except the exquisite thin honey 
 of Switzerland, is it possible to trace one's auto- 
 graph. Most of us as children saw our names writ 
 in treacle. 
 
 Breakfast is a meal at which one becomes apiarian. 
 Everything being on the table, or on the sideboard, 
 one can sip, bee-like, where one will ; hence, perhaps, 
 the absence of conversation at breakfast. At dinner, 
 where formality is preserved, where one progresses 
 artistically and with dignity towards repletion, con- 
 versation is fostered ; at breakfast there is merely 
 chatter, sporadic and trivial ; scraps from letters, puns, 
 dreams, and the description of strange noises heard 
 in the night. Dreams told at breakfast should be 
 accepted with reservations, for few persons are strong 
 enough to tell them faithfully. Yet, although break- 
 fast does httle either for the conversationalist or the 
 
 47
 
 Breakfast Guests 
 
 gourmet, it is often the merriest and freshest of the 
 day's meals. The joy of it is new every morning. 
 Breakfast is the beginning of another day : hmch 
 and dinner are but continuations ; and to those glad 
 natures which are reinvigorated and heartened by 
 every sunrise, breakfast is a time for high spirits. 
 High spirits, however, must not be confounded with 
 brilliance. Only dull people, said a character in a 
 recent comedy, are brilliant at breakfast ; which is 
 a truth, in spite of the works of Dr. Holmes and 
 the records which have come down to us of the 
 scintillating breakfast-parties given by Samuel Rogers 
 and Lord Holland. But the table which in those 
 days was set in a roar approximated more nearly to 
 the luncheon-table than the breakfast-table as we 
 understand it. Breakfast-parties are indeed practi- 
 cally obsolete.^ At the ordinary breakfast-table there 
 
 1 The following remark of Macaulay to Mrs. Stowe thus 
 loses point, and this point is not restored by reading lunch for 
 breakfast, for the old breakfast does not quite take the place of 
 modern lunch : " You invite a man to dinner because you must 
 invite him ; because you are acquainted with his grandfather, 
 or it is proper you should ; but you invite a man to breakfast 
 because you want to see him. You niay be sure, if you are 
 invited to breakfast, there is something agreeable about 
 you." 
 
 48
 
 Wit 
 
 is little wit. One reason is the early hour — wit is 
 for the day's decline ; another is discontent — bed is 
 not yet forgotten, nor the breakfast-gong forgiven, 
 and wit requires a mind at ease. 
 
 49
 
 Footpaths and Walking-Sticks o- <^ 
 
 A FTER all, choosing a walking-stick is a serious 
 "^ business. A cane can be selected lightly enough, 
 for a cane is a mere town acquaintance ; but a walking- 
 stick is a country friend, a roadside companion, a 
 support, a solace, perhaps a defender. Therefore it 
 behoves one to be careful in deciding. Moreover, 
 a walking-stick should endure : one does not want 
 to change it before the necessary end ; and a good 
 walking-stick is one of the things of which one never 
 tires but grows ever more fond, familiarity breeding 
 no contempt, nothing but increased satisfaction. Now 
 a cane — a cane may be an affair of caprice — you may 
 have a dozen and alternate them like neck-ties ; but 
 a walking-Slick is unalterable. Vou stand by him 
 and he stands by you ; he is, as I have said, your 
 friend. 
 
 50
 
 The Obtuse Angle 
 
 Personally, I incline to a cherr>'. I have carried 
 my present cherry for a good five years, and his 
 predecessor (broken at stump cricket) was a cherry 
 too. This is the best I have yet owned, because it 
 fulfils the requirements. That is to say, it is strong 
 and leanable upon, it tapers, and its handle, which 
 of course is natural, is set at a slightly obtuse angle. 
 I was taught the last important qualification by the 
 finest foot-traveller in Sussex, a man (he is now no 
 more) who knew every inch of that inaccessible and 
 alluring county, and had known it since he was 
 a boy. He cut his own sticks, preferring ground 
 ash, and since he could not find it in his heart to 
 pass a likely one by when it caught his eye as he 
 swung through a copse, his sumptuary stock was 
 immense. All had obtuse - angled handles. The 
 reason is that for downhill work (when a stick is 
 most useful) the support for the hand is the fullest. 
 All also had very large handles, for the same reason. 
 A httle while ago I had a valuable corroboration of 
 this theory from another old man, whom I found 
 cutting the grass on a grave in the churchyard. 
 Beside him lay a crutch and a walking-stick with a 
 handle — obtuse-angled— of enormous size. " I've had 
 that stick many a year," he said. " The handle ? 
 
 51
 
 Ground Ash 
 
 Oh yes, he is a big one ; but if he hadn't been big 
 he wouldn't have been any good to me, crippled as 
 I am." Your old countryman makes no mistakes 
 in such matters. 
 
 In real walking a handle of this character is im- 
 perative. Not that a right-angled handle is an 
 obstacle, but try the other for a while and you will 
 see its comfort and utility. A crook is useless save 
 as a hook for berries and nuts, and a knob contracts 
 the hand. One of the sad things is that holly, that 
 superb wood, cannot grow a good handle, nor can 
 you often find a blackthorn that succeeds in doing 
 so. Good cherry slicks are rare ; for the most part 
 they lack balance. Hazels are light and strong, but 
 their handles are cross-grained and are therefore put 
 out of court. The ground ash, perhaps, comes oftenest 
 to the point of satisfaction. 
 
 Where, one wonders, arc the old walking-sticks ? 
 Thomas Carlyle's is on the wall of his house in Cheyne 
 Row; but where are George Borrow's sticks? He 
 must have had noble fellows. Time should have no 
 power over a stick lying at ease ; the sticks of great 
 men should last for ever in a museum. I think I 
 must begin to collect them. Where is that wonder- 
 ful stick of Coleridge's, which, when a young man, 
 
 52
 
 S. T. C.'s Loss 
 
 walking in Wales, he lost, and advertised for so 
 piquantly ? This is how the notice, which was called 
 through the town by the crier, was couched — " Missing 
 from the Bee Inn, Abergele, a curious walking-stick. 
 On one side it displays the head of an eagle, the eyes 
 of which represent rising suns, and the ears Turkish 
 crescent ; on the other side is the portrait of the 
 owner in woodwork. Beneath the head of the eagle 
 is a Welsh wig, and around the neck of the stick is a 
 Queen Elizabeth's ruff in tin. All down it waves the 
 line of beauty in very ugly carving. If any gentleman 
 (or lady) has fallen in love with the above-described 
 stick, and secretly carried off the same, he (or she) 
 is hereby earnestly admonished to conquer a passion 
 the continuance of which must prove fatal to his (or 
 her) honesty. And if the said stick has slipped into 
 such gentleman's (or lady's) hand through inadventure, 
 he (or she) is required to rectify the mistake with all 
 convenient speed. God save the King." Coleridge 
 recovered the stick from the old gentleman who had 
 innocently taken it, and who, grasping it firmly, 
 returned to the inn in confusion, followed by half 
 the town. The stick, it seems, was, properly speak- 
 ing, a staff, such as patriarchs carry in old Bible 
 prints, for it measured five feet. For hill-work these 
 
 S3
 
 An Ideal of Happiness 
 
 staff's are better than any walking-stick of ordinary 
 length ; they pull one upwards. Coleridge bought 
 it from a countryman, and his sudden affection for it, 
 he says in a letter, " mellowed into settled friend- 
 ship." That is as it should be with all good sticks ; 
 we should feel for them (and they for us) settled 
 friendship. 
 
 To have one of these good sticks, nothing to do, 
 no cares, no thought for the morrow, a good pair of 
 boots, a sufficient purse, a light knapsack, a weather- 
 proof coat, and to be in a heathery country with no 
 more purpose in life than to follow whatever footpaths 
 one will until come night and the inn — that is no bad 
 state. Indeed, it is an ideal of happiness. For the 
 last couple of weeks in April or the first in May one 
 could be as happy thus employed (or unemployed) as 
 any way you could suggest. Later, the skies are not 
 so interesting, having too much blue and too little 
 cloud ; the birds have done with nesting and have 
 therefore cut off" from the rover the additional pleasure 
 of looking for their eggs ; and later, also, the heat 
 begins. Now for the desultory walker a blend of hot 
 or cold, or rather, warmth and freshness, is important, 
 and a showery day he will welcome. To be rained 
 upon and sunned upon in one walk is to l:ie in 
 
 54
 
 The Walking Months 
 
 Nature's good books. She extends the privilege only 
 rarely. That is why April or May is the ideal time. 
 
 The catalogue of necessities which I have just 
 dogmatically given may be modified a little without 
 serious injury to the ideal. Thus, thought for the 
 morrow may be present now and then, but fugitively ; 
 the knapsack may go altogether, its only value (and 
 one that compensates the owner for the irksomeness 
 of carrying it) being that it predicates a romantic 
 uncertainty about where the night is going to be 
 spent ; the heather is a mere matter of taste. But 
 the footpath clause is unassailable ; I cannot let that 
 go. It is because all my life I have been baulked of 
 accepting the invitation of this footpath and that, that 
 I included it in the scheme at all, and it must not be 
 expunged. 
 
 To be able to follow whatever footpath one will is 
 the very heart of the game. The other morning I 
 walked into the town to meet a visitor. Having only 
 just enough time, I stepped out briskly ; but the 
 sense of duty in my punctual head never reached my 
 feet at all. No sooner did a little footpath cross my 
 track than I found them wavering that way : it was 
 all I could do to make them reasonable ; rebellion 
 inhabited every nail, rank anarchy was enthroned 
 
 55
 
 The Bewitched Shoes 
 
 upon both uppers. I got them to the town at last, 
 but I was exhausted. The worst of it is that my 
 sympathies were with them all the while, and nothing 
 but necessity saved me from giving way. My head 
 was adamant, but, as the saying is, my heart was in 
 my boots. Is it not in Hans Christian Andersen that 
 a bewitched pair of shoes carry their wearer into 
 peril ? The idea is one for a writer like Mr. Anstey. 
 I can see the synopsis as I write : — A diabolical 
 cobbler settles in the village, and soles-and-heels the 
 villagers with magic leather ; everything goes askew ; 
 the Vicar is irresistibly borne into the public-house 
 and held fast against the bar ; the publican is pro- 
 pelled to the most conspicuous pew ; the profoundest 
 of the old maids is found steering a bee-line course of 
 terrible velocity for the front door of the most in- 
 veterate of the bachelors, and nothing can stop her ; 
 while a poor country recluse, who ought to be doing 
 his daily work, is brought to penury and unfruitfulness 
 by an inability to resist the seductive call of footpaths. 
 That's me, as grammarians try not to say. I really 
 must speak to our cobbler. 
 
 But how seductive this call of the footpath is ! 
 However delightful the path you are at the moment 
 treading may be, the next one always seems to 
 
 56
 
 Footpath and Road 
 
 promise a shade more of beauty or mystery. You 
 see it fading away over the ridge, and the temptation 
 to learn what happens after is intense. The fact that 
 a footpath always goes somewhere is one of its 
 charms, and to conjecture where a footpath goes is 
 not the least pleasure of a country walk. " I expect 
 it leads to that farm," says one. " No, I think it hits 
 the road over there, and just cuts off this corner," 
 says another. "Why shouldn't it be the path to 
 
 ? " asks the third ; and in the end there is 
 
 nothing to do but try it. So are good rambles com- 
 passed. 
 
 Not that the open road is to be slighted. There it 
 is, broad and white and hard ; but the open road has 
 no subtleties. Now a footpath is of a shy, retiring 
 character, with unexpected turns and twists, dips and 
 elevations, with unlooked-for shade and sun. Its 
 voice is low beside the clarion call of the open road ; 
 but it is very sweet. The footpath is, in a way, more 
 human than the road. To a certain extent a footpath 
 is also a protest against the road. Being wayward 
 itself, vagrom, capricious, its appeal is to the traveller 
 whose sympathies are with those characteristics. 
 The open road cries to a blunter, a more direct 
 mind. 
 
 57
 
 Gates and Views 
 
 It is a fine thing to begin a footpath. Anyone may 
 have this honour by accident ; but few of us can 
 knowingly lay claim to it. I have assisted, however, 
 to maintain a right-of-way by stamping up and down 
 it to emphasise the apparent importance of the track ; 
 and my old Sussex friend with the good taste in 
 walking-sticks once spent a whole night in the same 
 noble occupation. That is true zeal. 
 
 In a hilly country the most satisfying rests that come 
 are those taken leaning on a gate. To see a view 
 properly one must be still, and one can be very still 
 leaning on a gate. The body reposes while the eyes 
 work. Last summer I walked along a hill in Kent, 
 over a common. This common was on the top of the 
 hill, and the roadway ran over the turf parallel with 
 the line of the range and about a hundred yards from 
 the summit, all along — say for half a mile. On the 
 lower side of this roadway — a footpath enclosed by 
 old ruts would be the more exact description — was a 
 hedge, also running all the way along ; and this 
 hedge served as so complete a barrier to the view, 
 that a wayfarer plumped suddenly down on this path 
 could be quite unaware that he was five hundred feet 
 above the sea level. On the one hand, he would see 
 the common, just then a blaze of gold gorse bushes 
 
 58
 
 A Kentish Gate 
 
 backed by sombre heather, with a plover wheeling 
 and tumbling in the sky above it ; and, on the other, 
 nothing but the tender green of the beech trees, 
 which, twisted and gnarled under the restraining 
 influence of the hand-bill, made as impenetrable a 
 screen as the most sensitive recluse or misanthrope 
 could need. As I have said, the wayfarer would have 
 been quite unaware that he was five hundred feet 
 above the sea level. 
 
 Except at the gates ! For in this hedge were three 
 gates, and those gates opened on to three counties — 
 Kent and Surrey and Sussex. To come unexpectedly 
 on one of them was the suddenest thing ! One stood 
 still and the world was merely sky and hedge and a 
 strip of common ; a single step and two hundred 
 square miles lay beneath you. And such square 
 miles ! — soft and peaceful, made domestic and kindly 
 by comfortably-rounded oaks and red roofs and the 
 gentle whiteness of oast vanes. That for the fore- 
 ground ; farther were the hills, a faint misty purple. 
 And all this spread out for the quiet eye by a five- 
 barred gate ! 
 
 I remember meeting with the same effect — the 
 same unlocking of a view by a gate — on a piece of 
 the Pilgrim's Way, just out of Guildford, before 
 
 59
 
 Above Ruta 
 
 Nevvland's Corner is reached. The view there is 
 not so ample : Martha's Chapel takes up so much 
 of it ; but the suddenness is the same, and a gate 
 plays the same part. But the suddenest view that 
 was ever mine I came upon in Italy. Some fifteen 
 miles south of Genoa, on the Ligurian coast, is 
 a little seaport named Santa Margherita. High 
 on a ridge of the Apennines, above Santa Mar- 
 gherita, is the village of Ruta. The road from 
 Santa Margherita to Ruta climbs the hills inland : 
 there is nothing to see in the distance but peak on 
 peak, valley after valley, and, near at hand, villas, 
 vineyards, white bell - towers, olive groves. And 
 then, at Ruta, the road runs through a tunnel cut 
 through the rock, and you pass from this grey-green 
 world through a momentary blackness into full view 
 of the blue gulf of Genoa, the distant Alpes Maritimes, 
 snow-clad and dazzling, the seething city of Genoa, 
 andj nearer to your feet, Camogli and Nervi. It is so 
 sudden as to make one wince, almost as though a 
 white bird flew in one's face. But only for an instant. 
 Thereafter are supreme content and rest — the satisfied 
 sense that can come only when one reclines on a high 
 hill, gazing at a murmuring plain. 
 
 60
 
 Birds and their Enemies ^ -^ <:> 
 
 TTOR the past two weeks I have been watching 
 two nests in the garden— a thrush's and a long- 
 tailed tit's. The thrush built silently and unobserved 
 in a box tree, the first news we had of the nest being 
 the noisy departure of the old bird as someone moved 
 too near. Providence surely (one cannot help thinking) 
 having done so much for birds, might have gone a 
 step further and gifted them with the knowledge that 
 when in danger it is better to lie low than to bustle 
 away. However, off the thrush flew, and revealed five 
 eggs. A day or so later the young birds hatched out. 
 The long-tailed tits worked entirely without secrecy. 
 They sought their building site almost ostentatiously, 
 and, having settled upon it, conveyed their materials 
 thither under our very eyes. Lichen from the apple 
 trees formed the outer wall, and the lining was chiefly 
 
 6i
 
 Sunday Afternoon 
 
 feathers from other birds, but whether picked up 
 casually or fought for I know not. The building 
 operations lasted about ten days ; and then came 
 the eggs ; and then, as I had foreseen from the 
 beginning, the tragedy. For these foolish birds had 
 set up their home in the hedge that runs by the 
 footpath, in itself a ridiculous enough thing, and then, 
 nominally for protective purposes, I suppose, had 
 used a lichen that did not in the least correspond 
 with the surrounding colour. All this I could have 
 told them, but man is never so helpless as in his 
 relations with birds. Perhaps it would have been 
 kinder to destroy the nest's foundations at once ; but 
 only very strong people can be kind like that. All 
 that was done was to call a committee to inquire 
 into a means of hiding in some way the positively 
 clamorous visibility of the nest. We walked up and 
 down the path re-arranging the branches. Finally 
 we decided that such matters are best left to Fate. 
 
 Fate, however, does not seem to think much of 
 birds, for when, after an absence of two or three 
 days, I went to see the nest again, every trace of it 
 had vanished. Some village boys on a Sunday 
 afternoon foray (Sunday afternoon being the deadliest 
 time for all accessible creatures in th^se parts) had 
 
 62
 
 Life's Ironies 
 
 torn the nest bodily from the hedge, and it is probably 
 now on a neighbour's mantelpiece. So much for the 
 toil of two weeks and the maternal solicitude of a 
 week longer, and so much for my reputation as a 
 gentleman among long-tailed tits. 
 
 1 then went on to the thrush's nest, and behold I 
 it lay on the ground, under the box tree, with one 
 young bird dead beside it. Later, John, the odd 
 man, told the story : he had heard that morning an 
 unusual noise in the direction of the nest, and had 
 even stopped work (that extreme measure !) to see 
 what it was ; he found nothing, but could now tell 
 that a cat must have attacked the birds, and the old 
 one have done her best to repulse it, but without 
 success. 
 
 Two tragedies in as many days, two families de- 
 stroyed, two beautiful natural processes brought to 
 nothing ! 
 
 Of the two depredators the cat is the more 
 monstrous, because whereas a boy unthinkingly, by 
 a kind of sense of duty as a boy, takes a nest when- 
 ever he finds it, a cat mercilessly and deliberately 
 marks a nest down, watches the growth of the young 
 birds, and strikes at the precise moment when they 
 are as big as they can be before flying. I am not 
 
 63
 
 A Perplexed Adult 
 
 blaming the cat— that would be absurd ; but I am 
 vexed with her for making my position as an oracle 
 (to the young) so difficult this morning. For the 
 story is not yet all told. I have to add that when 
 the young thrushes were still babies, and before the 
 long-tailed tit had laid at all, a little girl was brought 
 here, and I was glad to be able to show her the nests 
 and say something about the beautiful ways of Nature. 
 That was all right ; but this morning she came in 
 again and was for seeing how both broods had pro- 
 gressed, and I had, of course, to tell her of our losses. 
 So far as the tits were concerned the case presented 
 little difficulty, for it comes naturally to even a little 
 girl to think but lightly of the enormities of "horrid 
 boys " (as we called them). But the cat ? We have 
 the misfortune to keep a cat here, and to be very 
 fond of it, and the odds are quite hea\y that it was 
 this identical cat that consumed the thrushes and 
 destroyed the nest. Under that impression the little 
 girl refused to take any notice of the cat, nor could 
 she understand how we can possibly continue to give 
 such a creature love and shelter. She asked me the 
 most direct questions on the matter, and I had no 
 answers, and now I am a dishonoured thing. 
 
 And truly the whole thing is rather a puzzle. Why 
 
 64
 
 The Blood Tax 
 
 should a cat that is properly fed, and has its will of 
 the mice, eat the birds of the air ? Why should boys 
 be unable to permit a bird to hatch out its eggs in 
 peace ? The law of the survival of the fittest hardly 
 applies, for surely a thrush is as fit as a cat, and a 
 long-tailed tit as fit as a boy. I know a dozen boys 
 at least whom I would willingly exchange for the 
 intimacy of a pair of these birds. Of course, it is all 
 right, really. We all prey on one another, and all 
 in turn are preyed upon. Probably those young 
 thrushes had each eaten some scores of very estim- 
 able and life-loving worms ; probably the tits had 
 slain insects by the thousand, and equally probably 
 our cat will one night be caught in a trap, and that 
 village boy will enlist and some day fall on a battle- 
 field with a Mauser bullet through his heart. A life 
 for a life, says Nature. And yet one is puzzled still. 
 When man opened the door to let humanity in, he let 
 in a host of doubts and misgivings at the same time. 
 
 This is not our only tragedy. There is just now at 
 the farm a little brood of ducklings, who move about 
 ever in a solid phalanx — a little yellow cloud which, 
 though seven ducks compose it, you could at any 
 time cover with a dinner napkin. I never saw such 
 mobilisation. If unity were really strength, this 
 E 65
 
 The Terrible Rat 
 
 company should be capable of anything. So one 
 might think ; and yet the contrary is the fact, for the 
 motive which leads to this excessive gregariousness 
 is not aggression bul fear. Collectively, seven yellow 
 ducklings, with weakly, twittering beaks and foolishly 
 limp necks, are no stronger than one ; but collectively 
 their courage is greater ; and just now they need 
 courage or stimulation very badly. Because of the 
 rats. A day or so ago the little band numbered nine, 
 then it numbered eight, now seven, and to-morrow 
 there may be only six. Hence there is something 
 very pathetic in the sight of these fearful little 
 brothers and sisters crowding against each other in 
 their broad-day passage from one side of the yard to 
 the other. If they feel thus when the sun shines, 
 how must their little hearts beat at night ! 
 
 Their fear of rats cannot, I think, be more intense 
 than mine. Rats are to me what snakes are to timid 
 people in a snake country, or tarantulas in a tarantula 
 country. The rat idea has a kindred hold on me, 
 and has had ever since at school I first heard 
 Southey's ballad of Bishop llatto. The irresistibility 
 of that army of rats swimming nearer and nearer 
 to the castle in the river, and then up and up the 
 stairs. . . . The rat is so terrible and so unclean. 
 
 66
 
 The Cruel Cat 
 
 There is the story of the cornered rat that leaps for 
 your throat. ... 
 
 I met a rat a short time ago. I was descending a 
 httle hill, and he was climbing it, both of us in the 
 middle of the road. I stood still and permitted him 
 to pass — a great, surly, wicked, intent grandfather. 
 A personified sin might easily have been figured 
 thus. And yet a rat's private life, a rat's thoughts 
 and conversation, may be far more wholesome than 
 a rabbit's. (We don't really know anything.) Yet 
 a thousand rabbits might play on the floor of my 
 bedroom all night, and be hanged to them, while if a 
 single rat so much as scratched beneath the flooring, 
 I would lose all sleep and all peace of mind. Such 
 is association. Such is the rat idea. And such is 
 the basis of my grief for those luckless ducklings. 
 
 The ducklings, thrushes, and tits are not the only 
 miniature things that are finding life too hard a nut. 
 Old John, on his way back from dinner the other day, 
 found a cat in the midst of that ghastly game which 
 cats play with their victims. The victim in this case 
 was a baby rabbit. By a sudden movement John 
 rescued the little creature and brought it to us. To 
 transpose a box into a hutch was, as the novelists 
 say, the work of an afternoon, and the rabbit was 
 
 67
 
 Farewell to Cats 
 
 placed within it, together with some grass and 
 some milk. l)Ut either the nervous shock, or the 
 frequency with which callers came to the hutch to 
 make inquiries, was too much for it, and the next 
 morning its poor little body was cold. A rabbit that 
 could recover from a cat's persecution would, indeed, 
 ha\e an organisation of iron. 
 
 The memory of the bright light of fear that 
 inhabited that little rabbit's eyes has for the time 
 being removed all my good feeling for cats. Our 
 kitten may frolic and curvet as she will, and twist 
 her tiny body into a thousand attitudes of freakish 
 and fascinating grace, but she leaves me without 
 enthusiasm. I am tired of cats. Their rapacity is 
 too continual, their cruelty too hideous, their beauty 
 too superficial, (live me a plain, blundering, faithful- 
 hearted, and true-eyed dog — a mongrel, even, if you 
 will — before all the Persians of the Orient, or so I 
 say to-day. 
 
 Not that one is profoundly in love with rabbits. 
 Indeed, I cannot rise properly to the rabbit at all ; I 
 can only feel sorry for him. To respect him is impos- 
 sible : his timidity goes beyond all bounds. Man may 
 well be gratified to cause a stampede now and again 
 among the smaller wild animals of his neighbourhood, 
 
 68
 
 The Foolish Rabbit 
 
 but when the same stampede occurs every day among 
 the same family, he deems it too much homage. 
 Rooks can at enormous range distinguish between a 
 walking-stick and a gun, between friend and foe, 
 between Saturday and Sunday. Even sparrows dis- 
 criminate. But rabbits are just fools. A footstep on 
 the ground three hundred yards away starts them for 
 home, no matter how succulent the greenery or how 
 distant the burrow. One almost blushes to think what 
 incredible distances one's punctual and harmless out- 
 going footfalls cause rabbits to run every morning, 
 and one's returning steps every evening. In our case 
 the warren is hard by the path, and the alarmed rabbit 
 has therefore, in gaining safety, to approach the enemy. 
 " Go back, go back, you little duffers ! Finish your 
 feeding and compose yourselves ! " one mentally 
 exclaims. But it is to no purpose— here they all come, 
 hundreds of them, in an agony of fear, 
 
 A few rabbits attempt courage, but never a one 
 achieves it. They sit up with alert ears and gather 
 together pluck to brave it out ; but by the time you 
 are within fifty yards their hearts fail them, and they 
 break for home. A frightened rabbit never runs 
 straight : he swerves and swerves. This probably he 
 has learned from experience or tradition, for it baulks 
 
 69
 
 " Twinkletails " 
 
 the sportsman's aim. Nature never did a crueller 
 thing than when she gave rabbits white tails : it makes 
 it possible to shoot them long after it is too dark to see 
 any other quarry. " Twinkletails " would be a pretty 
 name for them. One often sees nothing of a rabbit 
 but its flashing scut. Naturalists, I beUeve, are 
 puzzled to account for it, e.xcept as an advantage to 
 aiming" man. 
 
 Young rabbits have far more enterprise than old. 
 Indeed, rabbits go off sadly, almost as sadly as lambs, 
 which take on stupidness steadily with years. A 
 peculiarity of the young rabbit that is approached 
 from a distance from its abode is to lie still in the 
 fern or grass and sham death or coma. An old rabbit 
 has not wit enough to do even that. One imagines 
 the old rabbit a very treasure-house of counsel and 
 warnings. Man must get a desperately bad character 
 in the warrens. 
 
 Our squirrels are less shy than the rabbits. They 
 have more audacity, more grit, more dare-devil. They 
 let us approach within a few feet before moving, and 
 then, quick as birds, with tail outspread, they dart to 
 a tree. More often than not it is not the nearest tree : 
 they keep enough composure to select. A squirrel 
 seems never to lose his head ; a rabbit almost always 
 
 70
 
 Squirrels 
 
 does. When a squirrel runs he loops over the ground 
 in the way the sea-serpent travels in pictures. Once 
 the tree is gained, he scampers up a yard or two, on 
 the side farthest from the enemy, and then pauses as 
 suddenly as if an enchanter had bidden him turn to 
 stone. Nothing in nature is more motionless than a 
 wary, watchful scjuirrel. He clings to the bark, with 
 cocked head and fearful eyes, a matter of half a 
 minute before climbing to the first fork of the boughs. 
 But to say climbing is a mistake ; it is not climbing : 
 it is just running, or, better still, going. A squirrel 
 goes up a tree. 
 
 The squirrel of the artist sits on its hindquarters, 
 under the shelter of its tail, and nibbles at the nut 
 which its forepaws hold. The position is, indeed, 
 only one remove from saying grace, and reminds one 
 of the child in Stevenson's verse who behaves 
 " mannerly at table." But one does not often catch 
 them in this attitude in the woods. There the squirrel 
 is usually seen making little furtive dashes among the 
 dead leaves on the ground : a tiny red animal, which, 
 were it not for its tail-plume, might be taken at a 
 distance for a rat. Now and then the nursery illus- 
 tration is realised, but only seldom. Squirrels are 
 very ready to be angry, and they are incapable of dis- 
 
 71
 
 The Ageless Squirrel 
 
 guising their feelings. They are voluble as fishwives. 
 If you would test the squirrel's powers of repartee, you 
 must drive one to the branches of an isolated tree and 
 then rap the trunk with a stick. He will "answer 
 back " as long as you stay there. 
 
 One pretty peculiarity touching the squirrel is that 
 we do not associate it with age. We speak of a young 
 rabbit or an old rabbit, a young horse, an old cow, a 
 kitten or a cat, a puppy or a dog ; but a squirrel, no 
 matter what its development, is just a squirrel : that 
 is to say, an indescribably wonderful woodland 
 creature, as far removed from our own life and ken 
 as any English animal. The lyrical swiftness of the 
 squirrel partakes of the miraculous ; and this, com- 
 bined with his elusiveness, — though he is a thousand 
 strong in the neighbouring wood, — makes him a 
 creature apart. Thousands of persons in this country 
 have never seen a squirrel. 
 
 The squirrel is in the main invincibly and joyously 
 untameable, although many a man has kept one as a 
 pet. Compared with a squirrel of the beech grove, the 
 wildest rabbit is domesticated. But, indeed, beside 
 the squirrel all the four-footed creatures of the field 
 are pedestrian, commonplace. Even the hare, with 
 its incredible celerities, is dull compared with this 
 
 72
 
 Boblne Pellicule 
 
 brilliant aeronaut. The squirrel must be emboughed 
 if he is to show in brightest pin. On the ground he 
 is swift and graceful, but his tail impedes instead of 
 assisting him ; in a tree, or in mid-air between two 
 trees, he is a miracle of joyous pulsating life, a bird 
 with an additional infusion of nervous fluid, a poem in 
 red fur. 
 
 I must now return to the cat. Since where there is 
 a cat there is death, and since you cannot have both 
 birds and a cat, I said that the cat must go. (Her 
 name, by the way, was Bobine Pellicule. We found 
 it on a packet of photographic films, and deeming it 
 too good to be lost, conferred it on her.) And I was 
 the more certain she must go when that evening she 
 caught a little bat and tortured it under a chair in the 
 garden. It was rescued, and turned out to be of ex- 
 traordinary friendliness, neither scratching nor biting, 
 as tradition alleges of it, but drinking milk, and crawl- 
 ing over our hands and across the table in its velvet 
 cloak like a burlesque Hamlet. But agreeable as 
 was this rencontre with an animal difficult to get upon 
 terms with, I said again that Bobine must go. 
 
 Having said it again, I forgot the matter, leaving 
 the manner of its departure to Fate. Fate settled it 
 with a promptness and thoroughness that took the 
 
 73
 
 A Suicide 
 
 household by the throat ; for the very next morning 
 she jumped down the well. It is a deep well, and we 
 have no Johnny Stout within call, and death must 
 have been rapid. Nothing but remorse could follow 
 upon such a tragedy, our original idea of getting rid 
 of the cat being by gift. However, it was useless to 
 mourn over so complete a disaster, and we reconciled 
 ourselves to the inevitable, sorry but relieved. And 
 then gradually we began to realise (as the grappling 
 hooks failed to bring the suicide to the surface) that 
 if a cat were to lay itself out to die with as much in- 
 convenience to its unsympathetic owners as could 
 possibly be arranged, it could not do anything better 
 than just to drown itself in their well. The chain and 
 winch were too light for it to be safe to descend by 
 Ihcm ; the depth was too great for a ladder to be of 
 any use ; Bobine was too slippery for the hooks to 
 catch on. In death this small creature punished my 
 hostility, and punished it increasingly every minute. 
 
 To return for a moment to the bats. Chancing to 
 be dining one evening out of doors, I noticed that 
 every now and then, as it grew more dusk, bats were 
 materialised in the most extraordinary sudden way 
 from a corner of the roof Fetching the glasses, I dis- 
 covered that our roof at that part was full of them, and 
 
 74
 
 Young Night Thoughts 
 
 they passed in and out under a raised tile. There is 
 nothing swifter or quieter than the way in which bats 
 leave a hole and are instantly on the wing — like young 
 night thoughts. I say quieter, but as a matter of fact 
 the attentive ear can hear a little squeaky argument 
 before the flight, as though there was a question of 
 precedence to settle. The bat which the cat played 
 with must have rolled off the roof, having left the 
 home too early. 
 
 Birds, of course, are not unmixed blessings. They 
 certainly wake one very early ; they pull thatch all to 
 pieces ; they eat the buds and they eat the fruit. A 
 pair of dandy bullfinches with an irreproachable tailor 
 and perfect manners completely stripped our damson 
 tree of buds two springs ago. The cuckoo, too, is no 
 credit to his race : his arrogance and want of a re- 
 sponsible sense are deplorable, and he sings the same 
 song so many times over that one is ashamed of him. 
 But worse than all are the birds that ruin flowers out 
 of sheer wantonness — a wantonness equal to that of 
 the boys who rob or destroy nests. 
 
 I was in the country on the first day of spring this 
 year, and I went at once to a place in the orchard 
 where there are five or six large primrose roots. The 
 flowers were all out, as many as twenty to thirty on 
 
 75
 
 "Kill Hym" 
 
 each root ; but when I knelt clown to see them I 
 found that almost every head had been snipped off. 
 This is a bird's doing, and I have never learned the 
 purpose of the deed. Can there be some delicate 
 flavour in the neck of the primrose, or is it wanton de- 
 structiveness ? I believe the scoundrel is a blackbird. 
 
 I remember a letter to the Spectator some years 
 ago, in which a correspondent quoted from the margin 
 to a woodcut of a bullfinch in an old black-letter 
 Natural History in the library at Hertford College, 
 Oxford, this implacable note in seventeenth-century 
 handwriting : " A smal fowle. He eateth my apple 
 buds in Spring. Kill hym." 
 
 Similarly I would indict the blackbird for thus 
 ruining the most beautiful of flowers with his gold 
 dagger of a bill ; " A bold black ravener. He de- 
 capitateth my primroses. Behead him." And yet 
 would I ? Probably not. More likely would I try to 
 emulate my friend Brother Benignus. 
 
 76
 
 Benignus and the Flor Finas ^> -^ 
 
 T N one of the prettiest of Katharine Tynan's poems, 
 all of which have some of the freshness of an 
 April morning, there is told the story of Brother 
 Benignus and his bargain with the blackbirds. It 
 was arranged that if the blackbirds abstained from 
 eating the Abbot's cherries and youngling peas a 
 steady supply of corn and manchet ends and marrowy 
 bones should be supplied to them all the year round ; 
 and the compact was kept honourably on both sides. 
 
 I thought of this poem (which was amongst those 
 which one used to cut out of the Pall Mall Gazette 
 once or twice a week in the old days, and wonder 
 who wrote them, and put aside) — I thought of this 
 poem on Monday last, when, in one of the many 
 intervals of rain in a village cricket-match, I was led 
 away by a neighbour to look at his garden. It was 
 
 77
 
 A Friend of Birds 
 
 one of the dark gardens, which have a charm of their 
 own at least equal in certain moods to that of the 
 riotous herbaceous variety : a garden of soft turf and 
 shrubberies. 
 
 As we walked in the rain between box and yew 
 hedges, my friend stopped every now and then to 
 show me a nest — a wagtail's here, a chaffinch's there, 
 a bullfinch's, two flycatchers', a Jenny Wren's, and so 
 forth — all of which were occupied by young birds, or 
 had been until a day or so ago, and all of which he 
 had been in the habit of visiting regularly ever since 
 the building site had first been decided upon. One 
 of the flycatchers was in a nest that she had erected 
 the previous year, and had now returned to and re- 
 paired for her new family. So well did she know 
 her landlord that she did not trouble to leave her 
 eggs, but allowed his hand to take her off and replace 
 her — an act which set mc wondering if, with the best 
 feelings in the world towards her and her kind, I 
 should ever be trusted in the same way. The gulf 
 between a man and a little garden bird is extra- 
 ordinarily difficult to bridge, but here was one who 
 had bridged it. To possess a gentle friendliness for 
 birds is not, I take it, enough ; one must have some- 
 thing more than that : just that added something 
 
 78
 
 A United Family 
 
 which the birds by a subtle sympathy instantly 
 recognise. 
 
 Passing on to the drive, we stopped before one of 
 
 those fantastic and too-symmetrical trees which simple 
 
 folk call " Monkey Puzzlers " but the learned Arau- 
 
 carias, and I was here shown an object on the trunk, 
 
 about six feet from the ground, and asked what I 
 
 thought it was. The answer was obvious enough : 
 
 it was a cigar-box with a hole in it about the size 
 
 of half a crown ; I could read Flor Fina on it in 
 
 the familiar stencilling of Cuba. "And supposing," 
 
 Benignus continued, " I said that there were thirteen 
 
 young birds in it, what would you say?" This being 
 
 the kind of question which requires no answer but 
 
 patience, I said nothing, while he unhooked the box 
 
 and brought it out to me in the drive. His words 
 
 were true enough : there at the bottom was a mass 
 
 of quivering green and blue life amid moss and wool, 
 
 representing, as he assured me, thirteen titmice ; but 
 
 why one should say thirteen any more than thirty 
 
 I could not see, so inextricably corporate was this 
 
 palpitating community, surely the most united and 
 
 most uncountable family in the world. How the 
 
 operations of individual feeding and care can go on 
 
 in the recesses of that dark and circumscribed cavity 
 
 79
 
 From Cuba to Kent 
 
 is one of the miracles ; but they do. Each child had 
 received proper attention, and in a day or so all will 
 be free, emerging through the hole no bigger than 
 half-a-crown into this perilous world of cats and 
 hawks, catapults and guns. Long may they survive ! 
 
 But what an odd destiny for the cigar-boxes of 
 Havana ! I hope that some author of the children's 
 books or school readers that are used in Cuba has 
 heard of this pretty English habit, for it is a habit 
 (and Dutch too : I saw several cigar-box nests on 
 fir trees in the gardens near Haarlem last year), 
 because it should add a good deal of interest to the 
 monotony of the manufacture of those articles when 
 the young Cubans become men and box-makers. 
 
 We examined another of the model dwellings, which 
 had only three little birds in it, and another in which 
 the eggs were still to hatch, the mother so valuing 
 her time upon ihem as to refuse to leave, although 
 the box was unhooked, carried some feet, and opened 
 in the broad light. There she sat quite unconcerned, 
 knowing in her brave but infinitesimal heart that a 
 gentleman who gives birds free lodgings can have 
 no sinister intent. I asked Benignus if he thought 
 tliat he suffered at all in his kitchen garden and 
 orchard from this tolerance of what all the ordinary 
 
 80
 
 The Witness-Bearers 
 
 country-people that I know consider a nuisance of 
 some magnitude— even to offering a penny a nest to 
 the children as an inducement to get them taken. 
 He said he did not think he could complain ; and, 
 at any rate, a song was worth paying for. He said 
 also that he thought that birds, like tramps, have 
 signs by which they indicate to other birds that a 
 garden is a sanctuary. It is a pretty thought, and 
 some day in the early spring next year, I hope as I 
 pass his little estate to have the luck to observe a 
 tit laboriously and mysteriously tracing with her beak, 
 on one of those smooth red surfaces on the trunk 
 of a Scotch fir, the cabalistic signs which shall convey 
 to other and strange tits the welcome tidings that this 
 is the kind of man who knows what to do with the 
 box when he has smoked the last of his Flor Finas. 
 
 8i
 
 The Divine Leaf o^ e> •<:> ^> 
 
 nPHE origin of lea, according to tradition, is as 
 simple as it is credible. Prince Darma, in the 
 remote ages, was a holy Asiatic who spent day and 
 night in meditations upon the Infinite. One night 
 his ecstasy was interrupted by sleep. On awaking 
 he was so dismayed at his infirmity that he tore off 
 his eyelids and flung them on the ground. The 
 spectacle of a holy Asiatic flinging his eyelids on the 
 ground deserves the notice of an historical painter. 
 On visiting the spot later, Prince Darma found that 
 his eyelids had grown into a shrub. He had the wit 
 to take some of the leaves and pour boiling water 
 upon them. Ever after, by simply drinking a little 
 of the precious liquor, he was able to keep sleep at 
 bay and pursue his thoughts with added zest and 
 profit. 
 
 82
 
 Stuart Tea 
 
 The English history of the plant is comparatively 
 brief. According to the popular statement, tea was 
 introduced into this country from Holland in 1666. 
 D'Israeli, however, thinks the date earlier, because 
 he once heard of a collector whose treasures included 
 Oliver Cromwell's teapot. This, perhaps, would be 
 better evidence had we not all heard of the museum 
 which possessed a small skull certified to be the head 
 of Oliver Cromwell when a boy. None the less, one 
 Thomas Garway, a tobacconist and coffee-dealer in 
 Exchange Alley, is known to have sold tea at the 
 rate of three pounds sterhng per pound weight about 
 1660, Not, however, for a score or more of years 
 later was tea at all common, although Charles the 
 Second's queen, Catherine, who had sipped it with 
 gusto in Portugal, stamped the beverage with her 
 approval in the Court. Mr. Waller wrote a poem on 
 the new fashion, in which he praised together the 
 " best of queens " and the " best of herbs." Mr. Waller, 
 by the way, learned from a Jesuit who came from 
 China in 1664, that tea and beaten-up eggs made a 
 worthy substitute for a " competent meal." Concern- 
 ing the popularisation of tea in this country, there 
 is a story told by Southey of the great-grandmother 
 of a friend of his, who made one of the party that 
 
 83
 
 Elementary Counsels 
 
 sat down to the first pound of tea that ever came 
 to Penrith. They boiled it in a kettle, and ate the 
 leaves with butter and salt, wondering wherein the 
 attraction lay. 
 
 The wise tea-maker is suspicious of elaborate 
 paraphernalia. The best tea is made with a black 
 kettle on the fire, and an earthenware or china teapot. 
 Copper kettles on tripods (heated by tiny spirit stoves 
 that hold too little spirit), silver teapots, and kindred 
 refinements, do not help the leaf. Nor should 
 strainers be desired. Tea requires no " patents," 
 least of all a spoon resembling a perforated walnut, 
 alleged to be unrivalled for the preparation of a 
 single cup. A single cup I Who, if the tea were 
 worth drinking, ever wanted but a single cup ? 
 
 Tea should be brewed of the right strength at 
 the beginning, and poured out at once into cups 
 and reserved cups (or decanted into another teapot). 
 To burden the water with more leaves than it can 
 attend to is thoughtless, and every drop that is after- 
 wards added impairs the flavour of the liquor ; not- 
 withstanding the old Scotch lady who recommended 
 a certain brand of leaf because it had " such a grip of 
 the thir-r-d water." Using too little tea is a fault 
 never committed by the unwise and imprudent. The 
 
 84
 
 Kien Long's Counsel 
 
 ordinary rule is one spoonful for each guest and one 
 for the pot, but some brands go farther than others. 
 A large pot is imperative. Few things in hfe are 
 more saddening than the smallness of some people's 
 teapots. The teapot should be warnied for the 
 reception of the leaves. Wetting the tea, as it is 
 called, is a horrid habit. All the water that is 
 required for each brew should be poured in at once 
 on the instant that it boils. Water that has long been 
 boiling is unprofitable and stale and incapable of 
 extracting from the opening leaf its richest essences. 
 When there has been delay, and it is impracticable to 
 boil a full kettle again, it is well to pour into it from a 
 high altitude a little fresh cold water. The more 
 forcible the impact of this new water, the more is the 
 old supply invigorated and fitted to cope worthily 
 with the leaf. " At your ease," sang the Emperor 
 Kien Long in the poem that is painted on every 
 teapot in China — "at your ease drink this precious 
 liquor, which chases away the five causes of trouble." 
 Men's tea, I think, excels women's. Taking them 
 as a whole, one may say that no class of men make 
 such good tea as undergraduates. Time is theirs ; 
 conveniences are to hand ; and though they are 
 young and ardent, haste and enthusiasm are bad 
 
 85
 
 Men and Women 
 
 form. Hence the brew has a dignity, a gravity, a 
 composure worthy of it. There is something Asiatic 
 about the reserved undergraduate— and to-day the 
 conscious ones are all reserved — that stimulates tea to 
 do its best for him. Later in life, when he has left 
 the university and met a woman, the undergraduate 
 becomes again an Occidental. These undergraduate 
 tea connoisseurs are a development of the last few 
 years : the invitation, " Look in this afternoon and try 
 my new Overland China," to which grey walls, stained 
 by the stress of centuries, now re-echo, would strike 
 dismay to the heart of Cuthbert Bede. The thought- 
 ful undergraduate as soon misses his tobacco as his 
 tea. I have seen him presiding over the teapot with 
 the air of Roger Bacon in his laboratory. Men 
 always bring to a culinary feat this interested manner, 
 a little touched by mystery. To the woman cooking 
 is natural ; to the man it is ex-orbitant, and, partially, 
 a lark. 
 
 Just as men are more intimately interested than 
 women in the making of tea, so are they often more 
 subtly conscious of its merits. Women do not dis- 
 criminate so calmly. Tea to them is tea ; tea to a 
 man is China, or India, or Ceylon, "golden-tipped," 
 "overland borne," and the like. It is not for men 
 
 86
 
 Mrs. Edward FitzGerald 
 
 but for families that polysyllabic brands are put upon 
 the market. For families, for families, did Arabi 
 Pasha beguile the tedium of exile by overlooking 
 plantations in Ceylon ; for families, were artists 
 employed to delineate aged grandmothers in the act 
 of being reminded of the delicious teas of thirty years 
 ago. That is why men who understand offer you 
 better tea than women. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that the art of appreci- 
 ating tea is unknown to women. Nothing could be 
 farther from the truth. I knew a venerable lady with 
 whom tea-making was almost a religious rite. To 
 her high-backed chair was first brought the caddy — 
 an inlaid casket — which was deposited on a table 
 beside her. Then from the depths of a china vase 
 the key was extracted. My hostess assumed her 
 spectacles, and, taking the key, turned it gravely, 
 scooped out spoonfuls heaped high of the fragrant 
 leaves — and they were very fragrant — and tipped 
 them into the silver teapot proffered to her as by a 
 royal cupbearer. Then she closed the lid, locked it, 
 and handed the key to the attendant maid, who first 
 bore it to its abode, and then, returning, carried the 
 caddy reverently before her to its accustomed niche ; 
 while her mistress removed her spectacles and relaxed 
 
 87
 
 Two Coleridges 
 
 her features until they once more shone with their 
 natural benignancy. 
 
 The happiest tea-drinkers are those who have 
 generous friends in China. No tea is like theirs. 
 That inscrutable humorist, Li Hung Chang, left 
 presents of priceless tea in his wake as he passed 
 smiling through the West — tea with a distinction 
 until then unsuspected by the few persons whose 
 glory it was to taste it. Among these was Mr. 
 Gladstone, great among tea-drinkers, whose pleasant 
 humour it was to speak of a cup as a dish. Dean 
 Stanley was among the tea-giants, and Dr. Johnson's 
 prowess is a by-word. Hartley Coleridge was another 
 colossus of the caddy. One who knew him tells that 
 once on being asked how many cups he was in the 
 habit of drinking, the poet replied with scorn, " Cups ! 
 I don't count by cups. I count by pots." ^ 
 
 The commonest tea is black, and it is almost 
 always a blend, even when the terms Congou and 
 
 1 Hartley's father, in answer to a tea-question, made a reply 
 touched by no such arrogance. Carlyle tells, in the Life of 
 John Sterling, how one afternoon at Highgate, Mrs. Gillman 
 handed Coleridge a belated cup of tea with the remark that 
 she hoped it was all right. " Better tlian I deserve, madam, 
 better than I deserve," was the reply. 
 
 88
 
 Cannibal Tea 
 
 Souchong are employed. China, India, and Ceylon — 
 all three — are levied upon for these mixtures. Their 
 description in the catalogues is worth study ; indeed, 
 all merchants' adjectives are worth study. A table of 
 ten graduated qualities of black teas lies before me. 
 The lowest-priced variety is " pure and useful " ; then 
 " strong and liquoring " ; then " strong and rich 
 flavoured." While the same kind, but twopence 
 dearer, is " finer grade and very economical " ; then 
 "splendid liquor"; then "extra choice and strongly 
 recommended"; then "beautiful quality"; then 
 "soft and rich"; then "small young leaf, magni- 
 ficent liquor " ; and, finally, at three shillings and 
 fourpence, " very choice, small leaf, a connoisseur's 
 tea." But this is not a list for the true connoisseur : 
 to him three-and-fourpenny tea would mean little. 
 In another list I find the description " very 
 pungent and flavoury." " Syrupy " is also a hard- 
 worked epithet. It would puzzle a conscientious 
 merchant to fit any of these terms, even the 
 humblest, to some of the tea that one now and then is 
 forced to drink. But the British tourist is attracted 
 not by tea as tea, but by tea with accessories. The 
 late Arthur Cecil, the comedian, used to tell with 
 great glee of the cannibal tea at Kew : thus — " Tea, 
 
 89
 
 Ship's Tea 
 
 plain, 6d. ;" "Tea, with shrimps, gd.;" "Tea, with 
 children, is." Of all the public varieties the tea 
 obtained at a railway station is perhaps the worst. 
 The liquor served at those carnivals which are known 
 to schoolboys as tea-fights (or bun-struggles) is a close 
 competitor, but being free, or inexpensive, it has an 
 advantage over the station tea, which is costly. A 
 question in an examination paper circulated among 
 the students at a London hospital asked the reader 
 to " give some idea of the grief felt by the refreshment- 
 room tea at never having seen Asia.'' This sorrow 
 might be shared by the station blend. Ship's tea — 
 that is to say, tea in the cabin of the ocean tramp — 
 would be worse, only that at sea one is too hungry to 
 care for refinements of flavour. The officers of a 
 vessel on which I once was purser discriminated 
 between tea and coftee by taking the temperature of 
 the milk jug. If hot, the beverage was coffee ; if 
 cold, tea. 
 
 90
 
 School-Hampers and Fireworks -o -^ 
 
 'T^HE other day, while aimlessly turning over the 
 pages of a list of one of the great London 
 Stores, I came upon a description of the school- 
 hampers and Christmas-hampers which the firm is 
 prepared to despatch— more than prepared, one 
 supposes, even pleased : for if there is one employ- 
 ment above another that should carry good-humour 
 with it, it is the preparation and despatch of a hamper. 
 As I had always conceived hampers to be a home- 
 designed product of the kitchen and store-room, their 
 supply was an additional proof of the thoroughness of 
 the Stores system. I knew that conjurors were to 
 be obtained there, and Ethiopian minstrels, and the 
 cinematoscope, and paper plates for picnics, and I 
 knew also that the transfer of a non-transferable Stores 
 ticket is one of the sins which the Recording Angel 
 blots ; but the hamper-page was a true surprise. 
 Forthwith, I determined, if ever a change of employ- 
 
 91
 
 For the Crown 
 
 ment is necessary, to apply to Messrs. Blank & Co. 
 for engagement as their hamper editor, or even to 
 establish a hamper bureau of my own. In a world 
 which is mostly disappointment and frustration, the 
 life of a hamper editor must be radiant. 
 
 Half the hamper- page was devoted to school- 
 hampers and half to Christmas-hampers, and really it 
 was very good reading. Few novelists write so much 
 to the point. Here is the first entry : — 
 
 School-Hampers at 53. contain — 
 
 2 lbs. curiam cake. i Jar marmalade. 
 
 I Mam and chicken sausage. i Bottle sweets. 
 
 I Jar potted meat. 12 Oranges. 
 
 I ,, jam. 2 lbs. mixed nuts. 
 
 What expression of satisfaction is now most in favour 
 at school I cannot say — "ripping," perhaps, or 
 perhaps "jolly decent": I heard both terms lately, 
 although they may have been survivals — but even a 
 five-shilling hamper should elicit it. The " i Bottle 
 sweets " is, perhaps, a questionable inclusion. Butter- 
 scotch, toffee, and chocolate (the cream dug out and 
 eaten first) are sound boyish tastes ; but " i Bottle 
 sweets " has a feminine ring. The purist also would 
 object to the phrases " i Jar jam" and " i Jar marma- 
 lade " — pot is the word. And the oranges would, one 
 
 92
 
 For the Sovereign 
 
 hopes, at another season be replaced by apples. Yet, 
 carp as we may, the five-shilling hamper is desirable. 
 Now see what another crown will bring — enough 
 for any one boy :— 
 
 School-Hampers at ios. contain— 
 
 4 lbs. currant cake. i Bottle sweets. 
 
 1 Ham and chicken sausage. 2 lbs. mixed confectionery. 
 
 2 Jars potted meat. " 6 Mince pies. 
 I Jar marmalade. 24 Oranges. 
 
 1 ,, jam. 2 lbs. mixed nuts. 
 
 The " I Bottle sweets " still persists, but " 2 lbs. 
 mixed confectionery " come in to rectify it. Come in 
 also " 6 Mince pies " — the list clearly belongs to the 
 winter — and there is a lavish duplication of other 
 matters. One of the " 2 Jars potted meat " might well 
 be anchovy or bloater paste — anchovy for choice, 
 because it lasts longer ; and I do not greatly esteem the 
 " Ham and chicken sausage." Boys infinitely prefer 
 sardines ; indeed, the omission of sardines from all 
 these hampers is a serious fault. 
 Add ten shillings : — 
 
 School-Hampers at 20s. contain — 
 
 4 lbs. currant cake, 6 Mince pies. 
 
 2 Ham and chicken saus- 2 lb. box mixed crystallised 
 
 ages. 
 
 fruit. 
 
 I German sausage. 4 Jars assorted potted meats. 
 
 1 Box braised beef, 2 lbs. 24 Oranges. 
 
 2 Jars jam. 3 lbs. mixed nuts. 
 2 ,, marmalade. 2 Bottles sweets. 
 
 93
 
 The Useful Nut 
 
 With a shining pound it is manifest that one may 
 make a young friend very ill. Probably this class of 
 hamper is intended rather for brothers or for boys of 
 conspicuous generosity. From one or two items, such 
 as the " I Box braised beef, 2 lbs.," it would seem that 
 the gentleman who now acts as hamper editor has an 
 eye to bedroom feasts, because the theory of the 
 hamper is not to take the place of school meals, but 
 to amend them, to add a silver lining to them ; and 
 braised beef is a viand in itself rather than a con- 
 comitant. Hence, possibly, the nuts, whose shells are 
 notoriously good to place on the stairs, where they 
 crack beneath the feet of the approaching master and 
 so give warning of danger. In default of nuts a small 
 boy must endure the draughty duties of sentinel. 
 To return to our criticism, the " i Bottle sweets" has 
 now become two, and the " mixed confectionery " has 
 given way to "mixed crystallised fruits." The 
 principal lack in each variety of hamper is drink, 
 unless the oranges are calculated to fill that office. 
 Why not a dozen of stone ginger beer in the stead of 
 sweets? 
 
 To learn the news that a hamper is awaiting one in 
 the hall is a supreme school joy : for one moment it 
 can render the heaviest imposition null and void. Of 
 
 94
 
 Nursery Moralists 
 
 the behaviour of boys on receiving hampers much has 
 
 been written. Ann and Jane Taylor's " Plum-cake " 
 
 and "Another Plum-cake" are among favourite 
 
 nursery apologues, and Mrs. Elizabeth Turner has 
 
 worked the same theme with admirable thoroughness. 
 
 In a moving trilogy she vividly presents the three 
 
 methods in which a large plum-cake may be dealt 
 
 with. First comes Harry. Harry was greedy and 
 
 stingy. 
 
 "When it arrived, tlie little boy 
 Laugh'd, sung, and jumped about for joy ; 
 But ah, how griev'd I am to say 
 He did not give a bit away ! 
 
 He ate, and ate, and ate his fill ; 
 No wonder that it made him ill. 
 Pain in his stomach and his head 
 Oblig'd him soon to go to bed." 
 
 Then comes Peter. Peter was stingy too, but stingy 
 to himself as well as to others— in short, a miser. 
 
 "And sometimes silently he'd go, 
 When all he thought engag'd below, 
 To eat a very little piece. 
 For fear his treasure should decrease. 
 
 When next he went (it makes me laugh). 
 He found the mice had eaten half ; 
 And what remain'd, though once a treat, 
 So mouldy 'twas not fit to eat." 
 
 95
 
 William Wins 
 
 Lastly, William. William was free-handed, virtuous ; 
 William behaved nobly. 
 
 "'Come round,' he cried — 'each take a slice ; 
 Each have his proper share of ice ! 
 We'll eat it up among us here ; 
 My birthday comes but once a year."' 
 
 At this point, lo ! a blind beggar, to whom William 
 incontinently yielded his own slice and a penny 
 besides. The poem ends — 
 
 "I need not ask each youthful breast 
 Which of these boys you like the best ; 
 Let goodness, then, incitement prove. 
 And imitate the boy you love." 
 
 How can the youthful breast demur? William, 
 William it is who, of course, comes out at the head 
 of the poll. 
 
 Quite as interesting a study to the psychologist is 
 the conduct ot the other boys when one of their 
 schoolfellows receives a hamper. But there are 
 pleasanter matters for inquiry. Poor human nature ! 
 
 The hamper is not for food alone ; it is also the 
 travelling compartment of live stock. Dogs who 
 travel without a ticket usually do so in a hamper. 
 Cats are conveyed by that means from Blackburn to 
 Torquay, and the next day but one, dishevelled and 
 
 96
 
 Loosing a Cockatoo 
 
 footsore, they creep into the Blackburn kitchen once 
 
 again, and thus win attention from the Spectator and 
 
 Mr. Tegetmeier of the Field, who occupies the same 
 
 attitude to the homing instinct that Mrs. Prig did to 
 
 Mrs. Harris. It is strange that no one ever meets a 
 
 cat under the dominion of the homing instinct. It 
 
 would be quite unmistakable, because of the bee-line 
 
 which it takes and the rate it has to travel at. As 
 
 Mark Twain wrote of the jackass rabbit, " Long 
 
 after it is out of sight you can hear it whizz." I 
 
 suppose a homing cat never stops for a mouse. 
 
 Carrier pigeons are conveyed in hampers to the 
 
 place where their flight is to begin ; but not all birds 
 
 are so lucky. I was never so surprised in my life 
 
 as when the naturalist's man from whom I once 
 
 bought a cockatoo thrust the screaming thing into a 
 
 deal box hardly bigger than itself, and hammered 
 
 nails two inches long through the lid. Then he sawed 
 
 off a corner for ventilation, wrapped up the box in 
 
 brown paper, fastened it noisily with string, and 
 
 slammed it on the counter before me. Five hours 
 
 later, after a weary and cold railway journey, a very 
 
 angry and very dirty cockatoo was liberated by two 
 
 frightened men in wicket-keeping gloves. 
 
 The Stores-supplied hamper is, I take it, designed 
 G 97
 
 The Friendly Cook 
 
 to meet the requirements of the bachelor uncle who 
 has no kitchen where he may prepare one. It there- 
 fore has notable uses. But the hamper, as most boys 
 understand it, is a home-made blessing. More than 
 one friendly intellect has contributed to its plenishing. 
 The maternal mind is, of course, the fount and origin 
 of good, but cook has had her say too. Cook knows 
 Master Tom's tastes as well as anyone, perhaps 
 better. Cook has memories . . . hence the cold 
 plum-pudding. And at liamper-time a certain reason 
 for the existence of sisters becomes evident : they can 
 make toffee. The " i Bottle sweets " is unknown 
 to home-made hampers, but a bottle of raspberry 
 vinegar has sometimes found its way therein. I have 
 also a recollection of dough-nuts. Quince jam was 
 of old a stimulating surprise. But the crowning 
 triumph of any hamper is, of course, the cake. That 
 is the nucleus ; all else is accessory. 
 
 Many fathers buy fireworks in boxes arranged by the 
 dealer, but for the sheer joy of reading a firework 
 catalogue it is better to arrange one's own display. 
 Because a firework catalogue also is literature. It has 
 not the quiet beauty, the tender poetry, of a rose- 
 grower's list, but now and then it touches the heights. 
 The rocket section is magnificent. Here is an item : 
 
 98
 
 Brock's Paradoxes 
 
 " 32 oz. rocket with seven asteroids changing colour, 
 17s. 6d." Two solid pounds of rocket ! For seven 
 guineas one can possess a flight of one hundred rockets, 
 fifty bright and fifty coloured. In pyrotechnic circles 
 the antithesis of "coloured" is not "plain," but 
 "bright." What is a "Gerb"? Who knows? A 
 Gerb is a Chinese Tree. A few shillings purchase 
 a " Bouquet of Gerbs, or Chinese Trees." In another 
 place, however, we find " Huge Gerb, or Fountain of 
 Fire." A Gerb, therefore, is sometimes a Chinese 
 Tree and sometimes a Fountain of Fire. Pyrotech- 
 nists are often loose, even paradoxical, in their 
 terminology : thus elsewhere I note " Saxons, or 
 Chinese Fliers," " Brilliant Suns, or Royal Stars," and, 
 odder still, " Flying Pigeon, or Fiery Phoenix." 
 
 For a Niagara of Fire 34s. is asked ; and for the 
 device "Good Night" 50s. But "Good Night" is a 
 sad spectacle — let us pass on. Plank down half a 
 guinea (this counsel is only for the rich), and a " Mine 
 of Jewel-headed Cobras " is yours. A " Tourbillon 
 or Fiery Whirlwind" is cheaper, while for " Infernals" 
 ("not to be held whilst lighting") you cannot pay 
 more than sixpence. Hearing it explode, " Bang 
 went saxpence," a Scotchman might say, indeed. 
 The " Infernal " (" not to be held whilst lighting ") is 
 
 99
 
 Wayward Rockets 
 
 merely an emphasised Squib, and the embargo placed 
 upon it has little weight with the ordinary boy. 
 There are fathers, however, who obey it to the letter. 
 For the cautious father, a taper attached to a walking- 
 stick is a priceless boon, especially with rockets. The 
 deliberateness of a rocket's start can be almost unbear- 
 able ; and rockets have been known to swing round 
 at the critical moment and enter upon a horizontal 
 flight. But over the horizontal rocket let us draw a veil. 
 For those who do not esteem the joys of selecting 
 their own fireworks for the back garden, or who have 
 no knowledge of pyrotechny, there are the makers' 
 boxes, varying in price from 5s. to pounds. It does 
 not, however, seem to me that the imaginative 
 sympathy at the back of these boxes is of the highest. 
 Let us examine and explain. This, for example, is 
 what the manufacturer offers for 5s., discount on fire- 
 works being heavier than on books : — 
 
 12 Coloured Lights at id. i Coloured Candle at 6d. 
 
 12 Squibs at |d. i Flower Pot at 4d. 
 
 12 Crackers at ^d. i ,, ,, 2d. 
 
 6 Star Lights at ^d. 1 Chinese Tree at 6d. 
 
 6 Golden Rains at Jd. 1 Catherine Wheel at 4d. 
 
 6 Snakes at Jd. i ,, ,, 2d. 
 
 T Bright Roman Candle at 4 ,, ,, id, 
 
 4d. 12 ,, ,, id. 
 
 2 Bright Roman Candles at i Jack-in-the-Box at is. 
 2d. I Jewel Fountain at 6d. 
 
 100
 
 Enter the Critic 
 
 Lavish, is it not ? But the selection is open to objec- 
 tions. The Coloured Lights, Star Lights, and Golden 
 Rains are feeble folk, and might all go in favour of 
 Squibs and Crackers, The Star Lights merely drip 
 blobs of fire ; the Golden Rains are ineffectual Squibs ; 
 the Coloured Lights have too brief and tame a life. 
 The four Catherine Wheels at a penny are enough of 
 that variety of excitement. Catherine Wheels are ever 
 kittle-cattle, and to spend fourpence on a single one is 
 folly. The fourpenny one, the twopenny one, and the 
 twelve halfpenny ones might therefore be removed, 
 and with the money thus saved might be substituted 
 either more Squibs and Crackers or a shilling Rocket, 
 or two sixpenny Rockets, or one sixpenny Rocket and 
 one Maroon. (A Maroon makes a magnificent deto- 
 nation.) But except that — for the excitement of lighting 
 it — every display should comprise one Rocket, my 
 advice would be towards throwing the money into 
 Squibs and Crackers. The strength of Squibs and 
 Crackers is that they circulate and keep things merry. 
 Their weakness is their want of decorativeness. 
 Here is the 7s. 6d. box : — 
 
 3 Coloured Lights at 6d. 6 Star Lights at ^d, 
 
 12 ,, ,, at id. 6 Rains at ^d. 
 
 12 Squibs at id. 6 Snakes at Jd. 
 
 Feathers at |d. i Flower Pot at 4d. 
 
 lOI
 
 For Ten Shillings 
 
 I Flower Pot at 2d. 
 
 I Catherine Wheel nt 4cl. 
 
 I ,, at 2d. 
 
 3 ,. at id. 
 
 6 .. at ^d. 
 
 I Chinese Tree at 6d. 
 
 I Mine of Serpents at 6d. 
 
 I Jack-in-the-Box at 6d. 
 
 I Bright Roman Candleat4d. 
 
 1 ,, ,, at 2d. 
 
 2 Coloured ,, at6d. 
 I Jewel Fountain at 6d. 
 
 I Chinese Flier at 6d. 
 
 The first item is good. Sixpenny Coloured Lights 
 burn for some moments with very curious effects, and 
 enable the faces at the window to recognise the figures 
 in the garden. The last item is also commendable, 
 for a Chinese Flier (when it flies) is an interesting 
 article. The rest is subject to the same criticism as 
 the five-shilling box. Certainly, in 7s. 6d. there should 
 be a proportion set aside for Rockets : i6d., at least, 
 for the purchase of two is. ones. 
 
 When it comes to ten shillings Rockets are easily 
 possible. Yet the box at that price omits them. 
 Thus : — 
 
 12 Coloured Lights at id. 
 I Bengal Light at 6d. 
 I Red Light at 6d. 
 
 1 Green Light at 6d. 
 24 Squibs at ^d. 
 
 12 Crackers at ^d. 
 3 .. at id. 
 
 2 ,, at 2d. 
 
 6 Golden Rains at Jd. 
 
 6 Snakes at ^d. 
 
 6 Star Lights at \d. 
 
 5 Blue Candles at Jd. 
 
 6 Feathers at Jd. 
 
 1 Catherine Wheel at 6d. 
 I ,, ,, at 4d. 
 
 1 ,, „ at 2d. 
 3 >. .. at id. 
 6 ,, ,, at^d. 
 
 2 Bright Roman Candles at 
 
 6d. 
 2 Bright Roman Candles at 
 4d. 
 
 102
 
 " More Squibs " 
 
 2 Coloured Roman Candles i Flower Pot at 6d. 
 
 at 6d. I , , at 4d. 
 
 1 Chinese Tree at IS. i ,, at 2d. 
 
 I ,, at 6d. I Jewel Fountain at IS, 
 
 I Jack-in-the-Box at 6d. i Coloured Roman Candle 
 
 I Mine of Serpents at 6d. at is. 
 
 Now here are serious flaws. First and foremost are 
 the twopenny Crackers. Twopenny Crackers are too 
 risky ; more often than not they cease to crack after 
 the first few corners have been turned. And of what 
 use are three penny crackers ? Either a dozen or 
 none. Coloured Lights, Golden Rains, Star Lights, 
 Blue Candles, Catherine Wheels (with the exception 
 of four at a penny), the fourpenny and twopenny 
 Flower Pots, the sixpenny Chinese Tree, the two 
 fourpenny Roman Candles— all these might go. In 
 their place I would have more Squibs and Crackers 
 and some Rockets. The six Feathers could be re- 
 tained for lighting purposes. 
 
 Neither catalogue nor boxes take any account of the 
 most terrible firework that exists. This is the " Lewes 
 Rouser." The Rouser is a form of Squib made ex- 
 pressly for use at Lewes, where the Fifth is observed 
 sacredly, year after year. The carnival is threatened 
 regularly on every Sixth, but, behold, the next 
 November sees it as riotous as ever it was. It is 
 
 10.1
 
 The Fifth at Lewes 
 
 a relic of Merrie England — a pandemonium of fire 
 and excess. Lewes is given o\er to the fire- 
 worshippers : huge blazes are kindled and fed in 
 the midst of the streets ; processions parade the 
 town from dusk to midnight, fantastically garbed, 
 discharging Rockets and Roman Candles as they 
 move ; effigies of the Pope, and other persons requir- 
 ing, in the eyes of Lewes, execration, are at intervals 
 consigned to the flames by the Bishops of the various 
 bonfire societies involved ; and the next morning the 
 county paper contains full reports of their damnatory 
 speeches. These bear ironically upon public events, 
 after the manner of the Westminster Epilogue, but 
 without its wit. So fierce a rain of fire plays upon 
 the town that the householders board their windows 
 and cover their gratings with wet straw. 
 
 Such is the scene of the Rouser ; and the Rouser is 
 worthy of it. This fearsome creature is half a Squib 
 and half a Rocket ; you light him and let him go ; 
 huge silver sparks (said to be the effect of steel filings) 
 pour from him in such volume as to raise him from 
 the ground and project him through the air with tlie 
 speed of a rocket. After half a niinute of this 
 appalling exuberance, he bursts with the detonation 
 of a Woolwich Infant. Imagine fifty of these bursting 
 
 104
 
 The Rouser 
 
 at the same instant in every direction, accompanied 
 by such lesser fry as the ordinary Squib and Cracker, 
 and you realise why the Lewes amateur wears wire 
 spectacles and his oldest clothes. Of all home-made 
 fireworks the Rouser is best. But as a factor in back- 
 garden displays ? No. 
 
 105
 
 The Poetry of Catalogues ^c^ ^o ^> 
 
 A T a time when too much is done for the in- 
 assiduous, roving reader ; when the tendency 
 is entirely towards frangible, even friable, reading- 
 matter ; one hesitates to commend to those that 
 love literature the merits of catalogues. And yet a 
 catalogue — a thing that costs nothing, a thing rescued 
 possibly from the waste-paper basket — may be more 
 stimulative of pleasant thought and fancy, may launch 
 the mind on longer and more eventful voyages across 
 the seas of memory, than can many an expensive and 
 well-bound book. The catalogue itself is nothing ; 
 its strength is in its profusion of suggestions, of 
 potentialities, of words that stand for facts. One is 
 continually reminded. Reminded of what ? Of a 
 thousand things. 
 
 io6
 
 Roses, Roses 
 
 Keats has told us what Fancy can do (provided you 
 have it) to alleviate a winter night — 
 
 "She will bring, in spite of frost, 
 Beauties that the earth hath lost." 
 
 But if you have it not — if your own unaided resources 
 are powerless in drear December to re-create the 
 pomps of June — there is a sure passport to those 
 joys. A catalogue of roses. The tender poetry, the 
 rich extravagance, the warm enthusiasm of a rose- 
 grower's list cannot miscarry. Wherever the eye 
 alights it is gladdened. At the head of all— Abel 
 Carriere : " Dark velvety crimson, with fiery red 
 centre, perfect form, handsome foliage." A line or 
 so lower — Alfred Colomb : " BriUiant light scarlet 
 crimson, large, full and globular, a magnificent rose 
 of superb shape, very fragrant." Ah, those French- 
 men ! How is Monsieur Boncenne described ? 
 " Dark velvety crimson, superb, one of the best 
 dark roses." Could anything be better? we ask 
 ourselves, and come forthwith upon the Baron de 
 Bonstetten : " Velvety blackish crimson ; an improved 
 Monsieur Boncenne!" Thus the rose-grower lures 
 one on ; next year there will be an improved Baron de 
 Bonstetten. 
 
 What must one do for one's own name to be 
 
 107
 
 The Roll of Fame 
 
 whispered to the coming ages by the breath of a 
 rose? In imperial action, to conquer the Soudan 
 would seem to be not enough, for there is no bloom, 
 free-flowing or rampant, velvety or superb, known as 
 Lord Kitchener. There is, it is true, a Sir Herbert 
 Kitchener chrysanthemum : " A very large Japanese, 
 with very broad florets ; bright golden chestnut bronze, 
 with golden amber reverse florets, long and drooping, 
 forming a very deep and graceful flower ; one of the 
 grandest novelties of the season." But the rose, the 
 rose ! How does one commend one's name to the 
 grower of roses ? One, apparently, need not be a 
 professed lover of the flower, for Charles Lamb, who 
 cared little for the garden, has the honour ; and so 
 has Socrates, who preferred hemlock. The Charles 
 Lamb is " a soft cherry rose, very bright ; " which 
 sounds far more like Leigh Hunt. Socrates is 
 " coppery bronze shaded with pink." Among other 
 literary roses one finds Lord Macaulay, '' variable, 
 from scarlet crimson to rich plum ; " Lord Bacon, 
 "deep crimson, shaded with velvety black, blooming- 
 abundantly ; " Charles Darwin, "a rich brownish 
 crimson, perfectly reflexed and imbricated ; " John 
 Stuart Mill (a rose may bear any name), " a bright, 
 clear red, beautiful form." But the mystery of rose- 
 
 io8
 
 Sweet French Names 
 
 christening is still thick. Why is there no Shake- 
 speare, no Thackeray, and, especially, no Waller? 
 There is a Dean Hole and an Alphonse Karr ; but no 
 Waller. Among the living the honour is given only 
 to Royalty, to Mr. Robinson (as is fitting, although 
 " Souvenir de William Robinson " has an odd sound), 
 to statesmen, to warriors, and to enviable ladies. 
 
 But the sweetest names are the French : " Souvenir 
 de Malmaison," " Camille de Rohan," "Eugene 
 Verdier," "Victor Verdier," " Gloire de Dijon," 
 " Marechal Niel," " Maurice Bernardin," " Dupuy 
 Jamain," " General Jacqueminot," " White Maman 
 Cochet," " La Boule d'Or," "Perfection de Montplaisir," 
 "Belle Lyonnaise," and "Souvenir d'un Ami." But 
 best of all I think I like "Papa Gontier." What 
 poignant memories must such names bring to the 
 English exile in arid wastes abroad, in the Australian 
 " Never Never " or the brumal fastnesses of the Yukon I 
 
 " These will bring, in spite of frost, 
 Beauties that the earth hath lost." 
 
 So also will the pages of a cricket outfitter's list ; 
 but. whereas the poetry of the rose list is lyric, that of 
 Wisden's is epic. The post brought me, one morning 
 recently, a copy of Wisden^s Illustrated Catalogue, 
 
 109
 
 Old Cricket Bats 
 
 with its wonderful array of old, scarred, and honour- 
 able bats. They stand in eloquent pairs, two couples 
 to the page ; they are cracked and splintered and 
 pegged and bound ; and on each is the short and 
 simple testimony of some mighty cricketer. Cricketers 
 who write letters do not waste words. "The best 
 bat I ever used," is the laconic tribute paid by poor 
 George Ulyett of Sheffield to a "Crawford's Patent 
 Exceller." Six words only, but how tremendous 
 their force ! The best bat ever used by that genial 
 giant, now gone for ever, the hero of a thousand 
 matches, the darling of Yorkshire's three ridings, 
 and the terror of every other county. Turning on, 
 you come upon a bruised and buffeted relic with 
 several black bands. "This old bat," says the 
 inscription, "has done wonderful service. I played 
 with it both with Lord Sheffield's and Mr. Stoddart's 
 teams, and three summers at home. It was the 
 best bat I ever played with. In first-class cricket 
 alone more than 3500 runs must have been made 
 from it." And now it lies idle, resting until the day 
 of dissolution. The writer of these words is Johnny 
 Briggs. Turning on again. Brown's "grave-digger" 
 is before you— the bat with which Brown of Driffield 
 made his 140 for Mr. Stoddart's Australian team in 
 
 no
 
 Sotheby's at Home 
 
 1895. " Brown often had a look at it when he was 
 in London," says the catalogue. Had it been mine 
 (and my runs) it should never have left my possession. 
 But cricketers are more generous than ordinary 
 persons. 
 
 To certain temperaments a mere list of roses would, 
 in default of the flowers themselves, be more satisfying 
 than a description of those flowers from the pen of 
 the richest writer — the pen of, say. Miss Corelli. 
 The catalogue, so to speak, touches the button, and 
 you yourself do the rest. It is automatic literature. 
 Sometimes a catalogue far transcends the event. 
 Compare with the noise and unrest of the auction- 
 room the quiet pencilling of a book-sale inventory 
 secure in an arm-chair. Again, the compiler of 
 catalogues (such is human optimism) is rarely a 
 realist ; he prefers to overlook blemishes and 
 fractures, stains and incompleteness. Thus, to the 
 arm-chaired student of the list every book is fair 
 and uncropped, whereas the purchaser may have 
 many imperfections beneath his faltering eye. Simi- 
 larly, there are programmes which are more alluring 
 than the performances to which they point. Many 
 persons on a return visit to Barnum's must have 
 found the welter of superlatives in Olympia's astound- 
 
 III
 
 Ainsworth's Lost Hold 
 
 ing official pamphlet a good substitute for feats which 
 familiarity had rendered unexciting. The gentleman, 
 for instance, who curled himself in a metal ball and 
 rolled himself to the summit of a spiral staircase 
 could surprise but once, whereas the adjectives 
 employed to describe his achievement surprised 
 continually. There are novels (in the halfpenny 
 papers) more interesting in the synopsis than the 
 narrative, and there are many stories more notable 
 in their chapter headings than in themselves — 
 Ainsworth's, for example. I never tire of reading 
 his full-bodied promises : " How Queen Mary visited 
 the Lions' Tower ; how Magog gave his dame a 
 lesson ; and how Xit conquered a monkey and was 
 worsted by a bear ; " " How the Princess Elizabeth 
 was confronted by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the torture 
 chamber"— these are ever interesting; but with the 
 text of The Tower of London I have, I feel certain, 
 done for ever. 
 
 A like pleasure may come from the table of contents 
 in a collection of poetry, but particularly from an 
 index of first lines. I remember once picking up the 
 publisher's circular of one of Mr. Bullen's volumes, 
 Lyrics from the Song- Books of the Elizabethan 
 Age, and being almost as much fascinated by the 
 
 I I 2
 
 The Elizabethans 
 
 index of first lines which it contained as afterwards 
 by the poems in their entirety. Indeed, in several 
 cases the first line is more satisfying than the 
 complete lyric, for the Elizabethans had a special 
 genius for beginnings. In the first line the great 
 poet and little poet may meet on common ground ; 
 it is only in the sequel that they are distinguished, 
 and you learn which has the finer note, which the 
 true staying power. On the threshold there is equality. 
 "There is a garden in her face ;" "A little, pretty, 
 bonnie lass was walking ; " " Come, sorrow, come, 
 sit down and mourn with me ; " " Lie down, poor 
 heart, and die awhile for grief;" " My thoughts are 
 winged with hopes, my hopes with love;" "The 
 cypress curtain of the night is spread ; " " Arise, my 
 thoughts, and mount you with the sun ; " " Care for 
 thy soul as thing of greatest price " — these are a few 
 of the circular's first lines ; and each one makes even 
 a prosaic man something of a poet by mere incitement 
 to him to speculate as to the issue. 
 
 To a mind at all active or curious an odd number 
 of Dr. Wright's English Dialect Dictionary is 
 intensely absorbing. For solace less academical 
 there is an artless and unexacting paper which can 
 impart more delight than anything produced by the 
 
 H 113
 
 For Long Journeys 
 
 deliberate fusion of Fleet Street intellects. This 
 is the sturdy little catalogue of wants and redund- 
 ancies called The Bazaar — or rather, The Exchange 
 and Mart, for The Bazaar is the paper proper, 
 which is little; while The Exchange and Mart is its 
 advertisement supplement, which is everything. Like 
 a flourishing rose on an insignificant manetti stock, 
 the supplement puts forth the blossoms, while the 
 parent unobtrusively avoids the eye. These blossoms 
 have a variety of which one cannot tire. Advertisers 
 from every part of the United Kingdom meet there to 
 accommodate each other. Magic lanterns are offered 
 for guinea-pigs, bicycles as good as new for sitting 
 hens, complete sets of the Penny Encyclopcedia for 
 double-barrelled guns, old IJroadwoods for young 
 spaniels. One need require nothing oneself to find 
 amusement in the desiderata of others. On a railway 
 journey one reads and reads, knowing neither fatigue 
 nor satiety ; section gives way to section, and the 
 miles are eaten up until the haven is reached and 
 real life substituted for the half-life of the train. 
 Taken from beginning to end, The Exchange and 
 Mart will last you from St. Pancras to York, from 
 Exeter to Paddington, from London Bridge to Charing 
 Cross. It is the best railway reading. 
 
 114
 
 Country Life 
 
 Kindred pleasure may be extracted from the illus- 
 trated advertisements of houses in the paper called 
 Country Life. It is nothing that one's own belong- 
 ings are permanently settled in a London street : 
 this need not diminish fascinated interest in eligible 
 manor-houses in Surrey or unique moated granges in 
 Kent. You can still choose or reject — the unassail- 
 able privilege of the reader of catalogues. "Too 
 damp " is one ; " Too overgrown," another ; and " I 
 don't much care for that gable," you say of a third. 
 And then comes the ideal. "What is the agent's 
 address? Oh, well, perhaps it doesn't matter. . . ." 
 An author must be successful indeed if his local 
 colour can so bring the country before one as these 
 pages of photographs can. 
 
 Of the delectation which accompanies the leisurely 
 examination, pencil in hand, of a second-hand book- 
 seller's list, something has just been said. In the 
 recesses of an arm-chair one can become, in fancy, 
 the owner of first folios without even the exertion of 
 nodding. "Gerard's Herbal, £2}" "Yes, I may 
 as well have that ;" and the proprietary cross springs 
 into being on the margin. " Dame Juliana Berners' 
 Boke of St. Albans ? " " And I will have that too"— 
 another cross. "John Florio's Montatgjie, quarto?"
 
 Books for Spain 
 
 "Ahl at last!" And so one goes on. What it is 
 like actually to buy from Mr. Quaritch's list I have 
 no notion. Such purchases as I have made of that 
 great man (now, alas I no more) were carried through 
 one-sidedly, in a not strictly commercial manner, for 
 the library of a castle on the other side of the 
 Pyrenees ; hence I can speak only as a poor man. 
 A poor man with a book catalogue is a feasting 
 Barmecide, yet without his haste to despatch the 
 meal. Or, rather, he is as one who through the 
 panes of a sealed window watches without envy a 
 procession of those dishes of which he may not par- 
 take. Without envy ; for, if covetousness at all worthy 
 the name takes part in his feelings, he can never 
 know the enjoyment of catalogues to llie full. A 
 mild, well-ordered inclination (to add sauce to the 
 perusal) may be his, but nothing more ; he must be 
 utterly without rancour that others are richer than he. 
 
 ii6
 
 Clothes Old and New o o ^c^ o 
 
 T T is a curious experience to walk, as I did recently, 
 behind a man dressed in one's old suit. You 
 have a vision of yourself, or, if you will, a glimpse of 
 your double, a reminder that you are not everybody. 
 This being the first time I had seen the suit from the 
 back, a vague sense of familiarity preceded recogni- 
 tion, and then, looking steadfastly on its pattern, I 
 remembered how kindly and liberal a coat it was, 
 and how easy and unconstrained all movements of 
 limb had been in it, and how many years it still had 
 before it, and I perceived sorrowfully that I had 
 given away as noble a set of hartogs as man ever 
 possessed. This proves how careful we should be 
 in parting with cast-off suits. Thoreau affirmed that 
 old clothes should be burnt : and, from the point of 
 view of those who hold that attire ought to be auto- 
 biographical, this is true ; for how can tweeds handed 
 
 117
 
 Coats of Fur 
 
 on from one man to another continue to be auto- 
 biographical ? But Thoreau's contention was a coun- 
 sel of perfection— that is to say, advice for Thoreaus 
 — and, moreover, so few persons have autobiographies 
 that we may as well persevere in the bestowal of old 
 clothes. 
 
 Of all old clothes, none wears so sorry an air as 
 the old fur-lined coat. A new fur-lined coat is magni- 
 ficent. It is a symbol of luxury, the antithesis of the 
 hair shirt. It is more than a garment, it is a fortifica- 
 tion. An Englishman's fur coat is his castle. But 
 when decay has set in, when it is partly bald and 
 entirely weather - worn, then the fur coat is the 
 wretchedest object in civilisation. It is not good 
 even for charades ; although, in its luxuriant days, 
 how versatile it was ! From time to time it had been 
 (inside out) most of the larger animals in the Zoo. 
 Such versatility, indeed, has the fur coat that on the 
 night of a children's party the prudent father turns 
 the key upon it. Fur-lined coats never become har- 
 togs ; nor do overcoats. These, therefore, may be 
 given away or sold without heart-flutterings ; although 
 the ordinary overcoat should not be parted with 
 lightly. An old overcoat is a good fellow to accom- 
 pany one to sea, to wear on deck on rough or rainy 
 
 ii8
 
 " Hartogs " 
 
 nights. But, strictly speaking, no overcoat becomes 
 a hartog. 
 
 And what, I seem to hear you ask, what are har- 
 togs ? Old clothes that are less imposing and more 
 comfortable than any others are hartogs. To be old 
 is not sufficient ; nor is it enough that they are easy. 
 To be hartogs they must combine both these merits. 
 Good clothes when they grow baggy and faded 
 become hartogs ; bad clothes, never. Inferior and 
 ill-fitting clothes become merely "old clo." The 
 derivation of hartogs is a secret ; but all philologists, 
 and all who, like R. L. Stevenson, have a "love of 
 lovely words," will recognise in the term a neologue 
 of singular fitness and attraction. Think about it 
 for a minute or two, and you will realise that clothes 
 of the kind described above could not possibly be 
 known in any other way. They are hartogs — just 
 hartogs, and nothing else. Old clothes of the common 
 type one thinks of without affection, but hartogs are 
 beloved. Anything is good enough to cover naked- 
 ness ; hartogs do more — they confer cheerfulness and 
 irresponsibility, they fit the wearer for a freer life. 
 Yet it must be understood that hartogs are never 
 absolutely disreputable, never so old that one cannot 
 meet the vicar's wife without shame. 
 
 119
 
 Companionable Coats 
 
 In ordinary life the wearer of hartogs disdains coats 
 and mackintoshes, except in extreme stress of weather. 
 It is the winds and rains of heaven and the might of 
 the sun that have made his hartogs what they are ; 
 the indoor life produces a very inferior result. The 
 best hartogs are stamped by the universe itself. They 
 are the garb of the wise traveller. You meet hartogs 
 on Helvellyn and among the Langdale Pikes ; you 
 recognise them in the Black Forest and on the 
 Furka ; you are aware of them in the Trossachs 
 and beneath the smooth rotundities and swelling 
 undulations of the South Downs. Nature's best 
 lovers woo her in hartogs. 
 
 This definition should be exhaustive enough, but 
 still a little may be added. It should be said, for 
 instance, that few women have enough courage to 
 achieve hartogs. The mass dare not. There are 
 also men who dare not, and there are men whose 
 position is against it. Bishops probably have no 
 hartogs. 
 
 Of all hartogs the coat is the most dearly prized. 
 One does not feel so affectionately towards a waist- 
 coat : little is lovable about a waistcoat ; but a coat 
 becomes a friend, a brother. Men have worn coats 
 for decades. A satisfying coat is worth its weight 
 
 I20
 
 Boots 
 
 in platinum, because it is so rare. The waistcoat is 
 within the compass of any tailor ; but a coat is 
 different. Nothing is quite so disgusting as the 
 determination of one's tailor to have his own way in 
 the matter of the coat. You order a dozen personal 
 touches ; you stipulate for no pads in the shoulders ; 
 for a deep collar, to turn up in wet or cold ; for extra 
 pockets inside ; for no lining in the back ; for no 
 fashionable antics in the cutting. And the tailor 
 smiles and smiles. None the less is he a villain, for 
 when the coat comes home it is precisely what you 
 struggled to make certain it should not be. A tailor 
 who will obey to the letter is more than rubies. 
 Hence the lovableness of a truly good coat. 
 
 Hats are lovable too. Boots, however, are too 
 transient to be loved. One dares not love them. At 
 the most a pair of boots can be hartogs for a year. 
 Boots seem to me civilisation's most conspicuous 
 failure : they pinch, they cramp, they mar, they have 
 every tightness but water-tightness ; they are hot in 
 summer and cold in winter ; they have no durability ; 
 they are costly. They make it almost worth while to 
 have one's feet amputated early in life. Lord Erskine 
 said it was comforting to remember that when the hour 
 came for all secrets to be revealed, then, at length, we 
 
 121
 
 Flannel 
 
 should learn why shoes are always made too tij^ht. 
 And yet what is to be done ? To go barefoot is, after 
 all these ages of shoe-leather, impossible, and sandals 
 are chilly and socialistic. Indoors, of course, there 
 are slippers, and latterly a very excellent kind devised 
 of felt has been obtainable. Ikit no good work, it has 
 has been said, has ever been done in slippers, and 
 certainly no good walking. For outdoor life in this 
 mutable England we have yet to discover the fitting 
 boot. The quest of it is the business of a lifetime : a 
 man may be said never to come within measurable 
 distance of being well shod until he has one foot in 
 the grave. 
 
 In winter there is nothing more comfortable than 
 hartogs ; but in summer flannels supersede them. 
 Buoyancy, liberty, the power to do — these are put on 
 with flannels. Flannels are as levelling almost as 
 nakedness. On the cricket field all men are equal. 
 Has not Lees bowled Lord Hawke these many 
 seasons ? and I doubt not but he would york even the 
 Prince of Wales. But once, in appearance at any rate, 
 there were distinctions. In the old days, when George 
 Parr hit to long - leg for six, and George Freeman 
 bowled like lightning, flannels were a distinguishing 
 sign. In those days the professional was marked 
 
 122
 
 Newspaper Clothes 
 
 by his dress for the dependant he was. He wore 
 a coloured shirt, and his whites were not white. You 
 may see them in old photographs. My earliest recol- 
 lection of county cricket is a Sussex and Surrey match 
 twenty-five years ago ; and I remember distinctly that 
 Pooley's flannels were yellow, Jupp's grey. But now, 
 except in a few cases, there is nothing but initials to 
 distinguish the two classes of cricketers. A change 
 has come over the professional, and his flannels 
 shine like an amateur's. A stranger would find it 
 impossible to pick out the unpaid from the paid. Pro- 
 fessionals even wear ties, a thing unheard of in the 
 'sixties and not to be endured. Yet this new sartorial 
 complexion which the game wears is good, for it 
 emphasises the socialism of cricket. 
 
 The opponents of the press ought to bear it in mind 
 that no substitute for clothing is more effective than a 
 newspaper — that is to say, no sudden substitute. An 
 American enthusiast, who recently walked round the 
 world for a wager, wore only a 'copy of the New York 
 Herald until he had amassed, by exhibiting himself, 
 enough money to buy clothes ; and now and then 
 come tidings of a party of tourists who have escaped 
 from the attentions of Italian banditti or Hungarian 
 brigands in nothing more substantial than last week's 
 
 123
 
 Canon Smith's Prayer 
 
 Times. It seems to be established that when in diffi- 
 culties for clothes the first thought of civilised man is 
 for a newspaper ; just as the first thought of primitive 
 man was for a leaf. Not the least funny story in that 
 diverting book, Many Cargoes, tells of a captain who 
 lost his " does at cribbage," and was found the next 
 day by his rescuer " in a pair of socks and last week's 
 paper." This, as we have seen, is not a particularly 
 novel position, but what distinguished Captain Bross 
 from his companions in this form of misfortune was 
 his occupation. When discovered he was " reading 
 the advertisements." That is true philosophy. The 
 completest deshabille is obtainable in the tropics. The 
 late Henry Drummond once wrote home from Central 
 Africa that he had nothing on but a helmet and three 
 mosquitoes. Sydney Smith, who was the first man to 
 pray in August for the power to take off his flesh and 
 sit in his bones (a blessed condition, which, on paper 
 at least, has been made possible by Professor Ront- 
 gen), described the height of bliss attainable by a 
 Sierra Leone native, as sitting in one-half of a melon, 
 with the other half on his head, eating the pulp. 
 
 Of all men, tramps and peers care least about their 
 appearance. This indifference to public opinion of 
 one's clothes is indeed an enviable state to reach. I 
 
 124
 
 Dean Stanley's Collar 
 
 have always liked the story of the old fellow who at 
 home dressed badly because everyone knew him, and 
 badly when he travelled because no one knew him. 
 He was one of the few men who have had courage to 
 dress to please themselves. Most of us dress to please 
 other persons ; and even then, it must be added, rarely 
 succeed. A distinguished statesman objected on 
 principle to make himself uncomfortable by dressing 
 for dinner, but he had a very charming way of disarm- 
 ing criticism and propitiating his hostess. He had 
 upstairs, he would assure her, an excellent dress suit 
 for which he had paid a high price, and if it would be 
 any satisfaction to the company, his secretary would 
 bring it down and display it. But one has to be a 
 Cabinet Minister to carry off such an idiosyncrasy as 
 this. At many dinner-parties the guests have been 
 asked as much on account of their clothes as their 
 wit — the man without a wedding garment in the 
 parable apparently had no compensating distinction 
 of intellect. A good dinner-story tells how Dean 
 Stanley once arrived at table with one side of his 
 collar flapping in the air. During the meal his 
 hostess asked him if he was aware of its condition, 
 and if he would like any assistance in rectifying it. 
 " Oh no," he replied genially ; " it broke while I was 
 
 125
 
 The Clothes of Women 
 
 dressing. I don't mind. Do you.''" These are the 
 great men. 
 
 Of the clothes of women I know Httle, except that 
 the fashions often change too quickly, and it seetns 
 very hard for some girls to dress in such a way as to 
 satisfy their elder sisters. I have also noticed that 
 after she has become engaged a girl gets more critical 
 of her brother's clothes. She has acquired a standard. 
 
 126
 
 From a Seaside Diary <5- «^ <^ -^ 
 
 W 
 
 'HEN August comes it is time for the sea. An 
 island race, it behoves us to roll our bodies in 
 the wa\'es for at any rate two weeks in the year. The 
 salt invigorates, purifies. In August, unless you have 
 a river, the country stifles, desiccates ; one's blood 
 ceases to flow, the brain is dulled, the limbs lag. The 
 sea changes all this. 
 
 I like no strange children so much as seaside 
 children : the jolly girls in Tarn o' Shanters who are 
 still in the boy stage— throwing balls, playing cricket, 
 riding astride — and yet are women too, as all girls are, 
 even in the cradle ; the brown-armed, fair-haired boys 
 who never wear shoes or stockings, who dive off the 
 groynes, and push out the boats, and pull in the nets, 
 
 127
 
 Sunday Afternoon 
 
 and help the shrimpers, and always get the front seats 
 at the entertainments. 1 like their eagerness, their 
 impatience, their air of business. I like their voices 
 especially. Vou meet them all day long, always 
 intent and purposeful — always, I suppose, making for 
 a meal, or a conjuror, or a towel, or some money to 
 pay for something. They never seem to want to go 
 on the sea or on the pier ; they live on the sands, 
 ever, like Matthew Arnold's thrush, deep in their 
 unknown day's employ. 
 
 That is during the week ; but then comes Sunday — 
 our woeful English Sunday, and all their happy 
 routine is upset. Sunday afternoon in the country 
 can be circumvented ; but Sunday afternoon is an 
 ii remediable trial for children by the sea. I am 
 writing these lines on Sunday afternoon at an open 
 window overlooking the beach, and the prospect is 
 melancholy. The sun is shining, the sands are wide 
 and smooth, the tide (as it always is on Sunday) is 
 still far out, but not a single bare leg can be seen. 
 Instead, just below me, are two boys carefully dressed, 
 with black coats and creased trousers, who throw 
 stones at a stick— that being one of the permissible 
 Sunday afternoon employments ; while another boy, 
 who yesterday, wearing only white knickerbockers 
 
 128
 
 Little Girls 
 
 and a vest, was pushing us from the beach towards a 
 little sailing boat, is now drifting aimlessly up and 
 down the road, spotless and uncomfortaljle in an Eton 
 jacket and a collar four inches wide. Other figures, 
 dejected and idle, in the distance, denote the profit- 
 less inertia ordained as the right way to spend a fine 
 Sunday afternoon. The morning is more easily got 
 through : there is preparing for church, walking to 
 
 church, returning from church. But the afternoon 
 
 If I had a family I would remember my youth and its 
 monotonies, and bid Sundays cease at one o'clock. 
 
 <>■ O 'O 
 
 Watering-places without sands belong to the adult, 
 but where there are sands the adult is eliminated 
 except as a servant of the young — a boatman, a 
 donkey man, a father with money, a mother with a 
 lunch-basket, a nurse with a towel. 
 
 After careful study I have come to the conclusion 
 that the little girl derives more pleasure from the sands 
 than the little boy. It is the little girl who rules here. 
 Paddling provides her with just as much excitement 
 and unusualness as she wants ; give her a spade and 
 a pail and bare her legs, and she is happy. The boy 
 wants a little more : he cannot forget that danger is 
 I 129
 
 Ercles' Vein 
 
 part of his heritage ; he wants to be in the distant 
 boats ; he wants to catch large fish. 
 
 And this reminds me of a comedy involving two 
 little girls and one little boy, which has given me 
 much pleasure. The little girls were making a sand 
 castle on an ambitious scale, when the little boy, a 
 total stranger, walked up to them, said it was his 
 territory, said he would "crack their two heads to- 
 gether like nuts," said he would " break their fore- 
 heads," drove them off with kicks, and assumed 
 possession. That is the first act. They hurried 
 home in tears to complain of tlie enormity, and 
 nothing was heard for some time but the arrogance 
 and selfishness of Stanley — that being his name. 
 
 Act two occurred the day after, when an expedition 
 was made to some rocks. But here I must resort to 
 dialogue. 
 
 First little girl (suddenly) : " Look, there's that 
 horrid Stanley." 
 
 Second little girl : " Where .'' So he is. I wonder 
 what he's doing ? " 
 
 They advance cautiously in a blend of curiosity and 
 fear. 
 
 Stanley (seeing them) : " Hullo 1 " 
 
 Both little girls : "Hullo!" 
 
 130
 
 Sea Music 
 
 First little girl : "What are you doing?" 
 
 Stanley : " Catching crabs. You may come and 
 watch me if you like." 
 
 Both little girls, completely won by his condescen- 
 sion and affability, hurry to his side. 
 
 Stanley : " I've caught thirty-six already ; once I 
 caught a salmon." (And much more in the same 
 vein.) 
 
 Both little girls return fascinated by this new hero. 
 Now they are warm friends. 
 
 <:> ss* o 
 
 We are not on any railway ; to get to the nearest 
 town we must either take a motor 'bus with an alarm- 
 ing amount of top hamper, or a steamer. Indeed, at 
 the moment I write we have no choice but the 
 steamer, for the motor 'bus caught fire yesterday, and 
 is not yet cool enough to resume its duties. Every 
 house and cottage contain two or three families be- 
 sides that which belongs to them, and sleeps Heaven 
 knows where, and every family has one piano and 
 two pianists. Hence there is no tune now in vogue 
 that I do not know, but I know none so well as 
 "Hiawatha" and "Lead, Kindly Light," the two 
 melodies (designed for opposite tastes) with which
 
 Our Joey 
 
 the most persistent of our visiting organs is furnished. 
 We also have companies of strolling players in the 
 evenings — Follies and Pierrots, Vagabonds and Non- 
 descripts — and by day such odd stray entertainers as 
 niggers ; an old, old, and I am sure very wicked man 
 who extricates himself from a network of knotted 
 rope, and looks far liker a venerable lay preacher ; a 
 humorist on high stilts with a mysterious way of 
 catching pennies in a hat, and an irresistible way of 
 compelling us to throw more ; and this morning a 
 fisherman from Great Yarmouth with a tame seal. 
 
 This is the best of our visitors so far. I always 
 knew that seals were very wonderful creatures, capable 
 of a cleverness for which we are at pains to find no 
 more vivid epithet than "human," and full of quiet 
 fun ; but not until I studied Joey, the seal in the box, 
 did I realise how friendly and companionable these 
 animals can be. Their eyes are more brilliant and 
 quite as sympathetic and intelligent as any dog's ; 
 their countenances are far more alert and expressively 
 conscious of their surroundings ; and their skin is the 
 most exquisite smooth silver grey. Some day I must 
 have a seal. The fisherman in whose net Joey one 
 day found himself has a pleasant humour and what 
 seems to be a genuine affection for his captive, and 
 
 132
 
 Explaining the Seal 
 
 Joey, although the freedom of the North Sea may 
 sometimes be regretted, gives eveiy indication of en- 
 joying contact with men and children. One of his 
 feats is to scratch the heads of little boys. " Flea 
 in de boy's head, Joey, flea in de boy's head," is his 
 master's formula. Adding, " I will now explain de 
 seal." Think of the arrogance of a man who would 
 explain the seal — that miracle of swiftness and anima- 
 tion, part beast, part fish, and all a delight. But this 
 Yarmouth fisherman has no hesitancy. " I will now 
 explain de seal," he says, and does it — a hundred and 
 more times a day. We know its woof and texture. 
 
 133
 
 Fires 
 
 "Oh, pile a bright fire!" 
 
 F.dward FitzGerald, 
 
 A FRIEND of mine making a list of the things 
 needed for the cottage that he had taken, put 
 at the head "bellows." Then he thought for some 
 minutes, and was found merely to hav-e added " tongs " 
 and "poker." Then he asked someone to finish it. 
 A fire, indeed, furnishes. Nothing else, not even a 
 chair, is absolutely necessary ; and it is difficult for 
 a fire to be too large. Some of the grates put into 
 modern houses by the jerry-builders would move an 
 Elizabethan to tears, so petty and mean are they, and 
 so incapable of radiation. We English people would 
 suffer no loss in kindliness and tolerance were the ingle- 
 nook restored to our homes. The ingle humanises. 
 
 Although the father of the family no longer, as in 
 ancient Greece, performs on the hearth religious rites, 
 
 134
 
 Fireside Poems 
 
 yet it is still a sacred spot. Lovers whisper there, 
 and there friends exchange confidences. Husband 
 and wife face the fire hand in hand. The table is 
 for wit and good humour, the hearth is for something 
 deeper and more personal. The wisest counsels are 
 offered beside the fire, the most loving sympathy and 
 comprehension are there made explicit. It is the 
 scene of the best dual companionship. The fire itself 
 is a friend, having the prime attribute — warmth. One 
 of the most human passages of that most human 
 poem, The Deserted Village^ tells how the wanderer 
 was now and again taken by the memory of the hearth 
 of his distant home : — 
 
 " I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, 
 Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down. . . . 
 Around my fire an evening group to draw, 
 And tell of all I felt, and all I saw. ..." 
 
 Only by the fireside could a man so unbosom himself. 
 A good fire extracts one's best ; it will not be resisted. 
 FitzGerald's " Meadows in Spring " contains some of 
 the best fireside stanzas : — 
 
 " Then with an old friend 
 I talk of our youth — 
 How 'twas gladsome, but often 
 Foolish, forsooth: 
 
 But gladsome, gladsome !
 
 Ghost Stories 
 
 Or to get merry 
 
 We sing some old rhyme, 
 Thnt made the wood ring again 
 
 In summer time — 
 
 Sweet summer time ! 
 
 Then we go to drinking, 
 
 Silent and snug ; 
 Nothing passes between us 
 
 Save a brown jug — 
 Sometimes ! 
 
 And sometimes a tear 
 
 Will rise in each eye, 
 Seeing the two old friends 
 
 So merrily — 
 
 So merrily ! " 
 
 The hearth also is for ghost stories ; indeed, a 
 ghost story demands a fire. If England were warmed 
 wholly by hot-water pipes or gas stoves, the Society 
 for Psychical Research would be dissolved. Gas 
 stoves are poor comforters. They heat the room, it 
 is true, but they do so after a manner of their own, 
 and there they stop. For encouragement, for inspira- 
 tion, you seek the gas stove in vain. Who could be 
 witty, who could be humane, before a gas stove? It 
 does so little for the eye and nothing for the imagina- 
 tion ; its flame is so artificial and restricted a thing 
 its glowing heart so shallow and ungenerous. It has 
 
 136
 
 Many Coals 
 
 no voice, no personality, no surprises ; it submits to 
 the control of a gas company, which, in its turn, is 
 controlled by Parliament. Now, a fire proper has 
 nothing to do with Parliament. A fire proper has 
 whims, ambitions, and impulses unknown to gas- 
 burners, undreamed of by asbestos. Yet even the 
 gas stove has advantages and merits when compared 
 with hot-water pipes. The gas stove at least offers 
 a focus for the eye, unworthy though it be ; and you 
 can make a semicircle of good people before it. But 
 with hot-water pipes not even that is possible. From 
 the security of ambush they merely heat, and heat 
 whose source is invisible is hardly to be coveted at 
 all. Moreover, the heat of hot-water pipes is but one 
 remove from stuffiness. 
 
 Coals are a perpetual surprise, for no two consign- 
 ments burn exactly alike. There is one variety that 
 does not burn — it explodes. This kind comes mainly 
 from the slate quarries, and, we must believe, reaches 
 the coal merchant by accident. Few accidents, how- 
 ever, occur so frequently. Another variety, found in 
 its greatest perfection in railway waiting-rooms, does 
 everything but emit heat. A third variety jumps and 
 burns the hearthrug. One can predicate nothing 
 definite concerning a new load of coal at any time,
 
 The Bedroom Fire 
 
 least of all if the consignment was ordered to be 
 "exactly like the last." 
 
 A true luxury is a fire in the bedroom. This is fire 
 at its most fanciful and mysterious. One lies in bed 
 watching drowsily the play of the flames, the flicker 
 of the shadows. The light leaps up and hides again, 
 the room gradually becomes peopled with fantasies. 
 Now and then a coal drops and accentuates the 
 silence. Movement with silence is one of the curious 
 influences that come to us : hence, perhaps, part of 
 the fascination of the cinematoscope, wherein trains 
 rush into stations, and streets are seen filled with 
 hurrying people and bustling vehicles, and yet there 
 is no sound save the clicking of the mechanism. 
 With a fire in one's bedroom sleep comes witch ingly. 
 
 Another luxury is reading by firelight, but this is 
 less to the credit of the fire than the book. An 
 author must have us in no uncertain grip when he 
 can induce us to read him by a light so impermanent 
 as that of the elfish coal. Nearer and nearer to the 
 page grows the bended head, and nearer and nearer 
 to the fire moves the book. Boys and girls love to 
 read lying full length on the hearthrug. 
 
 Some people maintain a fire from January to 
 December ; and, indeed, the days on which a ruddy 
 
 138
 
 The Gipsy's Fire 
 
 grate offends are very few. According to Mortimer 
 Collins, out of the three hundred and sixty-five days 
 that make up the year only on the odd five is a fire 
 quite dispensable. A perennial fire is, perhaps, 
 luxury writ large. The very fact that sunbeams 
 falling on the coals dispirit them to greyness and 
 ineffectual pallor seems to prove that when the sun 
 rides high it is time to have done with fuel except in 
 the kitchen or in the open air. 
 
 The fire in the open air is indeed joy perpetual, and 
 there is no surer way of renewing one's youth than by 
 kindling and tending it, whether it be a rubbish fire 
 for potatoes, or an aromatic offering of pine spindles 
 and fir cones, or the scientific structure of the gipsy to 
 heat a tripod-swung kettle. The gipsy's fire is a work 
 of art. " Two short sticks were stuck in the ground, 
 and a third across to them like a triangle. Against 
 this frame a number of the smallest and driest sticks 
 were leaned, so that they made a tiny hut. Outside 
 these there was a second layer of longer sticks, all 
 standing, or rather leaning, against the first. If a 
 stick is placed across, lying horizontally, supposing it 
 catches fire, it just burns through the middle and that 
 is all, the ends go out. If it is stood nearly upright, 
 the flame draws up to it ; it is certain to catch, burns 
 
 139
 
 Old Wood 
 
 longer, and leaves a good ember." So wrote one 
 who knew — Richard Jefiferies, in Bevis^ that epic 
 of boyhood. Having built the fire, the next thing is 
 to light it. An old gipsy woman can light a fire in 
 a gale, just as a sailor can always light his pipe, 
 even in the cave of yEolus ; but the amateur is less 
 dexterous. The smoke of the open-air fire is charged 
 with memory. One whiff of it, and for a swift moment 
 we are in sympathy with our remotest ancestors, and 
 all that is elemental and primitive in us is awakened. 
 An American poet, R. H. Messinger, wrote — 
 
 " Old wood to burn ! — ■ 
 Ay, bring the hillside beech 
 From where the owlets meet and screech, 
 
 And ravens croak ; 
 The crackling pine, and cedar sweet ; 
 Bring, too, a clump of fragrant peat. 
 
 Dug 'neath the fern ; 
 
 The knotted oak, 
 
 A faggot, too, perhaps, 
 Whose bright flame, dancing, winking, 
 Shall light us at our drinking ; 
 
 While the oozing sap 
 Shall make sweet music to our thinking." 
 
 There is no fire of coals, not even the blacksmith's, 
 that can compare with the blazing fire of wood. The 
 wood fire is primeval. Centuries before coals were 
 
 140
 
 Irish Holly 
 
 dreamed of, our rude forefathers were cooking their 
 meat and gaining warmth from burning logs. 
 
 Coal is modern, decadent. Look at this passage 
 concerning fuel from an old Irish poem : — " O man," 
 begins the lay, "that for Fergus of the feasts does 
 kindle fire, whether afloat or ashore never burn the 
 king of woods. . . . The pliant woodbine, if thou 
 burn, wailings for misfortunes will abound ; dire 
 extremity at weapons' points or drowning in great 
 waves will come after thee. Burn not the precious 
 apple tree." The minstrel goes on to name wood after 
 wood that may or may not be burned. This is the 
 crowning passage : — " Fiercest heat-giver of all timber 
 is green oak, from him none may escape unhurt ; by 
 partiality for him the head is set on aching, and by his 
 acrid embers the eye is made sore. Alder, very battle- 
 witch of all woods, tree that is hottest in the fight — 
 undoubtedly burn at thy discretion both the alder and 
 the white thorn. Holly, burn it green ; holly, burn 
 it dry ; of all trees whatsoever the critically best is 
 holly." Could anyone write with this enthusiasm 
 and poetic feeling about Derby Brights and Silk- 
 stone — even the best Silkstone and the best Derby 
 Brights ? 
 
 The care of a wood fire is, in itself, daily work for 
 
 141
 
 The Log 
 
 a man ; for far more so than with coal is progress 
 continuous. Something is always taking place and 
 demanding vigilance — hence the superiority of a wood 
 fire as a beguiling influence. The bellows must 
 always be near at hand, the tongs not out of reach ; 
 both of them more sensible implements than those 
 that usually appertain to coals. The tongs have no 
 pretensions to brightness and gentility ; the bellows, 
 quite apart from their function in life, are a thing of 
 beauty ; the fire-dogs, on whose backs the logs repose, 
 are fine upstanding fellows ; and the bricks on which 
 the fire is laid have warmth and simplicity and a 
 hospitable air to which decorative tiles can never 
 attain. Again, there is about the logs something 
 cleanly, in charming contrast to the dirt of coal. The 
 wood hails from the neighbouring coppice. You have 
 watched it grow : your interest in it is personal, and 
 its interest in you is personal. It is as keen to warm 
 you as you are to be warmed. Now there is nothing 
 so impersonal as a piece of coal. Moreover, this 
 wood was cut down and brought to the door by some 
 good-humoured countryman of your acquaintance, 
 whereas coal is obtained by miners — bad-tempered, 
 truculent fellows that strike. Who ever heard of a 
 strike among coppicers ? And the smoke from a wood 
 
 142
 
 *' Snowbound " Again 
 
 fire ! — clean and sweet and pungent, and, against dark 
 foliage, exquisite in colour as the breast of a dove. 
 The delicacy of its grey-blue is not to be matched. 
 
 Whittier's " Snow Bound " is the epic of the wood- 
 piled hearth. Throughout we hear the crackling of 
 the brush, the hissing of the sap. The texture of the 
 fire was " the oaken log, green, huge, and thick," and 
 
 " rugged brush " : — 
 
 " Hovering near, 
 We watched the first red blaze appear, 
 Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 
 On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 
 Until the old, rude-furnished room 
 Burst flcnver-like into rosy bloom." 
 
 That italicised line — my own italics — is good. For 
 the best fire (as for the best celery)— the fire most 
 hearty, most inspired, and inspiring — frost is needed. 
 When old Jack is abroad and there is a breath 
 from the east in the air, then the sparks fly and 
 the coals glow. In moist and mild weather the fire 
 only burns, it has no enthusiasm for combustion. 
 Whittier gives us a snowstorm : — 
 
 "Shut in from all the world without, 
 We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 
 Content to let the north wind roar 
 In baffled rage at pane and door, 
 
 143
 
 Mock Inferno 
 
 While the red logs before us beat 
 
 The frost line hack with tropic heat ; 
 
 And ever, when a louder blast 
 
 Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
 
 The merrier up its roaring draught 
 
 The great throat of the chimney laughed." 
 
 But the wood fire is not for all. In London it is 
 impracticable ; the builder has set his canon against 
 it. Let us, then— those of us who are able to — build 
 our coal fires the higher, and flourish in their kindly 
 light. Whether one is alone or in company, the fire 
 is potent to cheer. Indeed, a fire is company. No 
 one need fear to be alone if the grate but glows. 
 Faces in the fire will smile at him, mock him, frown 
 at him, call and repulse ; or, if there be no faces, the 
 smoke will take a thousand shapes and lead his 
 thoughts by delightful paths to the land of reverie ; 
 or he may watch the innermost heart of the 
 fire burn blue (especially if there is frost in the 
 air) ; or, poker in hand, he may coax a coal into 
 increased vivacity. This is an agreeable diversion, 
 suggesting the medi;eval idea of the Ue\il in his 
 domain. 
 
 144
 
 The Post o o <^ si:> >o -o 
 
 TV T OVV that four ounces of letter go for a penny, the 
 complexities of life are almost over. In the 
 old days, in the absence of a letter-balance, to decide 
 upon the weight of an envelope was a matter involving 
 the judgment of the whole household. One method 
 of computing it was to hold the envelope in one hand, 
 and an ounce of tobacco in the other ; but that was 
 not impeccable. Another was to employ the kitchen 
 scales, which unhappily are often superior to mere 
 accuracy, or they decline to be put in motion by any- 
 thing less than a quarter of a pound. To-day, when 
 a quarter of a pound is the standard, all such anxiety 
 is past. Still, it is distressing to think how few 
 people keep letter scales. There positively are houses 
 which possess three bicycles and a typewriter, but no 
 letter scales. On the other hand, there also are 
 ^ 145
 
 Every Postal Requisite 
 
 houses where every postal requisite is prominent. 
 Every postal requisite means a little leather box from 
 Bond Street, with " Stamps" in gold on the lid and 
 two cedarwood compartments within for penny and 
 halfpenny stamps ; a stick of sealing wax and a seal ; 
 a leather box of string, also from Bond Street, armed 
 with a tiny pair of scissors, so small that no normal 
 fingers can hold them ; a Postal Guide ; letter scales ; 
 a wet pad for stamp-moistening, which is almost 
 always overlooked until the tongue has done its work ; 
 and a photograph of Mr. Henniker Heaton, M.P. In 
 such houses it is very hard to write letters. 
 
 The late Lewis Carroll once invented a stamp case 
 — "The Wonderland" — and to accompany it he wrote 
 a little pamphlet containing " Eight or Nine Wise 
 Words about Letter Writing." As the unmethodical 
 could not have a better guide they should at once 
 acquire both pamphlet and case. " The Queen's 
 laundress," Lewis Carroll assures us, " uses no other." 
 Here are portions of some of these counsels : — " If 
 the Letter is to be in answer to another, begin by 
 getting out that other letter and reading it through, in 
 order to refresh your memory as to what it is you 
 have to answer, and as to your correspondent's/rf j-^«/ 
 address. . . . Next, address and stamp the Envelope. 
 
 146
 
 Lewis Carroll 
 
 ' What ! Before writing the Letter!^ Most certainly. 
 And I'll tell you what will happen if you don't. You 
 will go on writing till the last moment, and, just in the 
 middle of the last sentence, you will become aware 
 that ' time's up ! ' " The methodical, of course, have 
 no need of such hints ; but as most of us are otherwise 
 a few more rules may be quoted : — " Don't fill more 
 than a page and a half with apologies for not having 
 written sooner ! . . . Write legibly. . . . DoitU repeat 
 yourself. . . . When your letter is finished, read it 
 carefully through, and put in any ' not ' that you may 
 chance to have omitted. (This precaution will some- 
 times save you from saying what you had not quite 
 intended : e.g. suppose you had meant to write, ' Dear 
 Sir, I am not prepared to accept the offer you make 
 me of your hand and heart.') .... When you say, in 
 your letter, ' I enclose ^5 banknote,' or, ' I enclose 
 John's letter for you to see,' get the document referred 
 to — and put it into the envelope. Otherwise, you are 
 pretty certain to find it lying about, after the Post has 
 gone/" And again: — "If it should ever occur to 
 you to write, jestingly, in dispraise of your friend, be 
 sure you exaggerate enough to make the jesting 
 obvious : a word, spoken xnjest, but taken as earnest, 
 may lead to very serious consequences. I have 
 
 147
 
 " Conceited Letters " 
 
 known it to lead to the breaking-off of a friendship. 
 Suppose, for instance, you wish to remind your friend 
 of a sovereign you have lent him, which he has 
 forgotten to repay — you might quite iuea7t the words, 
 ' I mention it, as you seem to have a conveniently bad 
 memory for debts,' in jest ; yet there would be nothing 
 to wonder at if he took offence at that way of putting 
 it. But suppose you wrote, ' Long observation of 
 your career as a pickpocket has convinced me that my 
 only hope for recovering that sovereign I lent you, is 
 to say, "Pay up, or I'll summons ycr!'" he would 
 indeed be a matter-of-fact friend if he took that as 
 seriously meant ! " 
 
 Lewis Carroll did not, however, offer a specimen 
 letter as model. Here he sadly neglected his oppor- 
 tunities. There are publications which repair this 
 omission with examples calculated to cover most of 
 our commoner epistolary heeds, but for ordinary 
 life their language is a thought too stiff. In a much 
 earlier compilation of a similar kind the language 
 had other faults — a manual which appeared in 1618, 
 the production either of the versatile Gervase Mark- 
 ham or of another man with the same initials. Its 
 title is, " Conceited Letters Newly Laid Open, or, A 
 Most E.xcellent Bundle of New Wit : wherein is knit 
 
 148
 
 The Happily Obsolete 
 
 up together all the perfections, or Art of Episteling, 
 by which the most ignorant may with much modesty 
 talke and argue with the best learned. A Worke 
 varying from the Nature of former Presidents." This 
 slender black-letter volume contains a number of 
 letters couched in a style which it is perhaps well 
 to have superseded. The specimens given are brief, 
 but that they also are comprehensive may be gathered 
 from the two that follow : — 
 
 A Letter to a Friend for his Opinion in 
 Divers Points of Considerations. 
 
 " My Honest Ned, — I pray thee write mee word 
 by this bearer how thou doest, thy opinion of the 
 World, of life and death, honesty and wit, and what 
 comes into thy head when thou hast leisure to be 
 idle. I long to heare from thee, to reade thy con- 
 ceits, which, if they be of the old fashion, are better 
 than the new forme : be what will be, to me it shall 
 be welcome, and thyselfe, better whensoever I may 
 see thee : for dull wits and addle heads so beate 
 about the Market in this Towne, that I had rather 
 goe a mile wide than keepe way with such wilde 
 Geese : and so loath to trouble thee with trifling 
 newes, to no good purpose, in the affection of a 
 
 faithful heart : I rest, — Thine, not mine, 
 
 "T. N." 
 
 149
 
 A Bad Letter 
 
 This is the suggested reply : — 
 
 " KiNDE Henry, — To answere thy request, in a 
 few words let me tell thee, for the World, I finde 
 it a walke that soone wearieth a good spirit, this life 
 is but a pufie, and Death but an abridgement of 
 Time. Now for some notes I have taken of the 
 World, and divers things in it : let me tell thee, that 
 if all the ^vealth in the World were in one chest it 
 would not buy one houre of Life ; if all the honesty 
 of the world were in one heart, it would not buy one 
 bit of Bread ; and if all the wit in the world were in 
 one wicked pate, it would not buy one jot of grace : 
 and therefore it is meete with Death at a meaner 
 price, and to carry Money with Honesty, the better 
 to goe to Market, and to joyne Grace with Wit, to 
 find the high-way to Heaven. This is all for this 
 time I have had leasure to thinke upon, as more 
 comes into my Head, I will make you accjuainted 
 with it ; in the meantime, marke what I ha\'e written, 
 and it will doe thee no hurt in reading : Farewell. — 
 Thine, or not mine owne, T. R." 
 
 It is comfortable to think that people no longer 
 write letters like that. 
 
 When it comes to practical counsel, the last stanza 
 of one of the poems of Mrs. Elizabeth Turner, an 
 ancient preceptor of the young, and a Socratic dialogue 
 between Robert Robinson of Cambridge and his little
 
 Betsy's Lesson 
 
 daughter Betsy, offer as good instruction in corre- 
 spondence that can be given. 
 
 This is the dialogue, as given in George Dyer's 
 Life of Robinson, who was a great man. Betsy had 
 declared she could not possibly write a letter to her 
 mother. 
 
 Robinson. Shall I write for you ? 
 
 Betsy. Oh yes, I wish you would. 
 
 R. Well, get me some pen, ink, and paper. [The 
 child brings them.] Now, it must be your letter. 
 I give you the use of my hand ; but you must tell 
 me what to say. 
 
 B. But I don't know. 
 
 R. You don't know I — though you love your brother 
 so much ! Shall I find something for you? 
 
 B. Oh yes ! pray do, 
 
 R. Well, then, let's see : Dear Tommy — Last night 
 the house was burnt down from top to bottom. 
 
 B. No, don't say that ! 
 
 R. Why not? 
 
 B. 'Cause it isn't true. 
 
 R. What ! you have learned you mustn't write 
 what's not true. I am glad you have learned so 
 much. Stick to it as long as you hve. Never write 
 what is not true. But you must think of something 
 that is true. Come, tell me something.
 
 Maria's Lesson 
 
 B. I don't know. 
 
 R. Let's see — The kitten has been playing with 
 its tail this quarter of an hour. 
 
 B. No, don't write that. 
 
 J\. Why should not I write that? 
 
 B. 'Cause that's silly ; Tommy don't want to know 
 anything about the kitten and its tail. 
 
 R. Good again ! Why, my dear, I see you know 
 a great deal about letter- writing. It is not enough 
 that a thing is true ; it must be worth writing about. 
 Do tell me something to say. 
 
 B. I don't know. 
 
 R. Shall I write this—" You'll be glad to hear that 
 Sammy is quite recovered from the small-pox and 
 come downstairs " ? 
 
 B. Oh yes ! do write that. 
 
 R. And why should I write that? 
 
 B. 'Cause Tommy loves Sammy dearly, and will 
 be so glad to hear he's got well again. 
 
 R. Why, Betsy, my dear, you know how to write 
 a letter very well, if you will give yourself a little 
 trouble. Now, what next ? 
 
 And this is Elizabeth Turner's poem : — 
 
 " Maria intended a letter to write, 
 But could not begin (as she thought) to indite ; 
 So went to her mother with pencil and slate, 
 Containing ' Dear Sister,' and also a date.
 
 Talking on Paper 
 
 ' With nothing to say, my dear girl, do not think 
 
 Of wasting your time over paper and ink ; 
 
 But certainly this is an excellent way. 
 
 To try with your slate to find something to say. 
 
 'I will give you a rule,' said her mother, 'my dear; 
 Just think for a moment your sister is here. 
 And what would you tell her? consider, and then, 
 Though silent your tongue, you can speak with your pen.' 
 
 Speak with the pen 1 — that is what the best letter- 
 writers do, whether they are hterary artists, such as 
 Lamb and Horace Walpole, Cowper and Keats, 
 Edward FitzGerald and Shirley Brooks, or the un- 
 known pen-gossips whose letters are flying hither 
 and thither at this very moment, linking household 
 to household and heart to heart. My own theory is 
 that as good letters have been and are being written 
 by obscure people as any that find their way into 
 volumes. In many respects better, since there can 
 be no taint of self-consciousness in their composition, 
 no hint of posing, no thought of posterity, no attempt 
 to do more than interest or amuse. 
 
 Talking on paper : that is letter- writing ; and it 
 is because plain talk is very often better than brilliant 
 talk that education is of little service to correspond- 
 ents, and the best writers of books are by no means 
 
 153
 
 Sir Guy's Greenhouse 
 
 the best writers of letters. Many persons who spell 
 j)honetically on rules not of I'itman's but of Nature's 
 framing, are better correspondents than tlie Univer- 
 sities can ])ro(lu( c. In some of the best letters I have 
 seen, " has " was always spelt " as," and there were 
 many small capital i's ; but how interesting and com- 
 municative and shrewd they were ! It is indeed time 
 that a stand was made against the pedantic and 
 prosaic tyranny of orthography. Take, for example, 
 the following scrap of a letter from a gardener to his 
 employer — were the gardener a man of education 
 how much less picturesque would his message be ! 
 The greenhouse would then have possessed no sex 
 and no individuality. As it is, the greenhouse is a 
 delightful monster: "Sir Guy Edwardson Bart Im 
 varry sorry to tell you that I cant do enay thing with 
 the green [greenhouse] I think he will kill every 
 plant I have sometimes he will get varry hot and 
 another time I cant get eney heat in him and we 
 cant stape him from smoking so I dount know what 
 I can do with him." Again, incorrectness of spelling 
 does not impair the force of the following exhaustive 
 epistle, which was recently addressed to an Australian 
 politician by a supporter, who, like the poor man in 
 " Ecclesiastes " that helped the beleaguered king, was
 
 Downright Pens 
 
 subsequently not remembered. He wrote, as reported 
 by the Sydney Bulletin : — 
 
 " Deer Sur, — You're a dam fraud, and you know 
 it. I don't care a rap for the billet or the muny 
 either, but you could hev got it for me if you wasn't 
 as mean as muk. Two pound a week ain't eny moar 
 to me than 4c shillin's is to you, but I objekt to bein' 
 maid an infurnil fool of. Soon after you was elected 
 by my hard workin', a feller here wanted to bet me 
 that You wouldn't be in the House moren a week 
 before you maid a ass of yourself. I bet him a Cow 
 on that as i thort you was worth it then. After i got 
 Your Note sayin' you deklined to ackt in the matter 
 i driv the Cow over to the Feller's place an' tole him 
 he had won her. 
 
 " That's orl i got by howlin' meself Hoarse for you 
 on pole day, an' months befoar. You not only hurt 
 a man's Pride, but you injur him in Bizness. I 
 believe you think you'll get in agen. I don't. An' 
 what I don't think is of moar Konseciuince then you 
 imajin. I beleave you take a pleshir in cuttin' your 
 best friends, but wate till the clouds roll by an' they'll 
 cut you — just behind the Ear, where the butcher 
 cut the pig. Yure no man. An' I doant think yure 
 much of a demercrat either. Go to hel. I lowers 
 meself ritin to a skunk, even tho' I med him a 
 member of parlerment." 
 
 155
 
 A Lovers' Quarrel 
 
 If this writer does not possess what Matthew Arnold 
 called "a serviceable prose style," it would be puzzling 
 to say who does. 
 
 In Mrs. Trevelyan's Glimpses of Welsh Life and 
 Character are two letters which display a similar 
 directness. They tell of a lover's quarrel. The lady 
 wrote first : — 
 
 " I do send you these few lines to say that this do 
 leave me in good health ; but I do not mean to walk 
 out with you any more, because you did say as how 
 I was as sweet as flummery, and after that you did 
 go and tell Elizabeth how that she was sweeter than 
 huney. Now, if so be I am only flummery you can 
 put on your best cloathcs and take to huney as soon 
 as you like. I do mean to walk out with another 
 chap next Sunday. He's huney and treakle put 
 together. So no more from your late friend and 
 future enemy, . M. R." 
 
 The gentleman replied : — 
 
 " This is to warn you that if you do walk out with 
 Huney and Treakle next Sunday I will break your 
 legs. So no more whatever from your determined 
 well-wisher, C. P." 
 
 The magazine of the General Post Office once 
 published the facsimile of a postcard which, owing 
 
 156
 
 The Trotters 
 
 to the absence of any address, was never delivered. 
 It is a miracle of forcible statement. The com- 
 munication ran : — 
 
 " I have received the hamper but no trotters the 
 tripe is no good without the trotters you have had the 
 money and I want the stuff and I want the trotters 
 my money is as good as your stuff." The non- 
 delivery of this message is one of life's little 
 ironies. 
 
 In spite of entertaining arrays of primitive phonetics, 
 a prejudice in favour of correct spelling is, one 
 fears, certain to linger : printers' readers, parents, and 
 schoolmasters play too important a part in the control 
 of the world. As an instance of how deep-rooted 
 this prejudice is, I might mention that in a work on 
 rowing, Mr. Rudy Lehmann, himself an athlete and 
 humorist who ought to know better, urges correct 
 spelling even upon oarsmen — oarsmen I They are 
 called upon to share in the author's contempt for the 
 second note (and possibly the first) in the following 
 concise correspondence between a coach and one of 
 his crew. The coach wrote : — 
 
 " Dear , — It has been reported to me that you 
 
 broke training last night you were seen smoking not 
 
 157
 
 The Two Wiffs 
 
 only a few wiffs but a whole pipe I have therefore 
 decided to turn you out of the boat. 
 
 " Yours etc. . . ." 
 
 The reply ran thus : — 
 
 " Dear , — I am in reciet of your letter it is 
 
 true that I smoked two whiffs (not 'wiffs' as you 
 say) out of another man's pipe but that's all however 
 I don't want to row in your beastly boat. 
 
 " Yours etc. . . ." 
 
 If men who can manage an outrigger are not to be 
 permitted to spell as they like, it is time we ceased 
 to call England a free country.' 
 
 In an interesting article in the Pall Mall Gazette 
 I find a writer deploring the want of individuality 
 which literature must suffer under a single and 
 severe standard of spelling. Why, he asks, should 
 everyone spell alike? And he cites a redundantly 
 spelled passage from Bacon's essays to illustrate the 
 charm which we are losing by our pedantry. But 
 it is very often more the fault of the printer than 
 
 ' The curious circumstance to be noted among weak spellers 
 is their inconsistency. The same word is often spelled both 
 correctly and incorrectly in the space of a few lines. The 
 following note was once pinned by a neighbour to my door : — 
 
 "No telegram has not come, the missus as not arrived." 
 
 158
 
 Pronunciation 
 
 the author. Many authors cannot spell correctly ; 
 all printers, or printers' readers, seem to be able to. 
 
 Yet although spelling is now fixed, pronunciation is 
 not, and what we lose of individuality in writing we 
 can gain in talk. I sometimes wish that pronuncia- 
 tion were fixed, for it is very embarrassing to be 
 conversing with someone who has a totally different 
 way from one's own of applying stress ; and this 
 difficulty has grown since London became a suburb 
 of New York. Americans have such very different 
 ideas of stress. They say " ink-quirry," for example, 
 when we say " inquiry." 
 
 Sometimes very funny results follow odd pronuncia- 
 tion. Thus a recently bereaved widow living in an 
 English village once informed her visitor (at least so 
 he imagined) that her sorrow was the less by reason 
 of the possession of a son in the Azores. Not exactly 
 comprehending wherein the alleviation existed, the 
 visitor murmured some conventional phrase, but he 
 was bewildered when his companion went on to say 
 that she expected her son to walk over that evening 
 for an hour or so, as he was in the habit of doing. 
 Here was a dilemma : supposing him to have heard 
 aright, his obvious course was to felicitate the mother 
 on the possession of so gifted a son ; but he could 
 
 159
 
 Poor Letter "H" 
 
 not have heard aright, and yet she had distinctly 
 repeated the word more than once — the Azores. He 
 therefore said nothing and waited. In a moment 
 the solution came. " You see, sir," the widow added, 
 "his regiment is stationed at Brighton." Then it was 
 plain as day. The culprit was the poor letter " H " 
 again, who had absconded, leaving behind him some 
 fantastic vowel -combination to cover his retreat. 
 What the widow meant was not the Azores, but the 
 Hussars. Yet, beyond doubt, she said Azores, 
 because she was one of those persons who take 
 advantage, unconsciously, of every opportunity for 
 mispronunciation. 
 
 Reading aloud is the unavoidable test of correct 
 pronunciation. In conversation, as in the case with 
 the man who always called a vase a pot, one may 
 temporise, affect forgetfulness, resort to periphrases ; 
 but in reading aloud there is no time. The word 
 assails one from ambush, as it were. The precious- 
 stone verses in the twenty-first chapter of Revelations 
 can count their victims by hundreds. 
 
 Convention having oddly enough arranged that 
 everyone to whom we write, whether to a parent or 
 an undertaker, shall be called " dear," the beginning 
 of letters, except with hyper -conscientious corre- 
 
 iCo
 
 Subscription Difficulties 
 
 spondents, is easy ; and the hyper-conscientiousness 
 which boggles at the inaccurate employment of 
 "dear" does not often persist after the teens. The 
 true difficulty in most letters comes at the end, so 
 wide is the choice of adverbs with which the writer 
 may express his feelings towards the correspondent. 
 On this subject Lewis Carroll says : " If doubtful 
 whether to end with ' yours faithfully ' or ' yours truly ' 
 or 'yours most truly' . . . refer to your correspondent's 
 last letter, and make your winding-up at least as 
 friendly as his : in fact, e\'en if a shade more friendly 
 it will do no harm." This is astute ; but it will not 
 help in the case of the letter-writer who is answering 
 nothing. Southey, it may be noted, always dropped 
 in " God bless you." 
 
 The third-person note is one escape from the 
 adverbial dilemma ; but only a genius can manipulate 
 it. There is certain to be ambiguity among the 
 pronouns. If our social system were not so 
 ridiculously complex, the form would never have been 
 introduced. In more cases than not the attempt is 
 frankly abandoned after a few lines, as in the following 
 reply from a farmer's wife concerning lodgings : — 
 
 " Mrs. TuUett wishes to tell Mrs. Smith that her 
 L i6i
 
 Mother and Son 
 
 rooms are now let, and I don't know how long it will 
 be before they are vacant." 
 
 Experience teaches that it is best to adhere to the 
 first person singular, even at the cost of appearing too 
 familiar. By the way, among first-person-singular 
 correspondence there is nothing to e.xcel the concise- 
 ness, force, and directness of the following notes, 
 which once passed between Mrs. Foote, the mother 
 of the comedian, and Foote himself. Mrs. F"oote 
 wrote : — 
 
 "Dear Sam,— I am in prison for debt ; come and 
 assist your loving mother, E. Foote." 
 
 Sam replied : — 
 
 "Dear Mother, — So am I; which prevents his 
 duty being paid to his loving mother by her affection- 
 ate son, Sam Foote." 
 
 Millionaires correspond, one presumes, entirely by 
 telegram. An objection to such a practice, apart from 
 the detail of expense, is that in time one must come to 
 talk like Alfred Jingle. 
 
 The antithesis of the telegram is the postcard, 
 which has as little connection with true epistolary art. 
 
 162
 
 Lewis Carroll Again 
 
 The fact that ingenious persons can crowd many 
 hundreds of words upon it is nothing in its favour. To 
 crowd words is indeed a fault in correspondence ; to 
 underHne (a womanly accomplishment) is undesirable ; 
 and to cross is wicked. " Remember," says Lewis 
 Carroll, " the old proverb, ' Cross writing makes cross 
 reading ' " — adding slyly, " ' The old proverb ? ' you say 
 inquiringly. 'How old?' Well, not so z/^ry ancient, 
 I must confess. In fact, I'm afraid I invented it 
 while writing this paragraph." Another bad habit 
 is eccentric pagination, especially when indicative 
 numbers by which it may be followed are omitted. 
 Yet considering what a blessed thing the letter can 
 be— and by letters I mean friendly, intimate pen-chat 
 — any method, however odd, is permissible. Com- 
 municativeness is the grand test. 
 
 163
 
 Innkeepers and Little Carts ^ 
 
 <:> 
 
 T HAVE just had a present worth the name. Most 
 presents are useless — consisting either of some- 
 thing that one does not want, or something that one 
 does want but would not have bought for oneself quite 
 in that form. But my present is perfect — a new atlas 
 of England and Wales on the half-inch survey. I do 
 not say that the inch survey would not have been 
 better ; but one carries that in one's pocket sheet by 
 sheet : in the home the half inch is sufficient. It is 
 surely enough to have all England and Wales, and a 
 little unavoidable piece of Scotland north of the 
 Border, spread out for one in delectable half-inches in 
 the pages of a single book. I shall not grumble. I 
 can, by a superb effort of muscle, place it on the table 
 and roam wherever I like, from Land's End to the 
 Tweed. I can know just how high the land is, for the 
 
 164
 
 Maps and Inns 
 
 altitudes are indicated by varying shades of brown 
 (Snowdon is black) ; I can swim or ford rivers ; 
 I can penetrate woods ; I can avoid towns ; I can 
 trespass and not be persecuted. Having completed 
 a long walk (as I have just done in Wiltshire), I 
 can sit down in an armchair, balance this prodigious 
 tome on my knees, and perform the week's journey 
 all over again in a few minutes ; or if an interested 
 friend should come in, I can take him with me step 
 by step and tell him all about the Icknield Way 
 and the inns. 
 
 The inns. That opens up a new subject, and 
 reminds me of the great weakness of ordinary 
 walking-maps, whether one inch or half-inch. They 
 do not discriminate between inns. They say " Inn." 
 They do not say " Good inn," " Indifferent inn," " Bad 
 inn," " New proprietor," " Cold joints kept," " Old ale 
 here," " Good bacon," and so forth. How could they, 
 indeed, when they do so much ? But it ought to be 
 done. Someone ought to prepare maps on this 
 principle, particularly now, when, with the rise of the 
 automobile, the inn is coming into use again. Loth 
 as one is to suggest that we have not enough books, I 
 am sure there is a call for a road book which shall 
 really be an independent guide to inns. Kelly's 
 
 165
 
 Two Good Bonifaces 
 
 county directories are good, and there are hotel 
 guides, too, but in these the landlords are their own 
 appraisers. My book should be impartial and should 
 confine itself to the essential things — trustworthy 
 airing, spontaneous lighting of fires, coals that emit 
 heat, beef, beer. It should also (this is very im- 
 portant) say how long each landlord has been in the 
 house. 
 
 A saturnine friend once remarked to me, as we 
 passed the familiar notice, that the best thing to be 
 said of any English inn was that it was " under 
 entirely new management." I looked upon the 
 comment then as a piece of his destructive humour ; 
 but now I know that it was a profound truth. During 
 the past month I have come, tired in the evening, to 
 many inns, but the only two which I recall with un- 
 feigned pleasure were in the hands of men who had 
 taken them over since midsummer. One was at Lam- 
 bourn, the other at Devizes. These alone played the 
 host as one likes to think of that role. I do not mean 
 that they spent their time on the doorstep scanning 
 the road for travellers, and on sight of them setting in 
 motion the machinery of theatrical welcome ; but they 
 were hearty and suggestive, and although it was only 
 October — and the ordinary inn lights its fires by a 
 
 i66
 
 Wet but Welcome 
 
 calendar which authorises nothing before November, 
 and is grudging then— they struck matches with 
 cordial zest, and, what is not less to their credit, made 
 no play with wine lists, swept away the pink glasses 
 without a suspicion of a frown, and were as ready to 
 discuss the merits of their old ale as though every pint 
 carried ten shillings profit. It was not as if we had 
 about us any symbol of wealth or influence — quite the 
 reverse ; while to one of these hostelries (the one at 
 Lambourn) we came on a Sunday afternoon (when land- 
 lords like to rest among the wax flowers and portraits of 
 Lord Kitchener) wet to the skin. But our welcome 
 was one of the kindest things I remember in all my 
 life, in spite of a rivulet from each of us that rushed 
 about the parlour floor and put the tap-room in spate. 
 I daresay that both these landlords will become 
 mechanical in time ; but we caught them fresh and 
 loved them. May they soon pass on to develop inns 
 elsewhere, and may they be continually passing on, 
 leaving equally zealous successors behind them ! 
 
 How Dickens gloried in the innkeeper type — 
 revelled in it ! He gave us landlords moulded of the 
 finest clay, of whom old John of the Maypole in Barnaby 
 Rudge was not the least ; but for racy flavour the 
 innkeeper in Silas Marner is equal to any of them. 
 
 167
 
 Great Innkeepers 
 
 Thackeray has good innkeepers too, but it is, of 
 course, Dickens who in the aggregate extracts from 
 them their best vakie. Why, think only of his scenes 
 that are laid at an inn. It was at an inn that Mr. 
 Pickwick met Sam, at an inn that Nicholas met 
 Squeers, at an inn that Mr. Pickwick strayed into the 
 wrong bedroom, at an inn that David Copperfield 
 relinquished his glass of porter to the waiter, at an 
 inn that Mr. Weller ducked Mr. Stiggins. The list is 
 unending. The difference between innkeepers in 
 English fiction and innkeepers in European fiction is 
 that the latter are ne\er honest. In Dumas, in Le 
 Sage, in Cervantes, what rogues they are. Think of 
 the villainies practised upon Don Quixote and upon 
 Gil Bias by innkeepers 1 Literature also numbers 
 good hostesses, notably (of course) Mistress Quickly, 
 of the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, and Mrs. Anthony 
 Weller of the Marquess of Granby at Dorking. As 
 for Mistress Quickly, she is, of course, immortal. At 
 first one is attracted by the abundance of her nature, 
 her rich, full - blooded robustness, her magnificent 
 fidelity to fact and opposition to mealy metaphor and 
 innuendo. Afterwards, when she tells of the death of 
 Sir John, our admiration turns to love. 
 There are certain men who naturally become inn- 
 
 i6S
 
 Inn Pictures 
 
 keepers. Butlers end their lives behind their own 
 bars, professional cricketers either sell cricketing 
 implements or take a house. Jockeys and bookmakers 
 come to innkeeping, too, but their houses are less 
 interesting. Where the landlord is an old cricketer, 
 you will find on the walls lithographs of Alfred Mynn 
 and Felix, faded photographs of early Australian 
 teams, "W. G.," and Jupp, All England in the 'sixties, 
 and so on. Where the inn is on a high road and now 
 in the tenancy of an ex-driver, you will find coloured 
 sporting prints after Sartorius, and the Alkens, and 
 J. F. Herring, and perhaps the picture commemor- 
 ating poor Jim Selby's great and fatal drive from 
 London to Brighton and back in a little under eight 
 hours. Innkeepers' taste in books is less sound. In 
 fact most inn libraries are composed of what visitors 
 leave behind, with an old work on farriery added. 
 
 The right innkeeper is never in a hurry, never so 
 busy as to treat a customer abruptly, never so idle as 
 to thrust himself upon a customer for pastime. Nor 
 — although nothing is so despicable in an innkeeper as 
 slavish trimming — must he loo vigorously assert him- 
 self. To independence he must unite flexibility, 
 knowledge of the world to self-respect. Moreover, he 
 should be a man of portly presence and genial bear- 
 
 169
 
 Old Ale 
 
 ing, capable of looking attractive if not dignified in 
 shirt sleeves, for that is the uniform of the brother- 
 hood. He should be able to recall from personal 
 experience several Derbys, and know of a man who 
 has terrier puppies for sale. He should, for the 
 traveller's benefit, be intimate with the country within 
 a ten-mile radius (but, as a melancholy fact, he seldom 
 is), and an authority on the private lives of the neigh- 
 bouring squires. Above all, he should be a judge of 
 good liquor, and keep nothing but the best. And here, 
 alas I he woefully fails. The innkeeper who takes a 
 genuine pride, born of knowledge, in the liquor he 
 sells is distressingly rare. Either by reason of the 
 tied-house system, or heavy rent, or carelessness, or 
 ignorance, the average innkeeper thinks not at all of 
 the quality of his beer. That he should treat wine 
 somewhat perfunctorily is perhaps natural, but there 
 is no excuse for bad beer. How seldom can one 
 obtain old ale — 
 
 ' ' Ale that the absent battle fights 
 
 And frames the march of Swedish drum, 
 Disputes the Prince's laws and lights, 
 And what is past and what's to come 
 Tells mortal wights." 
 
 And yet old ale of notable integrity should be in every 
 
 170
 
 Importance of Hunger 
 
 inn cellar, and the innkeeper should be able to tell the 
 date on which the barrel was laid down. 
 
 I wonder how many persons who ride about England 
 in motor-cars recognise that a grave social responsi- 
 bility is resting upon them. Their immediate duty to 
 their fellow-men is simply to be frequently hungry, and 
 to insist upon being properly fed. By so doing they 
 have it in their power to regenerate the roadside inns 
 of this country, and thus to be of incalculable public 
 service. For the roadside inns to-day are, most of 
 them, in as bad a state as they can well be— from the 
 point of view of everyone whose requirements extend 
 beyond beer. Eating in them seems to have gone 
 clean out. It is the commonest experience of anyone 
 on a walking expedition to be met with the information 
 that there is nothing to eat in the house, or only bread 
 and cheese ; while sometimes one has to face the 
 point-blank refusal to prepare any food at all. 
 
 If the poet Shenstone, who wrote the verses which 
 too many indifferent landlords use as an advertise- 
 ment, were to revisit this life and take a walking 
 expedition in the country easily accessible from 
 London, I fear that no more lines celebrating the 
 warm welcome of the inn would emerge from his pen. 
 Most of the welcomes that now retain any heat are 
 
 171
 
 " Bonifiers " 
 
 reserved for the consumers of liquids. People who 
 require more solid sustenance are a nuisance. 
 
 This is not the case all over England. In York- 
 shire there is still a prejudice in fa\ our of eating ; and 
 the finest cold meal I ever saw spread for the casual 
 sojourner was at Helston, in Cornwall ; but in the 
 home counties the between-town roadside inns have 
 too much come to be merely houses where people 
 drink — a base misuse of a noble institution. If I 
 found myself on the Bench at a Brewster Sessions, I 
 would advocate granting no licence on a high road 
 between towns unless the landlord covenanted to keep 
 a joint of beef always in cut. 
 
 It is probable — I have no knowledge of the law in 
 this matter — that a bonH-Jide traveller has as much 
 right to demand food as drink ; but there are few of 
 us who have enough character to see such a demand 
 carried out by an intractable and unpleasant landlord, 
 or enough presence to convince that landlord that the 
 case is earnest. A presence is immensely important, 
 and that is where I feel that the motor-car is going to 
 be so helpful. Not that the automobilist is necessarily 
 a giant, but his environment is impressive. He is 
 attended by circumstances of importance and excite- 
 ment. 
 
 172
 
 Motocrats 
 
 The persons who dash over the roads in motor-cars 
 are commanding and terrible. They seem almost like 
 visitors from another planet : implacable Martians. 
 They are exquisitely calculated to strike fear into the 
 hearts of even independent landlords, and to appal 
 and instruct the cravens placed by brewers in tied 
 houses. Also they are, as I have said, rich, and 
 therefore are worth pleasing by innkeepers. But 
 most of all they are hungry, and having no motive 
 power to supply themselves as they sit among their 
 cushions after a meal, they are prepared to eat heartily. 
 It follows, then, that they have the regeneration of our 
 inns in the hollow of their hands. By eating steadily 
 all along the road they will come to set a new fashion. 
 Landlords will once again take to keeping something 
 in the house besides liquids ; and humble travellers 
 will once again venture to expect food. 
 
 The motor-car does not otherwise interest me. I 
 have no wish to go fast ; I want to go very slow 
 indeed, I want to use my legs. Every man must 
 champion some lost cause or other if he would keep 
 sweet ; and legs are mine. Yet to gird at the motor- 
 car, however it may relieve the feelings, is becoming 
 very old game : " mechanical," as Beau Tibbs would 
 say — and one hates that. So I will only say that I 
 
 173
 
 Little Carts 
 
 have lately been very happy in the country of the 
 little carts. 
 
 The country of the little carts has wide borders, 
 but you do not enter it very near London. You must 
 pay about six shillings for your third-class ticket 
 before you can really reach it. But then you will be 
 in it at once, without further prelude — there will be 
 little carts at the station, and little carts in the town, 
 and some will have old rosy-cheeked men driving 
 them, and some will have young farmers, and some- 
 times there will be a pretty girl by the driver, and 
 sometimes a grandmother with a basket. But the 
 carts will be all alike in their size, and in their pace, 
 and in an air of quiet content. And they will not 
 seem to be wishing they were bigger carts — wagon- 
 ettes, phaetons, brakes, chars-a-bancs ; thus differing 
 as completely as is possible from motor-cars, which, 
 I understand, are always wanting to be larger and 
 stronger than they are. It is good now and then to 
 see a i-cob power vehicle being glad it is i-cob 
 power. For such a corrective you must seek the 
 country of the little carts. 
 
 I saw the little carts everywhere ; at all times I 
 heard them coming or going. I met them and was 
 passed by them : now and then 1 overtook them 
 
 174
 
 Gloucestershire 
 
 (outside hostelries, one of which bore the odd and 
 melancholy name of The Trouble House). Once I 
 sat beside the road for a few minutes on a bridge 
 over a stream, and two little carts passed me instantly. 
 They sprang from nowhere, came into being for my 
 delectation, and vanished into nothingness again. 
 And all had two wheels and a sturdy cob, and they 
 came rattling merrily along the road. Had I asked 
 them, they would have given me a lift, I am sure ; 
 but I was walking. That was in Gloucestershire, 
 where the walls are made of stone (out of which 
 once popped a weasel, and ran along a little way and 
 then disappeared, and then again appeared and 
 disappeared, as if it were hemming a handkerchief — 
 in and out, out and in) : in quiet gabled Gloucester- 
 shire, where the humblest barn is more beautifully 
 ecclesiastic than the most pretentious of our latter- 
 day churches, and cattle have sheds that surpass 
 many cloisters ; where wallflowers, in their true 
 colours, grow like weeds — brown and yellow, yellow 
 and brown, with never a spurious purple among them ; 
 and where in the spring the meadows are full of 
 cowslips. But most of all in Gloucestershire I noticed 
 the little carts. 
 
 I saw them all the time, as I say, except on Sunday 
 
 175
 
 Cirencester 
 
 — all about Malmesbury (which, however, is in 
 Wiltshire), and all about Tetbury, with its lofty spire, 
 and Stroud beneath Minchinhampton's heights. But 
 when I reached Cirencester on a Monday — which is 
 market-day — then I discovered that previously I had 
 known nothing about little carts at all ; for I had seen 
 them hitherto in ones and threes, and here they were 
 in battalions. Cirencester (which, praise be to God, 
 is not, I found, pronounced, as I had always been 
 told by the profane, Cissister, but Cir-en-ces-ter in 
 full — slowly, with loyal stress on every one of its 
 noble syllables), Cirencester that Monday, although 
 populous with flustered bullocks and men in leggings, 
 was really a city of little carts. The men in leggings 
 and the flustered bullocks owned only the centre of 
 the town ; the litde carts the rest. Every inn-yard 
 was a mass meeting of little carts ; little carts resting 
 idly on their shafts filled the outlying streets. I 
 never before saw so many little carts. So many 
 little carts never before saw me. 
 
 I intended to say nothing of motor-cars, except 
 between the lines, but I find I must. For yesterday, 
 which was a Sunday of heat and nightingales, as I 
 was climbing a hill road in Kent, meditating on life 
 and looking now and tlicn at the Weald under the 
 
 176
 
 Dust the Destroyer 
 
 slanting sun, I was aware suddenly of a monstrous 
 noise behind me, and, turning hastily, beheld a giant 
 motor-car breasting the slope as unconcernedly as if 
 that were a mill race. It passed me in a rush and 
 whirl, and for more than a minute, such was its eddy 
 of dust, the hill, the Weald, indeed the whole world, 
 including all my gentle thoughts, were blotted out as 
 though they had never been. I groped and strangled 
 and knew something of what the Arab feels when the 
 simoon fills his eyes and throat ; and by the time my 
 senses were clear again the owner of the car was, I 
 suppose, comfortably in his bath in Park Lane. Well, 
 all this is unimportant, trivial, daily ; but it served to 
 send my mind back to the country of the little cart 
 with poignant longing. For, being well outside what 
 I may call the stockbrokers' zone, in which it is my 
 lot normally to dwell, it has few motor-cars, and 
 those few seem to lack the arrogance which the A 
 and LC cars for the most part possess — this car yester- 
 day, for example. Is it possible, I asked myself, 
 to go through a peaceful country village, and up a 
 beautiful hill beside a great view, amid singing birds, 
 on a Sunday afternoon, making a cloud of disfiguring 
 dust that not only is very hard on wayfarers but very 
 hard on hedges and hedge flowers too — is it possibly 
 
 •M 177
 
 My Boy's Destiny 
 
 to do this willingly and have a pure mind, a kindly 
 heart ? I have grave doubts. 
 
 I suppose that to the owner of a powerful motor- 
 car, accustomed to take hills at a leap, so to speak, 
 and to pass everything that appears on the road before 
 him, I suppose that to such a man a little cart is a 
 more impossible thought than to Mr. Meredith, say, 
 a daily hour with a first reader, or to Sir Martin 
 Conway a stroll over Primrose Hill, or to Mr. Jessop 
 a bat-and-trap contest at a Sunday-school treat. 
 To such as he a little cart must be the last word in 
 retrogression, inoperativeness. I hope so ; for if I 
 were autocrat, and it seemed well to punish this man, 
 I should sentence him to a little cart. " Drive a 
 little cart," I should say, "for si.x months, and get 
 humility into you again." 
 
 To return to the atlas, if I had a son I think I 
 would make hini a cartographer. It may not be the 
 lordliest life, but it is a very good one, for it would 
 bring him continually into touch with the soil ; it 
 would teach him the green earth. He would be forced 
 to know England, and what destiny could be more 
 delightful? 1 used to want to spend much time in 
 France, if not farther afield ; but this atlas, for the 
 present at any rate, has changed all that. My 
 
 178
 
 Ambition 
 
 one ambition now, as I turn its pages, is to know 
 more of England, to know all of England. Those 
 brown heights I must scale ; those green levels 
 I must wander through ; I must try all those 
 
 179
 
 Cricket and the Backward Look o o 
 
 T HAVE lately been reading again several very 
 delightful books on cricket — Nyren's and Mr. 
 Pycroft's, Caffyn's Seventy-one Not Out, the Bishop of 
 Tasmania's History of Kennington, Mr. PuUin's Talks 
 with old English Cricketers, and Albert Knight's new- 
 psychological study of the game, so patient and 
 sincere and admirable in spirit ; and though I have 
 been very happy loitering among their pages, I have 
 been unhappy too. Regrets will come stealing in — 
 regrets for a day when matches were fewer, and 
 innings were shorter and smaller and yet more 
 glorious, and cricketers were simpler, and pitches 
 were less perfect, and Lord's was not like a race 
 meeting, and a hundred was called a hundred and not 
 a century, and there was no county championship, and 
 no e\ening paper ?-t'Liai>ie, and W. G. played for 
 
 180
 
 Single Wicket 
 
 Gloucestershire, and the interval for tea (tea !) was 
 unknown. Think of Alfred Mynn taking an interval 
 for tea, and think of Fuller Pilch's surprise if he should 
 alight upon a paper which (as a paper did last week) 
 applied the headline " A Bad Start " to the score of 
 an innings which reached 117 for two wickets. There 
 was a time when 117 was a decent score for a whole 
 side. It is not difificult sometimes to wish for that 
 time once more. 
 
 I wonder if we are ever to see single-wicket matches 
 again. They seem to have gone for ever, with the 
 tall hat, and the grey flannel shirt, and the leg hit ; 
 and yet there must in the old days have been as much 
 fun and excitement at a two -hours' single-wicket 
 match as ever is extracted now from a three-day 
 county contest. 
 
 For it is not as though the spectacle of eleven men 
 striving to outwit and conquer eleven others were 
 eleven times better than the spectacle of the same 
 struggle between one and one. Quite the reverse. 
 And considering the modern tendency to get at the 
 essence of the thing, to take pleasures rapidly, it is 
 rather odd that the shorter form of the game should 
 have gone so completely out in favour of the longer. 
 But so it is. 
 
 181
 
 The Modern Stress 
 
 There are, of course, reasons enough for the decay 
 of single-wicket. It is the highly-speciahsed character 
 of first-class cricket to-day that has crowded out these 
 old genial contests between hero and hero, any 
 balance of time left over by an early finish of a three- 
 day match that might have been well spent in this 
 way having now to go to the recuperation of the 
 cricketers against their next match. Committees who 
 have to pay their way would not like to see such 
 wanton expenditure of strength as would be involved 
 by a single-wicket match, or, indeed, by any of the 
 old methods of filling up time in the interests of sport 
 and the spectator, such as throwing the cricket ball 
 or a hundred yards race. These are the penalties of 
 the severity of the modern conditions of the first-class 
 game, under which the cricketer is ceasing to be 
 anything but a cricketing machine. 
 
 Single-wicket is, of course, a serious matter. It is 
 a fiercer trial of all-round capacity than the ordinary 
 game. The bowler has to bowl steadily without the 
 rest offered by overs, and he must bat almost immedi- 
 ately after. Hence, considering how continuous is 
 the strain on a county cricketer to-day, there is very 
 good reason why it should not be played by these 
 men in the heart of the season. But September 
 
 182
 
 A Word to the M.C.C. 
 
 should see many matches. The holders of the two 
 highest averages at the end of the first-class fixtures, 
 for example, might by an unwritten law always have 
 to meet. This would be a capital institution. The 
 two bowlers heading the analyses might also play — 
 probably a match of amazing brevity. But, as a 
 matter of fact, scores in most of the historic single- 
 wicket matches are surprisingly low, and if the old 
 average were maintained there would be time in one 
 day to polish off not only the two contests I have 
 named, but perhaps one or two challenges too. 
 
 The M.C.C. ought to think seriously of a single- 
 wicket carnival at the end of each season. It is what 
 cricket wants, and will want still more if the present 
 commercial and over-strenuous conditions proceed by 
 logical progression : a touch of irresponsibility, a 
 breath of the sporting spirit. A few merry individual 
 challenges sandwiched in between the formal rigours 
 and classic austerities of the inter-county fixtures 
 would save the first-class game. The Muse of Cricket 
 just now, I believe, has a kinder feeling for the 
 Saturday afternooners on the village greens. 
 
 Mr. Pycroft, who wrote The Cricket Field, sat at 
 the feet of old Beldham, the famous Silver Billy, of 
 whom Nyren wrote with such fervour, and heard many 
 
 183
 
 Silver Billy 
 
 stories of the great single-wicket days. The name 
 of William Beldham is in itself a symbol for cricket 
 romance — this beautiful fair-haired athlete — a model 
 for Pheidias, Nyren calls him — who, after a young 
 manhood of great deeds, at the age of fifty-four 
 crashed all over the ground the terrible bowling of 
 Browne of Brighton, the fastest bowler of his time, 
 and perhaps as fast as anyone since. On the day 
 before this match, Browne dropped into the Green 
 Man, where Beldham and Fennex were taking a glass, 
 and mentioned to Beldham, " with as much sincerity 
 as good humour" — I quote from Fennex's narration 
 to Mr. Mitford— "that he should soon send his 
 stumps a-flying. ' Hold there,' said Beldham, finger- 
 ing his bat ; ' you will be good enough to allow me 
 this bit of wood, won't you ? ' ' Certainly,' said 
 Browne. ' Quite satisfied,' answered Beldham ; " and 
 on the morrow he made 72 and Browne had no 
 chance. 
 
 Another of the more famous single-wicket matches 
 was that at Lord's in 18 10, in which Mr. Osbaldeston 
 and William Lambert backed themselves to beat 
 Lord Frederick Beauclerk (perhaps the greatest name 
 in the history of cricket) and Mr. Howard. Mr. 
 Osbaldeston was too ill to play, and as Lord Frederick 
 
 184
 
 William Lambert 
 
 refused to postpone the match the whole burden fell 
 upon Lambert. Lambert was equal to the task. He 
 made 56 and 24, and put out the others for 24 and 42. 
 Beldham, who was there, told Mr. Pycroft that Mr. 
 Osbaldeston's mother sat by in her carriage, and when 
 the game was won called Lambert to her. After a 
 brief interval he bore away a paper parcel, but whether 
 it contained a gold watch or bank-notes no one ever 
 knew. Lambert seems to have lived for cricket. 
 One of his cousins — an old lady of eighty and a 
 neighbour of mine — told me that he thought nothing 
 of walking twenty-five miles to London to get a little 
 good practice. He took the game very seriously right 
 to the end. One night, she told me, he astonished 
 her household — she then lived at Westerham — by 
 walking in unexpectedly at a late hour with a thunder- 
 cloud on his broad brow. He had been playing in a 
 match at Tonbridge, and had been " cheated out." 
 That was his story. To offer supper or a bed was 
 useless. With the refrain "cheated out " on his lips 
 he strode forth again on his way to Nutfield. Had 
 Lambert been a boy this incident would be nothing ; 
 but he was over sixty ! " And," added his cousin, 
 "as active as a cat." 
 
 I heard the other day, between the innings of a 
 
 185
 
 A Story 
 
 village match, the best single wicket story of recent 
 times that has come my way. Two octogenarians, 
 A. and 15., both old Blues, were so carried away by 
 enthusiasm at the last University, match that they 
 arranged a single wicket contest. On the day appointed 
 they met, among a number of sympathetic friends. 
 V^. won the toss, and went in and had made 12 
 before he was bowled ; but when the time came for 
 
 A. to take the bat he was unable to do so. Anno 
 Domini asserted itself: his weariness and weakness 
 were too serious ; he could only lie on a sofa and cry 
 for his lost strength. It was therefore decided that 
 
 B. should go out to bowl the absent man's wicket 
 down. Off he went, with the crowd, while A. groaned 
 indoors in an agony of disappointment and feebleness. 
 Suddenly, however, his friends came running back, 
 all excitement and satisfaction. " Bravo ! well played, 
 old man ! " they cried. " You've won the match — 
 he's bowled 13 wides I " 
 
 Seriously, the revival of single-wicket matches 
 ought to be considered, or something done to re- 
 juvenate the first-class game. The mischief is the 
 necessity for each county to be a going concern. 
 Money has done the evil. When money comes in 
 at the door joyousness flies out of the window, and 
 
 t86
 
 George IV, 
 
 first-class cricket has become a little care-worn. 
 Some people have said that literature requires patrons, 
 but cricket needs them far more. Cricket should be 
 the hobby of the House of Lords, the hereditary foes 
 to gate money. If peers had grounds and elevens 
 there would be fun in the first-class field once more, 
 and single-wicket matches in plenty. 
 
 A propos of patrons, I wonder how many people 
 know that George iv. was a cricketer. Albert Knight 
 gives him due credit, and so does an earlier and less 
 scientific writer — Peter Parley, friend of our grand- 
 fathers' boyhood. I found Peter Parley's evidence in 
 his Antiual for 1840 ; and as any story to the credit of 
 George the Fourth is desirable, however untrue, I am 
 pleased to bring it forward. It has two merits : it 
 shows the First Gentleman in Europe in a light 
 more or less gentlemanly and sportsmanlike, and it 
 shows the national game basking (as it should, but for 
 too long has not) in the smiles of royal patronage. 
 
 This is the story, told with a naivete possible only to 
 one who himself had never handled bat or ball : a 
 naivete which is perhaps unequalled by those who 
 write with equal ignorance of any other subject : — 
 
 "Cricket is a noble game. Why, do you know that even 
 blood royal has stood, bat in hand, surrounded by the young 
 
 187
 
 The Cobbler of Slough 
 
 buds of nobility ; and I can tell you this, that the Prince of 
 Wales, afterwards George tlie Fourth, was a noble cricketer, and 
 few could bowl him out. I will tell you an anecdote of Prince 
 George, which occurred when he was a cricketer. 
 
 "I said few could bowl him out. There was, however, a 
 little shoemaker who lived at Slough, near Windsor ; a little 
 man, who, having a keen eye and strong arm, had acquired 
 such extraordinary skill in bowling that few could defend a 
 wicket against him. The Prince heard of the little man and 
 felt desirous of trying his skill, for the Prince considered himself 
 one of the first batsmen in the kingdom. 
 
 "A confidential friend of the Prince arranged a match be- 
 tween the Buckinghamshire and Berkshire cricketers, to take 
 place on a certain day, and the Prince went disguised as a 
 civilian. 
 
 "Well, the game began, and the Berkshire men had the 
 first innings. The Prince being on this side, it soon fell to 
 his Royal Highness to take the bat. ' What bit of a thing is 
 that at the wicket ? ' said the cobbler. 
 
 " ' Oh, he is a tailor,' said someone who stood by. 
 
 " ' Then,' said the bowler, ' I'll break his bat for him.' 
 
 " He took his run and aim, and sent the ball with amazing 
 force and velocity. The Prince blocked it as dead as a 
 stone. 
 
 " The shoemaker held his hands over his eyes and surveyed 
 the Prince from top to bottom. ' No tailor could do that,' 
 said he ; ' he must be a lad of wa.\.' 
 
 " ' He is,' said the second. 
 
 " 'Then I will nn-lt him hcfori' I have done with him. Play." 
 
 "Away went the ball again, as if it had been sent from one 
 of the ancient war-engines. 
 
 " The Prince tipt it with the edge of his bat, without striking 
 
 i88
 
 The Cobbler of Slough 
 
 a blow, and it flew off to an amazing distance, in a direction by 
 no means well guarded. Three runs was the result. 
 
 " 'You have got a strange customer there, I am sure," said 
 Long Stop, who generally stands immediately behind the 
 wicket. 
 
 "'We shall be better acquainted presently,' said he. 'I 
 will give him a ball he is not used to." 
 
 " After giving the Prince many other balls with great force, 
 from which several runs were obtained by his clever management 
 of the bat, the bowler seemed to summon up all his energy for 
 one grand effort. He went back for a considerable distance, 
 took an exact aim, ran with all his force to the popping course, 
 and delivered — how — ? 
 
 "As gently as the thistledown flies along the air; the ball 
 ran along the grass like a snake, and stopped just in the middle 
 of the wicket, knocking off the cross piece like a fly. 
 
 "A shout rose from the Buckinghamshire men, and the 
 Prince threw down his bat, seemingly mortified ; in a moment, 
 however, he walked up to the bowler, and put a lieavy purse 
 into his hand. 
 
 " A horse was in waiting at a short distance, and the Prince 
 immediately left the field. The next morning, however, tlie 
 Slough shoemaker received a notice to attend the Castle. 
 ' For,' said the Prince, ' if he makes shoes as well as he plays 
 cricket, he shall be my shoemaker.' And this bowler was 
 shoemaker to the Prince and George the Fourth after he came 
 to the throne." 
 
 That is the story — which I have refrained from 
 interrupting with the word sic : the triumph would 
 have been too easy. One would perhaps wish that 
 
 189
 
 Our Little Princes 
 
 certain things in the match had not happened : that 
 the Prince had retained his bat, for example, and even 
 his purse, and that the horse had not been so ready ; 
 but the anecdote, I think, with al! its faults, has great 
 merits, if only to point the way. Our kings and 
 princes have done so little for cricket. 
 
 But there are signs that a better time is coming. 
 Edward the Seventh may not himself have put the 
 scorers to much trouble or often have shed his radiance 
 upon a great contest ; but I know from personal observa- 
 tion that his grandsons are keen, for I saw them at 
 the fifth Test Match at the Oval last summer, and one 
 day at Lord's too, watching the practice. May they 
 (to drop into the manner of Peter Parley) grow into 
 clever managers of the bat, capable of frequently 
 urging the ball into directions by no means well 
 guarded ! 
 
 Not only has cricket lost many of its old simplicities, 
 it has lost its characters too. In the late process 
 of levelling up, or le\elling down, individuality has 
 suffered. Where is our Tom Emmett to-day ? 
 Where is our bowler to bowl fifty-five widcs in one 
 year — and take a hundred wickets at fewer than ten 
 runs apiece ? Around Tom's name many good stories 
 cluster and will ever cluster. It was Tom who warned 
 
 190
 
 Tom Emmett 
 
 an encroaching point : " If I were thee, mister, I'd 
 stand a little farther back, because when I hits there 
 
 I hits hard." It was Tom who, when bowled first 
 
 ball by a lob, made the classic series of answers to the 
 commiserator in the crowd. " How was that, Tom?" 
 "Don't Tom me." "Well, Mr. Emmett, how was 
 that ? " " Don't Mr. Emmett me." " Then what shall 
 
 I call you?" "Call me a fool." Tom Emmett, 
 
 after his active cricket was over, became a professional 
 bowler at Rugby, where he stayed several years. He 
 then coached at Leicester, and is now dead and only 
 a memory. But he has never been commemorated 
 rightly. Some Rugby amateur — why not Mr. Nor- 
 man Gale ? — should make a collection of Emmettiana. 
 Tom Emmett was the first to remark— on a bad 
 voyage — that he thought they'd forgotten to put the 
 heavy roller on : a joke borrowed by every seafaring 
 cricketer since. 
 
 Pooley is another recent great name in the game. 
 Like other cricketers before him, Pooley, who kept 
 wicket for Surrey in the days of Southerton and Jupp, 
 knew reverses, and became at last an inmate of a 
 London workhouse. Says Mr. PuUin, " Pooley's fists 
 are mere lumps of deformity. Every finger on the 
 two hands has been broken ; so have the two thumbs," 
 
 191
 
 SoLithcrton's Night Fear 
 
 Jem Mace once asked to be introduced to Pooley : 
 " Pooley," he said, " I would rather stand up against 
 any man in England for an hour than take your place 
 behind the wickets for five minutes." Pooley's opinion 
 of modern cricket was not too favourable : " Why, a 
 man ought almost to keep wicket blindfold now," 
 he remarked after a visit to Lord's. It must be 
 remembered that grounds in the 'fifties and 'si.xties 
 were not what they are now ; and there were faster 
 bowlers than we now have — George Freeman, for 
 example, who once laid low all three stumps with one 
 ball ; and Harvey Fellowes, who performed the same 
 rare feat. There were probably harder hitters too, for 
 I understand that neither Mr. Jessop nor Albert Trott 
 has quite the power of Mr. C. I. Thornton. Mr. 
 Jessop's hurricane drives are, however, good enough 
 for me. It was told of Southerton, the slow bowler, 
 that he used to lie awake at night wondering what he 
 should do if Mr. Thornton hit the ball straight back 
 to him. But the great cause of bumps and bruises 
 was bad wickets. Daft once went in to bat against 
 Piatt at Lord's with a towel round his head, so fiery 
 was the pitch. In the same over Piatt had given 
 Summers the blow on the temple to which he suc- 
 cumbed. But this is nothing compared with George 
 
 192
 
 A Catch 
 
 Anderson's stories of how a covey of partridges went 
 up from the pitch during a match, and how Fuller 
 Pilch would come armed with a scythe. 
 
 Cricket's triumphs of mind over might are, to me, 
 incomparably its greatest fascination. Nothing that 
 happens in a match is so satisfying as the successful 
 accomplishment of a bowler's manoeuvre. I remember 
 that wonderful Sussex and Cambridge University 
 meeting in 1891 (when 1402 runs were scored) in 
 which Mr. Brann made 161 by huge hitting. There 
 came a time in his long innings when the Light Blue 
 chance seemed almost hopeless, so set was he and so 
 aggressive. Change after change was tried, but in 
 vain, until Mr. Streatfield took the ball again and 
 remodelled the field, and Mr. R. N. Douglas was 
 motioned carefully to a spot on the ropes at the 
 edge of the bowling screen. It was a matter of a 
 few seconds before his place was determined ; but 
 the position was, however, exact, for when from a 
 half-volley in the first over Mr. Brann made a terrific 
 drive, the ball, after sailing up and up an immense 
 distance, swooped into Mr. Douglas's hands and was 
 held there, the fieldsman never having moved an inch 
 with either foot. 
 
 The sight of that flying ball nearing that motionless, 
 
 N 193
 
 W. G. 
 
 intent fieldsman, and the thought of the issue at stake, 
 made a moment of excitement as intense as anything 
 ever experienced in the lists of Ashby-de-la-Zouche, 
 while the knowledge that the coup had been planned 
 imparted an additional thrill. 
 
 But there are manoeuvres which put less strain on 
 the onlooker, yet by their success kindle to content for 
 half a day. One of Lohmann's overs a Poutrance to 
 a timid bat — an over in which the wicket should fall 
 at the last ball (for Lohmann was an artist with the 
 dramatic sense) — was a sight to live for ; each ball 
 showing a little more smilingly, though not so smil- 
 ingly that the wretched man forgot to be fearful, 
 and then the fifth — the deadly fast yorker and the 
 scattered bails. And have you seen what " W. G." 
 called, I believe, his bread and butter trick, meaning 
 thereby a device for the dismissal of young players ? 
 First, a man carefully brought round from long leg 
 to almost square, on the ropes, and then the short- 
 pitched ball so tempting for a square leg hit, and so 
 hard to keep down. I once saw two colts caught out 
 this way in two overs. Of course, it is hardly less 
 satisfying — and indeed, if your sympathies are with 
 the side that is in, it is more so — when the batsman is 
 wily enough to detect these snares and to defeat them. 
 
 194
 
 A Saga 
 
 It is odd, with all the gusto for cricket that has 
 been displayed among men of letters, that Nyren's 
 book is still unapproached. Next to it comes Mr. 
 Pycroft's, and then, I think, Mr. Pullin's Talks with 
 Old Efiglish Cricketers ; but these are some distance. 
 The one is a classic ; the others are books about 
 cricket. The one has magic ; the others have 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 One would go to the sagas for the nearest parallel 
 to the simplicity of the old Hambledonians as 
 described by John Nyren, a simplicity closely allied 
 to that of the good men and true who spilt blood 
 in 77^1? Story of Burnt Njal^ that noble record of 
 Icelandic friendships and enmities. Indeed, Nyren's 
 little history is as nearly a saga as we need want. 
 Given bats in place of battle-axes, balls for arrows, 
 and amicable rivalry at the game instead of the 
 blood feud, and the principal differences are removed. 
 The human nature is the same. You have the same 
 boyish zeal, the same might, the same comradeship, 
 and also the same brilliance in feats — such as Noah 
 Mann's masterly riding when, dashing in at practice 
 time on his horse, he would bend over in the saddle 
 and pick handkerchiefs from the sward. 
 
 'lo walk over the site of the old Hambledon Ground, 
 
 195
 
 Sacred Dorset Square 
 
 as I have done, with Nyren's book in hand, is to 
 realise something of the glory of cricket : although 
 there are, of course, historic scenes nearer to hand. 
 Indeed, there is no need to wander in the search for 
 sacred soil farther than Dorset Square, since whoever 
 passes through that urban abode passes over the 
 place where Lord's Ground once stood, and where 
 once was a stone recording a drive made by 
 Alexander, Duke of Hamilton, in which the ball 
 travelled one hundred and thirty-two yards off the 
 bat before it touched earth. When the ground was 
 built over this mark vanished. And yet we preserve 
 many unimportant things : we take the greatest care 
 of Rufus Stone in the New Forest, while the Corona- 
 tion Stone is kept in the Abbey itself. 
 
 196
 
 From a Country Diary — II o o ^c^ 
 
 "^T WRITING in a house around which the nightin- 
 gales cease neither by day nor by night, I am 
 in a position to say that the poets who have written 
 about that exquisite friendly bird are all wrong. The 
 nightingale utters neither eternal passion nor eternal 
 pain. Its song is jocund rather than sorrowful, and is 
 not always beautiful. It even has some very harsh 
 notes. It has little variety or inspiration, going 
 steadily through a definite series of movements, like 
 a condensed symphony. To me its most beautiful 
 note is the single cry that it repeats sometimes as 
 often as fifteen times but for the most part only 
 about six times, which is certainly wistful and 
 plaintive in the highest degree. It must be this 
 note of grief which has won for the bird its place 
 in the literature of sadness, the poets being so 
 pleased (as ever) to detect a pang of regret or woe 
 that they have declined to hear, or have wholly 
 
 197
 
 Nightingales 
 
 disregarded, the bird's neutralising and vastly more 
 numerous notes of joy and exultation. 
 
 All these remarks, which are dictated only by a 
 desire for truth — for personally I adore the nightingale 
 — apply to the bird singing alone. When one stands 
 still in ;i lane in May and hears three at once, as is 
 the right way, singing in a triangle, the three voices 
 being merged in one in magnificent riotous defiance 
 of the stillness of the night and the menace of 
 darkness, then all that the poets say can be believed 
 in — except that they have understated the case for the 
 natural joyfulncss of the bird. For one is gradually 
 and hypnotically persuaded into the feeling that all 
 this torrent of lovely music comes but from a single 
 ecstatic breast. 
 
 My own favourite poetical reference to the nightin- 
 gale is not in Keats, not in Arnold, not in Wordsworth, 
 although he comes very near — 
 
 "Those notes of thine — they pierce and pierce; 
 Tumultuous harmony and fierce ! " 
 
 not in any of the classical places ; but in a translation 
 by William Cory of a poem from the Greek anthology, 
 the lament for Heraclitus, where the poet says — 
 
 "Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales:, awake, 
 For death, he taketh all away, l)ut them he cannot take." 
 
 198
 
 The Water Months 
 
 Here, in the phrase "pleasant voices," one finds 
 expressed the charm and the friendhness of the bird, 
 who, although a shy foreigner, sings never so well as 
 when he is conscious of the proximity of man, and 
 noisy man too. 
 
 <i?' o <p> 
 
 July and August inland are not good hill months. 
 One should get down to sea level directly they come, 
 and there stay till September's piquant morns and 
 fragrant evenings are here again. In our case this 
 migration to the lowlands is peculiarly necessary, for 
 we have no water. Were it not for a distant spring, 
 we should go dry as a caravan in the desert. During 
 this hot spell I have been thinking of the sea with an 
 intensity of feeling to which even Tantalus was a 
 stranger. There is a little bay in Cornwall. . . . And 
 the river, too. There is a certain Thames back- 
 water. . . . And meanwhile the nasturtiums blaze on. 
 Will nothing put them out ? 
 
 All that we can do in the way of satisfying the 
 water craving is to permit whatever showers that 
 come to rain upon us. A thunderstorm makes the 
 finest shower bath, especially at night. No wise hill- 
 dweller ever wastes a thunderstorm, ev'en if he has 
 
 199
 
 Country Scents 
 
 to get uy5 in the middle of the ni^^ht and fumble 
 his way to the grass, there to be rained upon. 
 
 One of the advantages which we on the sandy hill 
 have over riparian and seaside folk in hot weather 
 is our wealth of scents. The sun in the brake-fern ! 
 The sun in the pine trees ! The sun in the heather ! 
 The sun in the honeysuckle ! All these hot weeks I 
 have been banqueting on these scents. There is near 
 us a walk of only half a mile, where the aromas come 
 in the order I have set down. Another joy of this 
 particular walk is that you come suddenly now and 
 then upon little districts of heat, caused probably by 
 some neighbouring shrub that has greater power than 
 the others to retain and radiate it. These hot-air 
 districts resemble the warm springs that as children 
 we used to chance upon when paddling, and stand in 
 for a while. There is a certain aromatic valley in 
 Yorkshire, behind Hambledoi'i, where )ou walk through 
 a chain of such invisible heat chambers. 
 
 But a hill compensation in the extreme heat is the 
 satisfaction of the evenings. Down below, by the sea 
 or river, you cannot detach yourself from the earth in 
 the same way : you are in it and of it ; but up above, 
 you can, as it were, stand aside and hear the mun- 
 dane movement going on. Especially you can hear 
 
 200
 
 The Bough-Breakers 
 
 the hot earth sighing" satisfaction in the prospect of 
 a cooler night. 
 
 •o ■<i> «^ 
 
 I wish that Bank Hohday refugees from towns 
 would lose the habit of breaking down branches. 
 And yet we who live in the country have not perhaps 
 the right to wish anything of the kind, remembering 
 how much these boughs of the green trees must mean 
 on the morrow, and the day after that, and the day 
 after that, in the homes to which they are carried in 
 triumph On Bank Holidays Birnam Wood goes to 
 Dunsinane with a vengeance. People who live in 
 the country have, indeed, to put a guard continually 
 upon themselves if they are to keep out the sin of 
 selfishness. We get into a habit of resentment which 
 the Recording Angel probably ranks very high among 
 the human offences. We get into the way of con- 
 sidering public footpaths our own property, and re- 
 senting other wayfarers ; we get into the way of 
 appropriating certain walks, and resenting their dis- 
 covery by others ; we get into the way of appropriating 
 skylines, and resenting new houses thereon. Indeed, 
 nothing enrages us so much (however new and hideous 
 our own home may be) as the erection of a house near 
 
 201
 
 September Disasters 
 
 by. To build a house within our own circle of 
 country is an unpardonable sin. Punishment for 
 resentment must always follow as a matter of course. 
 What will ours be ? Well, only yesterday, as we were 
 speaking of coal, a man told me that the weald of 
 Kent (our weald) may possibly be transformed very 
 shortly into another Black Country. That, perhaps, 
 will be our punishment. 
 
 A rat has taken possession of the spring, and 
 nothing can induce him to enter a trap and close a 
 career that is becoming something more serious than 
 a nuisance. In obedience to some occult law, every 
 September we have a water difficulty. Last year the 
 hop-pickers were found washing their heads in it ; 
 the year before there was another visitation of rats ; 
 the year before that the hop-pickers filled their kettles 
 by dipping them bodily in —good, honest, black 
 kettles ! Farther back than that I cannot remember, 
 but I know that September is tlie luckless month. 
 
 We share our spring with three other cottages, the 
 right to draw water from the Buddies (as the spring 
 is locally called) being mentioned in the title-deeds 
 of this place as far back as 1748 — possibly earlier 
 
 202
 
 The Buddies 
 
 still, did not the infirmity of legal handwriting prevent 
 one from investigating. In the interests of the neigh- 
 bours and ourselves, I gave last Sunday afternoon to 
 the labour of emptying the spring and cleaning out 
 the mud, the theory of the oldest inhabitant being 
 that it was something very appetising in this mud 
 which attracted the rat. 
 
 Emptying a spring belongs to the same class of 
 task as those attempted by Sisyphus and Penelope. 
 However, I managed to dig out the mud from the 
 stone bottom, and, save for a very thin veneer of dirt, 
 I left the spring clean. That evening the water was 
 like crystal — its normal state ; but alas ! the next 
 morning the mud clouds had returned, and they are 
 there at this moment. Whether or not the rat is the 
 cause we shall not know until he either falls to the 
 gun I have borrowed, or is caught in one of the many 
 traps with which the sides of the spring now " bristle," 
 as the military experts say. But, whatever the cause, 
 the doom of the Buddies has gone forth so far as 
 we are concerned. A well-sinker is coming to- 
 morrow. 
 
 To come back from Switzerland, that paradise of 
 water, as I have just done, to this arid, sandy hillside, 
 with nothing but a fouled spring and two distant and 
 
 203
 
 Dutch Water 
 
 not too vivacious wells, is to understand contrast. 
 Good, sluggish English streams when they die go 
 to Switzerland. It is the water's heaven. It is worth 
 while being a stream in Switzerland, for you not only 
 have a splendid run on your own account, tumbling 
 and leaping and splashing and foaming and roaring, 
 but ultimately you become a river worthy the name, 
 tlic Rhine or the Rhone, for example. The Rhone 
 is popularly supposed to have its source from the 
 Rhone glacier, but I have seen at least two eager 
 runnels hastening down neighbouring hills, each under 
 the impression that it was the original river. Beyond 
 turning a few saw-mills, the streams of Switzerland 
 are asked to do nothing but enjoy themselves, and 
 they use the sanction to the full. 
 
 The antithesis of Switzerland in this matter of water 
 is Holland. That is anything but the water's para- 
 dise ; it is the water's almshouse, infirmary, or, better 
 still, dormitory. Those sluggish, fast-asleep canals ! 
 Where there is water there should be sound, and 
 you may live in Holland a lifetime and never hear a 
 trickle. Norfolk, our English Holland, does the thing 
 much better, for it varies the monotony of inanimate 
 canals with rivers and broads. That emergence from 
 a long narrow cutting into a sparkling windy broad, 
 
 :;o4
 
 Well-Sinkers 
 
 which the Norfolk wherryman joys in, is unknown to 
 the Dutch. My own belief has always been that the 
 way to travel in Holland is to cross the sea thither 
 in a Norfolk wherry. Choose a calm season and load 
 your craft with good food — a few Virginia hams, for 
 example, and a joint or two of beef in a refrigerator. 
 Then you will be free of Dutch railways, Dutch 
 trams, Dutch steamboats, Dutch hotels, and the 
 eternal Dutch veal. 
 
 <:?> xi> e> 
 
 Well-sinkers are vastly superior persons. They 
 are clean. The gentleman who at the present 
 moment, even as I write, is proceeding in a vertical 
 line nearer and nearer to the centre of the earth and 
 farther and farther from the surface of my garden, is 
 humane and considerate. He leaves very little mess, 
 he works in a small area, and he makes no noise. 
 Better still, he keeps himself hidden. One's only 
 chance of seeing him is to lean over the edge of the 
 hole and peer down. After a while, when the eyes 
 are accustomed to the darkness, one is aware of a 
 patient little gnome, absurdly foreshortened, fiUing a 
 bucket with a spade. It is the well-sinker. At the 
 top, with their brawny arms at ease on the windlass, 
 
 205
 
 The Old Speciousness 
 
 are his two subordinates. Wlien he calls out they 
 will pull up the bucket ; one will tip it into a barrow ; 
 the other, when the barrow is full, will discreetly 
 wheel it away and empty it ; and some day we shall 
 have water. The men at the windlass talk and smoke 
 and are happy ; the man below toils all day. Dut— a 
 strange variation upon the usual rule — it is the man 
 below who is the master, the employer, the capitalist, 
 and the men above who are mere labourers. The 
 well-sinker is a skilled craftsman, and a magician 
 also, very often, for he must divine as well as dig. 
 
 iC- -o ■^ 
 
 Well-sinkers are harmless compared with builders. 
 Builders are the devil. While the men were digging 
 the well and upsetting the place, it seemed as if 
 " certain other little things might be done too." The 
 old, old excuse ! And now the builders are in full 
 blast. In a moment of weakness it was agreed that 
 a new kitchen might be a good thing. We wanted 
 more room there. And then over the kitchen could 
 be placed another bedroom. And so forth— the old, 
 old speciousness. To build the kitchen, it would be 
 necessary to clear away a little ground — "a very 
 little,'" said the architect — for foundation. We ex- 
 
 206
 
 Builders 
 
 pected, therefore, a slight scene of confusion ; but 
 nothing compared with that which is a-going on 
 The extraordinary and utterly disproportionate 
 quantity of earth which can come from a very slight 
 clearance of ground is a revelation. Mountains of it 
 confront us : one on the bed in front of my room, all 
 over some dearly-prized plants and rows and rows of 
 tulip bulbs ; another on the new grass plot ; a heap 
 of sharp-edged stones reclining against the new 
 mulberry tree ; a wheelbarrow track between the 
 roses ; more mountains in the orchard ; no trace of 
 the old Gloire de Dijon that a month ago covered the 
 east end of the house and bloomed every year right 
 into December ; no trace of the jessamine ; and 
 heaps of brick and piles of sand in the more sacred 
 parts of the demesne. 
 
 With builders there is nothing to do but endure. 
 Speech is unavailing. Very often they don't even 
 hear it. They go about intent on one thing— the 
 utter and complete demolition of everything old that 
 you hold dear, in order that something new may be 
 forthcoming which you did not really want. They 
 are brusque, unswerving, unapproachable. They are 
 not men at all, or they would care for some of the 
 things that men esteem : grass, clean paths, moss- 
 
 207
 
 A New House 
 
 covered roofs, damp-stained walls, climbing plants. 
 They are a race apart, a group of aliens in our midst, 
 the enemies of beauty. In short, they are builders. 
 
 The real trouble is bricks and mortar. If we were 
 content to live in wooden houses, all would be well. 
 One brick can spoil a landscape, but no quantity of 
 accumulated logs can injure it. Indeed, a heap of 
 logs is always appropriate, always fits itself naturally 
 into the picture. I'lanks certainly are not becoming ; 
 but planks are for the most part kept indoors. Had 1 
 Garfield's chance, 1 \\ould never exchange the Log 
 Cabin for the White House. 
 
 My deliberate opinion is that the only tolerable 
 way to have a new brick house, or new alterations 
 made to an old one, is to go away when the order is 
 given, and not return until you have had word that 
 the builders have gone and their desecrating handi- 
 work has been made good. Then come home, take a 
 good nerve tonic, choose a fine day, have a very ex- 
 cellent lunch, and inspect the result. 
 
 ■^ -^^y- <7> 
 
 This morning's post brings me a letter containing 
 stories of Sussex eccentricb, or '"characters," as we 
 say, two of which are perhaps worth telling here. One 
 
 208
 
 A Sussex Character 
 
 celebrates a yeoman whose fidelity to the past is such, 
 that he recently gave to his friends a golden wedding 
 supper in a room lighted by rush - lights kindled 
 with a tinder-box. All was well with the old couple 
 then, but many years earlier his wife had an obstinate 
 spell which was cured only by the most drastic 
 measures. One morning she refused to get up, and 
 maintained her position until her husband threw a 
 truss of straw under the bed and set fire to it. That 
 was her Waterloo. She emerged defeated and tract- 
 able. Of the other "character" it is told that he 
 erected in his orchard the notice, " God helps those 
 that help themselves, but God help those that I catch 
 helping themselves." 
 
 One of the marks of difference — and a very 
 pleasant one — between Christmas in the country and 
 Christmas in town is the friendliness that the day 
 establishes. Where houses are few and where roads 
 have no pavements (the pavement connoting a press 
 of wayfarers too considerable to permit of social ex- 
 changes as they pass), there may be greetings among 
 strangers all through the year. But on Christmas 
 morning these greetings are more than optional, they 
 209
 
 The Changing Seasons 
 
 are ihe law. There is no move choice about it : it 
 must be done. I have seen extremes of weather bring 
 about tlie same destruction of social barriers, the 
 same overthrow of insular reserve. A heavy snow- 
 storm will set up the kindliest relations between 
 country-dwellers who have never spoken before. And 
 a thunderstorm will loosen tongues that were still 
 during equable seasons. But, next to Christmas, a 
 snowstorm is most potent. 
 
 Will the seasons, one wonders, ever readjust them- 
 selves, or is the tendency of the future to push cold 
 weather farther and farther into the next year? As 
 a matter of fact, winter does not, according to the 
 almanac, begin until the end of December, although 
 we are in the habit of considering him here directly it 
 is necessary to light fires ; and literature shows him 
 in his best form on the day of the Nativity. What I 
 want to know is, is literature to be trusted ? Was 
 there ever skating on December 25 ? Did people 
 ever have to dig their way out of their houses to 
 attend Christmas morning church ? Or is the whole 
 storv a piece of agreeable idealism which we owe 
 mainly to Dickens? 
 
 Though it be only a myth, I can find good grounds 
 in memory for it — were memory not so deceptive I 
 
 210
 
 Old Christmases 
 
 Looking back on my childhood, it seems to me that 
 Christmas used always to be cold and frosty. I may 
 be wrong ; the impression may have come from 
 Christmas cards ; but the feeling is very strong. 
 Surely the Christmas walk began with a cold nose. 
 Surely we found a slide before the ramble was over, 
 or at least one of those forlorn winter ponds, with 
 stones and tins and sticks on its bleak surface of ice. 
 I recollect so clearly the thin ice-covering of the 
 puddles in the cart ruts, and the joy of stamping 
 through, or driving a stick into them, and seeing" the 
 cracks radiate suddenly from the fracture. And the 
 ringing quality of the road itself, especially if there 
 happened to be wooden palings at the side ! I re- 
 member that as belonging to Christmas. Yet were 
 the Christmases twenty years ago like this, or am I 
 confusing December days with January days?— for 
 now we do not come (if at all) to frost worth calling 
 frost until the New Year is a growing child. Our Old 
 Years slink out in muggy mildness, with sopping 
 boots, where once (if my memory is right, and if 
 Dickens and the Christmas card designers are not 
 deceivers) they skated into Limbo, or pushed their 
 way thither through a snowdrift. 
 
 .,i> sd:> -c?- 
 
 211
 
 The Christmas Sportsman 
 
 And — anotlier question — does the Christmas sports- 
 man still spread dismay, if not disaster, among the 
 sparrows on that gentle anniversary? I remember, 
 in our walks over the Downs — for thither we always 
 trudged— how we would come upon one of these 
 brave gunners, or watch in the distance another as 
 he stalked a minute bird across a field, until, its seat 
 on the ground seeming sufficiently solid, he felt it 
 safe to pull his trigger. The bird-catchers with their 
 nets used also to love Christmas Day, and to do well 
 on it, I fear. I had not thought of the Christmas 
 sportsman of those times for years, until last winter 
 in Italy we met, descending a mountain path, his 
 .Southern correlative : a gaily-dressed, almost oper- 
 atic, peasant, carrying one of the casual weapons that 
 every people except the Anglo-Saxon seem to be 
 satisfied with, and a bag of generous proportions 
 borne by an attendant boy. To the best of my vision 
 it held nothing, but there may have lurked in its 
 corners two or three of those minute feathered insects 
 which, in a putrid state, under the handsome style 
 " gibier," find their way (on little rafts of toast) into 
 the menu of the smaller hotels of Italy and the Midi. 
 
 It will sound heretical, I have no doubt, but for 
 my own part I should like to have some assurance 
 
 21 2
 
 Obsolete Snow 
 
 that we had done with snow for ever in this country. 
 I remember with a glow of satisfaction certain snow- 
 ball fights, and I would not be thought to wish boys 
 to lose that excellent sport ; but Science, with all her 
 resources, ought to devise some way for snow to fall 
 only into playgrounds and such gardens as want it. 
 We are past snow in the towns ; the vestries are 
 banded together to eject it, and if they fail, the news- 
 papers are filled with protests, signifying that the 
 householders are against it too. And, personally, I 
 am against it in the country. Unrelieved snow is a 
 blighting prospect, and few things are so saddening 
 to me as the sight of hills and fields patched with 
 reluctant drifts. White — save of horses and sheep, 
 of geese and pear blossom, of the sails of ships and 
 crests of waves — has no place in my terrestrial scenes. 
 White is for the clouds. 
 
 A Possibility ,c •<:> o -c^ <y 
 
 ' I ^HE Rich are free from money cares. 
 The pains of hunger pass them by, 
 Sweet cleanliness is ever theirs. 
 And means each whim to gratify. 
 213
 
 More Verse ! 
 
 The I'oor, how circumscribed their lot, 
 How small a world they comprehend I 
 
 They starve ambition in a cot, 
 And touch the cap until the end. 
 
 How is the balance trimmed ? Perchance 
 This solace Fate extends to slaves. 
 
 This balm for wounds of circumstance : 
 The Poor lie warmer in their graves. 
 
 214
 
 Albums and Crackers o ^c'- o >£> 
 
 T PUT these two very dissimilar things together, 
 because they both worked so hard the other 
 evening for the success of an entertainment. But 
 they were not really joined : a dinner came between 
 them. 
 
 It was an old-fashioned Christmas party, and the 
 albums were employed in the old-fashioned way to 
 kill the mauvais quart d'heure before the meal ; the 
 crackers melted and fused the company after. At 
 dinner we were all still a little stiff, for we were mostly 
 related and had not all of us quite played the game 
 during the past year : we had not invited each other 
 as often as we might have done, or, being invited, 
 we had had other engagements ; in short, we had 
 been related. We were, therefore — the older ones — 
 a little formal, not to say sad (for Christmas is not 
 
 215
 
 A Reconciler 
 
 too merry a season as you get on in years), but the 
 crackers put that all right in a moment. It is their 
 mission. 
 
 No matter what the constitution of the party, the 
 arrival of the moment for pulling the crackers, which 
 must on no account be anticipated, puts the crown- 
 ing touch to the abandon of the festival. Until 
 now the older guests have made some effort to be 
 their age ; but the report of the first cracker, like 
 the preliminary bomb on a Brock night at the Crystal 
 Palace, is the sign that the fun henceforth is to be 
 fast and furious. The battle of frivolity has begun. 
 No uncle, however stern his cast of feature, no aunt, 
 in whatever advanced stage of acidulation, can main- 
 tain a fully operative attitude of disapproval or dis- 
 couragement while wearing a paper cap of undignified 
 shape. It is for this reason that crackers containing 
 paper caps are the best. By their aid the humanisa- 
 tion and humiliation of relations is consummated. 
 For three hundred and sixty-four days these relations 
 have been having it (more or less) their own unlovely 
 way. On the three hundred and sixty-fifth — with the 
 aid of Tom Smith — they can be rendered ridiculous 
 for a brief hour or so. By all means, then, let the 
 crackers have caps in them. Do not be fobbed off 
 
 2 i6
 
 Paper Caps 
 
 with jewellery, with wire puzzles, or with sugared 
 almonds. Crackers enshrining nothing better than 
 sugared almonds affect the discriminating, self-re- 
 specting child almost like a slap in the face. 
 
 But if paper caps be not obtainable, there is an 
 alternative. It has not the merit of the paper caps, 
 but it will serve ; it is (emphatically) enough ; nay, it 
 is too much. This alternative is musical instruments. 
 There are crackers that contain musical instruments, 
 chiefly wind, which, when blown all together, as at 
 a party— such is human nature— they will be, make 
 a painful noise, very distressing to elderly relations. 
 The person who blows is, by a happy dispensation 
 of providence, insensible to this discord. It is there- 
 fore desirable that a few of the less popular of the 
 company should be deprived of their rightful weapons. 
 This can be (and invariably is) done by a grasping 
 schoolboy. 
 
 To return to the paper caps, some persons there 
 are who put them on perfunctorily, just to please the 
 dear children (odd that the uglification — as the 
 Gryphon says— of the adult is the speediest way to 
 please the child 1), and very hastily remove them as 
 soon after as may be. Others, again, wear them 
 doggedly throughout the evening, determined to be 
 
 217
 
 Ritual 
 
 young again to the full. Others discover, on glancing 
 at the mirror, that the caps are rather becoming (as 
 they very often are), and with much assumed resigna- 
 tion and secret satisfaction retain them till the party 
 is over. While there is still another section who 
 forget entirely that their heads are covered at all 
 (the paper is so light), and gravely converse in corners 
 with their contemporaries on the state of the Stocks, 
 the absence of frost, and the rottenness of the Govern- 
 ment, unconscious that their sapient words proceed 
 from a brain crowned with a dunce's cap. 
 
 There are two ways of exploding a cracker. One is 
 for each party to the transaction to grasp firmly the 
 paper ends, and, averting the head and shutting the 
 eyes, pull the cracker in two. The other is for each 
 party to take between finger and thumb merely the 
 end of the strips of card which produce the detonation, 
 and, averting the head and shutting the eyes, pull 
 sharply. This plan is adopted in the interests of 
 children who collect the gelatinous coloured paper. 
 To avert the head and shut the eyes is a rite, even 
 though fear be a stranger to your bosom. Everyone 
 who respects Christmas traditions, be he even a V.C. 
 or African explorer, quails in the presence of a cracker. 
 Rightly, the person in whose hand the larger portion 
 
 218
 
 Albums 
 
 of the cracker is retained is the winner, just as with a 
 wishing bone. At a well-ordered party, every person 
 has a share in two explosions. But as there are 
 always present one or two genuinely timid guests, the 
 wise boy is able to double his number of legitimate 
 pulls. A hostess with a nice feeling for art ranges the 
 crackers (some people call them cosaques, but that is 
 affectation) two and two, like cross bones or a dancing 
 Highlander's swords, and very decorative and stimula- 
 ting they are, against the white damask. A few may 
 fittingly be disposed about the cake, to be watched 
 with avidity through the meal, and to teach a lesson 
 of patience. 
 
 But I am forgetting the albums, which really worked 
 harder and at greater odds (their time coming before 
 dinner), and ought to have been celebrated first. And 
 here again are relations involved, for every album is 
 a family portrait gallery, and it is impossible for any 
 one of them to turn the pages without dwelling on the 
 consolatory reflection that, odd as one's own relations 
 undoubtedly are, other people's are odder. 
 
 The albums of the future are likely to be more 
 interesting since the rise of the amateur has brought 
 flexibility into the art of photography. The Sunday 
 afternoon family group " snapped in the garden " is a 
 
 219
 
 Pervasive Cameras 
 
 distinct improvement on the old tableaux vivants pro- 
 cured in a studio ; and Jack, with a pipe over a novel, 
 or Lucy playing with the dog, are more life-like than 
 Jack in new clothes, and Lucy in an expression of 
 seriousness pumped up for the occasion. But it is 
 appalling to think of the multiplication of photographs 
 now going forward. A studio is in every street, and 
 every schoolboy has his camera, and few bathrooms are 
 what they were. There is some balm in the reflection 
 that not all the amateur photographers ever get so far 
 as developing, and that some who can develop are 
 unable to print ; but the fact remains that, whereas a 
 score of years ago one man one photograph was a 
 liberal annual allowance, to-day every man and woman 
 is liable to be taken, wittingly or unwittingly, a dozen 
 times a week. 
 
 As for the new photography — the X rays, the cine- 
 matograph, and all the other inventions that tread 
 upon each others' heels — it adds terror to life. Pro- 
 fessor Rontgen (whose motto might be " Praise God 
 Barebones ") has made it feasible for the family album 
 of the future to supersede the cupboard as the home 
 of the family skeletons, and it is not impossible that 
 the cinematograph may soon be domesticated. 
 
 Just as by the contemplation of photographs of 
 
 220
 
 Old Photographs 
 
 places one can reconstruct a holiday journey, so by 
 passing in review a collection of old portraits can one 
 reconstruct the past. It is a melancholy pleasure. 
 Here, truly enough, are the faces, but, alas ! how many 
 of the old familiar friends are gone. The stout leaves 
 of the album, with square and gilded edge, fall one by 
 one as they are turned over as if they were the leaves 
 of the Book of Life itself. The return to the photo- 
 graph in after years is in sharp contrast to the jesting 
 manner in which it was taken or given. The exchange 
 of photographs is no very merry joke ; these new smiling 
 faces that the morning's post has brought — how will 
 they look when twenty years have passed ? What a 
 tale of transitoriness of things will the contemplation 
 of them then tell ! Meanwhile, here in the album on 
 the table are boys one was at school with, and girls 
 one was in love with, and friends who have dropped 
 away, and grotesque relatives ; and, worst of all, a 
 score of smug versions of one's own self. Not even 
 Narcissus, with all his capacity for self-worship, could 
 have admired an old photograph of himself, however 
 eagerly he might hasten to pose for a new one. The 
 camera has for some temperaments no terrors. There 
 are men and women who have been taken once a year 
 ever since they were born, and who preserve the 
 
 221
 
 Environment 
 
 pictures in chronological order, to mark, like the rings 
 in a tree, their annual growth. There are others who 
 never have been taken, and never will be taken ; 
 except surreptitiously under extremely undignified 
 circumstances. To be royal is to spend a large pro- 
 portion of one's life before the lens ; to be a cricketer 
 is to spend a larger ; to be a popular actress is to live 
 in a studio. 
 
 To be photographed is not the ordeal it was. The 
 instantaneous dry plate has removed the necessity for 
 the old process. A sitter is not now fixed in iron 
 clamps — almost gagged— as once he used to be. Nor 
 is the background to his personality so impressive. 
 Twenty or thirty years ago, the old photographs tell 
 us, it was the correct thing to figure as the one human 
 element in a stupendous landscape. Stretching away 
 for miles are hills and valleys and fertile plains, and 
 here, in the foreground, unconscious of her isolation, 
 is Aunt Matilda in a crinoline. We have forsworn 
 pillars too. Uncle Joshua, were he taken again to-day, 
 would no longer be asked to lean negligently on a 
 broken column, suggesting that he had just achieved 
 a considerable earthquake. Nor would it be necessary 
 for him to dangle his hat and cross his legs with pain- 
 ful and studied negligence. From the best studios the 
 
 222
 
 Photographers' Furniture 
 
 rustic seat and rural stile have also passed away. 
 The vignette was their extermination. But photo- 
 graphers' furniture still leaves much to be desired. 
 Their heavy plush upholstery is like nothing in real 
 life. 
 
 But it is not the posture, nor the ancient air of the 
 faded picture, that most eloquently proclaims the 
 photograph old. The costume is more convincing 
 than these. Remote, almost as the power of Assyrian 
 monarchs, are the fashions depicted in last year's 
 Punch. Yesterday's photograph is as old as yester- 
 day's paper. If we were taken nude, albums might 
 become less melancholy. 
 
 To throw away old photographs savours of in- 
 humanity. In one family, at least, the worst speci- 
 mens have been gathered together in an album 
 lettered "The Chamber of Horrors." This is rude. 
 It is also perilous, for if an aunt were casually to 
 take up the book, expecting a laugh, and find herself 
 figuring therein, she would diffuse gall. Nor would 
 it temper her acerbity to any extent to assure her that 
 the children meant no harm. Children are, in fact, 
 the bitterest foes of the old photograph. The younger 
 generation is suspicious of the early friendships of 
 their elders ; it does not seem to them credible that 
 
 ?23
 
 All "Old Maid" Pack 
 
 persons who wore siuh dotlics could ever ha\c been 
 interesting. Hence tlie cliildren in a certain family 
 dwelling not a hundred miles from town have 
 fashioned an Old Maid pack out of old photographs, 
 the old maid herself being the portrait of their chief 
 aversion. She has not, however, yet learned this, 
 although now and then she visits the house. Truth, 
 luckily, does not always " out." 
 
 224
 
 A Gentle Adviser o .<o o <:> 
 
 T HAVE called Gervase Markham ^ a gentle adviser, 
 because the quality of gentleness has such 
 prominence in his pages. His sentences have a 
 gentle euphony ; his poetry has a gentle melancholy ; 
 his attitude to life, as we glimpse it between the 
 lines, is one of gentleness. In his treatises he does 
 not command — or, as we say of small tyrants, " order 
 about"— he advises, suggests, in a word, persuades. 
 " If you will roast a Piece of fresh Sturgeon," says he, 
 in the cookery, by way of courteous opening, and then 
 come the directions ; and, "If you will Roast a chine 
 
 ' Gervase Markham (1566-1636), soldier, man of letters, 
 dilettante, and the author of very many manuals of farriery, 
 sport, agriculture, horticulture, cookery, medicine, and the home 
 arts generally. "Which," says he, in one of his prefaces, if 
 men will "once take pains to read them, they will after affirm 
 them worthy of choice bosomes." Tlie volume from which 
 my quotations are made is a compendium entitled Country 
 Contentments. 
 
 P 225
 
 Coaxing the Hawk 
 
 of beef, a loyn of Mutton, a Capon and a lark, all at 
 one instant, aiul at one fire, and have all ready together 
 and none burnt," do so and so. 
 
 Not content with his own mild persuasion, the 
 gentle Markham would have us all gentle too, and 
 herein, I think, lies his peculiar attraction. He pre- 
 supposes an affectionate nature to be a property of 
 his reader. To the owner of a pack of hounds he 
 addresses this passage (in which, as in that which 
 follows, the italics are mine) : " You shall not suffer 
 your Whelps to suck above two months at the most, 
 but then you shall Wean them, and if the house you 
 keej) be of great receit, and many servants, you shall 
 let your Cook bring up your best Whelps, and your 
 Dairymaid your second-best, and the rest you shall 
 put forth among your friends or Tenants, according 
 Unto the love you possess in tlic Country.'''' That a 
 man may keep hounds and yet possess no love in 
 the country, is a state of things beyond Markham's ken. 
 
 And thus coaxingly is the erring Hawk to be 
 brought into the way of rectitude: "All Hawks 
 generally are to Ije manned after one manner, that 
 is to say, by watching and keeping them from sleep, 
 by a continuall carrying them upon your fist, and by a 
 most familiar stroking and playing with them, with 
 
 226
 
 Horses 
 
 the wing of a dead fowl, or such like, and by often 
 gazing and looking them in the face, with a lovmg and 
 gentle countenance, and so making them acquainted 
 with the man." 
 
 And in breaking- in or riding a horse, we must 
 never forget to cherish the animal. See how prettily 
 Markham instructs us : " Now of cherishings, there 
 are generally in use but three, as first the voice, which 
 being delivered smoothly and lovingly, as crying holla 
 so boy^ there boy there, and such like, gives the Horse 
 both cheerfulness of Spirit and a knowledge that he 
 hath done well, then the hand by clapping him gently 
 on the Neck or Buttock, or giving him grass or other 
 food to eat, after he hath pleased you ; and lastly, the 
 big end of the Rod, by rubbing him therewith upon 
 the withers or mane, which is very pleasing and 
 delightful to the Horse." The antitheses to these 
 cherishing cries are. Ha villain, carridro, diablo, 
 delivered sharply and roughly. Such like threaten- 
 ings terrify the horse, says Markham, and make him 
 afraid to disobey. 
 
 But it is not often that Markham writes of severe 
 measures, and then with apparent distaste. If, 
 however, the husbandman is to progress and the 
 sportsman justify himself, animals must be killed. 
 
 227
 
 Health for the Year 
 
 Recognising the necessity, Markham lays down rules 
 accordingly, but still with gentleness. There are, for 
 example, certain " ravenous creatures " which destroy 
 fish, such as the otter and the "hern," and these, in 
 the interest of the angler, must be removed. Among 
 them is "the King's Fisher (which is a small green 
 bird) . . . and the way to take him is to mark his 
 haunt where he commonly sitteth, which is ever in 
 some bush next the river ; then set a little cradle of 
 limed straws about his seat, and they will quickly take 
 him, for he seldome changcth, but ever sitteth upon 
 one bough." Alas, there are few of these small green 
 birds left to sit in England now I 
 
 Towards the whole world Markham seems to have 
 entertained a tenderness. Of the well-being of his 
 fellow-men he was no less solicitous. In his Farewell 
 to Husbandry^ the directions as to the husbandman's 
 labours for the several months of the year are rounded 
 off with a thoughtful word of advice as to the care 
 of his health. " In January he must keep warm, and 
 rather with exercise than sauce increase his appetite." 
 In February, March, and April he shall "bleed as 
 art may direct." In May he is bidden "beware of 
 Mountebanks, and old wives' tales, for the latter hath 
 no ground, and the other no truth but apparent 
 
 228
 
 Sweete Isabella 
 
 cosenage." In September he must shun, "as death," 
 riot and surfeit. In October he may " use all moderate 
 sports, for anything now is good which reviveth the 
 spirits." In December we find this entry : " And 
 lastly, for your health, eat meats that are hot and 
 nourishing, drink good wine that is neat, sprightly, 
 and lusty ; keep the body well clad, and thy house 
 warm ; forsake whatsoever is flegmatick, and banish 
 all care from thine heart, for nothing is more unwhole- 
 some than a troubled spirit." 
 
 Gervase Markham, himself an Elizabethan,^ had a 
 
 1 Isabel Markham, great-aunt to Gervase, was one of the 
 maids of honour thrown into prison with the Princess Elizabeth. 
 Afterwards she became the lady of Sir John Harrington, 
 Ehzabeth's godson, who " firste thoughte her fayre as she 
 stode at the Princesse's windowe in goodlye attyre and talkede 
 to dyvers in the courte yarde." He called her " Sweete Isabella 
 Markham," and wrote poems to her during his courtship, and 
 after they were married. The father of Gervase was Robert 
 Markham, the nephew of Sweet Isabella. He was twice High 
 Sheriff of Nottingham and thrice Knight of the Shire, and was 
 thus commemorated in Elizabeth's couplet made upon her 
 Nottinghamshire knights : — 
 
 "Gervase the gentle, Stanhope the stout, 
 Markham the lion, and Sutton the lout." 
 
 If, as may without violence be supposed, Gervase Markham was 
 named after " Gervase the Gentle," the boy's assumption of the 
 characteristic as well as of the name is curious. 
 
 229
 
 Elizabethan Enthusiasms 
 
 brimming share of the EUzabethan gift of enthusiasm. 
 Words were to these early writers like a new toy to a 
 happy child, and they played with them with as much 
 delight. The old spontaneous joy has passed. For 
 the winsomeness, the comeliness, that marked the 
 literature of that early untroubled day of rebirth, we 
 look almost in vain. The world is no longer new 
 every morning as once it was. 
 
 Throughout his books Markham displays this zest : 
 the subject upon which he is for the moment engaged 
 is the finest subject in the world. High praise, when 
 it is honest, is the pleasantest of reading, and hence 
 part of Markham's charm. Superlatives are a little 
 out of date with us. The finest edge has been taken 
 from life ; the sun is, in our day, too high in the 
 heavens for the ancient energy and zest. The 
 Elizabethans knew the glory of his rising, when the 
 dewdrops glistened, and the lark sang at heaven's 
 gate, and enthusiasm inhabited the clear light. 
 
 Gervase Markham now and again essayed poetry, 
 but with small measure of success. The verse was 
 diffuse and over- saccharine, avoiding statements. 
 Yet there was little reason that he should feel dis- 
 couragement at his inability to sing with the highest. 
 He had all the enthusiasm of the poet, although in 
 
 230
 
 The Musical Kennel 
 
 verse he was powerless to give it expression. Like 
 so many other men, he was a better poet in life than 
 in literature. This gift of appreciation enabled him 
 to detect the finest, most picturesque feature in what- 
 ever he bent his mind upon. To a man not similarly 
 endowed, when writing upon hounds and their treat- 
 ment, such a passage as the following would, for 
 example, never have been possible : — 
 
 " If you would have your Kennel for sweetness of 
 cry, then you must compound it of some large dogs, 
 that have deep, solemn Mouthes, and are swift in 
 spending, which must, as it were, bear the base in 
 the consort ; then a double number of roaring, and 
 loud ringing Mouthes, which must bear the counter 
 tenor ; then some hollow plain sweet Mouthes, which 
 must bear the mean or middle part. And so with 
 these three parts of Musick you shall make your 
 cry perfect : and herein you shall observe that these 
 Hounds thus mixt, do run just and even together, and 
 not hang off loose from one another, which is the 
 vilest sight that may be ; and you shall understand 
 that this composition is best to be made of the swiftest 
 and largest deep-mouthed dog, the slowest middle- 
 siz'd dog, and the shortest-legg'd slender dog, amongst 
 these you may cast in a couple or two small single 
 
 231
 
 The Admiral Poetic 
 
 beagles, which as small trebles may warble amongst 
 them : the cry will be a great deal the more 
 sweet." 
 
 How ridiculous for a man who could write such a 
 passage as this, or compose some of the cookery 
 recipes that follow, ever to wish for fame as a poet ! 
 But often we stumble on our best things. 
 
 Anything less dramatic than Markham's Tragedie 
 of Sir Richard Grinvile cannot well be imagined. 
 It is wanting in every kind of force, and the knight 
 himself resembles more nearly an enfeebled missionary 
 than a sea - ravener. Markham's gentleness here 
 became his enemy. Fortunately we have Lord 
 Tennyson's ballad — 
 
 "And Sir Richard said again: 'We be all true English men, 
 Let us hang those dogs of Seville, the children of the Devil, 
 For I never turn'd my back upon Don or Devil yet.'" 
 
 That, you remember, was the beginning of the fight. 
 To such a tune men will dare any odds. 
 
 "Sink me the ship, Master Gunner, sink her, split her in 
 twain ! 
 Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain," 
 
 That was how, according to the late Laureate, Sir 
 Richard Grcn\ ille bade the contest cease. Markham's 
 
 232
 
 The Admiral Sinister 
 
 hero abjured all such brevity and pertinence, as this 
 one of the stanzas embodying his last orders (he was 
 an unconscionable long time dying, and talking about 
 it) will show. Sir Richard is prone on the deck of 
 the Revenge. All around Spaniards are looming. 
 Sir Richard finds breath and opportunity to say, 
 among many other things — 
 
 "Sweet Maister Gunner, split our keele in twaine, 
 We cannot live, whom hope of life hath left, 
 Dying, our deaths more glorious lives retaine, 
 Let not our ship, of shame and foile bereft, 
 Unto our foemen for a prize remaine ; 
 Sinke her, and sinking with the Greeke vvee'll cry, 
 Best not to be, or beeing soon to dye." 
 
 " He was," says Stevenson, writing, in his essay on 
 the English admirals, of Sir Richard Grenville, " he 
 was a noted tyrant to his crew : a dark, bullying 
 fellow apparently ; and it is related of him that he 
 would chew and swallow wineglasses, by way of con- 
 vivial levity, till the blood ran out of his mouth." 
 
 Gervase Markham was perhaps truest poet when in 
 the kitchen. There the inspiration denied to him 
 when he would consciously serve the Muses flooded 
 his being and impelled him to great achievement. 
 From what authoritative anthology of " prose-poems " 
 
 233
 
 A Sallct 
 
 could this recipe for the compounding of an excellent 
 sallet be omitted ? — 
 
 "Take a good quantity of blancht almonds, and 
 with your shredding knife cut them grossly ; then 
 take as many raisins of the sun clean washt, and the 
 stones pickt out, as many figs shred like the almonds, 
 as many capers, twice so many olives, and as many 
 currants as of all the rest, clean washt, a good 
 handful of the small tender leaves of red sage and 
 spinage ; mixe all these well together with good 
 store of sugar, and lay them in the bottome of a 
 great dish ; then put unto them vinegar and oyl, and 
 scrape more sugar over all ; then take oranges and 
 lemmons, and paring away the outward pills, cut 
 them into thin slices, then with those slices cover 
 the sallet all over, which done, take the fine thin 
 leaf of the red cole flower, and with them cover the 
 oranges and lemmons all over ; then over those red 
 leaves, lay another course of old olives, and the slices 
 of well-pickled cucumbers, together with the very 
 inward heart of cabbage-lettuce cut into slices ; then 
 adorn the sides of the dish, and the top of the sallet, 
 with more slices of lemmons and oranges, and so 
 serve it up." 
 
 What comely phrases ! Contrast with them the 
 
 234
 
 March-Pane 
 
 bald and unalluring directions to be found in a 
 modern Enquire Within — such a work as Mark- 
 ham would have edited — and you will see how the 
 felicities of language have passed from daily life. 
 Alack ! what have we not lost in our search for 
 brevity and precision ? Where now are " the raisins 
 of the sun," where the "very inward heart"? And 
 the niggard accuracy of avoirdupois has taken the 
 place of the generous (if vague) abundance indicated 
 by "pretty quantity" and "good store." None the 
 less one looks upon Enquire Withifi as a severely 
 valuable book. 
 
 Markham's March-pane recipe is another lyric : — 
 "To make the best March -pane, take the best 
 Jordan Almonds, and blanch them in warm water, 
 then put them into a stone mortar, and with a wooden 
 pestle beat them to pap, then take of the finest refined 
 sugar well searst, and with it Damask Rose water, 
 beat it to a good stiff paste, allowing almost to every 
 Jordan Almond three spoonfulls of sugar, then when 
 it is brought thus to a paste, lay it upon a fair Table, 
 and strewing searst sugar under it, mould it like leven, 
 then with a rowling-pin rowl it forth, and lay it upon 
 wafers washed with Rose Water ; then pinch it about 
 the sides, and put it into what form you please ; then 
 
 235
 
 A Thousand Damask. Roses 
 
 strew searst sugar all over it, which done, wash it over 
 with Rose water and sugar mixt together, for that will 
 make the Ice ; then adorn it with comfits, guilding, 
 or whatsoever devices you please, and so set it into a 
 hot stove, and there bake crispy, and serve it forth." 
 
 " To make sweet water of the best kind," he directs 
 elsewhere, "take a thousand Damask roses." A 
 thousand damask roses ! What opulence I And 
 what a picture it calls up : the English housewife 
 in her white sleeves, her keys at her side ; the sunny 
 morning-room ; the mass of wine-dark petals on the 
 table ; laughing children running in from the rosary 
 bringing more, more. Opulence is indeed the note 
 under Markham's regime. Mother Earth is called 
 upon to squander her vegetable riches ; fragrant, 
 spreading gardens are deplenished to assist the 
 flavour of a single dish. And all is legitimate, all 
 in due order ; there is no violence, no distortion. 
 Gervase Markham could not have been less shocked 
 than Keats himself at a plate of nightingales' tongues. 
 We are never tempted to charge him with greed ; 
 Gervase Markham was too various a man for that — 
 once again, too gentle. At most he was, in Dr. 
 Kitchener's phrase, " a notable fork." Some idea of 
 the estimation in which he held the culinary art may 
 
 236
 
 Marrow-bone Pye 
 
 be gathered from the following positive statement 
 concerning the English housewife : — " She that is 
 utterly ignorant therein [cookery], may not by Laws 
 of strict Justice challenge the freedome of marriage, 
 because indeed she can then but perform half her 
 vow : for she may love and obey, but she cannot 
 cherish, serve, and keep him with that true duty 
 which is ever expected." Markham is rarely so dog- 
 matic. For the sake of the marriage tie it is as well, 
 perhaps, that the opinion is not generally held. 
 
 See what roots and fruits went to the perfection 
 of the best Marrow-bone Pye, of which, despite the 
 marrow-bone basis, a vegetarian might surely partake 
 without sin. 
 
 "After you have mixt the crusts of the best sort 
 for pasts, and raised the coffin in such a manner as 
 you please ; you shall first in the bottome thereof lay 
 a course of marrow of beef, mixt with currants ; then 
 upon it a lay of the soals of artichokes, after they 
 have been boyled and are divided from the thistle ; 
 then cover them with marrow, currants, and great 
 raisins, the stones pickt out ; then lay a course of 
 potatoes cut in thick slices, after they have been 
 boyled soft, and are clean pilled ; then cover them 
 with marrow, currants, great raisins, sugar, and cinna- 
 
 237
 
 A Humble Feast 
 
 mon ; then lay a layer of candied eringo roots mixf 
 very thick with the slices of dates ; then cover it with 
 marrow, currants, great raisins, sugar, cinnamon, and 
 dates, with a few Damask prunes, and so bake it ; 
 and after it is bak't, pour into it, as long as it will 
 receive it, white wine, rosewater, sugar, and cinnamon 
 and vinegar mixt together, and candy all the cover 
 with rosewater and sugar only, and so set it into the 
 oven a little, and serve it forth." 
 
 Not only in the composition of each dish is this 
 opulence to be found, but in the multitude and variety 
 of them on the table. Gervase Markham's instruc- 
 tions to the docile housewife on the ordering of a 
 royal feast may be left where they are, but the follow- 
 ing counsel, being addressed to "any Good man," 
 demands publicity : — 
 
 " Now for a more humble Feast, or an ordinary 
 proportion which any good man may keep in his 
 Family, for the entertainment of his true and worthy 
 friends, it must hold limitation with his provision 
 and the season of the year ; For Summer affords 
 what Winter wants, and Winter is Master of that 
 which Summer can but with difficulty have. It is 
 good then for him that intends to Feast, to set down 
 the full number of his full dishes, that is, dishes of 
 
 238
 
 Ancient Appetites 
 
 meat that are of substance, and not empty, or for 
 shew ; and of these sixteen is a good proportion for 
 one course unto one messe, as thus, for example : 
 First, a shield of Brawn with mustard, Secondly, a 
 boyl'd Capon, Thirdly, a boyld piece of beef. Fourthly, 
 a chine of Beef rosted, Fifthly, a Neat's tongue rosted. 
 Sixthly, a Pig rosted. Seventhly, a Chewets bak'd. 
 Eighthly, a goose rosted. Ninthly, a swan rosted, 
 Tenthly, a Turkey rosted, the Eleventh, a Haunch of 
 Venison rosted, the Twelfth, a Pasty of Venison, the 
 Thirteenth, a Kid with a pudding in the belly, the 
 Fourteenth, an Olive-pye, the Fifteenth, a couple of 
 Capons, the Sixteenth, a Custard or Dousets. Now 
 to these full dishes may be added Sallets, Fricases, 
 Quelque choses, and devised paste, as many dishes 
 more, which make the full service no less than two- 
 and-thirty dishes, which is as much as can con- 
 veniently stand on one Table, and in one mess ; and 
 after this manner you may proportion both your second 
 and third course, holding fulness in one half of the 
 dishes, and shew in the other, which will be both 
 frugall in the spender, contentment to the guest, and 
 much pleasure and delight to the beholders." 
 
 With this insight into our ancestors' appetites may 
 we not understand more clearly the Elizabethan 
 
 239
 
 A Suggestion 
 
 spirit — its breadth, optimism, radiance? Markham 
 in the kitchen has himself something' of the grand 
 manner of the early dramatists. At a table groaning 
 beneath such dishes, so wealthy in picturesque abund- 
 ance, in essential sweetness and vigour, and withal 
 racy of the soil, there must abide enthusiasm. Our 
 own literature would perhaps be robuster if we could 
 reinstate some of these old eating customs. 
 
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