THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE PHANTOM JOURNAL
 
 OTHER WORKS BY K. V. LUCAS 
 
 The Vermilion Box 
 Landmarks 
 Listener's Lure 
 Mr. Ingleside 
 Over Bemerton's 
 London Lavender 
 Cloud and Silver 
 A Boswell of Baghdad 
 'Twixt Eagle and Dove 
 The Open Road 
 Loiterer's Harvest 
 One Day and Another 
 Fireside and Sunshine 
 Character and Comedy 
 Old Lamps for New 
 The Hambledon Men 
 The Friendly Town 
 Her Infinite Variety 
 - Good Company 
 The Gentlest Art 
 The Second Post 
 A Little of Everything 
 Harvest Home 
 Variety Lane 
 Mixed Vintages 
 The Best of Lamb 
 The Life of Charles Lamb 
 A Swan and Her Friends 
 London Revisited 
 A Wanderer in Venice 
 A Wanderer in Paris 
 A Wanderer in London 
 A Wanderer in Holland 
 A Wanderer in Florence 
 The British School 
 Highways and Byways in Sussc.. 
 Anne's Terrible Good Nature 
 The Slowcoach 
 Remember Louvain ! 
 Swollen-Headed William 
 
 and 
 
 The Pocket Edition of the Works of Charles 
 Lamb : I. Miscellaneous Prose ; u. Klia ; 
 in. Children's Books; iv. Poem- and 
 Plays ; v. and vi. Letters.

 
 THE 
 PHANTOM JOURNAL 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS AND DIVERSIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 E. V. LUCAS 
 
 METHUEN & CO. LTD. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 
 
 LONDON
 
 First Published in
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE PHANTOM JOURNAL i 
 THE FATHERLY FORCE .... 6 
 
 THE SPARROWS' FRIEND . . . -13 
 
 THE PERFECT GUEST . . . .16 
 
 THE GREEN AMONG THE GREY . . .20 
 
 PUNCTUALITY . . . . . .29 
 
 THE OTHER Two . . . . -34 
 
 THOUGHTS AT THE FERRY . . . -38 
 
 NEW GLIMPSES OF BORROW . . . .42 
 
 THE MAN OF Ross . . . . .46 
 
 THE INNOCENT'S PROGRESS . . . -63 
 
 THE VISIONARY TRIUMPH . . . 71 
 
 OF WAITERS AND MANAGERS . . -75 
 
 A COWARD'S COURAGE . . . -83 
 
 THIRD THOUGHTS . . . . .89 
 b v 
 
 860683
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ENTHUSIASTS . . . . . .94 
 
 SATURDAY AFTERNOONS . . . . 101 
 
 ON SECRET PASSAGES . . . .119 
 
 A LITTLE CHILD .... 124 
 
 THE ITALIAN QUESTION .... 130 
 
 OF SHOPS AND STALLS .... 134 
 
 CLICQUOT WELL WON . . . . 139 
 
 MY FRIEND FLORA . . . . . 145 
 
 A SOUTH SEA BUBBLE . . . -150 
 
 AN EAST- ANGLIAN BOOKMAN . . .154 
 
 ON EPITAPHS . . . . . .163 
 
 ON DISGUISE . . . . . .168 
 
 WHAT THE SUN DID NOT SEE FOR FAR TOO LONG 172 
 THE GOLDEN EAGLE . . . . .178 
 
 THE WORLD REMEDIAL .... 184 
 
 DISTRUST OF MAN . . . . .189 
 
 BROKEN ENGLISH ..... 193 
 
 TELEPHONICS ...... 200 
 
 NOTE . . . . . . 207 
 
 VI
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LAURA'S EARLY MORNING LESSONS . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 LAURA RISES FOR THE DAY . , 62 
 
 LAURA COMBINES BREAKFAST AND PHILANTHROPY . 64 
 LAURA'S Music LESSON . . . .66 
 
 LAURA VISITS THE SICK . . ; .68 
 
 LAURA DANCES TO HER MOTHER'S Music . . 70 
 
 vn
 
 THE PHANTOM JOURNAL 
 
 The Phantom Journal ^> o o 
 
 NEW papers are not exactly an imperative 
 need, although most of us could contrive 
 a sheet nearer to our heart's desire than that 
 which we find on the breakfast-table. But even 
 though there may be papers enough, I should 
 like just one more to get into circulation : 
 or rather, I should like others to share my good 
 fortune and be put on the free list of a similar 
 organ. For its diligent perusal corrects all the 
 others. 
 
 My paper is not a morning paper and not an 
 evening paper (it has no 6.30 edition on sale in 
 the streets at four o'clock) and it is not a weekly 
 paper. It is that new thing, a nightly. One 
 copy only is issued and that is for me, the sole 
 peruser, and I get it in the very small hours. 
 Nor do I get it with any regularity : its issue is 
 the most capricious affair ; but when it arrives I 
 am enchanted. It has no title, or if it has I 
 A I
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 have never noticed it, for I open right on to the 
 news. But The Adjuster would describe it, or 
 The Alleviator. And it has no leading article ; 
 only news. But such news ! During the War it 
 was almost too thrilling now and then. I dared 
 not wake up. And even now, when all the bless- 
 ings of Peace surround us, and overwhelm us, it 
 can be exciting ; for the editor, whoever he is, has 
 so keen an eye, so pointed a finger, that he can 
 discern and penetrate joints in the armour even 
 of the Millennium. 
 
 Let me quote a little from last night's 
 edition : : 
 
 Strange but not unwelcome news comes from a number of 
 cathedral towns, where it has at last been decided to keep the 
 cathedrals open all day, not only on week-days, but on 
 Sundays, when poor people have their best, and sometimes 
 their only, chance to see them. A few Deans and Chapters 
 still hold out against what seems a not unreasonable proposal, 
 particularly as the cathedrals are, in a manner of speaking, 
 public property ; but it is hoped that they may in time change 
 this attitude. It has also been agreed that the sixpence fee 
 for viewing the choir, which these same cathedrals have 
 exacted for so many years although the choir is not less 
 the property of the public than the chancel and transepts 
 are shall henceforward not be charged. 
 
 And this : 
 
 Inquiries at Scotland Yard reveal the satisfactory but not 
 
 surprising official information that no outbreak of theft, 
 
 drunkenness, assault or murder has followed upon last 
 
 Sunday afternoon's cricket match at Lord's. On the con- 
 
 2
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 trary, the Monday charge-sheets at the various Courts seem 
 to have been lighter than usual. The great crowd assembled 
 in an orderly manner, were delighted with the game, and 
 dispersed happily to their homes. It is hoped that the 
 perilous experiment of permitting spectacular cricket on .the 
 Day of Rest may therefore be tried again, and may in time 
 lead to the honest utilization on Sundays of the public 
 grounds in the parks and elsewhere, suburban bowling-greens, 
 and so forth. In this connexion it may be noted, as an 
 interesting circumstance, that of the minority who were 
 against so revolutionary and subversive an innovation as 
 a Sunday cricket match at Lord's (which seems to have been 
 made possible chiefly by the Sunday American baseball 
 matches during the War), every member is the possessor 
 of a private lawn-tennis lawn on which he, his family and 
 his friends, spend most of each fine week-end. 
 
 I omit a long article on the completed national- 
 ization of hospitals and turn to the heading, 
 " Literary Gossip " : 
 
 From time to time an occasional new letter of Charles 
 Lamb comes to light, usually of the slightest. That some 
 complete new batches still exist had been until to-day merely 
 a fond hope with enthusiasts ; but tidings now reach us of a 
 packet of from thirty to forty, marked by all the writer's 
 tenderness and fun, from Lamb to various members of the 
 Burney family. 
 
 The "Art Notes" can also be almost too 
 exciting. For instance : 
 
 A telegram from Amsterdam states that in the house of 
 an eccentric lady of great age, who has just died, and who 
 for years would allow no callers, living alone with a single 
 retainer have been found a number of pictures by the lead- 
 ing Dutch masters of the seventeenth century, including no 
 
 3
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 fewer than three superb examples of the genius of Vermeer of 
 Delft. The extreme rarity of this supreme artist's works 
 has always been a matter of perplexity, for he began to paint 
 early, lived into middle age and had a large family to 
 provide for ; yet up to the present fewer than forty pictures 
 from his hand have been traced. These new ones are said 
 to be of the most exquisite quality. 
 
 And again : 
 
 We have the best authority for affirming the rumour 
 that Lord Handsupp, before he presented his Rembrandt 
 to the National Gallery, refused an offer of six figures from 
 a foreign collector. 
 
 Political news is not much in the paper's line, 
 but naturally it has to take notice of anything 
 interesting. I quote the following passage from 
 last night's issue : 
 
 The Bill for the introduction of the Pari-Mutuel system 
 into this country has now passed the Lords and will shortly 
 become law. Racing henceforward not only will be as 
 pleasant as it is in France, with none of the raucous din 
 of the bookmakers and no swindling element, but gambling 
 will automatically contribute both to the revenue and to 
 charity, for the Chancellor of the Exchequer will take five 
 per cent, and the Hospitals two-and-a-half. 
 
 Under " News from Far and Wide " is this : 
 A Coventry man has invented a silent motor hooter. 
 
 And then the Court and Society information ! 
 What a charming account that was, only last 
 night, of the Prince of Wales's engagement ! Not 
 4
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 to a foreigner ; not even an American ; but an 
 English girl through and through. How 
 delighted every one seemed to be about it ! 
 
 Even the obituary column can be refreshing ; 
 but I must not go into details.
 
 The Fatherly Force o o <& o 
 
 OUR city may be "the stony-hearted step- 
 mother" that De Quincey called her, but 
 we Londoners are not necessarily neglected 
 orphans because of that. So long as one police- 
 man remains, we shall never be fatherless. 
 
 If I were William Cowper, Esq., of Olney, I 
 should put the following questions into melodious 
 and easily-memorized verse ; but instead they are 
 in prose. Who is it, when we are lost, that tells us 
 the way, always extending an arm as he does so ? 
 The policeman. Who is it that knows where the 
 nearest chemist's is? The policeman. Who, 
 when we are in danger of being run over if we 
 cross the road, lifts a hand like a York ham and 
 cleaves a path for us ? The policeman. At night, 
 when we have lost the latch-key, who is it that 
 effects an entrance (I borrow his own terminology) 
 through a window ? The policeman. The tale 
 of his benefactions is endless. 
 
 Two American girls recently in London spent 
 much of their time in pretending to an ignorance 
 6
 
 The Fatherly Force 
 
 of the city, entirely (they confessed) in order 
 to experience the delight of conversing with 
 constables; and a lady once told me that the 
 nicest men she had ever met (and she saw them 
 every week) were the policemen in the Lost 
 Umbrella Office on the Embankment. I believe 
 it. I have the same feeling when I go there, 
 and it bewilders me, remembering these fascinat- 
 ing officials, to think that the Foreign Office ever 
 has any difficulty in appointing Ambassadors. 
 Yet these too, with all their sympathy and suavity 
 and sweet reasonableness, are policemen au fond. 
 For the dark blue uniform is very powerful, and 
 every man who dons the white worsted glove 
 finds his hand turning to iron beneath it. What- 
 ever he may have been before the Force absorbed 
 him, he will henceforward side with order against 
 disorder, with respectability against Bohemianism, 
 with sobriety against vinous jollity. And yet the 
 policemen make their allowances. I watched 
 four of them the other day frog-marching a very 
 "voilent" (as they always say in their evidence 
 the next morning) reprobate from Burleigh Street 
 to Bow Street. During the struggle he dis- 
 tributed some vicious kicks, but I could not 
 determine by the constables' attitude, though 
 they would, no doubt, have preferred a more 
 tractable captive, that they felt any grudge 
 7
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 towards him, or thought him any worse than a 
 meeker delinquent. 
 
 Although in real life the policeman is so 
 monumentally respectable and solid, on the stage 
 he is never anything but comic. A Kiss for 
 Cinderella to some extent qualifies this ; for the 
 constable there with the " infalliable " system was 
 romantical as well. But, generally speaking, a 
 policeman's part is a comic part, and must be so. 
 Tradition is too strong for anything else. Too 
 many clowns in too many harlequinades have 
 wreaked their mischievous will on him. Hence, 
 whatever the play, directly we see him we begin 
 to laugh ; for we know that though the uniform 
 is honourable, the voice will be funny. But in 
 real life the police are serious creatures, while 
 during the first three days of Armistice week, 
 when they had to stand by and watch all kinds 
 of goings-on for which no one was to be whopped, 
 they were pathetic, too. Seldom can they have 
 been so unhappy as when the bonfire was burning 
 in the middle of Cockspur Street, and nothing 
 could be done, or was permitted to be done. 
 
 London, I maintain, has few sublimer sights 
 than a policeman doing his duty. I saw one 
 yesterday. The window of the room which is 
 principally devoted to my deeds of inkshed looks 
 upon a point where four roads meet, on three of 
 8
 
 The Fatherly Force 
 
 which are omnibus routes. This means that 
 there is never any lack of moving incident when- 
 ever I look out. Sometimes there is a moving 
 accident, too. Yesterday, for example, hearing a 
 warning call and a crash, I was at the window in 
 time to see an omnibus and a small wagon in- 
 extricably mixed, and to watch with what celerity 
 a crowd can assemble. But it was not that which 
 drew the eye ; it was the steady advance from a 
 distant point of one of our helmeted fathers. He 
 did not hurry : nothing but pursuit of the wicked 
 fleeing makes a policeman run ; but his onset was 
 irresistible. Traffic rolled back from him like the 
 waters of the Red Sea. When he reached the 
 scene of ti-ouble, where the motor-driver and the 
 driver of the wagon were in ecstasies of tu quoque, 
 while the conductor was examining the bonnet 
 for damage and the passengers were wondering 
 whether it was better to wait and work out their 
 fares or change to another bus when he reached 
 the scene of trouble, he performed an action 
 which never fails to fascinate me : he drew 
 forth his pocket-book. There is something very 
 interesting in the way in which a policeman does 
 this. The gesture is mainly pride, but there is 
 misgiving in it, too : the knowledge that the pen 
 is not as mighty as the truncheon. But the pride 
 is very evident : the satisfaction of Matter being 
 9
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 seen in association with Mind, like a voter whose 
 hand has been shaken in public by a titled 
 candidate. Policemen as a rule are laborious 
 writers, and this one was true to type, but there 
 is none that comes nearer the author of the Book 
 of Fate. What a policeman writes, goes, as the 
 Americans say. 
 
 One of the best stories of the fatherliness of 
 the Fatherly Force that I ever heard was told to 
 me by that elvish commentator on life, and most 
 tireless of modern Quixotes, the late Robert Ross. 
 He brought it, oddly enough, from St. Petersburg 
 (as the Russian capital used to be called), and, 
 when I urged him to write it, with characteristic 
 open-haiidedness he presented it to me. 
 
 The heroine was a famous member of the 
 Russian Imperial Ballet who, though she had not 
 then danced in London her genius being too 
 precious in her own country had been here 
 unprofessionally as a sightseer ; and it was here 
 that the adventure which is the foundation of 
 this narrative befell. From her own lips, at a 
 supper party in St. Petersburg or Moscow, Ross 
 had the tale, which now, but lacking all his 
 personal enrichments, I. tell again. 
 
 The dancer when in London had witnessed one 
 of our processions : the opening of Parliament, the 
 Lord Mayor's Show I can't say what and she 
 IO
 
 The Fatherly Force 
 
 had found herself at a disadvantage in the crowd. 
 It is unusual for premieres dcmseuses to be tall, even 
 when they are poised on the very tips of their 
 conquering toes; and this lady was no exception. 
 The result was that she could not see, and not to 
 be able to see is for any woman a calamity, but 
 for a foreign woman a tragedy : particularly so 
 when she is in her own country a queen, 
 accustomed to every kind of homage and 
 attention. The ballerina was at the height of 
 her despair when one of the policemen on duty 
 took pity on her, and lifting her in his arms 
 held her up long enough to enjoy the principal 
 moments of the pageant. From that day on- 
 wards, she said, the London policeman was, for 
 her, the symbol of strength and comfort and 
 power. Gigantic Cossacks might parade before 
 her all day, but her true god out of the machine 
 was from Scotland Yard. . . . 
 
 A time came when, to the grief of her vast 
 public, she fell ill. The Tsar's own physicians 
 attended her, but she became no better, and at 
 last it was realized that an operation was in- 
 evitable. Now, an operation is an ordeal which a 
 premiere danseuse can dread with as much intensity 
 as anyone else, and this poor little lady was 
 terrified. Empresses of the . ballet should be 
 exempted from such trials. No, she vowed, she 
 II
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 could never go through with it. The idea was 
 too frightening. 
 
 "But," said the first physician, "you must. It 
 will only be a slight affair ; you will come out of 
 your convalescence better than before." 
 
 "Yes," said the second physician, "and more 
 beautiful than before." 
 
 "And," urged the third physician, "more 
 popular than before." 
 
 " And," added the surgeon, " you will live for 
 ever." 
 
 But she still trembled and refused. ... It was 
 impossible, unthinkable. . . . 
 
 What then ? 
 
 Well, let me say at once that, as a matter ot 
 fact, she underwent the operation with perfect 
 fortitude, and it was a great success. But how 
 do you think she brought herself to face it ? 
 Only by tightly holding the white gloved hand 
 of a specially constructed doll of massive, even 
 colossal, proportions, dressed in the uniform of a 
 London policeman. 
 
 12
 
 The Sparrows' Friend o & o 
 
 IF you entered the Tuileries any fine morning 
 (and surely the sun always shines in Paris, 
 does it not ?) by the gate opposite Fremiet's 
 golden arrogant Joan of Arc, and turned into the 
 gardens opposite the white Gambetta memorial, 
 you were certain to see a little knot of people 
 gathered around an old gentleman in a black 
 slouch hat, with a deeply furrowed melancholy 
 face, a heavy moustache, and the big comfortable 
 slippers of one who (like so many a wise French- 
 man) prefers comfort to convention or the out- 
 raged opinion of others. All about him, pecking 
 among the grass of the little enclosed lawns, or 
 in the gravel path at his feet, or fluttering up to 
 his hands and down again, were sparrows les 
 moineaux for this was M. Pol, the famous 
 " Charmeur d'oiseaux." 
 
 There is a certain attraction about Notre Dame, 
 
 its gloom and its glass and its history ; Sainte 
 
 Chapelle is not without a polished beauty ; the 
 
 Louvre contains a picture or two and a statue or 
 
 13
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 two that demand to be seen and seen again ; but 
 this old retired civil servant with the magic power 
 over the gamins of the Parisian roadways and 
 chimney-stacks was far more magnetic to many 
 a tourist. Those other of Baedeker's lions were 
 permanent and would endure, but a frowsy 
 unhappy old man in scandalous footwear who not 
 only charmed the sparrows but quite clearly had 
 confidential understandings with each was a marvel 
 indeed and not to be missed. Notre Dame's 
 twin towers on each side of that miracle of a 
 rose window would be there next time ; but 
 would M. Pol ? That is how we reasoned. 
 
 We did well to see him as often as we could, 
 for he is now no more ; he died in 1918. 
 
 For some time the old man had been missing 
 from his accustomed haunts, through blindness, 
 and Death found him at his home at Chandon- 
 Lagache, in the midst of the composition of 
 rhymes about his little friends, which had long 
 been his hobby, and took him quite peacefully. 
 
 I have stood by M. Pol for hours, hoping to 
 acquire something of his mystery ; but these 
 things come from within. He knew many of 
 the birds by name, and he used to level terrible 
 charges against them, as facetious uncles do with 
 little nephews and nieces ; but more French in 
 character, that is all. One very innocent mite
 
 The Sparrows' Friend 
 
 as innocent as a Paris sparrow can be was 
 branded as L'Alcoolique. Never was a bird less 
 of an inebriate, but no crumb or grain could it 
 get except upon the invitation, " Viens, prendre 
 ton Pernod!" Another was Marguerite, saucy 
 baggage ; another, La Comtesse ; another, 
 L' Anglais, who was addressed in an approxi- 
 mation to our own tongue. Now and then among 
 the pigmies a giant pigeon would greedily stalk : 
 welcome too. But it was with his sparrows that 
 M. Pol was at his best remonstrative, minatory, 
 caustic ; but always humorous, always tender 
 beneath. 
 
 Latterly he sold a postcard now and then, with 
 himself photographed on it amid verses and birds ; 
 but that was a mere side issue. Often strangers 
 would engage him in conversation, and he would 
 reply with the ready irony of France ; but he 
 displayed little interest. His heart was with 
 those others. One felt that the more he saw of 
 men the more he liked sparrows. 
 
 The French have a genius for gay commemor- 
 ative sculpture. If a statue of M. Pol were set 
 up on the scene of his triumphs (and many things 
 are less likely), with little bronze moineaux all 
 about him, I for one should often make it an 
 object of pilgrimage.
 
 The Perfect Guest o o <& 
 
 THERE are certain qualities which we all 
 claim. We are probably wrong, of course, 
 but we deceive ourselves into believing that, 
 short as we may fall in other ways, we really can 
 do this or that superlatively well. "I'll say this 
 for myself," we remark, with an approving glance 
 in the mirror, "at any rate I'm a good listener" ; 
 or, " Whatever I may not be, I'm a good host." 
 These are things that may be asserted of oneself, 
 by oneself, without undue conceit. " I pride 
 myself on being a wit," a man may not say ; or 
 " I am not ashamed of being the handsomest 
 man in London ; " but no one resents the tone of 
 those other arrogations, even if their truth is 
 denied. 
 
 It is less common, although also unobjectionable, 
 to hear people felicitate with themselves on being 
 good guests. Indeed,, I have lately met two or 
 three who quite impenitently asserted the reverse ; 
 and I believe that I am of their company. I try 
 very hard to be good, but can never lose sight of
 
 The Perfect Guest 
 
 the fact that my host's house is not mine. Fixed 
 customs must be surrendered, lateness must 
 become punctuality, cigarette ends must not burn 
 the mantelpiece, one misses one's own China tea. 
 The bathroom is too far and other people use it. 
 There is no hook for the strop. In short, to be a 
 really good guest and at ease under alien roofs it 
 is necessary, I suspect, to have no home ties of 
 one's own ; certainly to have no very tyrannical 
 habits. 
 
 I cut recently from the Spectator this rhymed 
 analysis of the perfect guest : 
 
 She answered, by return of post, 
 The invitation of her host ; 
 She caught the train she said she would, 
 And changed at junctions as she should ; 
 She brought a small and lightish box, 
 And keys belonging to the locks. 
 Food, rare and rich, she did not beg, 
 But ate the boiled or scrambled egg ; 
 When offered lukewarm tea she drank it, 
 And did not crave an extra blanket, 
 Nor extra pillows for her head ; 
 She seemed to like the spare-room bed. 
 She brought her own self-filling pen, 
 And always went to bed at ten. 
 She left no little things behind, 
 But stories new and gossip kind. 
 
 Those verses seem to me to cover the ground, 
 although one might want a change here and 
 there. For example, would a little malice in her 
 
 B 17
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 London anecdotage be so undesirable ? And a 
 little less meekness in the lady, who comes out 
 rather as a poor relation, might do no harm. 
 They also might emphasize the point that she 
 was never indisposed, for it is an unpardonable 
 offence in a guest to be ill ; that she spent a 
 great deal of time in writing letters (which all 
 hostesses like their guests to do) ; and that on 
 returning home she sat down and composed a 
 "roofer" in the warmest possible terms. They 
 might touch lightly but feelingly on her readi- 
 ness not only to eat what was offered, and not to 
 desire luxuries, but to refuse the rarities, such 
 as, in recent times, bacon and butter and sugar. 
 (" Oh, no, I never take butter ! " what grateful 
 words to fall on a hostess's ear !) One would not, 
 however, have one's guest a vegetarian, because 
 that way distraction lies. If vegetarians ate 
 vegetables all might be well, but they don't ; 
 they want made dishes of an exotic nature, or 
 hostesses think they do, and then the cook gives 
 notice. The verses might also refer to the perfect 
 guest's easy flow of conversation when neighbour- 
 ing bores call ; and last but how far from least ! 
 they might note the genuine ring in her voice 
 when she volunteers to do a little weeding. 
 
 But the lines, as far as they go, are compre- 
 hensive ; their defect is that they deal with but 
 18
 
 The Perfect Guest 
 
 one type a woman visiting in the country. 
 There is also to be considered the woman from 
 the country visiting in town, who, to be perfect, 
 must not insist too strongly on her own choice of 
 play, must not pine inordinately for dances, and 
 must not bring more frocks than her hostess can 
 keep pace with. Mention of the hostess reminds 
 me that it is by a hostess that the verses obvi- 
 ously were written, and that, as such, they leave 
 apertures which the arrows of censure might 
 penetrate if we were considering the perfect 
 hostess too. For how could the poet, for all her 
 epigrammatic conciseness, ever have given her 
 exemplary friend the opportunity of drinking 
 lukewarm tea ? In any catalogue of the perfect 
 hostess's virtues a very high place must be re- 
 served for that watchfulness over the teapot and 
 the bell that prevents such a possibility. And 
 the perfect hostess is careful, by providing extra 
 blankets, to make craving for more unnecessary. 
 She also places by the bed biscuits, matches, and 
 a volume either of O. Henry or " Saki," or both.
 
 The Green among the Grey o o 
 
 ~* ACH autumn I am more and more aware, 
 J -/as I grow older and the summers ahead of 
 me decrease in number, of summer's beauty, and 
 each May I am more and more aware of the beauty 
 of the spring that all too quickly has rushed into 
 full leaf; and to my mind London's greatest 
 spring beauty is lent her by her plane trees : 
 beauty both of leaf and of stem, for there is 
 no more lovely colour, on the quiet restrained 
 side, than that pale yellow which the falling 
 bark reveals. 
 
 The London plane has a special advantage 
 over other trees in growing where it is most 
 wanted. The maimed elms of Kensington 
 Gardens, for example, grow where already there 
 is a waste of greenery, but the plane trees which 
 I have particularly in my mind at this moment 
 grow among bricks and brush the sides of houses 
 with their branches. From a balloon the leaves 
 of these trees, making from that altitude, im- 
 mediately above verdant pools among the red 
 2O
 
 The Green among the Grey 
 
 and grey of the roofs, must strike the eye very 
 graciously. In no balloon have I ever set foot, 
 and hope not to, but having ascended St. Paul's 
 and other eminences I am familiar with something 
 of the same effect. 
 
 Looking down on London from a great height 
 in the City from the Monument, say the 
 impression received is a waste of blackened grey 
 with infrequent and surprising spots of herbage 
 to lighten it. Looking down on London from 
 a great height in the West-end from the cam- 
 panile of the Westminster Cathedral, for instance 
 the impression is of greenness first and dark 
 grey after, for almost immediately below are 
 St. James's Park and Green Park and the gardens 
 of Buckingham Palace, and, quite near, the roll- 
 ing acres of the Hyde. That is in summer. In 
 winter the City prospect changes, for since most 
 of its green is the green of the leaf, little but the 
 blackened grey is left through the smoke. The 
 western prospect, however, remains much the 
 same, although more sombre, for most of its 
 green is the green of grass. If one would 
 see both scenes at their smilingest, but partic- 
 ularly the City, climb the Monument (it has 
 only 345 of the steepest steps) in mid May. For 
 London's green in mid May is the country's green 
 in mid June, such a hurry is the Old Lady in. 
 21
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 None the less, in spite of her plentiful ver- 
 dancy, the first thought of London which the 
 alien, and even perhaps many a Londoner, has 
 is of blackened grey only. To these a map, 
 with all the oases coloured, would be a great 
 surprise, and a census of London's trees a greater. 
 In certain western parts she is as truly a garden 
 city as could be asked, and even in the heart of 
 her, where streets are all asphalt and so narrow- 
 that two vehicles cannot pass, a man who wagered 
 that a steady walker could not travel all day in 
 summer and see no leaves within every four 
 minutes would win his bet. Indeed, there is one 
 fortnight of the year it is also in May when one 
 discovers again that London is at heart a forest 
 city. 
 
 I am not sure that the occasional glimpses of 
 her trees are not the best. The parks can be 
 perhaps a shade too monotonously green : they 
 are too big ; they might be in the country ; 
 but the delicate branches that feel for the light 
 among the masonry have a quality all their own, 
 given to them largely by contrast. 
 
 How soon this forest city of ours would revert 
 to the wild, if only her citizens ceased to fret 
 her and keep Nature under, we had a chance of 
 learning when the Aldwych site was laid bare 
 some few years since. Instantly from the ruins 
 22
 
 The Green among the Grey 
 
 sprang a tangle of vegetation, with patches of 
 flowers among it, rooting themselves in a 
 mysterious way in nothing more nutritious than 
 mortar, to the bewilderment and despair of all 
 passing gardeners who with such pains and 
 patience coax blossoms to flourish in prepared 
 soil. Perhaps an even more striking instance of 
 the fertility of London stone was observable 
 when the Stamford Bridge ground was reopened 
 towards the end of the War for the American 
 baseball matches, and we found that, left to their 
 own devices, the raised platforms, all of solid 
 concrete, had become terraced lawns. 
 
 But the plane tree, who is my hero at the 
 moment, awaits his eulogy. It is as though 
 Nature, taking pity on commercial man, had 
 given him this steady companion on his lonely 
 money-making way : " Go," said she to the plane 
 tree, "and befriend this sordid duffer. No 
 matter how hard the ground, how high the sur- 
 rounding houses, how smoke-covered the sun, 
 how shattering the traffic, how neglectful the 
 passers-by, I will see that you flourish. It is 
 your mission to alleviate the stones. You shall 
 put forth your leaves early and hold them late 
 to remind him that life is sweet somewhere, 
 and to cheer him with the thought that some 
 day, when he has made money enough, and 
 23
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 come to his senses, he may breathe sweet air 
 again." l 
 
 Nature's choice was very wise, for the plane 
 tree, above all others, seems to have the gift of 
 distributing a pervading greenness. As well as 
 being green itself, it tinges the circumambient 
 atmosphere with green. If one doubts this, let 
 him visit Pump Court in the Temple, where two 
 trees absolutely flood with leaves a parallelogram 
 of masonry. But if Pump Court is more than lit 
 by two plane trees, Cheapside in the summer 
 takes heart from one only that famous tree 
 which springs from a tiny courtyard at the corner 
 of Wood Street, and, although lopped back almost 
 to a sign-post some few years ago, is again a 
 brave portent of the open world to all the mer- 
 chants of Chepe and their customers. It has 
 been suggested that it was the greenness of this 
 tree, a centuiy and more earlier, that at this 
 same Wood Street corner set Wordsworth's Poor 
 Susan upon her dream of rural joys. Whether 
 it is old enough for that, I know not ; but I like 
 the idea. 
 
 Such is the value of her ground that London 
 City proper has necessarily to be content with 
 
 1 Honour where honour is due ; and Nature, it must be 
 admitted, has very valuable allies in the Metropolitan Public 
 Gardens Associations. 
 
 24
 
 The Green among the Grey 
 
 minute oases, and travelling eastwards one must 
 go a long way before one comes to a real 
 expanse comparable with the pleasaunces of the 
 west. The cemetery of Bunhill Fields is the 
 largest until Victoria Park is reached that 
 really necessary park which has such hard 
 usage that there are acres of it without a blade 
 of grass left. Here the East both apes the 
 West and instructs it. There is one lake 
 here on which rowing boats incessantly ply 
 and a motor launch used to make continual 
 trips round an island with a Japanese temple 
 on it for a penny a voyage ; and there is 
 another lake where thousands of little East- 
 end boys bathe in the summer all day long. 
 Now, the Serpentine in Hyde Park never had 
 a motor launch, and bathing is allowed in it 
 only before breakfast and at eve. 
 
 The best known of London's parks come 
 where they are not wanted exceedingly. Hyde 
 and St. James's and the Green Park and Ken- 
 sington Gardens are all open spaces in areas 
 where the streets are wide and the rooms large 
 and light, and the poor can use and enjoy them 
 only by walking some distance to do so, and 
 then would probably rather be on Hampstead 
 Heath with its absence of restrictions. But 
 Victoria Park is emphatically the right park in 
 25
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 the right place. The West-enders, even without 
 their parks, would still be healthy and moderately 
 happy ; but Victoria Park must literally have 
 kept thousands upon thousands of children 
 alive. So, to a smaller extent, must Battersea 
 Park. And not long ago there was a move- 
 ment afoot now perhaps only suspended to 
 make yet another park where it is wanted : at 
 Shadwell, on the site of a disused fish market 
 adjoining the river and the docks, where the 
 curiously squalid homes of Wapping may send 
 forth their children for sun and air. The idea 
 was to link the park with the memory of King 
 Edward VII., and there could not be a wiser or 
 more beneficent scheme. It is one, moreover, 
 which he with his practical sympathy would 
 have been the first to support. This park, if 
 it becomes a reality, will be in one way the best 
 of them all, for it will have a frontage on the busy 
 part of the Thames, below the Pool, to give the 
 children the sight of the great ships going by 
 and thus open the world to them. 
 
 To what extent Victoria Park was surrendered 
 to allotment holders during the War I cannot 
 say ; but if the activity was anything like that 
 in Kensington Gardens the effect must be very 
 striking. Kensington Palace seen from the 
 road across a forest of beans and artichokes 
 26
 
 The Green among the Grey 
 
 and sunflowers was a wonderful and incredible 
 sight not perhaps so surprising as Lord 
 Holland seated on his pedestal amid a riot of 
 good garden stuff in his own park a little farther 
 west, but nearly so. 
 
 Victoria Park's very special attraction, to me, 
 is its bathing lake : one of the wonderful sights of 
 London which very few central Londoners and no 
 Americans have ever seen. Here boys rollick 
 and frolic in their thousands, all stark and all 
 more than happy, with the happiness that has to 
 be expressed by action in shouts and leaps and 
 pursuit. On the hot August afternoon that I was 
 last there, the sun, sinking through a haze, turned 
 these ragamuffins to merboys and their skin to 
 glory. The water is surrounded by trees ; so 
 that the mean and grimy streets which gave 
 these urchins forth and were waiting to reclaim 
 them again might have been as remote as Japan. 
 
 It was not only the most surprising spectacle 
 there, in the East-end but the completest 
 triumph of nakedness I ever dreamed of, for 
 with nakedness had come not only beauty, but 
 an ecstasy and irresponsibility as of the faun. 
 "Time has run back and fetched the Age of 
 Gold," I murmured as I watched them in their 
 joy, gleaming and glistening. And then, half an 
 
 hour after, as I sat by the path outside this 
 27
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 enchanted pool and watched them returning 
 home, with their so lately radiant bodies covered 
 with dirty clothes, and their little sleek, round 
 heads shapeless with half-dried hair, and the 
 horse-play of the arid park taking the place of 
 the primeval gaieties and raptures of the water, 
 I knew that the Age of Gold had passed. 
 
 28
 
 Punctuality o o o *&- o 
 
 AMONG my good resolutions for the New 
 Year I very nearly included the deter- 
 mination never to be punctual again. I held 
 my hand, just in time; but it was a near 
 thing. 
 
 For a long while it had been, with me, a point 
 of honour to be on time, and, possibly, I had 
 become a little self-righteous on the matter, 
 rebuking too caustically those with a laxer 
 standard. But towards the close of 191 8 doubts 
 began to creep in. For one thing, modern 
 conditions were making it very hard to keep 
 engagements to the minute ; taxis were scarce 
 and trains and omnibuses crowded, so that in 
 order to be punctual one had to walk and thus 
 lose many precious minutes ; for another, I had 
 such a number of appointments which were not 
 kept by the other parties that I had to take the 
 matter into serious consideration, for they all 
 meant disorganization of a rather exacting time- 
 table at a period when I was unusually busy. 
 29
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 Moreover, while waiting for a late friend, it is 
 impossible to do anything one is too impatient 
 or unsettled. 
 
 Why, I began to ask myself, should I do 
 all the waiting and get hungry and cross, and 
 why should they do all the arriving when every- 
 thing is ready ? Why should not the roles be 
 reversed ? 
 
 When conscription came in and martial habits 
 became the rule, I had hoped and believed that 
 punctuality was really likely to be established. 
 I thought this because one had always heard so 
 much about Army precision, and also because my 
 most punctual friend for many years had been a 
 soldier and we had engaged in a rivalry in the 
 matter. But I was wrong. During the War the 
 soldiers home on leave took every advantage of 
 one's gratitude to them, while the first demob- 
 ilized one whom I entertained kept me waiting 
 forty minutes for dinner. 
 
 The pity of it is that this particular tarrying 
 guest is a man of eminence and capacity. Were 
 he a failure, as according to our own Samuel 
 Smiles or to the author of that famous American 
 book From Princeton College to Colonel House, he 
 ought to be, all would be well ; but he is not ; 
 he has never been punctual in his life and he 
 has had an exceptionally successful career. The 
 30
 
 Punctuality 
 
 books tell us that the unpunctual man is dis- 
 qualified in the race for fortune ; that no one will 
 employ him, no one will trust him. They say 
 that the keeping of appointments is a test both 
 of character and quality. Business men inter- 
 viewing applicants for posts, they tell us, will 
 engage no one, no matter what his attainments, 
 who does not arrive promptly. But these hard 
 and fast schemes of appraisement can, as I have 
 shown, be all wrong. Wisdom, after all, is an 
 element in business success ; and what wise man 
 would ever be punctual at his dentist's ? What 
 kind of respect a dentist has for his first appoint- 
 ment of the day, I cannot tell. I have avoided 
 these early seances ; but every one knows that he 
 is never ready for a patient at the covenanted 
 hour after that. Editors usually keep their 
 visitors waiting. No theatrical manager has ever 
 been on time ; but then time does not exist for 
 the stage, because, apart from their profession, 
 actors have nothing to do. Rehearsals are one 
 immense distracting outrage upon the routine 
 of an ordered existence ; and yet actors are a 
 very happy folk. 
 
 Until late in 1918, as I have said, I had loved 
 
 Punctualia with a true ardour ; but I now found 
 
 myself sufficiently free from passion to be able 
 
 to examine her critically and to discern faults. 
 
 31
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 For there is a good deal to be said against 
 her. 
 
 To be always correct is a dangerous thing. I 
 have noticed that the people who are late are 
 often so much jollier than the people who have to 
 wait for them. Looking deeply into the matter, 
 I realized that Punctualia, for all her complacency 
 and air of rectitude, has lost a great many lives. 
 The logic of the thing is inexoi-able. If you are 
 late for the train, you miss it ; and if you are not 
 in it and it is wrecked, you live on to miss others. 
 I recalled one very remarkable case in point which 
 happened in my own family circle. A relation of 
 mine, with her daughter, had arranged to spend 
 a holiday in the Channel Islands. A cabman 
 promised and failed, arriving in time only to whip 
 his horse all the way across London and miss the 
 train by a minute. When, the next day, it was 
 learned that the Channel Islands boat had struck 
 the Casquettes and had gone down, the ladies 
 were so excited by their escape that they sought 
 the cabman and by way of gratitude adopted one 
 of his numerous children. That is a true story, 
 and it is surely a very eloquent supporter of an 
 anti-punctual policy. Had the ladies caught the 
 train they would have been drowned, and the 
 cabman's bantling would have lacked any but 
 the most elementary education. 
 32
 
 Punctuality 
 
 Can you wonder, then, that I nearly included 
 a determination never to be punctual again 
 among my New Year resolutions? But I did 
 not go so far. I left it at the decision not 
 to be so particular about punctuality as I used 
 to be. 
 
 33
 
 The Other Two o *& & 
 
 IT is my good or ill fortune to have taken a 
 furnished flat at a dizzy altitude in the neigh- 
 bourhood of a terminus which is at once nearest 
 the sea and the Promised Land. Immediately 
 above the flat is a spacious roof, which affords 
 a pleasant retreat in the cool of the evening and 
 commands what the agents call an extensive 
 prospect, and where, at most hours, toy dogs 
 may be met. The flat itself consists of a number 
 of rooms the walls of which are covered with 
 photographs of men, women, and children, almost 
 as thickly as the pages of a schoolboy's album 
 are covered with stamps. There are more men 
 than women, and more women than children. 
 The men have obsolete beards ; several of the 
 women seem to be sisters, and have been taken 
 together with their heads inclining towards each 
 other at an affectionate angle, which, although 
 affectionate, does not render the thought im- 
 possible that each sister secretly is convinced 
 that she is the handsomer. There are also 
 34
 
 The Other Two 
 
 sets of children graduated like organ pipes. 
 These photographs not only hang on the walls 
 but they swarm in frames about the mantel- 
 pieces and the occasional tables. The occasional 
 tables are so numerous and varied in size that 
 one might imagine this their stud farm. 
 
 The beginning of my tenancy was marked by 
 a tragedy. The larder window having been left 
 open by the previous occupants, a large slate- 
 coloured pigeon, having plans for a family, had 
 made a nest and laid an egg in it, and, at the 
 very moment when I suddenly opened the door, 
 was preparing to lay another. To this achieve- 
 ment I personally should have had no objection ; 
 but the porter, who was showing me round, and 
 who has a sense of decorum more proper to such 
 apartments, had other views, and before I could 
 interfere he had removed the egg, brushed away 
 the nest, and closed the window. That ended 
 his share of the drama ; but mine was to begin, 
 for ever since that day the pigeon, with a depth 
 of reproachfulness in its eyes that is extremely 
 distressing, has sat on the kitchen window-sill 
 making desperate efforts to get in, so that I 
 creep about feeling like Herod. During Baby 
 Week it was almost unbearable. Even when I 
 am far from the kitchen I can hear its plaintive 
 injured cooing. 
 
 35
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 The flat is conspicuous in possessing, in addi- 
 tion to numerous other advantages, such as a 
 night porter to work the lift, who is never 
 visible, and a day porter who, having been for- 
 bidden by the powers that be to use the lift 
 before two o'clock in the afternoon, scrupulously 
 obeys the new regulation, except when he has to 
 ascend to an upper floor himself: the flat has, in 
 addition to these advantages, windows that refuse 
 to be lifted by any but a Hercules, and doors (ten 
 in all) not one of which will remain open except 
 by artificial means. Whether or not this is a 
 peculiarity of Westminster architecture I cannot 
 say, but all the doors are alike. They each 
 quickly but remorselessly close, yet so gently that 
 the latch does not catch, and every breath of 
 draught (and we by no means stop at breaths) 
 sways them noisily to and fro with a sound that is 
 excessively irritating to the nerves. I have there- 
 fore either to go to the door and fasten it or 
 find something with which to fix it open. Nor- 
 mally, I use a chair or a weight from the kitchen 
 scales ; but two of the rooms the drawing-room, 
 where the occasional tables are most fecund, 
 and the dining-room, where I do everything but 
 dine are supplied with door-stops of their own, 
 consisting each of an elephant's foot mounted 
 with brass. Picture me then, the most Occi- 
 36
 
 The Other Two 
 
 dental of men and so long a devotee of the study 
 and the shelf as to be less of a big game hunter 
 than anyone you could imagine, moving about 
 this intensely sophisticated flat carrying from 
 room to room the foot of a mammoth of the 
 Indian jungle or the African forest (I don't 
 know which) in order to prevent a London door 
 from banging. Imperial Caesar's destiny was not 
 less exalted or more incongruous. 
 
 If there were four of these feet I should be 
 more at ease. But there are only two of them, 
 and elephants are quadrupeds. Where then are 
 the other two? That is the question which is 
 wearing me out. I lie awake at night, wonder- 
 ing, and then falling into an uneasy sleep hear 
 a heavy stumbling tread on the stairs and wake 
 in terror expecting the door to burst open and 
 the other half of the elephant to advance upon 
 me demanding its lost feet. It is always a 
 dreadful nightmare, but never more so than 
 when the mammoth not only towers up grey and 
 threatening, but coos like an exiled pigeon. 
 
 37
 
 Thoughts at the Ferry o 
 
 MY acquaintance among ferrymen is not 
 extensive, but I cannot remember any that 
 were cheerful. Perhaps there are none. The 
 one over there, on the other side, who is being 
 so deliberate he certainly has no air of gaiety. 
 
 There is a wealth of reasons for this lack of mirth. 
 To begin with, a boat on a river is normally a 
 vehicle of pleasure ; but the ferryman's boat is a 
 drudge. Then, the ordinary course of a boat on 
 a river is up or down, between banks that can 
 provide excitement, and around bends, each one 
 of which may reveal adventure ; but the ferry- 
 man's boat must constantly cross from side to 
 side, always from the same spot to the same spot 
 and back again, which is subversive of joy. All 
 that the ferryman knows of the true purposes of 
 a river he gains from observation of others, who 
 gailv pass him, pulling with the stream or against 
 it, and singing, perhaps, as they row. Did a 
 ferryman ever sing ? There was, when I was a 
 boy, a pretty song about Twickenham Ferry, but 
 38
 
 Thoughts at the Ferry 
 
 my recollections of it are that it was the passenger 
 who sang : not, I fancy, in the boat, but before 
 he entered it. If my memory is right, the fact 
 is significant. In the company of such taciturnity 
 and gloom, who could carol ? 
 
 The ferryman, again, must never leave his post. 
 All the world may go wayfaring, but not he. To 
 cross a river is in itself nothing ; but to come, 
 from somewhere unknown, to the bank of the 
 river, cross it, and pass on to unknown bournes 
 on the other side that is an enterprise, and that 
 is what every one but the ferryman is doing. I 
 have written before it is a recurring theme of 
 sympathy of the servants of the traveller who 
 live by helping him on his eventful way but 
 never participate in any wanderings railway 
 porters, for example and the ferryman is per- 
 haps chief, because so much of the very matter 
 of romance a running stream : comes into his 
 daily routine. There he is, in the open air, 
 with the breeze to fan and lure him, and the 
 racing clouds to lift his thoughts, and the exciting 
 sound of water in his ears : all the enticements to 
 rove, but he must not be a rover. For the rest 
 of us (as it must seem to him), exploration ; for 
 himself, the narrow confines of the known ! 
 
 And it is a peculiarity of ferrymen that when 
 you want them they are (like this reluctant fellow) 
 39
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 always on the other side. Not from any natural 
 desire to annoy, but through a whim of the gods; 
 yet how it must add fuel to their misanthropic 
 fire ! If every journey were with a fare, the 
 ferryman might be a shade more cheerful, even 
 though the payment is so trifling. Was there 
 ever a rich ferryman ? Has a whimsical million- 
 aire ever played at being a ferryman ? Has a 
 Carnegie ever left a ferryman a legacy ? 
 
 And then the brevity of their companion- 
 ships ! Not that most ferrymen seem to desire 
 human intercourse ; but perhaps they did once, 
 before the monotony of their task soured them. 
 Down to the boat come the strangers from the 
 great world young or old, forbidding or beautiful, 
 ardent or pensive and howsoever the ferryman 
 would like to hold them and talk with them, no 
 sooner does the boat touch the farther bank than 
 they are off again ! Does not that make for a 
 certain moroseness ? 
 
 And what was the ferryman before he was a 
 ferryman ? For seldom, I should guess, is his an 
 hereditary post. Some kind of failure normally 
 precedes; and there again is cause for reticence. 
 
 Such friends as ferrymen possess are usually 
 
 dumb animals. I have known more than one 
 
 who carried his dog with him ; and once, on the 
 
 Wye, I met one whose companion was a goose. 
 
 40
 
 Thoughts at the Ferry 
 
 No matter how often the crossing had to be 
 made, the goose made it too. I used the ferry 
 several times, and we were never without this 
 escort ; and the ferryman (who, I am bound to 
 remark, humiliating though it be, propelled his 
 boat from side to side, not with honest oars, but 
 by means of a rope) emerged sufficiently from his 
 apathy to praise the bird's fidelity. " Here," 
 thought I, "is surely the material for a pertinent 
 apologue. ' The Ferryman and the Goose ' : the 
 very title is jEsopian. Or to be more satirical 
 the title might be ' The Ferryman and the Swan,' 
 the point being that he thought it was a swan, 
 but in reality it was only a goose." But I had 
 no further inspiration. And yet, by a practised 
 homilist, a good deal could be done with it with 
 which to score off poor human nature. " Ah ! 
 my friends" surely it is fittest for the pulpit, 
 after all ? "Ah ! my friends, may not each of us 
 be as much in error as that poor deluded ferry- 
 man? Let us search our hearts and answer 
 truthfully the questions : Do we know our friends 
 as we ought ? Does not their flattery perhaps 
 blind us to their mediocrity ? In short, are they 
 swans or geese ? " 
 
 Ferrymen 
 
 But here is our man at last ! On close inspec- 
 tion, how dismal he looks ! 
 41
 
 New Glimpses of Borrow ^> o &- 
 
 r I "*HE veteran of the gloves who, his bruising 
 -L'done, now occupies the editorial chair of 
 The Mirror of Life and Boxing World, a little 
 weekly paper full of the spirited appraisement 
 of champions of every weight, recently gave his 
 readers something a little out of the ordinary, 
 in his reminiscences of the author of Lavengro. 
 Mr. Bradley for that is the editor's name 
 knew Borrow well in later days, and talked fights 
 with him by the hour, and until the last year or 
 so when we have all been forced by the twin 
 goddesses Bellona and Dora to abandon many 
 of the best habits, never allowed himself to pass 
 the Castle Tavern in Holborn without drinking 
 a cup of ale to his old friend's memory. 
 
 Their meeting was in the Isle of Man in the 
 eighteen-seventies, when Borrow, although still 
 vigorous, had already passed the allotted span, 
 and Mr. Bradley acted as his guide up and down 
 Manxland. " He was then as fine a specimen 
 of a man as anyone could wish to see. He 
 42
 
 New Glimpses of Borrow 
 
 stood six feet two inches in his stockings ; his 
 frame was of colossal strength, his hair perfectly 
 white, and his face naturally smooth, without a 
 vestige of whisker or moustache. But perhaps 
 the most remarkable feature about Borrow was 
 his eyes so dark and piercing." 
 
 One gathers from Mr. Bradley's remarks that 
 upon Borrow the open air was exercising more 
 than its usual spell, as though, time growing 
 short, every moment had to be lived doubly. As 
 a walker he was, of course, amazing, even at that 
 age, over seventy, thinking nothing (and yet 
 thinking everything) of walking for twelve hours 
 a day at an average of little under five miles an 
 hour ; while when Borrow swam, says Mr. Bradley 
 but " swam " is not the word, for the sea pro- 
 vided him with ecstasies of movement beyond 
 all ordinary natation when Borrow swam, at one 
 time he " rolled and disported himself like a 
 porpoise," and at another "pawed the water like 
 a dog." Although so far from youth, even in 
 winter he would plunge into the Fen Pond in 
 Richmond Park and traverse the whole length. 
 This may not be news to those who have gone 
 ;it all deeply into Sorrow's life, but it is stimulat- 
 ing to have it afresh on such authority, and the 
 gratitude of Borrovians to Mr. Bradley should 
 be great. 
 
 43
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 Mr. Bradley's recollections of Sorrow's conver- 
 sation include a priceless contribution to the fine 
 art of coping. Let me quote : 
 
 A famous Yorkshire horse-dealer once asked him : 
 
 " Now, how would you, Mr. Romany Rye, pass off the 
 veriest screw in the world for a flying dromedary ? " 
 
 "By putting a live eel down his throat ; as long as the 
 eel remained in his stomach the horse would be brisk and 
 lively in a surprising degree." 
 
 "And how," continued the knowing Tyke, "would you 
 make a regular kicker and biter appear so tame and gentle 
 that any fat old gentleman of sixty who wanted an easy- 
 goer would be glad to give fifty pounds for him ? " 
 
 "By pouring down his throat four pints of generous old 
 ale, which would make him so happy and comfortable that 
 he would not have the heart to kick or bite anybody, for 
 a season at least." * 
 
 That has the authentic note. But authenticity 
 is the mark of the whole article. Take, for 
 example, such a passage as this (the reference 
 having nothing to do with melancholy's anatomist : 
 quite the reverse) : " Borrow loved old Burton 
 and '37 port, but nevertheless he would drink 
 whatever he came across on the road, as if out 
 of perversity, to insist on his iron constitution 
 bearing whatever he chose to impose on it. And 
 oh ! how he hated the teetotallers ! ' Some cants 
 are not dangerous,' he once said, ' but a more 
 dangerous cant than the temperance cant, or, as 
 it is generally called, teetotalism, is not to be 
 found.' " Holding such views, it is natural 
 44
 
 New Glimpses of Borrow 
 
 enough that Sorrow's indefatigable feet took him 
 naturally into many an inn, of which one of his 
 favourites was the Bald-faced Stag at Roehampton, 
 where Mr. Bradley has listened to his eulogies 
 of all highwaymen in general and Jerry Abershaw 
 in particular. Borrovians may like to make a 
 note of this tavern as a point of pilgrimage. 
 
 Mr. Bradley has seen the old man also in his 
 Oulton home, but happily before his last clouded 
 days. " In that quiet retreat," says Mr. Bradley, 
 " it seems to me that he thoroughly realized the 
 words of the old song of which he was so fond : 
 
 'Give me a haunch of a buck to eat, and to drink 
 
 Madeira old, 
 
 And a gentle wife to rest with, and in my arms to fold, 
 An Arabic book to study, a Norfolk cob to ride, 
 A house to live in, shaded with trees, and near to a 
 
 river-side ; 
 With such good things around me, and blessed with good 
 
 health withal, 
 Though I should live for a hundred years, for death I 
 
 would not call.' " 
 
 45
 
 The Man of Ross <*> *> o 
 
 I HAVE several reasons for remembering Ross, 
 but the first is that a visit to that grey hillside 
 town sent me to the authorities for more par- 
 ticulars concerning John Kyrle. Others are the 
 intensity and density of the rain that can fall in 
 Herefordshire ; the sundial on Wilton Bridge ; 
 and the most elementary Roman Catholic chapel 
 I ever saw nothing but a bare room made, 
 however, when I pushed open the door on that 
 chill and aqueous afternoon, cheerful and smiling 
 by its full complement of votive candles all alight 
 at once. In the honour of what Saint they burned 
 so gaily, like a little mass meeting of flames, I 
 cannot say, but probably the Gentle Spirit of 
 Padua, who not only befriends all tender young 
 things but, it is notorious, if properly approached, 
 can find again whatever you have lost ; and most 
 people have lost something. I remember Ross 
 also because 1 had Dickens's Letters (that generous 
 feast) with me, and behold ! on the wall of the 
 
 hotel, whose name I forget but which overlooks the 
 46
 
 The Man of Ross 
 
 sinuous Wye, was his autograph and an intimation 
 that under that very roof more hospitable then, 
 in the eighteen-sixties, than in the rationing period 
 of my sojourn the novelist had arranged with 
 John Forster the details of his last American tour. 
 
 But these are digressions. The prime boast 
 of Ross is that it had a Man ; and this Man is 
 immanent. You cannot raise your eyes in Ross 
 without encountering a reminder of its Manhood, 
 its Manliness ; and the uninstructed, as they 
 wander hither and thither, naturally become 
 more and more curious as to his identity : how he 
 obtained the definite article so definitely, and 
 what was his association with the place. 
 
 I cannot lay claim personally to total uninstruc- 
 tion. I remembered faintly Pope's lines which 
 made the fame of the Man, but I retained only 
 a general impression of them as praising a public 
 benefactor who did astonishing things on a very 
 small income, and thus was to put to shame 
 certain men of wealth in Pope's day who did 
 for their fellow creatures nothing at all. But 
 nowhere could I find the lines. The guide-books 
 refer to them lightly as though they were in 
 every consciousness, and pass on. No shop had 
 a copy of Pope ; none of the picture postcards 
 quoted them ; they were not on the monument 
 in the church ; they were nowhere in the hotel. 
 47
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 And this is odd, because it was probably not until 
 the illustrious London poet had set the seal of his 
 approval on their late townsman and benefactor 
 that the people of Ross realized not only how 
 very remarkable had he been, but also that to be 
 associated with such a personage might mean 
 both distinction and profit. For the phrase 
 " The Man of Ross " is now everywhere : he who 
 once fathered orphans and the unfortunate now 
 spreads his cloak over tea-shops, inns, and count- 
 less commercial ventures. 
 
 Here, however, is the passage, from the thii'd 
 Moral Epistle. (Pope, it will be recalled, is 
 moralizing on riches, in metrical conversation 
 with Lord Bathurst) : 
 
 P. Rise, honest Muse ! and sing the Man of Ross : 
 Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds, 
 And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds. 
 Who hurg with woods yon mountain's sultry brow ? 
 From the dry rock who bade the waters flow ? 
 Not to the skies in useless columns tost, 
 Or in proud falls magnificently lost, 
 But clear and artless, pouring through the plain 
 Health to the sick and solace to the swain. 
 Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows? 
 Whose seats th.- weary traveller repose? 
 Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise ? 
 "The Man of Ross," each lisping babe replies. 
 Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread ! 
 The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread ; 
 He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state, 
 Where Age and Want sit smiling at the gate ; 
 4 8
 
 The Man of Ross 
 
 Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans, blessed 
 
 The young who labour, and the old who rest. 
 
 Is any sick ? The Man of Ross relieves, 
 
 Prescribes, attends, the med'cine makes and gives. 
 
 Is there a variance? enter but his door, 
 
 Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more. 
 
 Despairing Quacks with curses fled the place, 
 
 And vile attorneys, now an useless race. 
 B. Thrice happy man ! enabled to pursue 
 
 What all so wish, but want the power to do ! 
 
 Oh say, what sums that generous hand supply ? 
 
 What mines, to swell that boundless charity? 
 P. Of Debts and Taxes, Wife and Children clear, 
 
 This man possest five hundred pounds a year. 
 
 Blush, Grandeur, blush ! proud Courts, withdraw your 
 blaze ! 
 
 Ye, little Stars ! hide your diminished rays 
 B. And what ? no monument, inscription, stone ? 
 
 His race, his form, his name almost unknown ? 
 P. Who builds a church to God, and not to fame, 
 
 Will never mark the marble with his name : 
 
 Go, search it there, 1 where to be born and die, 
 
 Of rich and poor makes all the history ; 
 
 Enough, that Virtue filled the space between ; 
 
 Prov'd, by the ends of being, to have been. 
 
 If the impression conveyed by those lines is 
 that the Man of Ross was more of a saint than a 
 Herefordshire squire, the fault is the poet's and 
 in part his medium's. The Augustan couplet 
 tended to a heightening, dehumanising effect. 
 As a matter of fact, John Kyrle would seem to 
 have soared not at all : the plainest and most 
 direct of men, he took to altruism and municipal 
 1 In the Parish Register. 
 
 D 49
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 improvements very much as his neighbours took 
 to agriculture or cock-fighting. It was his amuse- 
 ment or hobby to make Ross a more livable-in 
 place. 
 
 But before the poem is examined more closely, 
 let me give the outline of John Kyrle's life. His 
 father was Walter Kyrle of Ross, a barrister and 
 J.P., and M.P. for Leominster in the Long 
 Parliament. John was born on May 22nd, 1637, 
 and educated at Ross Grammar School and Balliol 
 College. He then passed on to the Middle 
 Temple, but on succeeding to his father's property, 
 worth about 600 a year, he settled down at Ross 
 and commenced philanthropy, and never relaxed 
 his efforts until his death many years later. He 
 lived in the house opposite the very charming 
 Market-hall, unmarried, and cared for by a 
 relation named Miss Judith Bubb. He sat 
 commonly in a huge and very solid chair, estab- 
 lished on its stout legs like a rock, which I saw 
 not long since in the window of Mr. Simmonds' 
 old curiosity shop in Monmouth, where it serves 
 as a show and a lure. According to a portrait of 
 the Man of Ross which exists, made surreptitiously 
 (for he would have none of your limners) as he 
 sat at worship, he was tall, broad-shouldered, of 
 sanguine complexion, with a big nose. He wore 
 a brown suit and a short bushy wig, and he had a 
 50
 
 The Man of Ross 
 
 loud voice. He visited a dame's school once a 
 week, and on hearing of any delinquency would 
 reprimand the infant in these words : " Od's bud, 
 Od's bud, but I will mend you ! " A burly man 
 with a red face, big nose, and loud voice speaking 
 thus might, to the young, be a too terrifying 
 object, but we must guess that John Kyrle 
 tempered the wind. The Dictionary of National 
 Biography says that although tradition gives Kyrle 
 credit for releasing poor debtors and starting them 
 on new careers, and that although for so long, as 
 Pope tells us, he stood between attorney and 
 litigant, the law was ultimately too much for him, 
 and he too became involved in a suit. He lived 
 to be eighty-seven, dying of sheer old age on 7th 
 November 1724. His body lay in state in the 
 church of Ross for nine days, and was then buried 
 without a head-stone. 
 
 For the prose of Kyrle's life and achievements, 
 as distinguished from Pope's poetry, we have to 
 go first to the diary of Thomas Hearn the anti- 
 quary. Under the date April 9th, 1732-33, 
 Hearn writes : " He (John Kirle or Kyrle) was 
 a very humble, good-natured man. He was a 
 man of little or no literature. He always studied 
 to do what good charitable offices he could, and 
 was always pleased when an object offered. He 
 was reverenced and respected by all people. He 
 51
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 used to drink and entertain with cider, and was a 
 sober discreet man. He would tell people when 
 they dined or supped with him that he could 
 (if they pleased) let them have wine to drink, 
 but that his own drink was cider, and that he 
 found it most agreeable to him, and he did not 
 care to be extravagant with his small fortune. 
 His estate was five hundred pounds per annum, 
 and no more, with which he did wonders. He 
 built and endowed a hospital, and built the spire 
 of Ross. When any litigious suits fell out, he 
 would always stop them and prevent people's 
 going to law. They would, when differences 
 happened, say, go to ' the great man of Ross,' or, 
 which they did more often, go to ' the man of 
 Ross,' and he will decide the matter. He left a 
 nephew, a man good for little or nothing. He 
 would have given all from him, but a good deal 
 being entailed he could not. He smoked tobacco, 
 and would generally smoke two pipes if in 
 company, either at home or elsewhere." 
 
 A year later Hearn corrected certain of these 
 statements. Thus : " 1734. April 1 6. Mr. Pope 
 had the main of his information about Mr. Kirle, 
 commonly called the -Man of Ross (whom he 
 characterized in his poem of the f Use of 
 Riches ') from Jacob Tonson the bookseller, who 
 hath purchased an estate of about a thousand a 
 52
 
 The Man of Ross 
 
 year, and lives in Herefordshire, a man that is a 
 great, snivelling, poor-spirited whigg, and good 
 for nothing that I know of. Mr. Brome tells me 
 in his letter from Kwithington on November 23rd, 
 1733, that he does not think the truth is strained 
 in any particulars of the character, except it be 
 in his being founder of the church and spire of 
 Ross . . . but he was a great benefactor ; and at 
 the re-casting of the bells gave a tenor, a large 
 bell. Neither does Mr. Brome find he was 
 founder of any hospital, and he thinks his 
 knowledge in medicine extended no further than 
 kitchen physick, of which he was very liberal, 
 and might thereby preserve many lives. 
 
 "April 18. Yesterday Mr. Matthew Gibson, 
 minister of Abbey Dore in Herefordshire, just 
 called upon me. I asked him whether he knew 
 Mr. Kirle, commonly called the Man of Ross. 
 He said he did very well, and that his (Mr. 
 Matthew Gibson's) wife is his near relation ; I 
 think he said he was her uncle. I told him the 
 said Man of Ross was an extraordinary charitable 
 generous man, and did much good. He said he 
 did do a great deal of good, but that was all out 
 of vanity and ostentation, being the vainest man 
 living, and that he always hated his relations and 
 would never look upon, or do anything for them, 
 though many of them were very poor. I know 
 53
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 not what credit to give to Mr. Gibson in that 
 account, especially since this same Gibson hath 
 more than once, in my presence, spoke inveter- 
 ately against that good honest man Dr. Adam 
 Ottley, late Bishop of St David's. Besides, this 
 Gibson is a crazed man, and withall stingy, 
 though he be rich, and hath no child by his wife." 
 
 Another authority, more or less a contemporary, 
 on the Man of Ross was Thomas Hutcheson, 
 barrister, a descendant who became the owner of 
 Kyrle's property. According to him Pope's 
 questioning line : 
 
 Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow? 
 rather too sumptuously covers the planting of a 
 " long shady walk, of nearly a mile and a half 
 . . . called Kyrle's Walks, on the summit of the 
 eminence commanding a beautiful prospect of the 
 Wye." The poet's next query : 
 
 From the dry rock who bade the waters flow ? 
 is answered thus: "The Man of Ross promoted, 
 and partly assisted by his own pecuniary aid, the 
 erection of a small water work near the river 
 Wye, which supplied the town of Ross with 
 water, in which article it was very deficient 
 before." A further commentary was drawn from 
 Mr. Hutcheson by the couplet: 
 
 Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread ! 
 The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread. 
 
 54
 
 The Man of Ross 
 
 " He kept open house every market-day ; any 
 person without distinction might meet on that 
 day at his hospitable board, which, according to 
 the stories related to me by some old tenants, 
 consisted of a joint of meat of each sort. The 
 poor, who were always in waiting on that day, 
 and every other, had distributed to them, by his 
 own superintendence, the whole of the remains 
 of each day, besides continual distributions of 
 bread, etc." 
 
 As to Pope's question : 
 
 Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows? 
 
 it seems that the poet was desperately out. The 
 causeway connecting the town with the river 
 dated from before the fourteenth century, but 
 Kyrle probably saw to its proper maintenance. 
 
 Finally, let us see what the Sage of Fleet 
 Street has to say to the statement : 
 
 The Man possest five hundred pounds a year, 
 
 and its implication that everything was done on 
 that sum. In the critical notice of Pope in 
 The Lives of the Poets, Dr. Johnson remarks : 
 " Wonders are willingly told and willingly heard. 
 The truth is, that Kyrle was a man of known 
 integrity and active benevolence, by whose solici- 
 tation the wealthy were persuaded to pay contri- 
 butions to his charitable schemes ; this influence 
 55
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 he obtained by an example of liberality exerted 
 to the utmost extent of his power, and was thus 
 enabled to give more than he had. This account 
 Mr. Victor received from the Minister of the 
 place, and I have preserved it, that the praise of 
 a good man being made more credible, may be 
 more solid. Narrations of romantic and im- 
 practicable virtue will be read with wonder, but 
 that which is unattainable is recommended in 
 vain ; that good may be endeavoured, it must be 
 shown to be practicable." 
 
 So much for all the advocates angeli and 
 diaboli ! But I think we need pay little attention 
 to Mr. Gibson's testimony. Even though he were 
 in part right, and a tinge of self-esteem or love of 
 applause crept into the Man's benefactions, they 
 remain benefactions no less, costing him as much 
 money, and reaching the same goals. But away 
 with such belittlings ! Let us rather remember 
 that the Rev. Matthew Gibson was crazed, stingy 
 withal, and had no child by his wife. Personally 
 I agree with my friend Mr. A. L Humphreys, 
 who has put it on record that, in his belief, it 
 would be a good thing if every parish had a Man 
 of Ross in preference to a parson. No harm 
 necessarily in a parson as well, but the Man is 
 more important. 
 
 What no one tells us is, by whom and when the 
 56 '
 
 The Man of Ross 
 
 munificent Mr. Kyrle was first called the Man of 
 Ross. Although Pope made his fame, he did not 
 invent this term for him ; he merely passed it 
 on and fixed it in literature. This we know from 
 a paragraph in the News Letter of November 19th, 
 1724, years before Pope wrote, recording the death 
 of " John Kyrle, Esq., in the 88th year of his 
 age, called by way of excellency ' The Man of 
 Ross.' " 
 
 Pope was perfectly aware that he over, rather 
 than under, stated his case. Writing to 
 Tonson when the third Moral Epistle was still in 
 the course of completion, to thank him for the 
 details of information about the Man of Ross, he 
 said (the date is June 1732): "They are more 
 than sufficient for my honest purpose of setting 
 up his fame as an example to greater and wealthier 
 men how they ought to use their fortunes. You 
 know few of these particulars can be made to 
 shine in verse, but I have selected the most 
 affecting, and added two or three which I learned 
 from other hands. A small exaggeration you 
 must allow me as a Poet, yet I was determined 
 the groundwork at least should be truth, which 
 made me so scrupulous in my enquiries, and sure, 
 considering that the world is bad enough to be 
 always extenuating and lessening what virtue is 
 among us, it is but reasonable to pay if sometimes 
 57
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 a little over measure to balance that injustice, 
 especially when it is done for example and 
 encouragement to others. If any man shall ever 
 happen to endeavour to emulate the Man of Ross, 
 'twill be no manner of harm if I make him think 
 he was something more charitable and more 
 beneficent than really he was, for so much more 
 good it would put the imitator upon doing, and 
 further I am satisfied in my conscience (from ye 
 strokes in two or three accounts I have of his 
 character) that it was in his will and in his heart 
 to have done every good a Poet can imagine. 
 
 " My motive in singling out this man was two- 
 fold. First to distinguish real and solid worth 
 from showish or plausible expense, and virtue 
 from vanity ; and secondly to humble the pride 
 of greater men, by an opposition of one so obscure 
 and so distant from all ye sphere of public glory 
 this proud town. To send you any of the 
 particular verses will be much to the prejudice of 
 the whole, which, if it has any beauty, derives it 
 from the manner in which it is Placed as ye 
 contraste (as ye Painters call it) in which it stands 
 with ye pompous figures of famous or rich or 
 highborn men. 
 
 " I was not sorry he had no monument, and 
 will put that circumstance into a note, perhaps 
 into the body of the Poem itself (unless you entreat 
 58
 
 The Man of Ross 
 
 the contrary in your own favour by your zeal to 
 erect one). I would, however, in this case spare 
 your censure upon his Heir (so well as he deserves 
 it), because I daresay after seeing his picture 
 everybody will turn that circumstance to his 
 honour, and conclude the Man of Ross himself 
 would not have any monument in memory of his 
 own good name." 
 
 I am not aware whether it was Tonson who set 
 up the monument in Ross church ; but one is to be 
 seen there, on the north wall of the chancel, near 
 the slab that now marks the site of the Man's burial. 
 
 At least one more poetical tribute from genius 
 did John Kyrle win. Among the Juvenile Poems 
 of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is this : 
 
 Lines written at the King's Arms, Ross, formerly 
 the house of the " Man of Ross." 
 
 Richer than Miser o'er his countless hoards, 
 
 Nobler than Kings, or king-polluted Lords, 
 
 Here dwelt the Man of Ross ! O, Traveller, hear ! 
 
 Departed Merit claims a reverent tear. 
 
 Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health, 
 
 With generous joy he viewed his modest wealth ; 
 
 He heard the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise, 
 
 He marked the sheltered orphan's tearful gaze, 
 
 Or where the sorrow-shrivelled captive lay, 
 
 Poured the bright blaze of Freedom's noon-tide ray. 
 
 Beneath this roof if thy cheered moments pass, 
 
 Fill to the good man's name one grateful glass : 
 
 To higher zest shall Memory wake thy soul, 
 
 And Virtue mingle in the ennobled bowl. 
 
 59
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 But if, like me, through life's distressful scene 
 Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been ; 
 And if thy breast with heart-sick anguish fraught, 
 Thou journeyest onward tempest-tossed in thought ; 
 Here cheat thy cares ! in generous visions melt, 
 And dream of goodness thou hast never felt ! 
 
 The sad and lonely poet, tempest-tossed in 
 thought, who wrote those lines, was then twenty- 
 one, on a walking tour with his friend Hucks* 
 trying to construct Pantisocracy and forget Mary 
 Evans. 
 
 For one " of little or no literature " the Man 
 of Ross did not do so badly. 
 
 As I walked up and down Ross's streets, I 
 came to the conclusion that there is a vacancy 
 for a new Man. The town could do with a 
 thorough overhauling. Memorials to the honour 
 of Kyrle are, as I have said, everywhere, but of 
 the fire of his civic zeal there are no embers : 
 Ross is dingy and decayed. The reward of the 
 traveller comes, however, at the top of the hill, 
 which is suddenly discovered to be a bluff above 
 " pleased Vaga," and some miles of rich valley 
 are at one's feet. But when Pope suggests that 
 " rapid Severn's hoarse applause " can be heard 
 here, he again goes too far. The rapid Severn is 
 many miles away. 
 
 If, however, John Kyrle's name in Ross seems 
 now to be honoured rather platonically or com- 
 60
 
 The Man of Ross 
 
 mercially than in emulation, it is an active stimulus 
 elsewhere. When, in 1876, the late Miranda 
 Hill addressed a public letter to "Those who 
 love Beautiful Things," and called upon her 
 readers to help in getting more sweetness and 
 light into the homes of the poor, and particularly 
 the city-dwelling poor, the response took the 
 form of a Society to which the name of John 
 Kyrle was (at the suggestion of Mr. Benjamin 
 Nattalie) given : the Kyrle Society. During its 
 many years of activity, the Kyrle Society has 
 done much to realize the idealism of its founders 
 for with Miranda Hill was associated her sister, 
 the late Octavia Hill, that indomitable fighter for 
 all that is good and ameliorative in life, whom, 
 in her serene old age, a symphony in grey and 
 silver, I used often to see walking on that height 
 above Crockham Hill which her energies acquired 
 for the nation as an open space for ever. In a 
 speech which she made at one of the meetings 
 of the Kyrle Society not long before her death, 
 Octavia Hill thus summed up certain of the needs 
 which the organization hoped and strove to 
 supply. " Men, women, and children," she said, 
 " want more than food, shelter, and warmth. They 
 want, if their lives are to be full and good, space 
 near their homes for exercise, quiet, good air, and 
 
 sight of grass, trees, and flowers ; they want colour, 
 6l
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 which shall cheer them in the midst of smoke 
 and fog ; they want music, which shall contrast 
 with the rattle of the motors and lift their hearts 
 to praise and joy ; they want suggestion of nobler 
 and better things than those that surround them 
 day by day. ... I assure you that I believe these 
 things have more influence on the spirit than we 
 are at all accustomed to remember. They cul- 
 tivate a sense of dignity and self-respect, as well as 
 breaking the monotony of life." These things has 
 the Kyrle Society dispensed and will continue to 
 dispense, among its countless and noble activities. 
 It is pleasant to think that that stolid old Man 
 of Ross, in this new incarnation, has become 
 so imaginatively sympathetic. How little can he 
 ever have thought of this transmutation of his 
 kindly busybodydom into something so fine and 
 rare ! But it was a true instinct which set his 
 ancient name on the modern banner ; and if ever 
 a new motto is called for, the merits of " Od's 
 bud, Od's bud, but I will mend you ! " should be 
 considered. 
 
 62
 
 The Innocent's Progress o o & 
 
 ONE thing leads to another, and had I not 
 entered Mr. Simmonds' old curiosity shop 
 in Monmouth to make inquiries about the Man 
 of Ross's arm-chair, which nearly fills the window, 
 I might never have met with The Elegant Girl, 
 and The Elegant Girl is one of the comeliest books 
 I ever coveted. 
 
 Having asked all my questions about the chair, 
 which has much of the stern solidity of a fortress, 
 I went upstairs and immediately was rejoiced by 
 the sight of one of the engravings (Plate 2) which 
 are reproduced hereabouts in this volume. It was 
 one, said Mr. Simmonds, of a series, and he showed 
 me eight others nine in all each with its moral 
 verses underneath and I was enchanted, so 
 delicate is the colouring and so distinguished the 
 design, so naive the educational method and 
 so easy the triumph. The reproductions here 
 are absurdly small the size of the originals is 
 9^ inches wide by 6 high but though they give 
 nothing of the tinting, they retain something of 
 63
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 the spirit, and the very striking composition is 
 unimpaired by reduction. 
 
 Mr. Simmonds thought nine a complete set, 
 but I felt that an even number was more probable, 
 and in time, was proved to be right ; but it was 
 long before I could obtain sight of the other three 
 and discover that they belonged to a book and 
 had been taken from their binding to decorate a 
 nursery's walls. There are excitements in this 
 form of hunt la chasse au bouquin commen- 
 surate with those that accelerate the pulses of 
 wearers of pink coats, and some were mine as 
 the scent grew hot and hotter. My first coverts 
 were the print shops, but they were blank ; then 
 I drew the famous Bloomsbury spinneys, both the 
 Reading Room and the Print Room, but they were 
 blank too ; and then, tally ho ! away to the South 
 Kensington gorse. It was here I had the luck to 
 ascertain through a reference to Tuer's Pages 
 and Pictures that The Elegant Girl was a book ; 
 and forthwith I turned to my friends the book- 
 sellers, and in High Street, Marylebone, got 
 directly on the trail, which took me to Hampstead, 
 where a copy of the work (the only one of which 
 I have yet heard) was run to earth. It is this 
 copy that now lies before me the property of 
 Mr. C. T. Owen, a famous collector of what the 
 Trade calls "juveniles," who has very kindly 
 64
 
 The Innocent's Progress 
 
 permitted the plates to be photographed for the 
 present volume. 
 
 Mr. Simmonds thought the drawings the work* 
 of Adam Buck, an artist of child life who has 
 lately been the mode ; but London experts differ. 
 No doubt (they say) Buck's influence is apparent, 
 but no more. The only name is that of Alais, 
 the engraver, on the title-page, and I do not find 
 that Alais ever worked for Buck, but there are 
 at South Kensington child scenes by Singleton 
 engraved by him. The Elegant Girl may be 
 Singleton's. Equally may the designs be by a 
 foreigner, for there is a distinctly foreign sugges- 
 tion here and there, notably in the furniture. 
 The plates are not aquatints but were coloured by 
 hand : the extreme scarcity of the volume probably 
 being due to this circumstance, only a small 
 edition having been prepared and that, I should 
 imagine, at a high figure. To-day, of course, 
 the value of the book is vastly higher. 
 
 All, or very nearly all, the old-fashioned writers 
 for children had but one purpose animating their 
 breasts ; and that purpose was to make children 
 better. I don't say that to-day we try to make 
 them worse ; but their naughtiness can amuse 
 us, as apparently it never could our ancestors, 
 and wild flowers can be preferred to the products 
 
 of the formal parterre. Even Miss Edgeworth 
 E 65
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 came out nominally as " The Parents' Assistant," 
 although her native kindliness and sense of 
 narrative were too much for her ; and even she 
 thought of the child too much as plastic material. 
 Children as children excited little interest ; but 
 a child as a progressive moral animal, susceptible 
 of moulding, a potential adult and citizen, was 
 worth making books for, if in return it played the 
 game and improved its ways. There were of 
 course a few books for the young which told an 
 honest story Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales 
 from Shakespeare and Mrs. Leicester's School are 
 early and shining examples but the idea of 
 amusement for amusement's sake was rare. And 
 nonsense for the young, which later was to become 
 a cult, did not exist before Edward Lear. Nothing 
 can, of course, happen out of its time, and there- 
 fore the speculation is idle ; but none the less 
 it would be entertaining to visualize the effect 
 of Alice in Wonderland on the little Fairchilds. 
 What would Mr. Fairchild say to it ? The work 
 of a clergyman, too ! Would not he return with 
 renewed relish to the congenial task of repeating 
 to his brood Biblical verses illustrating the wicked- 
 ness of man's heart? 
 
 (Incidentally but this is not the place, for The 
 Elegant Girl is waiting there are some interesting 
 reflections to be recorded on the circumstance 
 66
 
 The Innocent's Progress 
 
 that the entertainment of the young has never 
 been in such willing and safe hands as those of the 
 celibates. All the writers I have just glanced at 
 (save Mrs. Sherwood) were unmarried. This need 
 not be taken as any aspersion upon matrimony 
 there must be marriage and giving in marriage 
 in order that little readers may exist but it 
 ought to be remembered whenever the single 
 state is under criticism. Think of the injustice 
 of the Bachelor Tax falling upon Lewis Can-oil !) 
 
 The Elegant Girl, the date of which is 1813, 
 sets out to improve too, for this is the title : The 
 Elegant Girl, or Virtuous Principles the True Source 
 of Elegant Manners ; but its lessons are so un- 
 prejudiced and persuasive that no one can object. 
 Moreover, a very exceptional artistic talent was 
 employed : the best available rather than the 
 cheapest. With such attractive jam, who could 
 resent the pill ? Alone, the pictures do very 
 little in the didactic way, but to the detached 
 artist came an ally in the shape of a gentle and 
 probably, I think, female bard. Each of the 
 twelve drawings has a six-lined stanza to drive 
 home the picture and inculcate a maxim of sound 
 and refined behaviour. 
 
 In the first plate Laura (the elegant girl is, of 
 course, named Laura) is seen in her little bedroom 
 at her morning prayers, and, thus fortified, she
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 then goes through the day in eleven episodes, 
 all tending, as the Americans say, to uplift. 
 Washed and dressed, she joins, in Plate No. 2, 
 her mother at early lessons in a charming library 
 such as neither Vermeer nor Whistler would have 
 disdained. According to the verses, Laura is 
 careless of " what becomes her best," but to the 
 casual male eye she seems to have chosen her 
 trousers with no little discretion. Having suffi- 
 ciently " explored the arts and sciences," she is, 
 in Plate No. 3, ready for breakfast, again with her 
 mother. Her father was where ? Possibly he 
 was dead ; possibly (the date is 1813) at the wars ; 
 probably still in bed. At any rate his daughter 
 passes her day of edification entirely without his 
 assistance. 
 
 Breakfast affords the opportunity of a lesson 
 in practical philanthropy, for chance sends a 
 beggar to the window, and Laura craves, and 
 is granted, permission to give him food and 
 drink. In Plate No. 4 she has a music lesson 
 a lesson that "is not thrown away," for 
 
 By Science taught with taste to play, 
 She'll charm erewhile the listening throng 
 And sing with modest grace her song. 
 
 In Plate No. 5, having slipped a red smock over 
 
 her dress, but still retaining the captivating 
 
 trousers, Laura practises painting. In No. 6, 
 
 68
 
 The Innocent's Progress 
 
 substituting a purple smock for the red one, she 
 teaches the little villagers their A. B.C. a form 
 of altruistic employment which those 
 
 can best approve 
 Who virtue and religion love. 
 
 In Plate No. 7, Laura, in yellow, acquires the 
 rudiments of obedience and refrains from eating 
 forbidden fruit. In Plate No. 8, in green, she 
 carries food to an aged dame. In Plate No. 9> 
 in blue, she brings a cup of broth to her mother, 
 who, "languid and pale," reclines, like Madame 
 Recamier, on an exceedingly uncomfortable couch. 
 It is thus that Laura, 
 
 in early days, 
 Maternal tenderness repays. 
 
 The chief difficulty of any series of this kind 
 is, artists tell me, to preserve the likenesses 
 throughout. In the case of The Elegant Girl it 
 has been fairly successfully overcome, but Laura, 
 who at her orisons looks years older than when 
 becomingly trousered, is never again so charming 
 a child as in the library before breakfast ; while, 
 in the Plate which we have now reached, her 
 mother's severe Greek profile, so noticeable at 
 that frugal meal, has completely vanished. But, 
 take it all round, the series is maintained with 
 credibility and a sprightly realism. 
 6 9
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 In Plate No. 10 the mother is sufficiently 
 recovered to play the harp while Laura bounds 
 light 011 agile feet. In No. 11 Laura visits the 
 impoverished sick, and, by reading the " sacred 
 page/' 
 
 Dries up the widow's scalding tears, 
 Exalts her hopes and calms her fears. 
 
 And finally, in crimson, she is presented by her 
 mother with the guerdon of her day's good 
 conduct, which consists of several boxes of odds 
 and ends labelled " Gifts for the Poor," including 
 a large number of top hats 
 
 Gifts for the Poor her own Reward, 
 For Laura felt and understood 
 The Luxury of doing Good. 
 
 Such is the pretty, unobtrusive didactic scheme 
 of The Elegant Girl. That it is now all out of date 
 I am only too well aware ; but it would do no 
 great harm if a reprint of the book found its way 
 into a few modern homes. 
 
 70
 
 The Visionary Triumph o <* & 
 
 " r I "*HIS," he said (we were discussing our 
 -L favourite dreams), " is mine." 
 
 We prepared to listen. 
 
 " It is always," he went on, " the same a 
 cricket match : and the older I get and less able 
 to play cricket, the oftener I have it. It is a real 
 match, you must understand first-class cricket, 
 with thousands of spectators and excitement ; 
 and it is played a very long way from my home. 
 That is an important point, as I will explain. 
 
 "I am merely one of the spectators. How 
 long I have been watching I cannot say, but the 
 match is nearing the end, and our side the side 
 which has my sympathies is nearly all out, but 
 still needs a few runs to win. 
 
 " What the side is I cannot clearly tell ; all I 
 know is that it is my own county, I mean the 
 county from which I come say Kent and the 
 match is at Old Trafford or Bramall Lane, against 
 either Lancashire or Yorkshire. But the im- 
 portant thing is that my side is a man short. 
 71
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 This man either has been taken ill or has had to 
 go away because of a bereavement. I am not 
 clear as to that, but he is not there, anyway, and 
 unless a substitute can be found Kent will be at 
 a disadvantage and may lose." 
 
 We all got ready to speak. 
 
 " Oh, yes," he interpolated hurriedly, " I know, 
 of course, that a substitute may not bat for 
 another at the end of a match, but this is a dream, 
 remember. That, perhaps, is what dreams are 
 for to provide the limited and frustrated life of 
 the daytime with the compensation of limitless 
 adventure and success." 
 
 " Order ! " we cried. 
 
 " I beg pardon," he said, and returned to the 
 vernacular. 
 
 " Very well ; that is the situation. Meanwhile 
 the last two batsmen are in the Kent captain 
 and another : that is to say, the last two, unless 
 another is forthcoming. And still there are six 
 runs needed five to tie and six to win. The 
 excitement is appalling. Every one in the vast 
 concourse is tense. It is at this moment that the 
 captain is bowled." 
 
 He stopped to wipe his forehead. 
 
 " What happens then ? " he continued. " You 
 would think the match was over. So it would be 
 on any ordinary ground and under ordinary
 
 The Visionary Triumph 
 
 conditions ; but this is a dream. What happens 
 therefore is that the Kent captain, instead of 
 returning to the Pavilion, stops and talks to the 
 other captain and then he leaves the pitch and 
 begins to walk towards the ring. When he 
 reaches the ring, some way from me, he begins 
 to ask loudly, ' Is there a Kent man here who 
 can play at all and would help us out ? ' I can 
 hear him at first only faintly ; then, as he gets 
 closer, I can hear more clearly, ' Is there a Kent 
 man here who can play at all and would help us 
 out ? ' My heart beats faster and faster and I 
 am nearly suffocated with suspense as he ap- 
 proaches, because I am a Kent man who can bat 
 a bit, and to play for my county has always been 
 my desire, and I am afraid that some one else 
 will volunteer before the captain reaches me. 
 
 " You see now why the match has to be played 
 so far away from home. If it were Kent v. 
 Middlesex at Lord's, for example, there would 
 be loads of Kentish men on the ground. But 
 not so many up in the North. 
 
 " I always wonder why the captain does not 
 begin in the Pavilion, but he does not. He comes 
 straight to the ring. Every moment he is 
 drawing nearer and no one has offered himself; 
 and then at last he gets to me and I stand up 
 and say that Kent is my county and I can play 
 73
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 a bit and would like to help. He hastens to 
 accept my offer, and I take his bat and pads and 
 gloves and go to the pitch, amid the cheers of 
 the crowd. 
 
 " At the wicket I am received with hearty 
 greetings by the rival captain (this is a dream, 
 remember), and I take middle. Then I look 
 round the field with perfect composure, as I 
 have always seen the best batsmen do, and have 
 always wanted to do myself. I am the coolest 
 thing there. 
 
 " The situation is electrical. Six runs are 
 needed and I am the last man. The bowler 
 against me is a demon and I am dead out of 
 practice and by no means fond of being hit on 
 the body. He begins his run towards the 
 wicket, and the ball leaves his terrible long 
 swinging arm and comes towards me like a shell. 
 I raise my bat, get it on the half-volley right in 
 the middle, hit it clean over the Pavilion for six, 
 and the match is won. 
 
 "That is my favourite dream." 
 
 " No wonder," we said. 
 
 74
 
 Of Waiters and Managers o *& o 
 
 AITER!" 
 " Yessir." 
 
 Few words, I am told, resound so alluringly as 
 these in the ears of Englishmen exiled in distant 
 parts of the world. And I can believe it. More 
 than half of the spell of London is contained in 
 them. 
 
 Waiters interest me enormously. They are at 
 once so able and so dense. They can have 
 wonderful memories not only for our requirements 
 but for faces, yet be without any imagination ; 
 certainly not the imagination that can put one in 
 another's place, which, in real life, is the only 
 variety of imagination that counts. Thus it 
 happens that they can extend to a guest the 
 warmest welcome and never, except under 
 compulsion, approach him again : never volunteer 
 any solicitude whatever. Whether this is their 
 own fault, or the fault of ourselves or our climate, 
 I cannot say ; but there is some evidence to 
 think it is not unassociated with English influence, 
 75
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 because in their own countries their attentiveness 
 is so much more constant. Take for example the 
 wine waiter. In Paris this admirable functionary 
 is by your side almost before you are seated, 
 asking what he may bring ; in London there is 
 not a restaurant, however cosmopolitan, where 
 he has not to be asked for, usually again and 
 again. Why ? Who shall say ? Can it be 
 that although these foreigners are ready to 
 serve us and take our money, they are un- 
 friendly at heart and have no reluctance to bring 
 about our discomfort ? Is that an impossible 
 theory ? 
 
 I suppose that an English waiter does now and 
 then emigrate and carry on his old work ; but he 
 must be very rare. To spend our lives on alien 
 soil in ministering to the hunger and thirst of 
 foreigners is not an English custom ; but how 
 natural to foreigners it seems to be to feed us ! 
 What the number of foreigners settled in 
 England in the catering industry is, I have no 
 notion, except that it must be immense. You 
 meet them everywhere ; they are in London in 
 battalions, and singly in the little watering- 
 places. Swanage knows them, and Herne Bay. 
 Strange destiny for a youth from, say, Bellinzona, 
 where the train stops to take breath after the 
 tortuous descent from the St. Gothard, to wear 
 76
 
 Of Waiters and Managers 
 
 evening dress all day long in a hotel in 
 Llandudno carrying chops ! I always ask these 
 foreign boys where they come from and get such 
 unsettling replies ; unsettling because they con- 
 jure up visions of other lands. 
 
 As to nostalgia, I wonder what proportion of the 
 waiters who come to us return home. Some, of 
 course, do so as quickly as possible, for they are 
 here purely for language and experience, and 
 must hasten back to assist their hotel-owning 
 fathers at Zermatt, Lucerne, and elsewhere. 
 The aristocrats of the calling, these often the 
 millionaires, although we, offering them shillings 
 and sixpences and ordering them about, little 
 dream it. Of the humbler others, all when they 
 first arrive here probably intend to go back ; but 
 so many seem to remain. There are foreign 
 waiters who have been in London, to my know- 
 ledge, for a quarter of a century. That they never 
 contemplated such an exile, I am certain ; but 
 they are Londoners now : in London their poor 
 feet have grown flat, and in London they will 
 die. Usually having English wives and English 
 children, they are English in everything but 
 syntax. All these old foreigners are either 
 Italian or Swiss. French waiters in London one 
 seldom or never meets. Considering that the 
 French waiter in England has long been a 
 77
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 familiar figure on the stage, this is odd. But 
 emigration is not a French foible. 
 
 Of no class of public servants does one know so 
 little as of waiters. How do they spend what 
 little spare time is theirs ? What are their tastes, 
 their hobbies ? Where do they keep their non- 
 official clothes, at home or at the restaurant ? 
 When do they have their own meals ? And have 
 they good appetites? What, would you say, is 
 the first English word that they acquire ? I have 
 my own view, but what, I wonder, is yours. 
 Mine is that their first English word is also their 
 last "nice." What do they think of us? 
 What do they who serve think of us who eat and 
 pay ? Do they despise us more when the tip is 
 too small or when it is too large ? I have long 
 held the belief that the right time to tip a waiter 
 is not at the end of a meal but at the beginning. 
 If I seldom put the plan into practice, it is 
 because I have such fear that the result might be 
 no better. 
 
 Was every restaurant manager once a waiter ? 
 Every head waiter was once an under waiter, of 
 course : that is beyond question. But does one see 
 the ex- waiter in the manager? Not so clearly, 
 and often not at all. How then do managers 
 grow ? Of course I know that nothing is more 
 easy than to control. I know that if the private 
 78
 
 Of Waiters and Managers 
 
 ambition of any large number of persons was to be 
 asked, it would be found that the majority want 
 to manage, and that each is convinced that he 
 has special qualifications to manage well, in fact 
 better than anyone else ; while none of us is so 
 blind as to fail to discern weak spots in the 
 management of others. Indeed, pointing out 
 how offices and shops and other establishments 
 even private houses would be far nearer perfec- 
 tion if we ourselves were responsible for them is 
 one of the staples of conversation. " If only I 
 had the running of this show for a few days ! " we 
 say, casting dark glances of unutterable efficiency. 
 But the chances are we should do no better : at 
 any rate not for long. With no class of workmen, 
 I suspect, has the new broom a shorter period of 
 zeal than among managers ; for there is no such 
 disheartening task as endeavouring to get good 
 work out of others. 
 
 All managers, by reason of their power and 
 isolation, are a little to be feared, but to me the 
 entertainment manager is the most terrifying, so 
 complete is the difference between his sunshine 
 and his storm. With their friends, the men 
 whose right and privilege it is to lubricate the 
 passages behind the shirt-front, they are of 
 geniality the soul ; but the smiling face freezes 
 to stone with appalling suddenness should the 
 79
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 necessity arise for ejecting a turbulent or over- 
 lubricated member of the audience. For the 
 manager rules. And his authority is the more to 
 be respected because it is supported by powerful 
 men in uniform, often actual giants, who only 
 await the word of command to stand no nonsense 
 whatever. 
 
 The managers of entertainments can be swifter 
 in their methods than the managers of hotels and 
 restaurants, because they have less to lose. I do 
 not suggest that they lack courtesy ; but the 
 risks of giving offence are less serious. A man 
 ejected from a music-hall goes there again if the 
 programme attracts him ; but a man ejected 
 from a hotel stays away. Nor is he ejected 
 lightly ; because on general principles hotels and 
 restaurants like to make friends and keep them. 
 There are in those establishments all kinds 
 of tendrils that the theatre and music-hall 
 know nothing of. Hence for suavity and sweet 
 reasonableness (up to a point) the hotel manager 
 is notable. Behind the silk lapels of his frock- 
 coat is a reservoir of patience ; beneath that 
 glossy and perfectly coiffured hair is a profound 
 understanding of guests' whimsies. But here too 
 the manager rules, and when the time for action 
 arrives, how visible and tangible is the iron. 
 
 Tact and compromise are only their public 
 80
 
 Of Waiters and Managers 
 
 weapons. The things that they say when they 
 are again back in their offices must be blood- 
 curdling ! for reaction from deference under pro- 
 test both demands and deserves strength of 
 language ; and their way with defaulters must 
 be terrible and swift. 
 
 Entertainment and luxury managers cannot, I 
 suspect, be anything but cynical. We others 
 make them so. What kind of opinion short of 
 admiration can theatrical managers have of the 
 crowd that makes up a queue on the pavement 
 for hours on a wet night ? Or indeed on a night 
 that is not wet ? Knowing the theatre from 
 within, being familiar with all its tinsel, what 
 can their feelings be, apart from financial satis- 
 faction, as they watch the eager faces crowd- 
 ing in ? Possibly the theatre manager's ideal 
 is to spend his evenings at home, reading, 
 playing Patience, possessing his soul ; and he is 
 doomed to be here, among these gaping gad- 
 abouts ! And the restaurant manager possibly 
 his ideal is to be at home too, eating food at its 
 proper value. How then can he view this mob 
 devouring at famine prices, and retain his 
 reverence ? 
 
 Managers may not have a trade union (or 
 perhaps they have), but they certainly have an 
 understanding among themselves. Even when 
 F 8l
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 rivals they are friends. There is a federation of 
 the frock-coat and the expansive shirt-front, and 
 fortunate the outsider who is permitted within 
 this magic circle ! For to know managers inti- 
 mately is not least of the arts of life. 
 
 82
 
 A Coward's Courage o o & o 
 
 THE War brought bad days to all head 
 waiters, but not least to those in English 
 provincial hotels, native born and not too effi- 
 cient. It deplenished or wholly removed their 
 staffs ; but the head waiters had to remain to 
 struggle with inexperienced hands, to see the 
 fair fame of the establishment disappearing, to 
 receive and, if possible, parry the complaints of 
 the customers. 
 
 Under these afflictions some suggested absolute 
 hopelessness ; some showed signs of wear and 
 tear ; some cultivated that apathy under mis- 
 fortune, that dulled acceptance of bad luck, which 
 is part of the Briton's heritage from his climate, 
 others deprecated the situation but smiled, and 
 in smiling disarmed criticism. 
 
 I am thinking in particular of one who more 
 than smiled and disarmed criticism who laughed 
 and conquered. 
 
 I found him in the coffee-room of an ancient 
 and honourable West Country hotel. Little 
 83
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 tables and big were all about him, with pink and 
 green wine-glasses on them and napkins bursting 
 from tumblers into symmetrical schemes of foliage. 
 It was just before lunch and he was adding 
 finishing touches of polish to knives and forks, 
 with an apron protecting his very spick dress- 
 suit : dinner jacket with satin roll collar and neat 
 black tie ; such clothes as, but for the time of 
 day, would proclaim him fellow-guest rather than 
 servitor. A big man, with a large white and 
 superficially very amiable face. But his most 
 notable feature was his eye. It was the eye of a 
 child a rather spoilt child, accustomed to get its 
 own way and to be considered preferentially ; but 
 it was confident and dominating too. It called, 
 in association with the vast benignant counten- 
 ance, for a similar mood in its vis-a-vis insisted 
 on it, had the right to it ; so that one would 
 endure much rather than be the cause of 
 disappointment. 
 
 I was in the coffee-room merely to arrange 
 about lunch, but the head waiter's communicative- 
 ness was such that while doing so 1 learned 
 many things. I learned that he was practically 
 single-handed ; that he had been there for twenty 
 and more years twenty-three come December ; 
 that the War was hitting the place very hard ; 
 that it was one's duty not to grumble ; that all 
 84
 
 A Coward's Courage 
 
 his best boys had been called up ; that three of 
 them had been wounded and one killed ; that 
 waitresses do their best but are not so good as 
 waiters, at any rate not from his point of view; 
 that the high wages at the local munition works 
 made it difficult to retain waitresses anyway ; 
 and that spirits really were now hardly worth 
 drinking. 
 
 At lunch there were many people, but, with 
 very little help, the head waiter, now divested 
 of his apron, kept them fairly contented, even 
 finding time to talk a little at most of the tables. 
 From certain broken sentences that reached my 
 ears I gathered that he was practically single- 
 handed ; that something was hitting the place 
 very hard ; that some one had been somewhere 
 for more than twenty years ; that grumbling was 
 a mistake ; and that spirits nowadays were hardly 
 worth drinking. Probably, had not a guide-book 
 claimed my attention, I should have heard and 
 learned more. 
 
 As the room began to empty and the strain of 
 attendance was relaxed, he advanced smilingly 
 upon my table, with an expression of supreme 
 satisfaction, bearing before him, in both hands, 
 a brass-bound box or casket. 
 
 " You might like to see," he said, " a little 
 souvenir which one of my staff, back on leave 
 85
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 from the Front, brought me ; " and with enormous 
 pride and a gratification almost paternal or more 
 than paternal, Creatorial he opened the lid and 
 revealed a model aeroplane constructed of metal 
 from shell-cases and other accessories of warfare. 
 
 " I've always," he said, " had good boys and 
 treated them well, and the first thing this lad 
 did was to come and bring this souvenir he'd 
 been making for me. He's back in France 
 now." 
 
 I was properly appreciative, both of the work- 
 manship of the model and of the kindly relations 
 subsisting between superior and inferior, and he 
 bore the relic away with complacency radiating 
 from his capacious person, and I saw him, not 
 without surprise and a slight twinge of regret, 
 displaying it at another table. Why, I cannot 
 exactly explain, but it seemed to me wanting in 
 finer feeling, in the subtlest delicacy, to show to 
 every one at the same time this proof of devotion 
 to himself. There should be intervals. It wasn't 
 that I was mortified not to be unique ; but to 
 make a triumphal progress with the thing seemed 
 a little blatant. 
 
 You may until now have been looking upon this 
 document as just a character sketch of a certain 
 head waiter. But really it is something else ; it 
 
 is the story of my own courage. For it was my 
 86
 
 A Coward's Courage 
 
 destiny that day to have to act with a distaste- 
 ful bravery. At dinner that evening, when the 
 strain of attendance had begun to relax and 
 several of the guests had departed, I was conscious 
 of the head waiter's eye turned towards me with 
 a gleam of assurance and his features melting 
 comfortably into the smile of self-approval. But 
 a moment later my blood was frozen and an icy 
 perspiration broke out over me as I saw him, 
 all confidence and complacency, bearing in my 
 direction the box containing the aeroplane. For 
 quicker than lightning the dreadful thought had 
 flashed through my brain : " He has forgotten 
 that he showed it me at lunch," followed by the 
 agonized question : " What shall I do ? Am I 
 strong enough to tell him so ? Can I bring 
 myself to do something which must abash 
 him ? " 
 
 By this time he was on me, wreathed in hap- 
 piness and expectancy. " You might like to 
 see," he began, "a little souvenir which one of 
 my staff " 
 
 With a desperate effort I pulled myself to- 
 gether. " Oh, that little model," I said. " You 
 showed me that at lunch;" and I lowered my 
 eyes in the hope that it might make his dis- 
 comfiture easier. 
 
 He laughed. "So I did," he said, and carried 
 87
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 it to the next table. The next: not even the 
 
 next but one ! " You might " I heard him 
 
 begin. 
 
 When shall we learn, some of us who have 
 so much sensitiveness for the insensitive, that 
 there is nothing they need less ? 
 
 88
 
 Third Thoughts & o o o 
 
 THIS story was told to me by a friend. 
 It is my destiny (said he) to buy in the 
 dearest markets and to sell if I succeed in selling 
 at all in the cheapest. Usually, indeed, having 
 tired of a picture or decorative article, I have 
 positively to give it away ; almost to make its 
 acceptance by another a personal favour to me. 
 But the other day was marked by an exception 
 to this rule so striking that I have been won- 
 dering if perhaps the luck has not changed and 
 I am, after all, destined to be that most envi- 
 able thing, a successful dealer. 
 
 It happened thus. In drifting about the old 
 curiosity shops of a cathedral city I came upon 
 a portfolio of water-colour drawings, among which 
 was one that to my eye would have been a pos- 
 sible Turner, even if an earlier owner had not 
 shared that opinion or hope and set the magic 
 name with all its initials (so often placed in the 
 wrong order) beneath it. 
 
 " How much is this ? " I asked scornfully. 
 8 9
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 " Well," said the dealer, " if it were a genuine 
 Turner it would be worth anything. But let's say 
 ten shillings. Y T ou can have it for that ; but I don't 
 mind if you don't, because I'm going to London 
 next week and should take it with me to get an 
 opinion." 
 
 I pondered. 
 
 " Mind you, I don't guarantee it," he added. 
 
 I gave him the ten shillings. 
 
 By what incredible means I found a purchaser 
 for the drawing at fifty pounds there is no need 
 to tell, for the point of this narrative resides not 
 in bargaining with collectors, but in bargaining 
 with my own soul. The astonishing fact remains 
 that I achieved a profit of forty-nine pounds 
 ten and was duly elated. I then began to 
 think. 
 
 The dealer (so my thoughts ran) in that little 
 street by the cathedral west door, he ought to 
 participate in this. He behaved very well to me 
 and I ought to behave well to him. It would 
 be only fair to give him half. 
 
 Thereupon I sat down and wrote a little note 
 saying that the potential Turner drawing, which 
 no doubt he recollected, had turned out to be 
 authentic, and I had great pleasure in enclosing 
 him half of the proceeds, as I considered that the 
 
 only just and decent course. 
 90
 
 Third Thoughts 
 
 Having no stamps and the hour being late I 
 did not post this, and went to bed. 
 
 At about 3.30 a.m. I woke widely up and, 
 according to custom, began to review my life's 
 errors, which are in no danger of ever suffering 
 from loneliness. From these I reached, by way of 
 mitigation, my recent successful piece of chaffer- 
 ing, and put the letter to the dealer under both 
 examination and cross-examination. Why (so my 
 thoughts ran) give him half? Why be Quixotic? 
 This is no world for Quixotry. It was my eye 
 that detected the probability of the drawing, not 
 his. He had indeed failed ; did not know his 
 own business. Why put a premium on, inepti- 
 tude ? No, a present of, say, ten pounds at the 
 most would more than adequately meet the 
 case. 
 
 Sleep still refusing to oblige me, I took a book 
 of short stories and read one. Then I closed my 
 eyes again, and again began to think about the 
 dealer. Why (so my thoughts ran) send him ten 
 pounds ? It will only give him a wrong idea of 
 his customers, none other of whom would be so 
 fair, so sporting, as I. He will expect similar 
 letters every day and be disappointed, and then 
 he will become embittered and go down the vale 
 of tears a miserable creature. He looked a nice 
 old man too ; a pity, nay a crime, to inj ure such 
 91
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 a nature. No, ten pounds is absurd. Five would 
 be plenty. Ten would put him above himself. 
 
 While I was dressing the next morning I 
 thought about the dealer again. Why should I 
 (so my thoughts ran), directly I had for the first 
 time in my life brought off a financial coup, spoil 
 it by giving a large part of the profit away ? Was 
 not that flying in the face of the Goddess of 
 Business, whoever she may be ? Was it not 
 asking her to disregard me only a day or so 
 after we had at last got on terms ? There is no 
 fury like a woman scorned ; it would probably be 
 the end of me. City magnates are successful 
 probably just because they don't do these foolish 
 impulsive things. Impulse is the negation of 
 magnatism. If I am to make any kind of figure 
 in this new role of fine-art-speculator (so my 
 thoughts continued) I must control my feelings. 
 No, five pounds is absurd. A douceur of one 
 pound will meet the case. It will be nothing 
 to me or, at any rate, nothing serious but a 
 gift of quail and manna from a clear sky to the 
 dealer, without, however, doing him any harm. 
 A pound will be ample, accompanied by a brief 
 note. 
 
 The note was to the effect that I had sold the 
 drawing at a profit which enabled me to make 
 him a present, because it was an old, and perhaps 
 92
 
 Third Thoughts 
 
 odd, belief of mine that one should do this kind 
 of thing ; good luck should be shared. 
 
 I had the envelope in my pocket containing 
 the note and the cheque when I reached the 
 club for lunch ; and that afternoon I played 
 bridge so disastrously that I was glad I had not 
 posted it. 
 
 After all (so my thoughts ran, as I destroyed 
 the envelope and contents) such bargains are all 
 part of the game. Buying and selling are a 
 perfectly straightforward matter between dealer 
 and customer. The dealer asks as much as he 
 thinks he can extort, and the customer, having 
 paid it, is under no obligation whatever to the 
 dealer. The incident is closed. 
 
 93
 
 Enthusiasts o <y *> ^> *> 
 
 IN turning over the pages of Wisden s Cricketers' 
 Almanack, best of year-books, for 191 9> I came 
 upon the obituary notice of a monarch new to me, 
 who died in April of the preceding year at the 
 age of six-and-forty : George Tubow the Second, 
 who reigned over Tonga and was the last of 
 the independent kings of the Pacific. As to 
 the qualities of head and heart displayed by the 
 deceased ruler, Wisden is silent ; to inquire into 
 such matters is not that annalist's province. 
 George Tubow the Second won his place in 
 Wisden s pages because he was a cricket en- 
 thusiast and the head of a nation of cricket 
 enthusiasts. " His subjects became so devoted 
 to the game that it was necessary to prohibit it 
 on six days of the week in order to avert famine, 
 the plantations being entirely neglected for the 
 cricket-field." 
 
 It is perhaps chiefly among the players of 
 games that the wildest enthusiasts are found, 
 and particularly of cricket. Golf can afflict its 
 94
 
 Enthusiasts 
 
 victims seriously enough, but I doubt if it ever 
 exercises cricket's dominating spell. I have 
 never heard of a golfer sleeping with his clubs ; 
 but there was a boy at school who carried his bat 
 about with him all day, and then took it to bed 
 with him. And it is not only the players of the 
 game, but the watchers, the students, too. There 
 were other quite small boys at this school (I was 
 among them) who knew every detail of county 
 cricket, could pick All-England elevens, arid were 
 acquainted with the initials of every amateur. 
 (Those were the days before professionals had 
 any initials, unless they chanced to be brothers.) 
 The newspapers existed for us only in summer, 
 and existed then only because they reported 
 cricket matches. Wars, earthquakes, rebellions, 
 assassinations, were mere padding. Some of us 
 have perhaps grown out of this frenzy ; others 
 retain it and still turn first to the cricket reports, 
 and think of Lord's as a more desirable place 
 than St. Stephen's, or the Oval than the bosom 
 of our families. For cricket relaxes her grip 
 very reluctantly. 
 
 Politics can utterly mould a man's mind and 
 actions into a state for which enthusiasm is the 
 kindest word. I do not mean statecraft or 
 legislation those functions are usually carried 
 out by any but enthusiasts but politics as party 
 95
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 conflict and the rivalry of personality, politics as 
 bound up with public meetings and speeches. 
 A near relation of my own sank much of his 
 native capacity in the pursuit of this excitement. 
 That he should be interested in the progress of 
 an election in his own borough was natural 
 enough ; but he went far beyond that. He 
 would travel any distance to be present at a by- 
 election at a place with which he had not the 
 remotest connection his joy being to make one 
 of the audience who in the natural course of 
 events would hiss and groan at the name of 
 Salisbury and exult and wave and cheer at the 
 name of Gladstone. Gladstone he had never 
 met, nor had he read him ; but he admired his 
 features and his collars and believed that he could 
 do no wrong ; and it was meat and drink more, 
 foie gras and Clicquot to be with those who also 
 were true believers and hear him extolled. 
 Portraits of the G.O.M. were all over the 
 house ; while anyone who exaggerated or made 
 any kind of questionable remark or termino- 
 logical inexactitude was said to have told a 
 " Salisbury." 
 
 The one-idea'd enthusiast as he gets older can 
 
 be rather a pathetic sight. I remember, in 1889, 
 
 being taken, at Godstone, to an inn to see the 
 
 landlord, a "character," whose principal claims 
 
 96
 
 Enthusiasts 
 
 to distinction were an ill-controlled temper and 
 an unbroken record of over fifty visits to the 
 Derby. He was inflamed and infirm, and a very 
 truculent fellow ; but he had his adherents, who 
 hung upon his reminiscences of the race (which, 
 the older you become, the more often was run in 
 a snowstorm) ; and his one hold on life was the 
 belligerent, passionate purpose of seeing it again. 
 This (with a series of bloodshot imprecations) he 
 vowed to me he should do, for many years to 
 come ; and, for all I know, he did. But to this 
 day I think of him with a kind of shudder, so 
 malignantly self-centred was he and so ferocious 
 in his Epsom mania. Indeed, even without 
 ebullitions of temper and arrogance, men whose 
 pride it is never to have missed annual events 
 or any customary proceeding can be not only 
 pathetic, but extremely boring. Those enthusiasts 
 for discomfort who break the ice in the Serpentine 
 rather than break their morning-swim routine 
 I have never met one of them, but I am sure I 
 should find him tiresome. 
 
 Among collectors extreme enthusiasts are 
 numerous. The courts not long since were 
 occupied with the case of a gentleman of leisure 
 who had fallen into the moneylenders' hands 
 very heavily through a passion for adding dead 
 butterfly to dead butterfly ; while every one 
 G 97
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 knows the story of one of the Rothschilds fitting 
 out an Arctic expedition in the hope that it would 
 bring back, alive, even a single specimen of a 
 certain boreal flea. All other fleas he possessed, 
 but this was lacking. On making inquiries among 
 friends I find that the classic example of 
 enthusiasm is, however, not a cricketer nor a 
 collector, but the actor who, when cast for 
 Othello, blacked himself all over. Every one, of 
 course, has heard the story, but its origin may 
 not be generally known, and I am wondering if it 
 occurred anywhere in print before Mr. Crummies 
 confided it to Nicholas Nickleby. Was it a 
 commonplace of the green-room or did Dickens 
 (who was capable of doing so) invent it ? Joseph 
 Knight being no more, to lighten the small hours 
 with gossip and erudition, who shall tell ? 
 
 Meanwhile I am reminded of an incident in 
 modern stage history which supplies a pendant 
 to the great Othello feat. It occurred in the 
 days when the gramophone was in its infancy and 
 the late Herbert Campbell was approaching his 
 end. That massive comedian, who was then 
 engaged in his annual task of personating a 
 dame or a queen, or whatever was monumentally 
 feminine, in the Drury Lane pantomime as a 
 matter of fact, he was at the moment a dame 
 had been invited by one of the gramophone 
 9*
 
 Enthusiasts 
 
 companies to visit their office in the City and 
 make a record of one or more of his songs and 
 one or more of his dialogues with the other 
 funny man, whoever that might be. The name 
 escapes me ; all that I feel certain of is that it 
 was long after the golden age when Herbert 
 Campbell served as a foil to the irresponsible 
 vivacity of Dan Leno who in association with 
 him was like quicksilver running over the surface 
 and about the crevices of a rock and still longer 
 after those regular Christmas partnerships with 
 Harry Nicholls which were liberal educations in 
 worldly sagacity tempered by nonsense. The 
 name of the other actor is, however, unimportant, 
 for Herbert Campbell is the hero of this tale, and 
 it was for Herbert Campbell's songs and patter 
 that the operator was waiting and the waxen 
 discs had been prepared and the orchestra was 
 in attendance and the manager had taken his 
 cheque book from his desk for "money down " 
 is the honourable rule of the gramophone industry. 
 The occasion was furthermore exceptional because 
 it was the first time that this popular performer 
 had been " recorded." Hitherto he had refused 
 all Edisonian blandishments, but to-day he was 
 to come into line with the other favourites. 
 
 And yet he did not come. Normally a 
 punctual man, he was late. Everything was 
 99
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 ready more than ready and there was no 
 dame. 
 
 Suddenly above the ground swell of the traffic 
 was heard, amid the strenuousness of the City 
 Road, the unaccustomed sound of cheers and 
 laughter. "Hurray! Hurray!" floated up to 
 the recording-room from the distant street below, 
 and every head was stretched out to see what 
 untoward thing could be happening. " Hurray ! 
 Hurray ! " and more laughter. And then was 
 discerned an immense crowd, chiefly errand-boys, 
 surrounding a four-wheeler, from which with the 
 greatest difficulty an old lady of immense pro- 
 portions, dressed, or rather upholstered, in the 
 gaily-coloured clothes of the century before last, 
 was endeavouring to alight, backwards. " Hurray ! 
 Hurray!" cried the boys at every new struggle. 
 At last the emergence was complete, when the 
 old lady, standing upright and shaking down her 
 garments, revealed herself as no other than 
 Herbert Campbell, the idol of " The Lane," who 
 in order to speak a few words into the funnel of 
 a phonograph had thought it needful to put on 
 every detail of his costume and to make up that 
 acreage of honest, genial physiognomy. 
 
 100
 
 Saturday Afternoons o o o o 
 
 I. ROYAL WINDSOR 
 
 LAST Saturday, when the sky was of dazzling 
 brilliance and a wind of devilish malignancy 
 blew from the Arctic regions, I went to Windsor, 
 in order to compare the castle as it is with the 
 castle as Turner saw it in one of the pictures^ at 
 Agnews', and to see if it is true, as a landscape 
 expert assures me, that the heightening of the 
 towers has ruined it. Studying the castle from 
 various points of view, I was consistently impressed 
 by its adequacy, its mediaeval dominance, and 
 its satisfying solidity. 
 
 Spring being so bitterly cold, I left the 
 streets, where there is no central heating, and 
 where I could catch no glimpse of anyone in the 
 least like Mistress Anne Page, and took refuge 
 first in St. George's Chapel and then in the State 
 Apartments. The chapel as a whole grows in 
 beauty, even though new monuments interrupt 
 its lines. The light of Saturday, coming from a 
 sky scoured by the northern breeze, was of the 
 IOI
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 most lucid, so that every detail of the lovely 
 ceiling was unusually visible, while even in the 
 sombre choir, with its dark stalls and hanging 
 banners and memorials of the Knights of the 
 Garter, one could see almost distinctly. It is 
 interesting to have as near London as this a 
 sacred building so like those which we nor- 
 mally do not enter until we have crossed the 
 Channel. 
 
 I was alone in the chapel, but in the State 
 Apartments made one of a party of thirty to forty, 
 chiefly soldiers, led round by a guide. Anything 
 less like Harrison Ainsworth than this guide I 
 cannot imagine ; or, indeed, the inside of any 
 castle less like the fateful and romantic fortress 
 of that storyteller's dream. Henry VIII. 's suit of 
 armour we certainly saw, but the guide's hero is a 
 later king, George IV., who subjected every room 
 to his altering hand. Of Herne the Hunter there 
 was not a sign. The most sinister thing there 
 was the bed in the Council Chamber where 
 visiting monarchs (referred to by the guide as 
 "The Royals") sleep, one of whom not so very 
 long ago was the Kaiser. " I wish he was in it 
 now," a bloodthirsty Canadian soldier muttered 
 darkly in my ear. 
 
 The King's furniture struck me as too ornate, 
 but he has some wonderful pictures. The guide 
 I O2
 
 Saturday Afternoons 
 
 seemed to dwell with most affection upon a land- 
 scape by Benjamin West, but I remember with 
 more vividness and pleasure a series of portraits 
 of Henrietta, queen of Charles I., by Van Dyck : 
 one by the door, and two others flanking the fire- 
 place of the superb Van Dyck room. There is 
 also a Rubens room containing, among many more 
 pretentious things, a fascinating portrait of the 
 painter's second wife and a family group devised 
 on what was, to me, a new principle. The 
 parents are here seen in the company of their ten 
 children ; but, if the guide is to be believed, on 
 the original canvas only the parents and a small 
 proportion of this brood were depicted, space 
 being left for the insertion of the others as year 
 by year they made their appearance. The scheme 
 offers problems. Since the eldest child looks ten 
 or eleven and the youngest is a baby, we must 
 suppose (always if the guide is not misinformed) 
 that the painter added ageing touches to the 
 whole group at each new sitting. 
 
 When one hunts in packs there is little oppor- 
 tunity to examine crowded walls, and there were 
 many pictures of which I should like to see more 
 at leisure. Among them was a Rembrandt, 
 a Correggio, a Titian, a Honthorst, and two 
 Canalettos. There are the punctual carvings by 
 Grinling Gibbons in Charles II.'s dining-room and 
 103
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 elsewhere. Other outstanding articles are the 
 jewelled throne once belonging to the King of 
 Candy ; the armour of the King's Champion, that 
 obsolete but picturesque functionary ; and the 
 portraits of all the winners of Waterloo, at home 
 and in the field, except any private soldiers. 
 
 On leaving the castle I walked an incredible 
 number of miles down an impeccably straight road 
 to the equestrian statue that stands out so bravely 
 against the sky on the hill that closes the vista : 
 Snow Hill. The statue is of George III., and 
 it is a fine bold thing. Not in the same class 
 with Verrocchio's bronze hoi'seman in Venice, or 
 Donatello's bronze horseman in Padua, but im- 
 pressive by its bigness and superior to either of 
 those masterpieces in its site. And then I found 
 a really good confectioner's, whose first two initials 
 correspond startlingly to my own, and, in the com- 
 pany of frozen Etonians not less greedy than I, 
 ate little pots of jam until it was time to catch 
 the train. 
 
 II. KEW IN APRIL, 1919 
 
 Kew in the old days used to be largely a German 
 paradise, for the Teutons in our midst found the 
 gardens more like their own pleasaunces, although 
 wanting in beer, than any other London resort. 
 But on Saturday I heard no German tones. A 
 104
 
 Saturday Afternoons 
 
 few French voices mingled with the thrushes 
 and blackbirds ; and a number of American 
 soldiers, not unaccompanied by British beauty, 
 sat on secluded seats. The rest of us were 
 natives, promenading with true national decorum, 
 carefully obeying all the laws concerning 
 birds'-nesting, throwing paper about, smoking, 
 and (in the glass-houses) keeping to the right, 
 without the observance of which scientific botany 
 cannot prosper. And for some reason or other 
 (connected no doubt with the universal advance 
 in the cost of life which has been agreed upon as 
 salutary) we were all forced to pay a penny for 
 admission. 
 
 It annoys me to think that not until the 
 Germans vacated the gardens was this entrance 
 fee charged. To them (as to us for generations) 
 Kew was free ; now that they have disappeared, 
 one of the results of their provocative belliger- 
 ence is that it is free no longer ! 
 
 Although early yet both for flower and leaf, 
 the daffodils are already millions strong, and will 
 be stronger, and in the rock garden the saxi- 
 frage's tender mauve clusters are seen, and there 
 is a patch of the lovely Antennaria Plantagenia 
 at its best. But the most beautiful object at the 
 moment and that which I went especially to 
 see is the Yulan, the Chinese magnolia, Mag- 
 105
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 tin/ in conspicua, in nearly full bloom. Imagine 
 a great tree with black boughs and twigs ex- 
 quisitely disposed, from which burst ten thousand 
 lilies of a dazzling purity. No buds, no leaves ; 
 nothing but these myriad serene white flowers 
 springing from the hard wood. The position of 
 the tree adds to the strangeness and beauty of 
 it, for it is remote from anything formal, between 
 the biggest glass-house and the edge 'of the 
 arboretum. On Saturday, seen against an indigo 
 thunderbank, it was unearthly in its luminosity. 
 
 I have to thank the rain for driving me into 
 the Royal Palace, which, though I have known 
 Kew for so many years, I had never entered 
 before. In this pleasant mansion, red brick with- 
 out and white panelling within, and smaller than 
 would satisfy the requirements of any war profiteer 
 to-day, poor old George III. passed part of the 
 clouded evening of his long reign. The rooms 
 retain certain of their pictures chiefly Dutch 
 floral and bird subjects, very gloomy and con- 
 gested, and a large portrait of " Farmer George," 
 done by the famous Miss Linwood in woolwork 
 and there are a few pieces of dreadful ancient 
 furniture in one of the Queen's apartments ; but 
 otherwise they are empty. 
 
 In spite of the associations of the palace the 
 
 deranged old monarch and his stuffy Charlotte 
 106
 
 Saturday Afternoons 
 
 of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (recollections of Fanny 
 Burney's Diary and of Peter Pindar's Lousiad kept 
 chasing each other through my mind), the general 
 feeling in it is one of cheerfulness, the result, I 
 fancy, as much of the proportions and whiteness of 
 the rooms as of its situation in this green sanctuary. 
 
 III. SOUTH KENSINGTON 
 
 London's museums and galleries are so con- 
 stantly receiving new gifts that the good Londoner 
 (such as I should like to become) ought to be as 
 punctual in his visits to them as he is to the 
 barber's. In fact, if we made it a rule to revisit 
 a museum as often as we have our hair cut, we 
 should all be the better : all of us, that is, except 
 the Prime Minister and Mr. Asquith, and a few 
 others who like their locks too long. 
 
 Dropping into the Victoria and Albert Museum 
 last week, I was delighted to find a new acquisi- 
 tion in the form of three or four cases of early 
 Korean pottery which Mr. Aubrey Le Blond has 
 made over to the nation. The taste for early 
 Korean pottery may not be every one's at first, 
 but it will grow, and already it is mine. 
 
 The lovely things have no positive colouring : 
 all pearl greys and whites and quiet shades of 
 brown, and all producing an effect that is ex- 
 ceedingly restful. The eye is never startled, as 
 IO7
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 it can be by Chinese and Japanese daring, or by 
 Persian splendour ; it is gently soothed. Some 
 of the pottery is plain or self-coloured, but most 
 has decoration, always of the most frugal, and 
 always exquisite in its delicacy. In the matter of 
 shape, some of these vessels are so beautiful as to 
 catch one's breathing ; and all so easy and natural, 
 so sensitive and reposeful : nothing fantastic, 
 nothing forced, nothing "clever" or elaborate. 
 
 Most of the collection belongs to the period 
 924-1392. All the while that we in England 
 were under Saxon rule and Norman rule and 
 Plantagenet rule getting ourselves a little 
 straight at Runnymede and waging war in Scot- 
 land and France the placid Korean potters were 
 busy at their wheels turning out these bowls and 
 vases ; and the reason of their perfection at this 
 day, so long after, when they have fulfilled the 
 odd destiny of becoming a show for Londoners, 
 is that, as receptacles for food and drink, they 
 were buried by pious relatives with their dead, 
 in order that in whatever next world those dead 
 reawakened they might not be without a bite 
 and sup. 
 
 IV. THE PAINTED HALL 
 
 After being shut for some years to protect 
 it, long before the War, from certain dis- 
 108
 
 Saturday Afternoons 
 
 satisfied ladies who in the dim and distant past 
 took it out of pictures if they did not get the 
 vote the Painted Hall at Greenwich is again 
 open (1JJ19), not I hope to close its doors to the 
 public any more. All people interested in our 
 naval history and the men who made it must 
 acquire the Greenwich habit (although whitebait 
 and turtle soup are no longer available to sustain 
 them at the adjacent " Ship "), but in particular 
 should the Nelson devotees be happy, for the 
 Painted Hall is rich in portraits of him, portraits 
 of his friends, pictures of scenes in his life, 
 pictures of his death, and personal relics. Indeed 
 this Hall is to Nelson what the Invalides is 
 to Napoleon. Sir John Thornhill (with whose 
 daughter Hogarth ran away) may have covered 
 its walls and its ceiling with Stuarts and allegory 
 at three pounds the square yard for the ceiling 
 work and one pound for the walls but it is not 
 of Stuarts and allegory that one thinks, it is of 
 the most fascinating and romantic and sympathetic 
 of British heroes and (of course, after Lord Fisher), 
 the greatest of our admirals. 
 
 Nelson is brought very near us. Among the 
 personal relics are the very clothes he was wearing 
 when he died on the Victory, the codicil to his 
 will, written in his big left-hand characters and 
 witnessed by the friend, Captain Hardy, in whose 
 109
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 arms he sank. On a neighbouring wall is Turner's 
 great lurid painting of the Victory in action, 
 while elsewhere in the Museum will be found a 
 model of the whole battle, with the Victory 
 closely engaged with the Redoubtable, from whose 
 mizzen-top the fatal bullet is supposed to have 
 been fired. 
 
 There are many other intimate souvenirs ; and 
 once there were more, but thieves intervened. 
 From those stolen in a burglary many years ago 
 (the windows have since had bars put to them) 
 the only one to be regained was Nelson's gold 
 watch ; and this was found where do you think ? 
 Hidden in a concertina somewhere in Australia. 
 But after those wanderings and vicissitudes it now 
 reposes again in safety in the Painted Hall, for 
 all hero-worshippers to covet. 
 
 Complete as the Nelson collection appears to 
 be, one realizes, on reflection, that only as a sailor 
 is he celebrated here. We see him in every 
 aspect of his fighting career ; we see his friends, 
 sturdy old William Locker, who was a governor 
 of this Hospital, and so forth ; we see his 
 admirals and captains. But of Emma Hamilton 
 no trace ! 
 
 The Painted Hall, from Wren's design, was 
 built by William and Mary. The Museum fills 
 several rooms in an adjacent building which was 
 110
 
 Saturday Afternoons 
 
 to have been a riverside palace for Charles II. 
 It is notable chiefly for its relics of the 
 other hero of Greenwich Hospital, Sir John 
 Franklin. It is also rich in models of ships, but 
 of models of ships I personally can very quickly 
 have a surfeit ; rather would I sit (as I did on 
 Saturday afternoon) beside the Thames and watch 
 the real vessels go by the big tramp steamers 
 homing laden from abroad or leaving in ballast 
 for the open sea ; the little busy tugs, with 
 their retinue of lighters ; and the brown-sailed 
 barges moving swiftly with the stream. There 
 was a merry breeze under a cloudless sky, 
 and the air was filled with the music of the 
 Greenwich symphony, which is played by an 
 orchestra entirely composed of foghorns and 
 hooters. 
 
 But Greenwich is amphibious. The river may 
 not be for all tastes ; there is the park too, with 
 its avenues climbing to the heights of Blackheath. 
 The deer have gone ; but the Observatory 
 remains, for the accurate adjustment of watches, 
 and there is the distant prospect of London, of 
 which the great landscape painters used to be 
 so fond, from the corner of the terrace. It is 
 much the same as when Turner and others limned 
 it, save that to-day the dome of St. Paul's seems 
 to rise from the very middle of the Tower Bridge, 
 ill
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 V. SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM 
 
 No sooner was Sir John Soane's Museum in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields open again, after its long 
 closure, than I hastened there to renew acquain- 
 tance with that remarkable, if not incredible, 
 pictorial document, Hogarth's " Election " series. 
 Our own elections are frequent enough to add 
 piquancy to the comparison, but apart from that 
 it is instructive to see in what spirit our not very 
 remote ancestors approached the ordeal of being 
 returned to Parliament. The world may not have 
 advanced very perceptibly in many directions, but, 
 if Hogarth is trustworthy, only a master of para- 
 dox could successfully maintain that no progress 
 is to be noted in the manufacture of legislators. 
 
 Not, however, that everything here depicted is 
 obsolete. Far from it. The groundwork is the 
 same, and probably will always be so, but there 
 is now less coarseness. There is also more order, 
 more method. And one has, furthermore, to re- 
 member that Hogarth was a synthetic satirist, and 
 a rather wicked wit to boot. He assembled his 
 puppets rather than found them all together, and 
 it amused him to heighten effects and to score off' 
 his pet butts when he could. All these allowances, 
 however, being made, I fancy that the " Election " 
 series has a good deal of old England in it. 
 112
 
 Saturday Afternoons 
 
 The series begins with the entertainment given 
 by the two candidates of the Court Party to their 
 supporters, and even among Hogarth's works this 
 scene is remarkable for the number of things that 
 are occurring at once. No one excelled our 
 English master in this crowding of incident, not 
 even Breughel or Teniers. While jne of the 
 candidates is, doubtless for strictly political reasons, 
 permitting himself to be caressed by an old 
 woman, a small girl abstracts one of his rings, and 
 a man singes his wig with a clay pipe. In the 
 street outside the room is a procession of the rival 
 party, throwing through the window half-bricks 
 one of which is seen to have just smashed a 
 gentleman's head, while another gentleman, in- 
 jured at a slightly more remote period of the 
 campaign, is being anointed with spirits without, 
 while he consumes spirits within. At the end 
 of the table the mayor of the independent 
 borough, having been reduced by too many 
 oysters and too much liquor to a state of collapse, 
 is being bled by a surgeon. An orchestra, in- 
 cluding a left-handed fiddleress and the bagpipes, 
 plays throughout ; and a small boy, in spite of 
 the mayor's condition, continues to mix punch in 
 a mash tub. All this at once ! 
 
 That was overnight. The next day the can- 
 vassing begins, and it is superfluous to state that 
 H 113
 
 bribery and corruption are rife. Here, again, is 
 a wealth of synchronous occurrence. On the left 
 are seen two gay ladies persuading one of the 
 candidates to buy trinkets for them from a pedlar. 
 That could hardly be done to-day, at any rate so 
 openly ; but another of the incidents is of all 
 time : a co. iversation between two men, a barber 
 and a cobbler, in which the barber explains 
 how a certain naval engagement was won, sym- 
 bolizing the ships by pieces of a broken clay 
 pipe, very much as tap-room tacticians some- 
 where this very evening will be reconstructing 
 the battle of Jutland or the retreat from 
 Mons. 
 
 Then the polling. Here is more simultaneous 
 confusion. In a panic the agent has collected 
 every possible voter, including the maimed, the 
 blind, and even the idiotic, and they are attesting 
 before the officer, while protests against their 
 validity as voters are being urged by the opposite 
 party's lawyer. The candidates themselves are 
 on the hustings, and in the distance Britannia's 
 coach has broken down ! 
 
 Finally, we see the Chairing of the Members 
 one of whom is depicted in the foreground, very 
 insecure on his crazy throne, while the shadow of 
 the other's approach is visible on a wall. That 
 chairing has gone out should be a source of 
 114
 
 Saturday Afternoons 
 
 extraordinary relief at Westminster. Indeed, were 
 it still the custom, many a modern man and 
 certainly all the fat ones would decide to seek 
 fame elsewhere than in Parliament. Hogarth's 
 candidate was peculiarly unfortunate in his 
 bearers, one of whom has just been hit on the 
 head by a flail, and another has collided with an 
 old woman who was thrown down by a runaway 
 litter of pigs. Meanwhile, the man with the flail 
 fights a sailor with a cudgel, the cause of the 
 combat being apparently the presence of a 
 performing bear and a monkey ; and, overcome 
 by the fracas, a lady faints. Elsewhere, in the 
 inn on the left, the defeated party are consoling 
 themselves with a banquet, a practice that has 
 by no means died out. 
 
 Only those who have been through the agonies 
 and excitements of an election can say how far 
 Hogarth has ceased to be a recorder of his fellow- 
 countrymen ; but one thing is certain, and that 
 is that time has done nothing to impair the 
 liveliness of his drama. 
 
 VI. KENSINGTON GARDENS 
 
 For more than half a century the humorist 
 gravelled for matter has found the ugliness of th 
 Albert Memorial an easy escape from his diffi- 
 culties. To mention it is to raise a laugh.
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 But is it so ugly ? 
 
 Conceiving that the time was ripe to put my 
 own authentic impressions above hearsay, I made 
 a pilgrimage to this shrine on an afternoon during 
 the recent enchanted weather and subjected it to 
 the most careful examination. 
 
 I was amply repaid. Alike when resting on 
 the comfortable seats around its enclosure, taking 
 in the structure as a whole (as well as the 
 evolutions of a band of Girl Guides would permit), 
 or when scrutinizing its sculptures at close range, 
 I was pleasantly entertained, and I came to the 
 decision that the Albert Memorial not only has 
 more in it to attract than to repel, but is a very 
 remarkable summary of the triumphs of Science 
 and Art : as good a lesson book as bronze and 
 stone could compile. 
 
 But even if this judgment is wrong, and the 
 Albert Memorial really deserves the facile exe- 
 cration by you and me which so long has been 
 its portion, that is not all. The subject is by no 
 means closed. For you and I are not everybody ; 
 we are getting old and tired and exacting, and 
 we are more disposed to complain of what we miss 
 than to be happy with what we find. There are, 
 in the world, others whose attitude is simpler than 
 ours, whose views quite possibly are more im- 
 portant, to whose by no means foolish eyes the
 
 Saturday Afternoons 
 
 Albert Memorial is beyond praise adequate, 
 stimulating, splendid. I mean children. 
 
 Sir Gilbert Scott, the designer of the Albert 
 Memorial, knowing, either consciously or sub- 
 consciously but the result is the same that the 
 principal frequenters of Kensington Gardens are 
 children, behaved accordingly. 
 
 Those coloured pinnacles, those queens and 
 angels high up in the sky under the golden cross, 
 those gay mosaics against the blue, fill them with 
 wondering delight. The emblematical groups of 
 statuary America with its buffalo and Red 
 Indian, Asia with its elephant, Africa with its 
 giant negro must be thrilling, too ; and when it 
 comes to the great men around the base the 
 musicians (Gluck's head is really masterly), the 
 poets, with Homer between Shakespeare and 
 Milton, the painters, with Turner transformed to 
 elegance, the architects, the sculptors, all so 
 capable and serene and bland, and all exactly 
 the same height I am with the children in 
 their admiration. 
 
 This mass meeting of the intelligentsia is a 
 reminder of all that is best in literature and art, 
 but most noticeably does it bring back the 
 memory of great buildings an unusual emphasis 
 being laid upon those commonly anonymous and 
 taken-for-granted masters, the architects. Indeed, 
 117
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 such is this emphasis that Giotto and Michael 
 Angelo each comes into the scheme twice, once 
 as painter and again for structural designs. 
 
 The Albert Memorial contains all the materials 
 for a pageant ; it is, in fact, a pageant crystal- 
 lized ; and if the myriad figures in the frieze and 
 in the groups were one moonlight night released 
 by the magician who turned them to stone and, 
 coming to life, were to march through Kensington 
 Gardens, they would make, not only an impressive 
 sight, as they wound among the trees, with Asia's 
 elephant leading, but as representative a pro- 
 cession of the shining ones of the earth as Mr. 
 Louis Napoleon Parker could invent. 
 
 It is my belief that if only a few jackdaws 
 could be persuaded to make their home in its 
 higher crevices, the Albert Memorial would auto- 
 matically take its place among the worshipful 
 structures and be mocked at no more. For that 
 is what is needed. Beneath the jackdaw's wing, 
 where so many of our cathedrals repose, sanctity 
 and authority would be conferred upon it. As 
 one looks up to the golden summit, one is conscious 
 of the absence of this discriminating and aloof 
 yet humanizing bird, black against the sky, critical 
 if not actually censorious in his speech, and an 
 unmistakable indication that the building is 
 noteworthy. 
 
 118
 
 On Secret Passages ^> o *> o 
 
 I WAS hearing the other clay of an old house 
 in Sussex where, while doing some repairs, the 
 builders' men chanced on the mouth of an under- 
 ground passage which they traced for two miles. 
 Why should that discovery be interesting ? Why 
 is everything to do with underground passages so 
 interesting? It is, I suppose, because they are 
 usually secret, and the very word secret, no 
 matter how applied (except perhaps to treaties), 
 is alluring: secret drawers, secret cupboards, 
 secret chambers ; but the secret passage is best, 
 because it leads from one place to another, and 
 either war or love called it into being: war or 
 love, or, as in the case of priests' hiding-holes, 
 religious persecution, which is a branch of 
 war. 
 
 Nothing can deprive the secret passage of its 
 glamour : not all the Tubes, or subways, or Thames 
 tunnelling, through which we pass so naturally 
 day after day. Any private excavation is excit- 
 ing ; to enter a dark cellar, even, carries a certain 
 119
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 emotion. How mysterious are crypts ! How 
 awesome are the catacombs of Rome ! How it 
 brings back the lawless, turbulent past of Florence 
 merely to walk through that long passage (not 
 underground but overground, yet no less dramatic 
 for that) which, passing above the Ponte Vecchio, 
 unites the Pitti and the Uffizi and made it 
 possible, unseen by the Florentines, to transfer 
 bodies of armed men from one side of the river 
 to the other ! 
 
 It was the underground passage idea which 
 gave the Druce Case such possibilities of mystery 
 and romance. That a duke should masquerade 
 as an upholsterer was in itself engaging ; but 
 without the underground passage connecting 
 Baker Street with Cavendish Square the story 
 was nothing more than an ordinary feuilleton. 
 I shall always regret that it was not true ; and 
 even now some one ought to take it in hand and 
 make a real romance of it, with the double- 
 lived nobleman leaving his own home so regularly 
 every morning (by the trap door), changing en 
 route somewhere under Wigmore Street, and 
 appearing unseen (by another trap door) in the 
 Bazaar, all smug and punctual and rubbing his 
 hands. It would be not only thrilling, but such 
 a satire on ducal dulness. And then the great 
 Law Court scenes, the rival heirs, the im- 
 I2O
 
 On Secret Passages 
 
 passioned counsel, the vast sums at stake, the 
 sanction of the judge to open the grave, and 
 finally the discovery that there was no body there 
 after all nothing but bricks and the fantastic 
 story really was fact ! There has been no better 
 plot since Monte Cristo, and that, you remember, 
 would be nothing had not the Abbe Faria ex- 
 cavated the secret passage from his cell through 
 which Edmond was able to re-enter the world and 
 start upon his career of symmetrical vengeance. 
 
 What, of course, gave such likelihood to the 
 Druce allegations was the circumstance that the 
 Duke of Portland spent so much of his life at 
 Welbeck underground. A man who is known 
 to do that must expect to be the subject of 
 romantic exaggerations. 
 
 Another reason for wishing the Druce story to 
 be true is that, if it were true, if one aristocrat 
 thus duplicated and enriched his life, others also 
 would do so ; for there are no single instances ; 
 and this means that London would be honey- 
 combed by secret underground passages con- 
 structed to promote these entertaining deceptions, 
 and shopping would become an absorbing pastime, 
 for we should never know with whom we were 
 chaffering. But alas . . . ! 
 
 Just as an ordinary desk takes on a new 
 character directly one is told that it has a secret 
 121
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 drawer, so does even a whisper of a secret passage 
 transfigure the most commonplace house. Arriv- 
 ing in Gloucester not so very long ago and needing 
 a resting-place for the night, I automatically 
 chose the hotel which claimed, in the advertise- 
 ment, to date from the fourteenth century and 
 possess an underground passage to the cathedral. 
 The fact that, as the young lady in the office 
 assured me, the passage, if it ever existed, no 
 longer is accessible, made very little difference : 
 the idea of it was the attraction and determined 
 the choice of the inn. The Y.M.C.A. head- 
 quarters at Brighton on the Old Steyne ceases 
 to be under the dominion of those initials four 
 letters which, for all their earnest of usefulness, 
 are as far removed from clandestine intrigue as 
 any four letters could be and becomes a totally 
 different structure when one is told that when, 
 long before its conversion, Mrs. Fit/herbert lived 
 there, an underground passage existed between it 
 and the Pavilion for the use of the First Gentleman 
 in Europe. Whether it is fact or fancy, I cannot 
 say, but that the Pavilion has a hidden staircase 
 and an underground passage to the Dome I 
 happen to know. A hidden staircase has hardly 
 fewer adventurous potentialities than a secret 
 passage. I was told of one the other day while 
 I was at Greenwich Hospital : in the wing built 
 122
 
 On Secret Passages 
 
 by Charles II. is a secret staircase in the wall 
 leading to the apartments set apart for (need I 
 say?) Mistress Eleanor Gwynne? These rooms, 
 such is the deteriorating effect of modernity, 
 are now offices. 
 
 123
 
 A Little Child o o o 
 
 THE decision that the governess-cart must 
 be given up meant that a new owner for 
 Polly must be found. 
 
 Polly is a roan pony ; very round in the barrel, 
 and particularly so of late, when there has been 
 no food but meadow-grass. She had been with 
 us (this is my neighbour's story, not mine : a very 
 charming neighbour who keeps her temper at 
 croquet) Polly had been with us so long as to 
 become, as ponies peculiarly can, a member of 
 the family, so that to part with her savoured of 
 treachery. Necessity, however, knows no law 
 and nourishes no memory, and the distasteful 
 preparations were therefore begun. The first 
 was the framing of the advertisement ; which 
 is not the simple matter that it might appear 
 to be, because so much depends upon the choice 
 of adjective. The selected word must both allure 
 and (in our case) keep within the bounds of truth. 
 What are the qualities most valued in a pony, we 
 
 had to ask ourselves. Celerity ? Polly was fixed 
 124
 
 A Little Child 
 
 in her determination not to exceed the speed 
 limit, at any rate on outward journeys. Willing- 
 ness? Polly could be desperately stubborn. 
 Strength ? Yes, she was strong. Youth ? 
 Well, she came to us ten years ago and she 
 was no foal then. After much serious delibera- 
 tion, compared with which Versailles Conferences 
 are mere exchanges of persiflage, it was decided 
 to describe Polly either as " strong useful pony " 
 or "useful strong pony." Further deliberations 
 fixed the phrase as " Pony, strong, useful," and 
 the advertisement was dispatched to the local 
 rag, as our very worthy county chronicle is too 
 often called. 
 
 Next came the question of what price was to 
 be asked. Here expert opinion was resorted to, 
 in the shape of Mr. Edmead, the butcher. No one 
 knows more about ponies than butchers do, and 
 Mr. Edmead is exceptionally wise. 
 
 "Taking everything into consideration," he 
 said, " I think that twenty-five pounds would be 
 a fair price." 
 
 We clung to each other for support. Twenty- 
 five pounds ! And we had given only nine pounds 
 all those years ago. Why had we not made pony- 
 breeding a hobby ? The War, Mr. Edmead went 
 on to explain, had rendered ponies more valuable. 
 Yes, taking everything into consideration, twenty- 
 125
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 five pounds was a fair price. We ought to get 
 that. In fact, if he had been in need of a pony 
 he would have given that himself; but just then 
 he was well supplied, and Polly was, he feared, 
 not quite fast enough for him. Good morning. 
 
 Men who want to buy a pony have a strong 
 resemblance to each other. They are clean- 
 shaven and wear hard round hats, and the 
 collars of their overcoats are carelessly treated 
 so that they are half up and half down. They 
 carry sticks. Also, although they want a pony, 
 they don't want one at quite such a figure. All 
 the men who came to see Polly were furthermore 
 alike in agreeing that she was no doubt a useful 
 strong pony, even a strong useful pony, but she 
 was not for them. Day after day Polly was ex- 
 amined. They opened her mouth and shook 
 their heads, they felt her knees and her hocks, 
 they looked at her with narrow eyes from near 
 by and from far, they rattled their sticks in their 
 hard hats, they gave her sudden cuts and prods. 
 But they didn't buy. 
 
 We began to get desperate. Much as we 
 esteemed Polly, now that she was to be sold 
 we wanted to be rid of her. Things should be 
 done quickly. And then came a market gardener, 
 a large, rubicuiul, genial man named Fox. And 
 Polly was again led forth and again subjected to 
 126
 
 A Little Child 
 
 every test known to pony-buyers. All was going 
 well, and would have gone well, but for Vivian. 
 Who, you say, is Vivian ? Vivian is a small boy 
 who had known Polly intimately all his life, and 
 who by some mischance wandered out from his 
 lessons in the morning- room at the precise 
 moment when Mr. Fox, who obviously was 
 attracted by Polly, was making up his mind to 
 pay the full money. Vivian, I should explain, 
 is one of those ingratiating little boys who look 
 upon the world as a sphere existing solely to 
 provide them with friends, and who attach them- 
 selves with the strongest bands to open-air manual 
 labourers. No sooner did Vivian see Mr. Fox's 
 benevolent features than he added him to his 
 collection. 
 
 " Run away, Vivian," I said. " It's not play- 
 time yet, and we're busy." 
 
 "Are you going to buy Polly?" Vivian asked 
 Mr. Fox by way of a suitable rejoinder to my 
 command. 
 
 " I was thinking about it," said Mr. Fox, adding 
 to me, " How old do you call her, ma'am ? She 
 looks to me about twelve." 
 
 The figure was so low that 1 nodded assent 
 but Vivian spoilt it by exclaiming, " Oh, mother, 
 and Mr. Brooks says she's seventeen if she's a 
 
 day, and I'm sure she's a day." 
 127
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 Mr. Fox became thoughtful. " Mr. Brooks said 
 that, did he ? " he remarked. 
 
 I felt that I couldn't tell Vivian again to go in, 
 because it would look as though I feared his 
 frankness ; which, to be candid, I did. All I 
 could do was to hope for the best. 
 
 " She's quiet enough ; used to traffic and all 
 that ? " Mr. Fox asked. 
 
 Then Vivian began to laugh. This trick of 
 laughter over retrospection chewing the cud 
 of old jokes we have always rather admired in 
 him ; his chuckles are very engaging ; but now 
 I trembled, and not without reason. 
 
 " Don't you remember, mother," he began, 
 " that day when she was frightened by the trac- 
 tion engine and ran into the grocer's shop? " 
 
 Mr. Fox, in whose large hand my son's minute 
 one was now reposing, looked grave. 
 
 "That's against her in my business," he said. 
 
 " Oh, but," I explained, " that was a very long 
 time ago. She's quite steady now. Don't you 
 remember, Vivian, it was on your fifth birthday ? " 
 
 "No," said Vivian, "that was on my seventh 
 birthday something funny always happens on 
 my birthdays," he explained to Mr. Fox "it 
 was on my fifth birthday that Polly fell down." 
 
 "She's been down, has she?" said Mr. Fox 
 
 ominously. 
 
 128
 
 A Little Child 
 
 The rest of it is too tragic. I had no intention 
 of concealing anything ; Mr. Edmead knew the 
 pony's whole history when he valued her ; but 
 Vivian's presence made me nervous, painfully 
 self-conscious ; I felt my face burning and knew 
 that I must be crimson. 
 
 Mr. Fox, I will admit, played the game. He 
 asked Vivian no questions ; indeed he talked of 
 other things than defective ponies ; but I could 
 see his mind working ; I could see pound after 
 pound dropping away from the grand total. 
 
 Well, that's the story. Mr. Fox led Polly 
 away some ten minutes later, leaving in her 
 stead a cheque. But it was not for twenty-five 
 pounds Vivian saw to that. 
 
 The moral? The moral is: when your husband 
 is in Mesopotamia and the time comes to sell the 
 pony, lock your cherubic son in the nursery. 
 
 129
 
 The Italian Question <=> o 
 
 THERE are, no doubt, matters of importance 
 which must always agitate the minds of 
 Italian senators and the souls of Italian re- 
 formers ; the country of Dante, Garibaldi, and 
 D'Annunzio cannot for long be without deep 
 and vital problems, political and social : but for 
 me, in that otherwise delectable land, the domi- 
 nant question is, What becomes of the mosquito 
 while you are hunting for him ? (I say " him," 
 although, of course, there are supporters of the 
 theory that mosquitoes are feminine. But I 
 know he is a he, and I know his name, too : it 
 is, for obvious reasons, Macbeth.) 
 
 This is my procedure. I undress, then I put 
 on a dressing-gown and slippers, and, lifting the 
 mosquito curtains, I place the candle inside them 
 on the bed. Then, with the closest scrutiny, I 
 satisfy myself that there is no mosquito inside, 
 as indeed Eleanora, the handmaid, had done some 
 hours earlier, when she made the bed. " Niente, 
 niente," she had assured me, as she always does. 
 130
 
 The Italian Question 
 
 None the less, again I go carefully round it, 
 examining the net for any faulty hanging which 
 might let in an insect ascending with malice from 
 the floor. 
 
 This being done, I creep through, blow out the 
 candle, and go to sleep. 
 
 I have slept perhaps an hour when a shrill 
 bugle call, which I conceive in my dreams to be 
 the Last Trump, awakens me, and as I awake I 
 realize once again the melancholy fact that it is 
 no Last Trump at all, but that there is, as there 
 always is, a mosquito inside the curtains. 
 
 Already he has probably bitten me in several 
 places ; at any cost he must be prevented from 
 biting me again. I sit up and feel my face all 
 over to discover if my beauty has been assailed ; 
 for that is the thing I most dread. (Without 
 beauty what are we ?) I lie quite still while I 
 do this, straining to catch his horrid song again ; 
 and suddenly there it is, so near that I duck my 
 head swiftly, nearly ricking my neck in doing so. 
 This confirming my worst fears, there is nothing 
 for it now but to lift the curtains, slip out on to 
 the cold stone floor, light the candle, and once 
 again go through the futile but necessary move- 
 ment of locating and expelling a mosquito. 
 That there will be none to expel, I know. 
 None the less I crawl about and peer into every
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 corner. I shake the clothes, I do everything that 
 can be done short of stripping the curtains, which 
 I am too sleepy to do. And then I blow out the 
 candle for the second time and endeavour to fall 
 asleep again. 
 
 But this time it is more difficult : Macbeth has 
 performed his pet trick too thoroughly. At last, 
 however, I drowse away, again to be galvanized 
 suddenly into intense and dreadful vigilance by 
 the bugle shrilling an inch from my ear. 
 
 And so once again I get up and once again the 
 pest vanishes into nothing. . . . 
 
 The next time I don't care a soldo if he is 
 there or not, I am so tired ; and the rest of the 
 night is passed in a half-sleep, in which real 
 mosquitoes and imaginary mosquitoes equally do 
 their worst, and I turn no hair. And then, some 
 years later, the blessed dawn breaks and spreads 
 and another Italian night of misery passes into 
 glorious day ; and, gradually recognizing this 
 bliss, I sit up in bed and begin to tear away at 
 the fresh poison in my poor hands and wrists, which 
 were like enough to a map of a volcanic island 
 in the Pacific yesterday, but now are poignantly 
 more so. 
 
 And suddenly, as I thus scratch, I am conscious 
 of a motionless black speck on the curtain above 
 me. . . . 
 
 132
 
 The Italian Question 
 
 It is yes no yes it is Macbeth. 
 
 I agitate the gauze, but he takes no notice ; 
 I approach my hand, a movement which in his 
 saner moments he would fly from with the 
 agility of electricity ; he remains still. He is 
 either dead or dazed. 
 
 I examine him minutely and observe him to be 
 alive, and the repugnant truth is forced upon me 
 that he is not merely drunk, but drunk with my 
 blood. That purple tide must be intoxicating ; 
 and his intemperance has been his ruin. 
 
 There is only one thing to be done. I have 
 no paltry feelings of revenge ; but his death is 
 indicated. The future must be considered. And 
 so I kill him. It is done with the greatest ease. 
 He makes no resistance at all : merely, dying, 
 saluting me with my own blood. It is odd to 
 have it thus returned. 
 
 A good colour, I think, and get up, conscious 
 of no triumph. 
 
 Then, going to the glass, I discern a red lump 
 on my best feature. . . . 
 
 133
 
 On Shops and Stalls *> o -& 
 
 MOST people who do not keep shops have, 
 I suppose, at one time or other thought 
 that to keep a shop might be fun ; of course, 
 keeping it their own way, selling only what they 
 liked, to whom they liked. No vulgar trade 
 notions at all ! The fact that there is no nursery 
 game so popular as keeping shop probably proves 
 this. And none is more popular, except, perhaps, 
 among French country childen, who prefer the 
 game of market each one presiding over a 
 different stall, stocked with the most ingenious 
 miniature counterfeits of vegetables and fruit 
 fashioned chiefly from wild flowers and leaves, and 
 all shouting against each other with terrific 
 French volubility and not a little French wit. 
 
 We seldom go so far as actually to open an 
 establishment, but we play with the idea. One 
 of my friends has for years projected a London 
 centre for all the most interesting and vivid 
 European pottery, and if only she could assemble 
 it and maintain the supply, I have little doubt of 
 134
 
 On Shops and Stalls 
 
 her success. But the chances are that it will 
 never materialize, the people who do things being 
 so rare. Another is at this moment excitedly 
 planning a restaurant in a neighbourhood where 
 one seems peculiarly to be needed, as it is chiefly 
 populated by dwellers in flats, the motto of which 
 is to be " Where to dine when cook goes out " ; 
 but that, too, will probably end in talk. 
 
 One would say, on the face of it, that a shop 
 opened in a locality where that kind of shop did 
 not previously exist would have a better chance 
 than a shop opened next door to another shop of 
 the same kind apart from any unpleasantness 
 that such contiguity might produce. But the 
 methods of business are inscrutable, and there 
 seem to be countless ways, often in direct opposi- 
 tion to each other, of conducting it successfully. 
 One would, at the first blush, have called this 
 principle of scientific selection and segregation 
 the soundest ; and yet that of congregation seems 
 to be just as sensible : so that while one man 
 succeeds because he is the only tailor in the 
 street, another man can be even more successful 
 because he is in a street where every other 
 establishment is a tailor's too. There are also the 
 antagonistic principles of ostentation and self- 
 effacement, each again apparently satisfactory : 
 so that one hatter, for example, succeeds because 
 135
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 he inhabits a palace of light, and another because 
 you can hardly see through the grimy panes ot 
 his old-fashioned and obsolete windows. There 
 are, furthermore, the antipodal theories of singu- 
 larity and plurality : so that one draper makes as 
 good a thing as he wants out of a single shop, 
 and another rises to wealth by dint of opening 
 twenty shops at once. 
 
 And then there are the business people who 
 thrive by apparently doing no business. We all 
 know of shops which no one was ever seen to enter. 
 
 But to select one's line . . . ? 
 
 There was once a man who, without any special 
 training, decided that he would start business in 
 London ; and he came to town to prospect and 
 make up his mind, which was curiously blank and 
 receptive. In walking about he was struck by 
 the number of old curiosity shops in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the British Museum and South 
 Kensington Museum, which led to the inference, 
 hitherto unsuspected by him, but known to the 
 dealers, that there is something exciting in the 
 air of those places, so that the visitor, having seen 
 many odd things, wishes to acquire some for him- 
 self. All his plans to establish himself in London 
 failed, however, because he could not obtain 
 a site for a monumental mason's yard opposite 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
 136
 
 On Shops and Stalls 
 
 My own ambition, if ever I took to keeping a 
 shop, would be merely to be in a congenial line 
 of business. Some things are interesting to sell, 
 and some most emphatically are not. Old books 
 would appear to be an ideal commodity ; but this 
 is far from the case, because I should want not to 
 sell them but to keep them. Pictures, too how 
 could one part with a good one ? And, equally, 
 how permit a customer to be so misguided as to 
 pay money for a bad one ? A fruit-shop would 
 be a not unpleasant place to move about in, were 
 it not that it is one of my profoundest beliefs that 
 fruit ought not to be sold at all, but given away. 
 The tobacconist's was once an urbane and agree- 
 able career ; but it is so no longer. To-day the 
 tobacconist is a mere cog in a vast piece of 
 machinery called a Trust ; and the tobacco-shop 
 is as remote from the old divan, where connois- 
 seurs of the leaf met and tested and talked, as 
 the modern chemist's, with its photograph frames 
 nd " seasonable gifts," is remote from the home 
 of Rosamund's purple jar. 
 
 That ingenious and adventurous tobacconist, 
 Mr. Godall, revisiting the London which he 
 found, or made, so like Baghdad, would have to 
 discover a new kind of headquarters. Perhaps 
 he would open an oyster-bar (it was in an oyster- 
 bar near Leicester Square that the young man 
 137
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 proffered the cream tarts) ; more likely an 
 American bar. But if he really wanted to 
 observe human nature at its most vulnerable 
 and impulsive that is, at night he would take 
 a coffee-stall. After ten o'clock, the coffee-stall 
 men are the truest friends that poor humanity has. 
 There is a coffee-stall within a few yards of my 
 abode ; and no matter at what hour I return, the 
 keeper of it is always brisk and jovial, with the 
 hottest beverages that ever were set to timid 
 lips. His stall is surrounded by hungry and 
 thirsty revellers, chiefly soldiers, not infrequently 
 accompanied by the fair. Every one calls him 
 by his Christian name, and every one talks and 
 is jolly. And no matter at what hour in the 
 night I wake, or from what disconcerting dream, 
 I am always at once secure in my mind that the 
 old recognizable world is still about me and I have 
 not passed over in my sleep, because the voices 
 and laughter about the coffee-stall fill the air. 
 ff Good," I say, " I am still here." Now it would 
 be a pleasant thing, and prove one's life not to 
 have been lived in vain, to .be able to minister in 
 the small hours gaily to so many heroes, and 
 incidentally to impart to wakeful and disquieted 
 neighbours reassurance of stability. 
 
 138
 
 Clicquot Well Won <* o & *& 
 
 MY hostess and her daughter met me at the 
 station in the little pony-cart and we set 
 off at a gentle trot, conversing as we went. That 
 is to say, they asked questions about London and 
 the great wicked world, and I endeavoured to 
 answer them. 
 
 It was high if premature summer ; the sky was 
 blue, the hedges and the grass were growing 
 almost audibly, the birds sang, the sun blazed, 
 and, to lighten the burden, I walked up two or 
 three hills without the faintest enthusiasm. 
 
 Just after the top of the last hill, when I had 
 again resumed my seat (at the risk once more of 
 lifting the pony into the zenith), the ladies 
 simultaneously uttered a shrill cry of dismay. 
 
 " Look ! " they exclaimed ; " there's Bunty ! " 
 
 I looked, and beheld in the road before us a 
 small West Highland terrier, as white as a recent 
 ratting foray in a wet ditch would allow. 
 
 " Bunty ! Bunty ! you wicked dog ! " they 
 cried ; " how dare you go hunting ? " 
 139
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 To this question Bunty made no reply, but 
 merely subsided under the hedge, where a little 
 shade was to be had, in an attitude of exhaustion 
 tempered by wariness. 
 
 " How very naughty ! " said my hostess. " I 
 left her in the house." 
 
 " Yes," said the daughter, " and if she's going 
 to go off hunting like this what on earth shall we 
 do ? There'll be complaints from every one. She's 
 never done it before." 
 
 " Come, Bunty ! " said my hostess, in the 
 wheedling tones of dog-owners whose dogs 
 notoriously obey their slightest word. But Bunty 
 sat tight. 
 
 " If we drive on perhaps she'll follow," said the 
 daughter, and we drove on a few yards ; but 
 Bunty did not move. 
 
 We stopped again, while coaxing noises were 
 made, calculated to soften the hearts of rocks ; 
 but Bunty refused to stir. 
 
 "She'll come on later," I suggested. 
 
 " Oh, no," said her elderly mistress, " we 
 couldn't risk leaving her here, when she's never 
 gone off alone before. Bunty ! Bunty ! don't be so 
 naughty. Come along, there's a dear little Bunty." 
 
 But Bunty merely glittered at us through her 
 white-hair entanglement and remained perfectly 
 still. 
 
 140
 
 Clicquot Well Won 
 
 Strange dogs are not much in my line ; but 
 since my hostess was no longer very active, and 
 the daughter was driving, and no one else was 
 present, there seemed to be a certain inevitable- 
 ness about the proposition which I then made 
 that I should get out and bring the miscreant in. 
 
 " Oh, would you mind ? " my hostess said. 
 " She won't bite, I promise you. She's a perfect 
 dear." 
 
 Trying hard to forget how painful to legs or 
 hands can be the smart closing of the snappy 
 jaws of dogs that won't bite, I advanced 
 stealthily towards Bunty, murmuring ingratiating 
 words. 
 
 When I was quite close she turned over on her 
 back, lifted her paws, and obviously commended 
 her soul to Heaven ; and I had therefore no 
 difficulty in lifting her up and carrying her to 
 the trap. 
 
 Her mistresses received her with rapture, 
 disguised, but by no means successfully, by 
 reproach and reproof, and we were beginning to 
 drive on again, when an excited voice called upon 
 us to stop, and a strange lady, of the formidable 
 unmarried kind, with a very red face beneath a 
 purple parasol, confronted us. 
 
 " What," she panted, " is the meaning of this 
 outrage ? How dare you steal my dog ? " 
 141
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 " Your dog, madam ? " I began. 
 
 " It's no use denying it," she burst in, ' ' I saw 
 you do it. I saw you pick it up and carry it to 
 the trap. It's it's monstrous. I shall go to the 
 police about it." 
 
 Meanwhile, it cannot be denied, the dog was 
 showing signs of delight and recognition such as 
 had previously been lacking. 
 
 " But " began my hostess, who is anything 
 
 but quarrelsome. 
 
 " We ought to know our own dog when we see 
 it," said the daughter, who does not disdain a 
 fight. 
 
 " Certainly," said the angry lady, " if you have 
 a dog of your own." 
 
 "Of course we have," said the daughter; "we 
 have a West Highland named Bunty." 
 
 " This happens to be my West Highland, named 
 Wendy," said the lady, "as you will see if you 
 look on the collar. My name is there too Miss 
 Morrison, 14 Park Terrace, W. I am staying at 
 Well House Farm." 
 
 And it was so. 
 
 It was on the tip of my tongue to point 
 out that collars, being easily exchangeable, 
 are not evidence ; but I thought it better that 
 any such suggestion should come from else- 
 where, 
 
 143
 
 Clicquot Well Won 
 
 " It is certainly very curious/' said the 
 daughter, submitting the features of the dog to 
 the minutest scrutiny ; " if it is not Bunty it is 
 her absolute double." 
 
 " It is not Bunty, but Wendy," said Miss 
 Morrison coldly ; " and I shall be glad if you will 
 give her to me." 
 
 " But " the daughter began. 
 
 " Yes, give the lady the dog," said the 
 mother. 
 
 In the regrettable absence of Solomon, who 
 would, of course, have cut the little devil in two, 
 there was nothing for it but to surrender; and 
 the couple went off together, the dog exhibiting 
 every sign of pleasure. 
 
 Meanwhile the daughter whipped up the pony, 
 and we soon entered the gates. 
 
 In the drive, awaiting us, was a West High- 
 land terrier named Bunty. 
 
 "There!" cried the ladies, as they scrambled 
 out and flung themselves on her. 
 
 " Of course she's not a bit like that Wendy 
 thing really," said the mother. 
 
 " Now that I come to look at her I can see 
 heaps of difference," said the daughter. 
 
 "None the less," I interjected, "you turned a 
 very honest man into a thief, and a dog-thief at 
 that ; and he insists on reparation." 
 143
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said the mother, "it is really 
 too bad. What reparation can we make ? " 
 
 I don't pretend that my feelings are completely 
 soothed, but the Clicquot 1904 which took the 
 the place of claret at dinner that evening was 
 certainly very good. 
 
 144
 
 My Friend Flora o ^> *& o 
 
 " f T OW much is this bunch ? " I asked of the 
 
 L A flower-woman at the corner. 
 
 " A shilling," she replied, " but you can have it 
 for sixpence. I hate the sight of it." 
 
 Now here was an oddity in a world of self- 
 centred, acquisitive tradespeople : a dealer who 
 decried her own wares. Obviously flower-women 
 can have temperaments. 
 
 I asked her what there was about palm, as we 
 call those branches of willow with the fluffy, 
 downy buds on them, that so annoyed her. 
 
 " It's such stupid stuff," she explained. " I 
 can understand people buying daffodils or tulips 
 or violets, because they're pretty or sweet, 
 but not this dried-up stuff with the little 
 kittens." 
 
 The remark set me wondering to what extent 
 dealers in other articles are perplexed by their 
 customers' preferences. (Some milliners, I hope.) 
 For the most part we are encouraged by the 
 shopkeeper to follow our own inclinations. His 
 K 145
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 taste may be utterly different, but he doesn't 
 impose it on us ; he ventures to suggest only 
 when there are varying prices and we seem unduly 
 disposed to the lowest. But this old lady was 
 prepared, long before the bargaining stage had 
 set in, to knock off fifty per cent, and traduce 
 the goods as well. Surely a character. 
 
 " And that's not all," she added. " What do 
 you think a lady calls herself a lady said to 
 me just now when she bought threepennyworth ? 
 She said it lasted a year. Fancy telling a poor 
 flower-woman that ! " 
 
 We went on to talk of her calling. I found 
 her an "agreeable blend" (as the tobacconists 
 say) of humour and resignation ; and very 
 practical. 
 
 " Why are your flowers," I asked her, " so 
 much better than the flowers of the man the 
 other side of the road ? " 
 
 " Because he takes his home at night," she 
 said. " You should never do that. If I've got 
 any unsold, I leave them at the fire-station and 
 then they're fresh in the morning. But I don't 
 often have any left over." 
 
 This was, I should say, a day of acute dis- 
 comfort : it had been bitterly raining since early 
 morning, and yet there was no bitterness in her. 
 She was merely resigned. Very wet, but cheer- 
 146
 
 My Friend Flora 
 
 fully apathetic. "When it's cold and wet like 
 this," I asked, " is life worth living ? " 
 
 " Of course," was her splendid answer ; " aren't 
 there the nights ? " 
 
 Rather fine that even if as a commentary on 
 the wakeful hours a little acid. And for those 
 who can sleep, how true ! " Aren't there the 
 nights?" I must remember the solace when 
 next the cynic or the misanthrope girds at sunless 
 noons. 
 
 Of her philosophy she then gave me another 
 taste, for, observing a great mass of loose coins, 
 many of them silver, lying in the basket, I asked 
 if she were not afraid of a thief snatching at it. 
 " Oh, no," she said. " But I don't always have 
 it there. It's because it's so wet to-day. Count- 
 ing helps." 
 
 My guess would have been that although the 
 life of flower-women calls for philosophy, for philo- 
 sophy to respond is by no means the rule ; and her 
 consolation and cheerfulness made me very happy. 
 Yet what a penance much of their lives must be ! 
 First of all, there is the weather. Wet or fine, 
 hot or cold, they must be out in it, and stationary 
 at that. What to place second and third I do 
 not know, but there is the perishable character of 
 the stock-in-trade to be considered, and, when fogs 
 and frosts interfere, the chance of being unable 
 147
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 to collect any stock-in-trade at all. But exposure 
 must be the crucial strain. 
 
 The whole question of the motionless, receptive 
 attitude to the elements is interesting to me, 
 who catch cold several times a day. How these 
 people can stand it is a constant mystery. That 
 blind man, for instance, at the little door of the 
 Temple just below the Essex Street archway 
 ever since I can remember London he has been 
 there, with his matches, always serene, no matter 
 what new buflfetings Heaven has for him. 
 
 The blind in particular seem to become in- 
 different to climatic extremes ; and there must be 
 in every one's cognizance two or three immov- 
 able sightless mendicants defying rain and chill. 
 Every town in the country has such landmarks, 
 and all seem to retain their health. But I 
 recollect that the blind man who used to sit in 
 front of the Grand Hotel at Brighton forty years 
 ago spelling out Holy Writ, while the dog at his 
 feet collected coppers in a little box, always in 
 winter wore mittens and a cap with ear-flaps, and 
 had fingers red and swollen. Still, he endured. 
 Whether with those red and swollen fingers he 
 really deciphered the Evangel or merely repeated 
 from memory, we never knew, but I can still hear 
 the droning voice, " And Jesus said 
 
 This insensitiveness to January blasts and 
 148
 
 My Friend Flora 
 
 February drenchings may be one of the com- 
 pensations that the blind enjoy. Whatever 
 else happens to them they never, perhaps, 
 catch cold. And that is more than something. 
 
 But how odd that these stolid, shabby, and 
 often rather battered old florists should be the 
 middle-men and middle-women between the 
 country and the city, but for whose indifference 
 to pitiless skies so many town-dwellers would 
 never see a blossom at all ! There is nothing of 
 the country about them, nothing of the garden 
 almost no Londoner less suggests the riot of 
 a herbaceous border and yet it is they who 
 form the link between flower-bed and street. 
 
 " Well," I said, grasping the bunch of palm 
 that the old flower-woman had sold me at such a 
 sacrifice, "good-bye; I hope you'll empty your 
 basket." 
 
 " And I hope you'll empty yours," she replied. 
 
 " Mine ? " I said, " I haven't got one." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you have," said Flora: "every one's 
 got a basket, only they don't always know where 
 to take it." 
 
 149
 
 A South Sea Bubble o <? o 
 
 " T WANT you," said my hostess, " to take in 
 A Mrs. Blank. She is charming. All through 
 the War she has been with her husband in the 
 South Seas. London is a new place to her." 
 
 Mrs. Blank did not look too promising. She 
 was pretty in her way " elegant " an American 
 would have called her but she lacked animation. 
 However, the South Seas . . . ! Anyone fresh 
 from the Pacific must have enough to tell to see 
 soup, fish, and entree safely through. 
 
 I began by remarking that she must find London 
 a very complete change after the sun and placidity 
 that she had come from. 
 
 "It's certainly noisier," she said ; "but we had 
 our share of rain." 
 
 "I thought it was always fine there," I re- 
 marked ; but she laughed a denial and relapsed 
 into silence. 
 
 She was one of those women who don't take 
 soup, and this made the economy of her utter- 
 ances the more unfair. 
 
 ISO
 
 A South Sea Bubble 
 
 Racking my brain for a new start I fell back on 
 those useful fellows, the authors. Presuming that 
 anyone who had lived in that fascinating region 
 the promised land of so many of us who are 
 weary of English climatic treacheries would be 
 familiar with the literature of it, I went boldly to 
 work. 
 
 " The first book about the South Seas that I 
 ever read," I said, "was Ballantyne's Coral 
 Island." 
 
 " Indeed ! " she replied. 
 
 I asked her if she too had not been brought 
 up on Ballantyne, and she said no. She did not 
 e*ven know his name. 
 
 " He wrote for boys," I explained, rather 
 lamely. 
 
 " I read poetry chiefly as a girl," she said. 
 
 " But surely you know Stevenson's Island 
 Nights' Entertainments ? " I said. 
 
 No, she did not. Was it nice ? 
 
 "It's extraordinary," I said. "It gives you 
 more of the atmosphere of the South Seas than 
 any other work. And Louis Becke you must 
 have read him? " I continued. 
 
 No, she had not. She read very little. The 
 last book she had read was on spiritualism. 
 
 " Not even Conrad ? " I pursued. " No one has 
 so described the calms and storms of the Pacific."
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 No, she remembered no story called Conrad. 
 
 I was about to explain that Conrad was the 
 writer, not the written ; but it seemed a waste 
 of words, and we fell into a stillness broken only 
 by the sound of knife and fork. 
 
 "Hang it! you shall talk," I said to myself; 
 and then aloud, "Tell me all about copra. I 
 have longed to know what copra is ; how it grows, 
 what it looks like, what it is for." 
 
 " You have come to the wrong person," she 
 replied, with wide eyes. " I never heard of it. 
 Or did you say ' cobra ' ? Of course I know what 
 a cobra is it's a snake. I've seen them at the 
 Zoo." 
 
 I put her right. "Copra, the stuff that the 
 traders in the South Seas deal in." 
 
 " I never heard of it," she said. " But then 
 why should I ? I know nothing about the South 
 Seas." 
 
 My stock fell thirty points and I crumbled 
 bread nervously, hoping for something sensible 
 to say; but at this moment " half-time" merci- 
 fully set in. My partner on the other side turned 
 to me suavely and asked if I thought the verses 
 in Abraham Lincoln were a beauty or a blemish ; 
 and with the assistance of the London stage, 
 some new novels, and the universal unrest I 
 sailed serenely into port. She was as easy and 
 152
 
 A South Sea Bubble 
 
 agreeable a woman as that other was difficult, 
 and before she left for the drawing-room she had 
 invited me to lunch and I had accepted. 
 
 As I said good night to my hostess I asked 
 why she had told me that my first partner had 
 been in the South Seas. She said that she had 
 said nothing of the sort ; what she had said was 
 that during the War she had been stationed with 
 her husband, Colonel Blank, at Southsea. 
 
 153
 
 An East-Anglian Bookman 
 
 THE postscript to a leter from New Zealand 
 which reached me a few days ago mentioned 
 Green's Extracts from the Diary of a Lover of 
 Literature as a book that might be found nutritious. 
 Having obtained it and read it, I am grateful for 
 the hint. Thomas Green, the author of this 
 desultory, fastidious, and highly intelligent work, 
 was for a while a barrister on the Norfolk Circuit, 
 but on succeeding, at the age of twenty-five, to 
 his father's property, he settled at Ipswich, where 
 he had been educated, and gave himself to the 
 pleasures of reading, with the composition of an 
 occasional pamphlet, chiefly political or philo- 
 sophical, until his death in 1825. The Diary 
 ranges only from 1796 to 1800, and was not 
 published until 1810; but later the Rev. John 
 Mitford of Benhall, Suffolk, printed, in his 
 capacity as Sylvanus Urban, Esquire, further 
 passages from it in the Gentleman's Magazine, a 
 gossipy and erudite periodical the revival of which 
 would do no harm to the quality of our bookstalls. 
 154
 
 An East-Anglian Bookman 
 
 Although he married, Green is of what might 
 be called the bachelor school of critics and tasters, 
 the school of which Gray and Walpole and Lamb 
 and FitzGerald and Cowper are leaders. Second 
 thoughts remind me that FitzGerald was married, 
 as I ought never to have forgotten, since I used 
 to visit that stately old lady, his widow (Bernard 
 Barton's strong-minded daughter), every week 
 not long before her death ; but the mere forget- 
 ting may be taken as some indication of the 
 lightness of the matrimonial gyves on the hus- 
 band's wrists. To all intents and purposes Fitz- 
 Gerald was a bachelor. A further bond between 
 him and Green is topographical ; Green living his 
 retired, contemplative life at Ipswich, FitzGerald 
 at Woodbridge. But it is improbable that they 
 had any intercourse, for FitzGerald was only 
 fifteen when Green died. I extract a few of 
 Green's obiter scripta : 
 
 Finished Gibbon's Memoirs of himself an exquisite 
 morceau of literature, but which might have been rendered 
 far more interesting by anecdotes of such of his acquaintance 
 as were distinguished characters a disclosure, properly con- 
 ducted, of which I cannot see the harm ; and by less reserve 
 on the subject of his progress in infidelity a topic which 
 the Biographer touches with all the caution of the Historian. 
 
 Looked over Swift's Journal to Stella, in the aoth 
 Vol. of his Works. I can allow for the relaxations of 
 greatness ; trifling, however, as their general cast and com- 
 plexion may be, they usually confess, somewhere and by 
 
 155
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 accident, the stock from whence they sprung : but these 
 Letters are, uniformly, and throughout, the most childish 
 things I ever read ; and it is wonderful how such a man as 
 Swift could possibly keep his mind down to such a level, for 
 any length of time. 
 
 It is amazing that Warton should have passed, without 
 censure, and even with some sort of retrospective approbation, 
 the flattest line Pope ever published. V. 49, 6th Epis. of 
 Horace, B. I : 
 
 So known, so honoured, at the House of Lords. 
 
 To make amends, he violently reprobates as coarse and 
 vulgar, an expression, which, in its place is felicitous enough. 
 V. 131, 2nd Epis. of Horace, B. 2 : 
 
 Each had a gravity -would make you split. 
 
 The colloquial form of the phrase, here adds greatly to its 
 spirit. 
 
 [At Twickenham] Paused, with much interest, opposite 
 Pope's villa and garden ; his favourite willow on the lawn, 
 propped up by stakes ; and exhibiting, abstractedly con- 
 sidered, an unsightly spectacle. Great men should plant 
 trees of longer duration : we might still muse under the 
 broad and majestic shade of Shakespear's Oak. 
 
 Dipped into Bacon's Essays ; so pregnant with just, 
 original, and striking observations on every topic which is 
 touched, that I cannot select what pleases me most. For 
 reach of thought, variety and extent of view, sheer solid and 
 powerful sense, and admirable sagacity, what works of man 
 can be placed in competition with these wonderful effusions. 
 
 Finished Lord Bacon's Letters, edited by Birch. It is 
 grievous to see this great man, who appears from various 
 passages fully sensible of his vast powers and attainments, 
 and impressed with a just confidence of the weight he would 
 have with posterity, eternally cringing, and a beggar, to 
 men so infinitely beneath him, and whom he must have felt 
 to be so. One curious disclosure of his, in the heads of a 
 I 5 6
 
 An East-Anglian Bookman 
 
 proposed conference with Buckingham, struck me most 
 forcibly. He was proposing to offer his services to go over 
 to France to conduct a secret negotiation : "I have some- 
 what " says this Lord of human kind, " of the French : I love 
 birds, as the King does ; and have some childish-mindedness 
 wherein we shall consent " ! 
 
 I cannot discover that Johnson [in the Lives of the Poets} 
 has farther unfolded his principles of criticism. He had 
 probably digested them into no very exact scheme in his 
 own mind ; but trusted, to what he knew would rarely 
 fail him his immediate sagacity whenever an occasion for 
 critical exertion occurred. 
 
 Read Milton's Samson Agonistes ; a noble Poem, but 
 a miserable Drama. Comus, though a much earlier, is surely 
 a much finer composition : after all, however, give me the 
 Gothic Architecture of Shakespear. 
 
 Visited for the first time (so strangely is it buried in 
 obscurity) St. Stephen's Church, Walbrook. The interior 
 architecture, rich, elegant, chaste ; and (what may be 
 deemed its appropriate and distinguishing merit) effecting 
 much in a small compass. I doubt whether a Gothic building 
 could have been constructed on the same scale, which would 
 have produced an equal effect. The tendency, it is true, of 
 the Gothic style, is to enlarge, and of the Grecian, as it 
 is called, to reduce, the apparent size of the edifices to which 
 they are applied : but the Gothic Artist must have positive 
 magnitude to work upon, or the imposition arising from real 
 disproportion and seeming irregularity, would be detected 
 and despised ; whereas that exquisite order and symmetry, 
 by which the whole of a Grecian structure, however 
 stupendous in bulk, is brought at once within the grasp, 
 still retain their charm, however limited the scale on which 
 they are employed, and perhaps carry with them on this 
 occasion something of the real majesty and grandeur of the 
 objects with which they are usually associated. 
 157
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 The Diarist is so good about Turner, that one 
 would like to have more of him on painting. It 
 required not a little vision to write thus of Turner 
 as early as June 2nd, 1797 : 
 
 Visited the Royal Exhibition. Particularly struck with 
 a sea view by Turner fishing vessels coming in, with a 
 heavy swell, in apprehension of a tempest gathering in the 
 distance, and casting, as it advances, a night of shade ; while 
 a parting glow is spread with fine effect upon the shore. The 
 whole composition, bold in design, and masterly in execution. 
 I am entirely unacquainted with the artist ; but if he pro- 
 ceeds as he has begun, he cannot fail to become the first in 
 his department. 
 
 And again, two years later : 
 
 Visited the Royal Exhibition ; and was again struck 
 and delighted with Turner's Landscapes ; particularly with 
 fishermen in an evening a calm before a storm, which all 
 nature attests is silently preparing, and seems in death-like 
 stillness to await : and Caernarvon Castle, the sun setting 
 in gorgeous splendour behind its shadowy towers : the 
 latter in water colours ; to which he has given a depth and 
 force of tone which I had never before conceived attainable 
 with such untoward implements. Turner's views are not 
 mere ordinary transcripts of nature : he always throws 
 some peculiar and striking character into the scene he 
 represents. 
 
 Among Green's suggestions for books that 
 might be written, one, .that did not fructify, was 
 a " capital piece " to be composed in collaboration 
 by Mrs. Radcliffe and Fanny Burney " Mrs. R. 
 furnishing the landscape and Miss B. the figures." 
 I 5 8
 
 An East-Anglian Bookman 
 
 He wanted also, in 1796, a judicious selection from 
 Dr. Johnson's talk, which must have been made 
 since then again and again, and in the same year he 
 writes " a catalogue of synonymes, executed with 
 philosophical skill and philosophical discrimina- 
 tion, would be a valuable accession to English 
 Literature"; but not until 1852 did Roget's 
 Thesaurus appear. 
 
 There are blind spots in all of us, and Green 
 was not without his. On 27th January 17.98 
 I find him writing : 
 
 Looked over some of Gray's Poems. I am almost 
 tempted to agree in Johnson's character of these com- 
 positions. There is an encumbered heaviness in them, an 
 over-laboured obscurity, and vehement straining even 
 where he affects to trifle, very revolting to my taste. 
 
 From this, by a natural transition, we may pass 
 to a passage describing a little town in the Isle 
 of Wight later in the same year : 
 
 Had an agreeable sail to Newport, about five miles up 
 the river Medina. Visited Carisbrook Castle, prouilly 
 crowning the summit of an eminence ; but deficient in effect, 
 from the want of picturesque accompaniments. Missed my 
 friend Ogden, the old soldier, who on a previous excursion 
 acted as Cicerone to the place ; and was accustomed, at the 
 conclusion, to exhibit himself zs, the greatest curiosity there, 
 being the person in whose arms the immortal Wolfe expired. 
 Found, on enquiry of his son, who has succeeded him in 
 the office of guide, and who still preserves with religious 
 veneration the General's cane, that the gallant veteran was 
 gone to the grand and final muster, at which, sooner or later, 
 159
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 we must all appear. On my former visit, I was of course 
 solicitous to enquire respecting the last moments of a Hero, 
 on whose fall the arts of painting, poetry and sculpture, 
 have conspired to throw so bright a blaze of glory. The old 
 fellow assured me, that far from displaying the lively interest 
 ascribed to him in the fate of the day, he appeared absorbed 
 in his own sufferings, oppressed with debility and languor, 
 and nearly insensible to what was passing around him. It 
 is not pleasant to have illusions of this kind destroyed ; but 
 as the natural propensity of my informant would be, rather 
 to aggrandise, than depretiate, the fame of one with whom 
 he must feel his own so nearly connected, there can be 
 little reason to question the truth and accuracy of his 
 representation. 
 
 There is not enough of Green's conversations 
 with the living. His days too much with the 
 dead were passed. But Home Tooke he 
 knew, and there are two references to him. 
 Thus : 
 
 At the very time he was giving his most marked en- 
 couragement to the "Rights of Man," I well remember his 
 speaking to me of the author in these emphatical terms, 
 " Paine's intentions I believe to be honest ; but he is ignorant 
 of almost every thing, and he hates every thing of which 
 he is ignorant." 
 
 And again, on Fox : 
 
 I well remember Home Tooke's sarcastically telling me 
 on the Hustings at Covent-Garden, that he regarded him as 
 a cunning, but not as a wise, man ! Exactly, I conceive, 
 the reverse of the truth. Mr. Fox's wisdom, few but Mr. 
 Tooke will be disposed to question ; it is a species of wisdom, 
 however, if ever there was one, which neither his supporters 
 nor his opponents can reproach with guile ; and rarely, I 
 
 160
 
 An East-Anglian Bookman 
 
 believe, has this illustrious Statesman had occasion to blush, 
 at proving himself too shrewd, in those cases and such 
 Mr. Burke has acutely remarked there are in which a man 
 of honour would be ashamed not to have been imposed 
 upon. 
 
 Burke, in his more intimate moments, we find 
 in some talk which Green had with his friend 
 Mr. M. on June 13th, 1799- This is good, and 
 I should guess authentic : 
 
 Passed the last Christmas with Burke at Beaconsfield ; 
 and described, in glowing terms, the astonishing effusions 
 of his mind in conversation. Perfectly free from all taint of 
 affectation : would enter, with cordial glee, into the sports 
 of children ; rolling about with them on the carpet, and 
 pouring out, in his gambols, the sublimest images mingled 
 with the most wretched puns. Anticipated his approaching 
 dissolution, with due solemnity, but perfect composure. 
 Minute'y and accurately informed, to a wonderful exact- 
 ness, with respect to every fact relative to the French 
 Revolution. M. lamented, with me, Fox's strange deport- 
 ment during this tremendous crisis ; and attributed it, partly 
 to an ignorance respecting these facts and partly to a mis- 
 conception of the true character of the democratic philosophers 
 of the day, whom he confounded with the old advocates 
 for reform, with whose genuine spirit he appeared in 
 conversation totally unacquainted, ascribing the temper and 
 views imputed to them entirely to the calumny of party. 
 Idle and uninquisitive, to a remarkable degree. Burke said 
 of him, with a deep sigh, " He is made to be loved." Fox 
 said of Burke, that M. would have praised him too highly, 
 had that been possible ; but that it was not in the power of 
 man to do justice to his various and transcendent merits. 
 Declared, he would set his hand to every part of the 
 Preliminary Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations, 
 except the account of Liberty a subject which he considered 
 L l6l
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 with Burke, as purely practical, and incapable of strict 
 definition. Of Gibbon, M. neatly remarked, that he might 
 have been cut out of a corner of Burke's mind, without his 
 missing it. 
 
 It would be interesting to know who M. was. 
 Quite possibly Matthew Montagu, Elizabeth 
 Montagu (the Blue Stocking)'s nephew. 
 
 162
 
 On Epitaphs <e> o <? o 
 
 NOT long ago I was staying in a village where 
 the shortest cut to the inn lay through 
 the churchyard, and passing and repassing so 
 often I came to know the dead inhabitants of the 
 place almost better than the living. Not with 
 the penetrating knowledge of the author of 
 Spoon River Anthology that very extraordinary 
 and understanding book, but in a kindly super- 
 ficial way. Indeed, considering that they were 
 total strangers and their acquaintance not now to 
 be made by any but the followers of those 
 doughty knights of the round (or square) seance 
 table, Sir Oliver and Sir Conan, some of these 
 dead people were absurdly often in my thoughts ; 
 but that was because of their names. Such 
 names ! Many of course were no longer legible, 
 for Father Time had either obliterated them with 
 his patient finger, dipped now in lichen and now 
 in moss, or upon them his tears had fallen too 
 steadily. But many remained and some of them 
 were wonderful. Has it ever been explained why 
 163
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 the dead have more remarkable names than the 
 living ? Did any one ever meet " in the form " a 
 Lavender Wiseways ? Yet there was a Lavender 
 Wiseways lying beneath one of those stones. 
 There was her sister too, lying close beside 
 Lavinia Wiseways. Neither had married ; but 
 then how could they have performed a deed which 
 thereby lost them such distinction ! And who now 
 exchanges market greetings, with a gaitered 
 gentleman named Paradine Ebb ? Yet once 
 there was a Paradine Ebb, farmer, not such a 
 great distance from London, to shake by the 
 hand, and chat to, and buy fat stock from, and, I 
 hope, share a cordial glass with. And who but 
 if 1 continue I shall betray the village's name, and 
 that is against good manners. Too many real 
 names get into print in these inquisitive days. 
 
 It was not however of strange dead names that 
 I was thinking when I took up my pen, but of the 
 epitaphs on the tombstones, sometimes so brief 
 and simple, sometimes so long and pompous, and 
 almost always withholding everything of real 
 importance about the occupants of the narrow 
 cells beneath and almost always affecting to 
 despise the precious gift of life. Why should not 
 some one, greatly daring, go so far as to bid the 
 mason engrave a tribute to the world that is 
 being left behind ? Would that be so impious ? 
 164
 
 On Epitaphs 
 
 There is no indication that any of these dead ever 
 enjoyed a moment. 
 
 Something like this, for instance : 
 
 HERB LIBS 
 HENRY ROBINSON 
 
 WHO LIVED IN THE BELIEF AND, 
 WITH MANY FAILURES, DID HIS 
 BEST TO ACT UP TO IT THAT IF 
 YOU SPEND YOUR TIME IN TRYING 
 TO MAKE THINGS BETTER IN THIS 
 WORLD, THE NEXT CAN TAKE CARE 
 OF ITSELF. 
 
 The whole insincere suggestion of most church- 
 yards now is that life has been spent in a vale of 
 tears : a long tribulation, merely a preparation for 
 another and better world. But we know that that 
 is not usually the case, and we know that many 
 lives, although unrelated to graveyard ideas of 
 decorum and insurance, are happier than not. 
 There is in the God's Acre of which I am writing 
 more than appeal to the living to be wary of 
 earthly serenity: surely a very unfair line for the 
 dead to take and not unremindful of the fable of 
 the fox and his tail. An elaborate stone close by 
 the lych gate has a series of dreary couplets 
 warning the passer-by that the next grave to be 
 dug may be his ; and on the assumption that he is 
 being too happy he is adjured to a morbid thought- 
 I6 5
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 fulness. The dead might be kinder than that, 
 more generous, more altruistic ! I should like a 
 headstone to bear some such motto as 
 
 " DIE AND LET LIVE." 
 
 But not only do the epitaphs suggest that life 
 below is a snare ; they are by no means too 
 encouraging about the life above. The spirit they 
 proclaim is a very poor one. Nothing can make 
 death attractive ; but even if some golden-mouthed 
 advocate should arise whose eloquence half per- 
 suaded, the churchyard would beat him. The damp 
 of it, the gloom of it, the mouldiness of it, the 
 pathetic unconvincing efforts at resignation which 
 the slabs record ! We ought to be braver ; more 
 heartening to others. A rector who allowed none 
 but cheerful epitaphs would be worth his tithes. 
 
 Would there be any very impossible im- 
 propriety in such an inscription as this : 
 
 HERE LIES 
 JOHN SMITH 
 
 WHO FOUND EARTH PLEASANT AND 
 REJOICED IN ITS BEAUTIES AND EN- 
 JOYED ITS SAVOURS; WHO LOVED 
 AND WAS LOVED.; AND WHO WOULD 
 FAIN GO ON LIVING. HE DIED 
 RELUCTANTLY, BUT WISHES WELL 
 TO ALL WHO SURVIVE HIM. 
 
 CARPE DIEM. 
 1 66
 
 On Epitaphs 
 
 Reading that, the stranger would not necessarily 
 (I hope) be transformed into a detrimental 
 Hedonist. 
 
 And now and then a human foible might be 
 recorded by the stone mason without risk of 
 undermining society's foundations. When our 
 friends are dead why should we not disclose a 
 little ? Some secrets are better out. Here for 
 example : 
 
 HERB LIES 
 (in no expectation of immortality) 
 
 THOMAS BROWN 
 HE WAS NO FRIEND OF THE 
 CHURCH BUT HE PAID HIS WAY, 
 INTERFERED WITH NONE OF HIS 
 NEIGHBOURS, AND HIS WORD WAS 
 
 HIS BOND. 
 
 What would happen if Thomas Brown's friends 
 paid for such lapidary style as that ? Would the 
 world totter ? Again : 
 
 HERE LIES 
 MARY JONES 
 
 THK WIFE OF WILLIAM JONES. 
 
 HONOUR HER MEMORY, FOR SHE 
 
 WAS LENIENT WHEN HER HUSBAND 
 
 WAS IN LIQUOR. 
 
 I should also like to see memorial verses 
 beginning 
 
 Physicians sore 
 Long time 1 bore. 
 
 167
 
 On Disguise o o o o o 
 
 IT was pointed out that one of the most striking 
 novelties of the Peace Day revels was the 
 number of girls dressed as men, chiefly as soldiers 
 and sailors. Men who were dressed as women at 
 least recognizably so I did not observe, but then 
 in a crowd at night they might be more difficult 
 to detect, whereas no woman, not even Sir Vesta 
 i'illey, can be a really plausible man. The idea 
 dominating these girls was less to deceive than to 
 be hilarious, and most of them, I am sure, before 
 the evening was over, achieved genuine male 
 company. 
 
 For a man to pretend to be a woman is a less 
 savoury proposition ; but it can be done without 
 offence (as in Charley's Aunt}, and I heard the 
 other day a pleasant story of such a disguise, the 
 hero of which is a comedian of great acceptance 
 by the youthful every Christmas. This popular 
 performer laid a wager with the maitre d' hotel of 
 a famous London restaurant that some time or 
 other within the coming year he would enter the 
 1 68
 
 On Disguise 
 
 restaurant dressed as an old woman, and be served 
 with lunch as though he were an ordinary customer. 
 The maitre d' hotel, who had been maintaining that 
 men dressed as women were, at any rate in broad 
 daylight, always to be detected, accepted, and a 
 sum was fixed sufficient to make the enterprise 
 worth while, the conditions being that if the 
 disguise were penetrated the maitre d' hotel should 
 indicate the discovery by a somewhat idiomatic 
 form of words, more suitable to be applied to a 
 sham lady than a real one ; and if the actor suc- 
 ceeded he should send for the manager and thank 
 him for his lunch. Each winner would add a 
 request for the amount of the bet. 
 
 A few weeks ago the comedian won. But the 
 cream of the story is that during the year no 
 fewer than three unoffending and genuine old 
 ladies, as female as God created them, were, on 
 different occasions, more than astonished to be 
 accosted by the maitre d'hotel in the midst of 
 their meals with a triumphant and not too refined 
 catch-phrase, and to be asked for a tenner. 
 
 People look now so little at the clothes of 
 others that disguise must have become easier 
 than it was. The War brought so many strange 
 costumes into being that we stare hardly at all, 
 and at uniforms never. A man wearing a kilt, 
 leggings, and spurs might, before the War, have 
 169
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 attracted attention ; we now merely mutter, 
 "Another of those Mounted Highlanders," and 
 pass on. In fact, we look more at members of 
 the no-hat brigade than at anyone else, and at 
 them only to see if they are authentic bare-heads 
 or chance to have their hats in their hands. 
 None the less, the fun of disguise must be to 
 be exhaustively thorough. Although the prin- 
 cipal reasons for it are to assist in evading justice 
 (the criminal) and to assist in pursuing crime 
 (the detective), there are, I hope, a few whimsical 
 humorists left who take to it for its own sake or 
 to make things more possible. A dull July day 
 with a north wind, such as in 1919 was the 
 price of a divine May and June, might be 
 made quite tolerable if we masqueraded through 
 it and pulled the legs of our friends, like Sir 
 Walter Scott's friend, the lady of the " Mystifi- 
 cations." 
 
 And I am sure that it would enable us to have 
 better holidays. But we should have to be 
 thorough : it is no use dressing up as a police- 
 man and walking fast, or assuming the mien of 
 a Jewish financier and taking long steps, or 
 borrowing a scarecrow's wardrobe to beg in and 
 forgetting to supplant our natural assurance with 
 a cringe. In fact, all the real work is to come 
 after the clothes are on. You may sit in Clark- 
 I/O
 
 On Disguise 
 
 son's for a couple of hours having a beard attached 
 to your face (as I once watched a friend of mine 
 doing), but, when it is finished, you must look 
 and behave not merely like a man with a beard, 
 as he did, but like a bearded man. He came 
 away so painfully aware of a transfigured chin 
 that he collected every eye and the police began 
 to follow him merely on suspicion. 
 
 Indeed, to carry a disguise well requires un- 
 remitting concentration. The walk comes first ; 
 one would have continually to remember it. 
 Then the carriage of the hands. Dressed as a 
 curate, for example, you would give it all away 
 by strolling along with your hands in your pockets ; 
 just as if you affected to be a seller of motor-cars 
 you would fail if you had them anywhere else. 
 This need of unrelaxing thought is the reason 
 why disguise would be such a useful ally of the 
 holiday rnaker. The completest escape from 
 one's ordinary preoccupations could be obtained 
 by a resolute simulation of this kind. It is not 
 enough to go to Brighton ; that is only half a 
 holiday. But to go to Brighton as a bishop, 
 say, or a taxi-driver, an American soldier or 
 an Indian law student, and keep it up that 
 would be a total change, a vacation indeed. 
 
 171
 
 What the Sun did not see for far too 
 long <5 -o- & o o o 
 
 upon a time," said the Sun, "there 
 a meadow surrounded by a flint wall, 
 where I caused the buttercups to shine like 
 burnished gold, and where the grass was high 
 and green and as long as the pony and the 
 donkey who inhabited the meadow would allow 
 it to be. Here and there was a cowslip ; while 
 near the house were hen-coops with old hens in 
 them whose anxious heads protruded through the 
 bars querulously shouting instructions to their 
 fluffy children. 
 
 "Such," said the Sun, "was the meadow, 
 which was most interesting to me chiefly because 
 it was the playground of a small but very vigorous 
 and restless boy named Nobby, whose merry 
 inquiring face it gave me peculiar pleasure to 
 tan and to freckle. 
 
 "A small boy can do," said the Sun, "a 
 thousand things in a meadow like this, even 
 
 without the company of a donkey and a pony, 
 172
 
 What the Sun did not see 
 
 and Nobby did them all ; while his collection of 
 performing wood-lice was unique. 
 
 "But a morning came when he was absent. 
 I was shining at my best, the buttercups were 
 glowing, there was even an aeroplane manoeuvring 
 in the blue which is still, I notice, a certain 
 lure both to young and old but no Nobby. The 
 wood-lice crept about or rolled themselves into 
 balls, all unnoticed and immune. 
 
 " ' This is very odd,' I heard the pony say ; 
 ' he's never neglected us before.' 
 
 " ' Passing strange,' said the donkey, who 
 affected archaic speech. ' And on so blithe and 
 jocund a morn too.' 
 
 " So saying they resumed their everlasting 
 meal, but continually turned their eyes to the 
 garden-gate through which Nobby would have 
 to pass. I also kept my eyes wide for him ; but 
 all in vain ; and what made it more perplex- 
 ing was that Nobby's mother came in and fed 
 the chickens, and Nobby's aunt came in with a 
 rug and a book and settled down to be comfort- 
 able ; and that meant that the boy was not 
 absent on a visit to the town, because one of 
 them would have gone too. 
 
 "'That settles it,' said the donkey, who had, 
 for an ass, quite a lot of sense : ' Nobby is ill.' 
 
 "The donkey was right or approximately so, 
 173
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 as I afterwards found out. Nobby was ill. That 
 is to say, he was in bed, because that morning 
 he had sneezed not through looking up at me, 
 but for no reason at all and his mother, who 
 was a very careful mother, had at once fetched 
 the clinical thermometer and taken his tempera- 
 ture, and behold it was a hundred. So Nobby 
 was not allowed to get up, but now lay there 
 watching my rays pouring into the room, and 
 listening to the buzz of the aeroplane, and 
 longing to be out in the meadow with the 
 donkey and the pony and the wood-lice. 
 
 " That, however, would never do ; for ' It all 
 comes,' his mother had said, ' of sitting about in 
 that long grass so much, and so early in the year 
 too ' a line of argument hardly likely to appeal 
 to a small and vigorous boy who does not reckon 
 summer by dates and to whom prudence is as 
 remote as one-pound Treasury notes. 
 
 " Anyway," said the Sun, " he was paying for 
 it now, for was he not in bed and utterly sick of 
 it, while the rest of the world was out and about 
 and, warmed and cheered by me, completely 
 jolly? Moreover, he didn't feel ill. No self- 
 respecting boy would, of course, admit to feeling 
 ill ever ; but Nobby was genuinely unconscious 
 of anything wrong at all. Not, however, until his 
 temperature went down would he be allowed to 
 174
 
 What the Sun did not see 
 
 get up ; that was the verdict. But that was not 
 all. Until it came down he would be allowed 
 nothing but slops to eat. 
 
 " His mother took his temperature again before 
 lunch, and it was still a hundred ; and then at 
 about half-past four, when human beings, I 
 understand, get a little extra feverish, and it was 
 still a hundred ; and then at last came the night, 
 and Nobby went to sleep confident that to-morrow 
 would re-establish his erratic blood. 
 
 " On the morrow he woke long before anyone 
 else," said the Sun, "and sat up and saw that 
 I was shining again, without the vestige of a 
 cloud to bother me, and he felt his little body 
 to see how hot it was, and was quite sure that 
 at last he was normal again, but he couldn't tell 
 until his mother was up and about. The weary 
 hours went by, and at last she came in just 
 before breakfast with the thermometer in her 
 hand. 
 
 "'I'm certain I'm all right to-day,' I heard 
 Nobby say. ' I feel quite cool everywhere.' 
 
 " But, alas and alack," said the Sun, " he was 
 a hundred still. 
 
 " ' My poor mite ! ' his mother exclaimed, and 
 Nobby burst into tears. 
 
 " ' Mayn't I get up ? Mayn't I get up ? ' he 
 moaned ; ' I feel so frightfully fit.' But his 
 175
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 mother said no, not till the temperature had 
 gone down. You see," added the Orb of Day, 
 " when Nobbies are only-sons and those only- 
 sons' fathers are fighting the enemy, mothers 
 have to be more than commonly cautious and 
 particular. You will wonder perhaps why she 
 didn't send for the doctor, but it was for two 
 reasons, both womanly ones, and these were that 
 (a) she didn't like the locum, her own doctor being 
 also at the War, and (6) she believed in bed as 
 the best cure. 
 
 "And so all through another long day and 
 when you are vigorous and robust, like Nobby, 
 and accustomed to every kind of impulsive and 
 adventurous activity, day can be, in bed, 
 appallingly long Nobby was kept a prisoner, 
 always with his temperature at a hundred, and 
 always with nothing to bite, and growing steadily 
 more and more peevish and difficult, so much 
 so that his mother became quite happy again, 
 because it is very well known that when human 
 invalids are testy and impatient with their nurses 
 they are getting better. 
 
 "But when on the third morning, although 
 Nobby's temper had. become too terrible for 
 words, his temperature was still a hundred, his 
 mother began to be alarmed again. 'It's very 
 strange,' she said to her sister, 'but he seems
 
 What the Sun did not see 
 
 perfectly well and cool, and yet the thermometer 
 makes him still a hundred. What do you think 
 we ought to do ? ' 
 
 " Nobby's aunt, who was a wise woman, 
 although unmarried, went up and examined her 
 nephew for herself. ' He certainly looks all right 
 to me,' she said, * and he feels all right too. Do 
 you think that the thermometer might be 
 faulty ? Let me try it ; ' and with these words 
 Nobby's aunt shook the thermometer down and 
 then put it under her tongue and gave it a good 
 two minutes, and behold it said a hundred ; and 
 then Nobby's mother shook it down and tried 
 it and gave it a good two minutes, and behold 
 it said a hundred ; and the cook was a hundred 
 too, and the gardener was a hundred, and the 
 girl who came in to help was a hundred, and 
 probably the donkey would have been a hundred, 
 and the pony a hundred, if they had been tested, 
 because a hundred was the thermometer's 
 humorous idea of normal ; and so," added the 
 Sun, " Nobby's mother and aunt rushed upstairs 
 two or three at a time, having a great sense of jus- 
 tice, and pulled him out of bed and dressed him and 
 hugged him and told him to be happy once more. 
 
 " And a couple of seconds after this," said the 
 Sun, bringing the story to a close, "I saw him 
 again." 
 
 M 177
 
 The Golden Eagle o o o o 
 
 THE Prime Minister of Mirth, C.B.E., is, in 
 his songs, as a rule, more of a destructive 
 than a reassuring philosopher. Indeed, the cheer- 
 ful cynicism of one whose prosperity is invulner- 
 able may be said to be Mr. Robey's prevailing 
 characteristic on the stage. But he once sang, 
 in the person of a landlady, a song which had the 
 refrain, calculated to comfort those in less happy 
 circumstances, " It's a blessing that you never 
 miss the things you've never had." Upon the 
 respective merits of this sentiment and of 
 Tennyson's famous dictum ""Pis better to have 
 loved and lost Than never to have loved at all " 
 much might be said in discussion, although the 
 two statements are not antagonistic ; but at the 
 moment, thinking of my poor friend the Golden 
 Eagle, I vote wholly for Mr. Robey's optimism. 
 It is a blessing that we never miss the things we've 
 never had, and, conversely, it is a real calamity 
 to lose something and be unable to forget it or to 
 cease to regret it. In other words, it is better 
 I 7 8
 
 The Golden Eagle 
 
 not to have had a treasure than, being parted 
 from it, to be eternally wistful. Better, that is, 
 for unwilling auditors of the tragedy. 
 So much for prelude. 
 
 It is a hard thing to be credited with power 
 that one does not possess and have to disappoint 
 a simple soul who is relying on one's help. 
 That is a general proposition, but I was reminded 
 of the Golden Eagle and a particular application 
 of it by the remark which some one dropped the 
 other day about Baedeker. "Shall those of us 
 who have kept our Baedekers have the courage 
 to carry them ? " she asked ; and instantly my 
 mind flew to a certain Italian city and the host 
 of the Aquila d' Oro. 
 
 Never can any guest in a hotel have received so 
 much attention from the host as I did in the few 
 days of my sojourn with him before I could bring 
 myself to change to another. And not only from 
 the host, but from every one on the staff, who 
 bent earnest glances on me from morning till 
 night. The Golden Eagle himself, however, did 
 more than that : he buttonholed me. He was 
 always somewhere near the door when I went out 
 and again when I came in : a large, flabby Italian, 
 usually in his shirt sleeves and wearing the loose 
 slippers that strike such dismay into British 
 travellers. " No foreigner," said an acute young 
 179
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 observer to me recently, " ever has a good dog ; " 
 not less true is it that no Latin is ever soundly 
 shod. But the Golden Eagle was not exactly 
 slovenly ; he owed it to his hotel not to be that ; 
 he was merely a vigilant padrone eternally con- 
 cerned with his business. 
 
 Although there were other people staying 
 under his roof, and they had better rooms than I 
 and drank a better wine, it was I at whom he 
 made this set. It was I for whom he waited and 
 upon whom his great melancholy eyes rested so 
 wistfully. For he was a Golden Eagle with a 
 grievance, and I, in whose bedroom he had been 
 asked to place a writing-table, I, who never went 
 out without a note-book and who bought so many 
 photographs, I, who so obviously was engaged in 
 studying the city, no doubt for the purposes of a 
 book, I it was who beyond question was in a 
 position, by removing that grievance, to restore 
 him to prosperity and placidity again. 
 
 And his grievance ? The melancholy stamped 
 upon that vast white countenance, although 
 much of it was temperamental and you might 
 say national (for the Italian features in repose 
 suggest disillusionment and fatalism far oftener 
 than light-heartedness), and the dejection in the 
 great shoulders, were due to the same cause. 
 Baedeker, after years of honourable mention of 
 1 80
 
 The Golden Eagle 
 
 the Aquila d' Oro among the hotels of the city, 
 had suddenly, in the last edition, removed the 
 asterisk against the name. The Golden Eagle 
 had lost his star. Now you see the connexion 
 between this pathetic innkeeper (the last man in 
 the world to call Boniface) and our triumphant 
 lion comique and the late Lord Tennyson. But in 
 his case it was not better, either for him or me, 
 that he had lost what he had loved. It would 
 have been better, both for him and for me, if he 
 had never had a star. 
 
 Why it had been taken from him he had no 
 notion. He had always done his best ; his wife 
 had done her best ; people were satisfied and 
 came again ; but the star had gone. Was not his 
 hotel clean ? The linen was soft, the attendance 
 was good. He himself as I could perceive, 
 could I not? never rested, nor did his wife. 
 They personally superintended all. They spared 
 nothing for the comfort of the house. Foolish 
 innkeepers no doubt existed who were cheese- 
 parers, but not he. He knew that wherever else 
 economy was wise, it was not in the dining-room. 
 Were not the meals generous and diversified? 
 Could I name a more abundant collazione at 
 4 lire or a better pranso at 5 ? Or served with 
 more despatch ? Was not his wine sound and far 
 from dear ?
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 And yet, four years ago, out of a clear sky, and 
 all inexplicably, the star had gone from his hotel. 
 It was monstrous, an outrage. Four years ago 
 suddenly, for no cause. 
 
 When he had looked at the new edition of 
 Baedeker which a visitor had left about and saw 
 it, he could not believe his eyes. He had called 
 his wife every one : they also were incredulous. 
 It was like a thunderbolt, an earthquake. After 
 all their hard work too, their desire to please, 
 their regular customers, so contented, who came 
 again and again. Was not that the test that 
 they came again and again ? Obviously then 
 the guide-book was wrong, guilty of a wicked 
 injustice. 
 
 What did he think could have happened ? All 
 he could suppose was that one of Herr Baedeker's 
 agents, staying there incognito, had had some 
 piece of bad fortune ; some accident of the 
 kitchen impossible to prevent, but isolated, had 
 occurred and he had taken offence. But how 
 unfair! No one should judge by a single lapse. 
 So many rivals still with stars and he without ! 
 
 Thus would the Golden Eagle complain, day 
 after day, during my sojourn, always ending with 
 the assurance that I would help him to get the 
 star back, would I not? I who had such 
 influence ? 
 
 182
 
 The Golden Eagle 
 
 And now there is to be, I suppose, a new 
 system of guide-book astronomy. If the Golden 
 Eagle has survived the War he may, in the eclipse 
 of Baedeker, be more resigned to his lot : the 
 substitute for that travelling companion may 
 confer a star of his own. But I do not propose 
 to stay with him in order to make sure. 
 
 183
 
 The World Remedial o o ^> 
 
 T OHN STUART MILL'S fear that the notes 
 I of the piano might be used up and tunes give 
 out is as nothing to mine that a time must come 
 when there will be no more whimsical literature 
 in the old book shops for these eyes to alight 
 upon. Meanwhile, to renew my confidence, a 
 friend sends me The Compleat English Physician, 
 or the Druggist's Shop Opened (" the like not 
 hitherto extant") by William Salmon, who dates 
 his preface " From my house at the Blew Ball 
 by the Ditch-side near Holborn Bridge, London, 
 May 5, 1693." In this exhaustive work the 
 whole of creation, animal, vegetable, and mineral, 
 is levied upon for cures for human ills, any of 
 which are, in the dedication, offered by the 
 author to the Most Serene and Illustrious 
 Princess Mary II., if she feels herself to be in 
 need of physic and will -lay her commands upon 
 him. 
 
 According to The Dictionary of National Bio- 
 graphy, which, however, does not mention this 
 184
 
 The World Remedial 
 
 particular book, William Salmon was born in 
 1644, and was educated by a mountebank. After 
 a certain amount of travel, he settled in London 
 as an irregular practitioner, with pills for every- 
 thing and horoscopes to boot. The suggestion, 
 made in his lifetime, that he himself did not 
 amass the lore that is found in his many and 
 copious volumes, but was merely an amanuensis, 
 has the Dictionary's support ; but in the preface 
 to The Compleat English Physician, Salmon is very 
 tart and coarse and emphatic about it with one 
 of his detractors (" the nasty author of an im- 
 pertinent and scurrilous pamphlet "), claiming to 
 have had thirty years' experience of practical 
 pharmacy. But he must have borrowed too, for 
 thirty years, even with a ten-hours' day, could 
 not have sufficed to gather a tenth of the 
 mysteries contained in this astonishing work. 
 
 Although it is exclusively medical, Salmon 
 incidentally hits upon as deadly a formula for 
 anti-social satire as could be imagined, beyond 
 even Swift. Not all the malignity of Gullivers 
 Travels is so powei*ful to remove the divine from 
 man as this empiric's simple inclusion of him 
 among the animals. Book V. is entitled "Of 
 Man and Beasts," and it begins thus: "Chapter 
 i. Homo, Man & Woman. . . . They are the 
 general inhabitants of the Universal Globe of 
 185
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 the Earth and their food is made of Grain, Pulse, 
 Fruits, Flowers, Roots, Herbs, and the flesh of 
 Beasts, Fowl, Fishes, Insects, etc." Salmon then 
 goes on to enumerate the maladies that the 
 various parts of man (and woman) are good for. 
 His hair, converted to ashes and powdered, will 
 cure the Green Sickness and other disorders too 
 elementary to name. Made in to an oil it will ease 
 pains caused by a cold and cause new hair to 
 grow on bald places. The rest of him and of 
 her (I could not possibly go into details this 
 being not a medical journal and the date being 
 1919 instead of 1693) is also, either as powder, 
 volatile oil, spirit, essence, salt, magistry, or 
 balsam, beneficial in a vast number of troubles. 
 It is an ironical and exasperating thought that 
 we carry about in our bodies the cures for all 
 the ills that those bodies suffer from. 
 
 In most of the sciences the professors of the 
 day know more than their predecessors of 
 yesterday. Knowledge accumulates. But, after 
 dipping into Salmon's twelve-hundred pages, 
 one sighs with relief that the healing art has, 
 since 1693, become comparatively so simple; and 
 in sending for a doctor we thank God for his 
 modern incompleteness.. For in Salmon's day, in 
 the pride of completion, the medical man might 
 have dosed us with our nearest dead neighbour. 
 1 86
 
 The World Remedial 
 
 Having completed the examination of man as 
 a treasury of restoratives, Salmon passes. on to 
 Alces, the Elk ; Antilopus, the Antelope ; and 
 Asinus, the Ass. All the beasts are therapeuti- 
 cally useful to man, but few more so than Asinus, 
 the Ass. Howsoever valuable a living donkey may 
 be, he cannot compare with the versatility of a 
 donkey defunct when resolved into drugs. 
 Equus, the Horse ; Capra, the Goat ; and Cerco- 
 pithecus, the Monkey, are also each a well- 
 stocked chemist's shop. In fact, nothing that 
 moves, whether on four legs or two, fails to 
 yield up a potent elixir ; but to find man among 
 them is the shock. Right and proper enough 
 that the Lord of Creation should extract lotions 
 and potions for his ailments from his soulless 
 inferiors ; but not from himself. That is a 
 lowering thought. 
 
 The birds of the air too. Thus, the flesh of 
 Alauda, the Lark, will ease the cholick : a thing 
 to remember at Ye Old Cheshire Cheese. Alcedo, 
 the Kingfisher, reduced to powder and mixed 
 with powder made from a man's skull, and a little 
 salt of amber, is excellent against the epilepsy. 
 A number of swallows beaten to pieces in a 
 mortar (terrible thought !) produce a residuum 
 that will prevent the falling sickness. For re- 
 storing a lost memory the heart of Hirundo, the 
 I8 7
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 Swallow, to which the filings of a man's skull 
 (Mr. Pelman's, for choice ?) and dried peony 
 roots are added, is sovran. Even, the nest of 
 Hirundo, the Swallow, is of use ; made into a 
 cataplasm it not only eases a quinsie, but will 
 cure the bite of a serpent. Nor are the fragile 
 systems of Rubecula, the Robin Redbreast, and 
 Regulus, the Wren (shade of Blake !), without 
 medicinal utility. The flesh of Lucinia, the 
 Nightingale, cures consumptives, while its gall 
 mixed with honey makes an excellent collyrium 
 for the eyes ; but singing-birds surely should be 
 exempted from active service under druggists. 
 " Yet " (you say) " if the nightingale cures con- 
 sumption, it might have cured Keats." True, 
 but had Keats accepted that remedy he would 
 not have been Keats. 
 
 It is when writing of Lucinia, the Nightingale, 
 that Salmon interpolates a remark wholly 
 gratuitous which gives him a place apart among 
 authors. He perpetrates a curiosity of literature : 
 the most unpoetical thing ever written. " A Mr. 
 Wilkinson, a clergyman," is merely the least 
 poetical line in poetry ; but to say that Lucinia, 
 the Nightingale, " grows fat in autumn," is posi- 
 tively to undo magic. 
 
 188
 
 Distrust of Man 
 
 WHILE much, of late, in the company of a 
 colt aged seven days, I have been equally 
 struck by its maturity the preparedness of so 
 tender an infant for this great world and by its 
 fearlessness. Not exactly fearlessness perhaps, 
 but want of caution and shyness, a readiness or 
 even eagerness for human company. The ordinary 
 process, so disheartening to those who make 
 advances, of gradually coaxing and wooing a horse 
 to be sociable extending the hand, only to see 
 the beautiful head farther and farther withdrawn 
 is reversed by this babe and suckling, who 
 comes galloping up on its absurd rickety stilts 
 directly any member of the household appears at 
 the paddock gate, and sees around it (save for flies) 
 only a universe of friends. Why, I ask myself, 
 should time transform this trust into suspicion ? 
 Man will do nothing to assist that process ; no one 
 whom the colt will see for months and months 
 will be anything but kind, but gradually a gulf 
 between it and human beings will open and widen. 
 189
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 It will become a horse : that is to say, a 
 powerful alien, with a will of its own ; with 
 feet of iron and a tendency to set them down 
 carelessly ; with startled eyes in which the fire of 
 panic or even frenzy seems ever alert to flare up ; 
 and a constant and disquieting hostile restiveness : 
 in short, a monster of which, unless one has been 
 born and bred in the stable, one must be very 
 wary. That is what this little, engaging, frolic- 
 some foal is going to become : possibly even that 
 most terrifying thing on earth, a policeman's 
 charger keeping back an angry mob. 
 
 But whatever it grows into, this is undeniable : 
 that, excepting possibly for one person, its 
 attendant, it will shrink from the caress even of 
 the least nervous and most admiring of hippophils. 
 Why, after such an infancy of affection, should 
 this be ? 
 
 I have been recently also on visiting terms with 
 a Jersey calf of a few weeks' age, and here again I 
 have met with confidence. It has not capered 
 into sociability as the little horse does, but it has 
 not resented the caressing touch ; whereas it is 
 with difficulty that one can induce its mother to 
 allow any ingratiation. Yet that mother, when 
 a calf, was without misgivings. Where, I ask, is 
 suspicion bred ? What can happen on a wholly 
 amicable estate, where the four-footed animals 
 190
 
 Distrust of Man 
 
 are treated with certainly no less consideration 
 than the assistants, to set up a feeling of doubt 
 as to the intentions of the approaching biped ? 
 
 The secret, I suppose, resides in heredity. 
 Horses and cattle once were wild, and as such 
 were afraid of the superior animal whose one 
 desire was to catch them and tame them. 
 Centuries of captivity have not extinguished the 
 ancient sparks. Dogs, it is true, also once were 
 wild ; but with their tameness they did not lose 
 the privileges of liberty as those others do. 
 
 Of what inner fears these little creatures are 
 the prey we cannot of course know ; but the 
 progress of the human child, as regards subjective 
 terrors, is surely the opposite of the colt's and the 
 calf s, as regards those that are objective, for we 
 grow out of them rather than into them. The 
 child who, at night, when sent upstairs on some 
 errand, comes down again like a whirlwind, white 
 with fright, to escape an imaginary pursuer, finds 
 as experience comes that that foe does not exist ; 
 and gradually the dark ceases to be dreadful. It 
 is a pity that equine and bovine children cannot 
 develop on similar lines. 
 
 Not that I am particularly anxious to cultivate 
 relations with cows or bullocks : they are un- 
 comfortable animals at the best and it is im- 
 possible to look upon horns as anything but 
 191
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 non-conductors of sympathy. But horses I am 
 honestly prepared to adore, and it is mortifying 
 to find them so unwilling to be patted and 
 petted. A horse's beauty demands the tribute 
 of touch ; but one is so rarely permitted to 
 give it. 
 
 192
 
 Broken English o *> o *> 
 
 TWO examples of broken English have 
 recently fallen upon my grateful ear both 
 from the lips of door-keepers of restaurants. 
 
 The first touched upon an untimely, although 
 welcome, heat-wave. 
 
 "It is/' I remarked with an affability equalled 
 only by want of originality, " almost too 
 warm." 
 
 "Yes," the porter replied ; "ze 'ot, 'e come all 
 in one." 
 
 On the second occasion I was waiting for a 
 guest who was late. It is an old habit of mine, 
 and nothing seems to break it. After a while I 
 commented, pleasantly, to the door-keeper on 
 the tendency of the fair sex to be behind time. 
 
 He laughed the light, easy laugh of one who 
 has deep intimacy with the world we live in. 
 "Ladies always late," he said; "always make 
 themselves wish and desire for." 
 
 However faulty in construction, both those 
 N 193
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 phrases are epigrammatic. I should not go so far 
 as to say they could not be improved upon, yet 
 it would be difficult to make them more vivid. 
 To endow the heat with gender is assuredly to 
 add to its reality : a blast from Vulcan's furnace, 
 for example ; while the remark about the tarrying 
 ladies enshrines a great verity such as restaurant 
 door-keepers are perhaps better fitted to under- 
 stand than most of us. At any rate, if a restaurant 
 door-keeper does not learn such things, who can ? 
 Both phrases also show that neither speaker, after 
 I know not how many years in England, is yet 
 making any effort to talk English, but is content 
 to clothe his own native thoughts in the most 
 adequate English apparel that he can collect ; 
 just as I, for one, never have done in France 
 other than translate more or less faithfully my 
 English sentences into French. As for talking 
 French never ! No such good fortune. But I 
 am quite sure that, however amusing my blunders 
 have been, no one has ever thought them 
 epigrammatic, because the English syntax does 
 not automatically tend to witty compression as 
 the French does. 
 
 With Baboo broken English we have long 
 
 been familiar. Whole books have been devoted 
 
 to its exploitation ; but the supply is continuous 
 
 and something new is ever emerging from India. 
 
 194
 
 Broken English 
 
 Here is a recent effort by a Calcutta student in 
 search of pleasure. Writing to a firm of job- 
 masters in that city, he says : 
 
 DEAR SIR, It is to approach you for a kind considera- 
 tion. I am a student. I want a carriage either a tandaum 
 or a phaeton for evening drive now and then but not every- 
 day. It is to know from you whether you allow your car- 
 riages to be engaged for part of a day say from 5 to 9 or 10 
 in the evening and if the answer be in the affirmative at what 
 rate you do so. If you have no such rule will you be kind 
 enough to consider the case of a young man who wants a 
 carriage for joy-driving. It rests solely with you and be 
 good and kind enough to grant him what he wants. As 
 regards charges in the first instance let me tell you and which 
 you perhaps know thoroughly well that the student is generally 
 poor but merry, the best for him is to have it free of any 
 charge and if such cannot be the case, be kind enough to 
 let me know what least you can charge him for the same. 
 I shall inform you by phone or by a letter the date and time 
 when I shall require the carriage, you will send it with your 
 syce and at the end of every month I shall pay off the bill. 
 I know driving but not very nicely ; and if you kindly grant 
 me my humble prayer you may send me a nice and well 
 trained horse and I shall do well with it. In a month's 
 time I may require it 6 or 7 times in the evening. Now, 
 Sir, I do not know how far I have been able to express 
 fully what I wish to but I hope you have fully understood 
 what I mean and I pray you, Sir, to give it a kind considera- 
 tion and let me know of it at your earliest convenience. This 
 may seem to you like a fancy but I am sure you have under- 
 stood what I mean and desire, and again I request you to 
 grant me my humble prayer for which act of kindness I shall 
 remain ever obliging to you. Please try to give it free of 
 any charge ; this will not affect your huge business the least 
 on the other hand will provide a student with a merriest job 
 for which act he will pray to the Almighty for the prosperity 
 195
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 and good -name of the firm. You have understood what I 
 mean so kindly excuse me for the language used. Please 
 keep this secret and confidential. 
 
 A favourable reply is expected at the earliest possible con- 
 venience by Sincerely yours, 
 
 The African supplicant has now entered the 
 lists too, and there are few mails from the West 
 Coast that do not bring to a certain London 
 publishing firm appeals for catalogues and books. 
 The difference between the Baboo and the African 
 is very striking. The Baboo approaches the patron 
 almost on his stomach, certainly with a cringe, 
 whereas the African smiles light-heartedly, baring 
 all his white teeth with cheerful confidence. 
 Here is a typical letter from a student in 
 Ashanti to the firm in question : 
 
 DEAR SIR, I am with much pleasure to indite you 
 about your name that has come to my hand with great joy. 
 On the receipt of this letter, know that I want to be one of 
 your fellow friends. You have been reported to me by a 
 friend of mine of your good attention and benevolences. My 
 openion of writing you is to say, I want to take you as my 
 favourite friend. Everything or news that may be happened 
 there at your side, I wish you to report same to me. And 
 I also shall report same to you satisfaction. Will you be 
 good enough to agree with me ? Then I hope to get few 
 lines of news from you being as you consented or discon- 
 sented. To have a friend at abroad is something that 
 delights the life. I am earnestly requested to hear from you 
 soon. I beg to detain, dear Sir, Yours truly, 
 
 Thus does another ambitious youth, also in 
 Ashanti, in whose veins the virus of English 
 196
 
 Broken English 
 
 civilization has begun to work, put his needs and 
 his hopes and his potentialities before a well- 
 known London firm of travel agents with outposts 
 all over the world : 
 
 DEAR SIRS, I have the honour most respectfully to 
 bring this before you to ask your favour to remit me down 
 per the very first outward mail steamer to send me passenger's 
 ticket so that I may run up quickly to your station and stay 
 with you, because I often hear and know that you are the 
 best trainer in the city of London. So I wish you will 
 send me ticket. I am orphan. The object which induces 
 me to write you this letter is this, I wish to be an competent 
 educated fellow, but in our Africa here there exists no better 
 school and tutor. I hope you will do my request, and may 
 this my humble letter meet you in good condition. I am 
 orphan. Awaiting your favourable reply per the next 
 steamer coming, I beg to be, Sirs, Your obedient Servant, 
 
 From China comes a specimen of English as 
 fractured with the best of motives by a Chinese 
 student. The Kaiser having been given as the 
 subject of an essay competition by the English 
 class in whatever Celestial college it happened 
 to be, some admirable documents resulted, from 
 one of which I take a few salient sentences : 
 
 The German Kaiser is not the Superior Man as deciphered 
 by the Chinese literature ; he is surely a mean fellow con- 
 taining much fraudish cunnings in his deceited heart. The 
 Superior Man is shown in the merits of excellent heart with 
 much loving kindness to all peoples ; the mean fellow is 
 displayed in the black heart of the ungenerated devils of the 
 hell with much loving kindness only to himself. . . . The 
 197
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 German Kaiser he awfully wishing to slave the people and 
 extinct the civilisations of the universe ; he destroy the 
 literature books, and the arts, and the ships, and mess the 
 people of Allies Nations together with the intermediate out- 
 standing Nations. . . . Thus it will be clearly seen by 
 whole universal globe that the German Hun Kaiser he 
 conceal much brutish iniquity in his heart, and is not fit to 
 sit in the pail of the Allies Nations including the Chinese 
 Republic. 
 
 There, again, the meaning of the writer could 
 not be made more clear by perfect prose. 
 
 And here is a Japanese jewel, which the 
 London office of a Tokio engineering house 
 received not long since : 
 
 Regarding the matter of escaping penalty for non- 
 delivery of the machine, there is a way to creep round same 
 by diplomat. We must make a statement of big strike occur 
 in our factory (of course big untrue). Please address my 
 firm in enclosed form of letter and believe this will avoid 
 penalty of case. 
 
 As Mr. B. is a most religeous and competent man and 
 also heavily upright and godly it fears me that useless apply 
 for his signature. Please attach name by Yokahama office 
 making forge, but no cause to fear prison happening as this 
 is often operated by other merchants of highest integrity. 
 
 It is highest unfortunate Mr. B. so god-like and excessive 
 awkward for business purpose. I think much better add little 
 serpentlike wisdom to upright manhood and so found a 
 good business edifice. 
 
 From broken English to broken-hearted 
 
 English is but a step, and I have before me as 
 
 pretty an example of that piteous tongue as 
 
 short of a great and tragic poignancy could be 
 
 198
 
 Broken English 
 
 wished. It is a letter written by a little American 
 boy named Arthur Severn Mead to his parents 
 from his first school. 
 
 MY MOST DEAREST FATHER AND MOTHER, I am 
 very sick and I want to come home. 
 
 O dearest father and mother I know that you wont refuse 
 me. I have a very bad headache. I dont eat anything nor 
 I dont sleep any. I lay awake every night thinking of home 
 and you dearest father and mother. 
 
 dearest father and mother wilt thou father let me come 
 home. 
 
 1 cannot live here. I am crying all the time. 
 
 I will take it out of my money and will work for you all 
 the time. 
 
 My most dearest mother I was opening my trunk today 
 and I found those candys you put in and O dearest mother 
 how I thank you 
 
 dearest Father and Mother I pray for you every night 
 and morning and I pray to Him that you will let me come 
 home and I know that thou wilt say "yes." 
 
 1 cannot go to school because I am so sick. O dearest 
 father and mother I will love you so much and I will never 
 worry you any more and I will be a better boy if you will 
 only say yes. 
 
 Dearest father and mother I cannot live here. O do let 
 me come home. 
 
 Write now dearest father and mother and say yes. 
 
 I send my love to all. 
 
 Good bye. From your loving son 
 
 ARTHUR 
 Say yes dearest Father and Mother. 
 
 I 99
 
 Telephonies o o o 
 
 AFTER fighting against bondage for years I 
 am now a slave : I have a telephone. 
 
 Although the advantages are many, it means 
 that I have lost the purest and rarest of life's 
 pleasures which was to ring up from a three- 
 pence-in-the-slot call-office (as I continually had 
 to do) and not be asked for the money. This, in 
 many years, has happeued to me twice ; and only 
 last week I met a very rich man who is normally 
 of a gloomy cast, across whose features played a 
 smile brilliant with triumph, for it also had just 
 happened to him. 
 
 On the other hand, thi-ough having a telephone 
 of my own I now escape one of the commonest 
 and most tiresome of life's irritations which is 
 to wait outside one of these call-offices while the 
 person inside is carrying on a conversation that 
 is not only unnecessary and frivolous, but unend- 
 ing. In London these offices are used both by 
 men and women ; but in the suburbs by women 
 only, who may be thought to be romantically 
 ?00
 
 Telephonies 
 
 engaged but really are reminding their husbands 
 not to forget the fish. The possession of a tele- 
 phone of one's own, however, does not, in an 
 imperfect world, put an end to the ordeal of 
 waiting. If ever a fairy godmother appeared to 
 me (but after all these years of postponement I 
 can hardly hope for her) with the usual offer of a 
 granted wish, I should think long before I hit upon 
 anything better to ask for than the restoration of 
 all the time I had spent with my own telephone 
 at my ear, waiting to be answered. The ordinary 
 delays can be long enough, but for true foretastes 
 of eternity you must sit at the instrument while 
 some one is being fetched from a distant part of 
 the building. This is a foretaste not only ol 
 eternity but of perdition, for there is nothing to 
 do ; and to have nothing to do is to be damned. 
 If you had a book by you, you could not 
 read it, for your thoughts are not free to 
 wander ; all that you are mentally capable of is 
 to speculate on the progress of the messenger 
 to the person who is wanted, upstairs or down, 
 the present occupation of the person who is 
 wanted, and the probable stage of his journey to 
 the receiver. In this employment, minutes, 
 hours, days, weeks even, seem to drag their 
 reluctant length along. 
 
 You can imagine also the attitude of the person 
 2O I
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 who is sent for. For the telephone, common as 
 it now is, is still associated with importance. At 
 any rate, I notice that men called to it by page 
 boys in restaurants and hotels have a special gait 
 of importance proper to the occasion. 
 
 The possession of a telephone, no doubt, now 
 and then simplifies life ; but its complications are 
 too many, even if you adopt the sound rule to be 
 more rung against than ringing. One is the per- 
 plexity incident to delays and misunderstandings, 
 and, above all, as to the constitution of Exchanges. 
 We all, I suppose, have our own idea as to what 
 they are like, whether it be Gerrard, Central, or 
 Pad. There must at one time or other have been 
 photographs in the Strand Magazine ; but I missed 
 them, and, therefore, decline on a vague vision 
 of machinery and wire-eared ladies. A friend is 
 more definite: "A large building," he describes 
 it, " like Olympus, the roof lost in darkness, and 
 pallid women moving about, spinning tops and 
 blowing penny trumpets." To me, as I have 
 suggested, there is more of Tartarus than Olympus 
 about it. A sufficient hell, indeed, for any mis- 
 spent life, to be continually calling up numbers, 
 and continually being met with the saddest words 
 that are known to men : " Number engaged." 
 
 I want to understand the whole telephone 
 system. I want to know how the operators all 
 2O2
 
 Telephonies 
 
 get to speak exactly alike. Women can be very 
 imitative, I am aware : the chorus girl's transition 
 from Brixton to the Savoy can be as natural as 
 the passage of dusk to dawn, and a change of 
 accent is usually a part of the phenomenon ; but 
 it is astonishing how the operators of the different 
 Exchanges resemble each other. They cannot 
 all be one and the same. Miraculous as is every- 
 thing connected with the telephone talking 
 quietly over wires that thread the earth beneath 
 the busiest and noisiest of pavements in the 
 world is sufficiently magical it would be a shade 
 too marvellpus for one operator to be everywhere 
 at once. Therefore, there must be many. Is 
 there, then, a school of elocution, where instruc- 
 tion in the most refined form of speech ever 
 known is imparted, together with lessons in the 
 trilling of the letter R ? Why should they all 
 say " No replay," when they mean "No reply''? 
 And how do they talk at home ? It must be 
 terrible for their relations if they don't come 
 down a peg or two there. The joy with which 
 we recognize a male voice at the Exchange is 
 another proof that woman does not really re- 
 present the gentler sex. 
 
 But these are by no means all the mysteries as 
 to which I crave enlightenment. I want to know 
 how the odd and alarming noises are made. 
 203
 
 The Phantom Journal 
 
 There is a tapping, as of a woodpecker with 
 delirium tremens, which at once stuns and 
 electrifies the ear. How do they do that, and 
 do they know what its effect is ? And why does 
 one sometimes hear other conversations over other 
 wires, and sometimes not ? Rarely are they 
 interesting ; but now and then . . . My pen 
 falters as I record the humiliating want of per- 
 spicacity the tragic inability to recognize a tip 
 which befell me on the morning of June 4th, 1919 
 in other words, on Derby Day : the day when 
 the art or science of vaticination experienced 
 in this country its darkest hour,, for every 
 prophet gave The Panther. To my annoyance 
 I had to listen to a long conversation between 
 what seemed to be a bookmaker and his client 
 with regard to money to be placed on Grand 
 Parade. This at the time only irritated me, but 
 afterwards, when Grand Parade had won at 33 
 to 1, and I recognized the interruption as an effort 
 of the gods on my behalf (had I but ears to hear), 
 how against my folly did I rail ! 
 
 Telephony, it is clear, both from one's own 
 experience and from reading the letters in the 
 papers, is not yet an exact science. Not, that is, 
 in real life ; although on the stage and in American 
 detective novels it seems to be perfect. The 
 actor lifts the receiver, mentions the number, and 
 204
 
 Telephonies 
 
 begins instantly to talk. If he is on the film his 
 lips move like burning rubber and his mouth 
 becomes a shifting cavern. Do the rank and file 
 of us, I wonder, when telephoning, thus grimace 1 
 I must fix up a mirror and see. 
 
 There are many good telephone stories. The 
 best that I know is told of a journalist with a 
 somewhat hypertrophied bump of reverence for 
 worldly success, whose employer is a peer. We 
 will call the employer Lord Forthestait and the 
 journalist Mr. Blank. A number of the staff 
 were talking together, in one of the rooms of 
 the newspaper, when the telephone rang. 
 
 "You're wanted at the 'phone, Mr. Blank," 
 said the clerk. 
 
 Blank, who was just going out to lunch, came 
 back impatiently and snatched at the instrument. 
 
 " Yes, what is it ? " he snapped out. 
 
 " Is that Blank ? " came back the reply. " Lord 
 Forthestait speaking." 
 
 "Yes, my lord," said Blank, with the meekest 
 deference, removing his hat. 
 
 205
 
 Note <> o o o o o 
 
 SUCH of the foregoing essays and diversions 
 as are not new are reprinted from Punch, 
 Land and Water, The Sphere, The Outlook, The 
 King's Highway, and The Daily Express. All 
 have been revised, and often extended, for the 
 present volume. 
 
 E. V. L. 
 
 September 1919. 
 
 207
 
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