Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN

 
 INDOLENT IMPRESSIONS 
 
 a
 
 Digby's Popular Novel Series 
 
 Crown Zvo, handsome cloth, price v.s. 6d. per Voi 
 
 Each Book contains 320 //., and is printed 
 
 on superior paper from new type. 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF CLEMENT DUNEAVEN 
 By JEAN MIDDLEMASS. Author of 'A 
 Girl in a Thousand.' &c. [Third Edition 
 
 A HIDDEN CHAIN. By DORA RUSSELL. 
 Author of ' The Other Bond,' ' Footprints in 
 the Snow,' &c. [Third Edition. 
 
 DR JANET OF HARLEY STREET. By Dr 
 
 ARABELLA KEN EALY. Author of ' Some 
 Men are such Gentlemen,' &c. 
 
 [Sixth Edition viith Portrait. 
 
 THE JOLLY ROGER. By HUME NISBET. 
 Author of ' Her Loving Slave,' ' Bail Up,' 
 &c. With Illustrations by the Author. 
 
 [Fifth Edition. 
 
 ** Other Works in same Series in due course. 
 DIGBY, LONG & CO., LONDON
 
 INDOLENT I 
 
 IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Sfcetcbes in Xigbt ant) Sbafce 
 
 BY 
 
 FRED. W. WAITHMAN 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DIGBY, LONG & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 18 BOUVERIE STREET, FLEET STREET, B.C. 
 
 1895 
 
 All Rights reserved
 
 CLEMENT SCOTT 
 
 THESE SKETCHES ABB (BY PEKMISSION) 
 
 IN REMEMBRANCE OP THE FLOWERS OF "BLOSSOM LAND," 
 
 AND IN ADMIRATION OF HIS LABOURS ON 
 
 BEHALF OF THE ENGLISH 
 
 STAGE
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Disadvantages of Respectability, 1 
 
 The Morning Kiss, 7 
 
 Having a Drink, 14 
 
 Domestic Nuisances, . ....... 20 
 
 Love, 29 
 
 Memory, .......... 36 
 
 Amateur Tipsters, 43 
 
 Shabby Gentility, 51 
 
 The Drama of Legs, 60 
 
 Domestic Music, 70 
 
 Pictorial Advertisements, ....... 77 
 
 Breach of Promise, ........ 86 
 
 Forgetfulness, 95 
 
 Holidays and Holiday-Makers 102 
 
 Inadequate Salaries, .111 
 
 Going on to the Stage, 119 
 
 Backing Horses, 127 
 
 Wasted Time, 135 
 
 Married Life, 141 
 
 Picture Galleries, '. . .146 
 
 Fads and Faddists, 156 
 
 The Weather, . 166 
 
 People Who want to know, . . . . . . .175 
 
 Pantomimes, 185 
 
 Sympathy, 194 
 
 Dreams, 198 
 
 Sleep ? An Allegory, . . . . . . ~ . ? . 204
 
 THE DISADVANTAGES OF 
 EESPECTABILITY. 
 
 THERE are few people in this world, out- 
 side the criminal classes, but have at some 
 period of their lives felt a desire to enter 
 that portion of society at large labelled 
 " respectable." But many having got there 
 after a hard struggle, have not unfrequently 
 wished themselves well out of the thraldom 
 imposed upon the not too wealthy members 
 of the respectable portion of the great 
 middle-class community of the British Isles. 
 Respectability on a limited income is 
 indeed a hard and trying thing to keep up, 
 and many a man has found himself com- 
 pelled to submit to the degradation of a 
 private arrangement with his creditors from 
 no other cause than the difficulty of main- 
 taining a respectable appearance on an 
 
 A
 
 2 The Disadvantages of Respectability. 
 
 income totally inadequate to the require- 
 ments of a middle-class respectability. 
 
 Take the case of a young married man 
 holding a position as clerk in a mercantile 
 establishment of standing and repute. He 
 is expected to be respectable in appearance, 
 to turn up in the regulation costume of re- 
 spectability, and to reside in a respectable 
 quarter of the town or district in which he 
 is employed. All this is necessary to give him 
 any chance of advancement in his business ; 
 for if he once show signs of seediness or 
 necessity, he is sure to be sneered at by his 
 fellow-clerks, and passed over by his superiors. 
 
 Therefore, the semblance of respectability 
 means to him the keeping of his position 
 and the possibility of advancement. Away 
 from his employment he is still haunted by 
 the bugbear of respectability. His wife 
 and children, if he have any must be 
 respectably dressed at all seasons and times, 
 and his house must present a respectable 
 appearance outside and in.
 
 The Disadvantages of Respectability. 3 
 
 The very appearance in question will, as 
 likely as not, determine the attention or 
 inattention he will receive at the hands of 
 his medical attendant, and will also help to 
 reassure any creditor who, having to wait 
 for his money owing to illness, may call to 
 inquire about his "small account." And all 
 this has generally to be done on a salary 
 totally inadequate to the demands of re- 
 spectability. What is the result? 
 
 The discovery that respectability has the 
 most distinct and unpleasant disadvantages 
 if it be not fully backed up by an adequate 
 supply of that necessary evil money. Re- 
 spectability on a limited income means con- 
 stant anxiety and constant self-denial. It 
 means worry and inconvenience, and if many 
 a worn-out wife and wearied husband were 
 truthfully to state the cause of their 
 troubles, they would unhesitatingly answer 
 " respectability." 
 
 Respectability too frequently means pinch- 
 ing to make ends meet, contriving and ar-
 
 4 The Disadvantages of Respectability. 
 
 ranging to convince the world that you 
 are not hard-up, and a constant state of 
 false appearances before the light of re- 
 spectability's criticisms, which is, alas, too 
 often paid for when the light is off by a 
 hand-to-mouth existence of a far from 
 pleasant nature. 
 
 Not only is the small salaried clerk 
 made to feel keenly the disadvantages of 
 respectability, but others in better social 
 positions know as well as he does what a 
 thorny path the high road of respectability 
 may be. Take the vicar with a moderate 
 stipend, a family, and constant calls on his 
 purse from the varied channels of a poor 
 and crowded parish. He is expected to 
 maintain a good social position, to keep 
 his wife and children well-dressed, and to 
 give the latter an education befitting their 
 social standing and respectability. He is 
 frequently compelled to pay a curate, and 
 has to help his parish poor, and visit 
 with and receive the best society in the
 
 The Disadvantages of Respectability. 5 
 
 district of which he has spiritual charge. 
 No one knows better than this man what 
 are the disadvantages of respectability, for 
 he not only has them painfully and practi- 
 cally demonstrated by his own daily life, 
 but he comes into constant contact with 
 them in his daily round of parish duties. 
 
 Much more does his curate, with a 
 smaller stipend than the vicar, feel the 
 calls and responsibilities of respectability, 
 which cripple his desire to help his poorer 
 fellows, and compel him, too often, to think 
 seriously of how he is to make ends meet, 
 without losing caste in the social circle 
 in which he is compelled to move. 
 
 Children brought up respectably, and having 
 all done for them that is considered requisite 
 in the matter of education, have no idea 
 of the hours of anxious thought their very 
 respectability has cost their parents, but 
 many a fond father and loving mother 
 could testify to the straits they have at 
 times been put to, for the purpose of en-
 
 6 The Disadvantages of Respectability. 
 
 abling them to bring their children up in 
 due accordance with the unwritten but un- 
 deviating laws of respectability. 
 
 The atmosphere of respectability brings 
 in its train tastes and habits which add 
 considerably to the difficulties of such people 
 as are compelled to keep up the semblance 
 of it under the greatest disadvantages, and 
 there can be no doubt that the working- 
 man is, from many points of view, in a 
 happier condition than is the representative 
 of typical respectability. 
 
 For the "clodhopper" appearances have 
 no terrors. He eats, drinks, works and 
 sleeps, and provided he can get enough 
 of this world's goods to keep him out of 
 the workhouse, he is fairly well satisfied. 
 He has no fear of the opinion of respect- 
 ability, and if he be not possessed of any 
 of the advantages of that state of life, he 
 is at least not troubled with its disadvan- 
 tages, and he goes on the even tenor of his 
 way with a light pocket and a light heart.
 
 THE MORNING KISS. 
 
 THE morning kiss is not merely the meeting 
 of two mouths. It is the sign manual of 
 a lasting love. To its absence has, ere this, 
 been traced the beginning of a jealousy 
 which ended in two wrecked lives. The 
 kiss apart from the commodity supplied 
 in schools and families has long been 
 looked upon as the seal which ratifies the 
 vows of love ; and, as everybody knows, it 
 is the usual thing, on the occasion of a 
 maiden giving her heart and hand to a 
 successful wooer, for them to embrace and 
 clinch their amatory bargain with a kiss. 
 From this period the kiss becomes a recog- 
 nised institution, and the lovers would no 
 more dream of meeting or parting without 
 kissing than they would dream of discussing
 
 8 The Morning Kiss. 
 
 the proceedings of the divorce court prior 
 to the consummation of their marriage. 
 
 But it is after that ceremony has been 
 completed, and they have set out upon their 
 double-harnessed journey, that the import- 
 ance of the morning kiss begins to assert 
 itself. 
 
 The newly-made bride looks for her morn- 
 ing kiss with the same regularity that she 
 looks for the weekly supply of filthy lucre 
 wherewith she keeps the wheels of the 
 domestic machinery in working order. And 
 for a time she has no cause to complain as 
 to the receipt of it. 
 
 But in course of time the husband, with 
 no direct intention of offence, does not supply 
 it as regularly as of yore, and it is relegated 
 to the same oblivion as are many other 
 small attentions that were wont to sweeten 
 the halcyon days of courtship. 
 
 It is the old tale of familiarity, and with- 
 out knowing it, he is slowly but surely 
 sowing the seeds of mistrust and misery.
 
 The Morning Kiss. 9 
 
 Women are quick to notice the small 
 things of life, and when they come so near 
 home as to touch their own pride, they 
 soon make mountains out of what other 
 people would consider but mole-hills. 
 
 When the husband, with his head full of 
 business cares, evinces a desire to leave 
 home as early as possible in the morning 
 without the usual kiss or, on coming 
 home at night tired out, puts on his slippers 
 and, seeking solace in his pipe, sits silently 
 thinking out some commercial problem, his 
 wife imagines she is being neglected, and 
 without going straight to the point and 
 stating her grievance, falls back upon that 
 form of feminine consolation known as 
 sulking. 
 
 She does not answer her husband's ques- 
 tions in the old way, and when asked if 
 she is not well, replies with a negative 
 that carries with it all the appearances of 
 an affirmative. Her husband not unnatur- 
 ally concludes that she is out of temper
 
 io The Morning Kiss. 
 
 about something, and failing to elicit any 
 tangible cause for the effect, as likely as 
 not goes off to his club to get out of the 
 way of a brewing storm, and to ruminate 
 over the inconsistencies of womankind and 
 the difference between married life and love- 
 making. The wife meanwhile nurses her 
 secret sorrow, and they gradually drift into 
 a pair of common-place disciples of Hymen, 
 who, while not breaking out into open re- 
 bellion, feel that they are not so well suited 
 to each other as they once imagined they 
 were. 
 
 And all for the mere omission of the 
 morning kiss. 
 
 The process of drifting is an easy but 
 dangerous one, and once commenced is 
 difficult to conquer, and it is usually from 
 causes as slight as these that it is indulged 
 in by men and women who, finding them- 
 selves apathetic to what they once adored, 
 seek in fresh fields and pastures new to find 
 a pleasant antidote for their domestic banes.
 
 The Morning Kiss. 1 1 
 
 All men and women are not endowed 
 with the same natures, and the absence of 
 the morning kiss and similar attentions 
 often produces in a woman's heart a yearn- 
 ing for the love she imagines she has not 
 possessed. It is to women of this class 
 that neglect in the matter of affection is 
 so dangerous. They must be loved or 
 imagine that they are and the first sign 
 of a slumbering passion is the keynote 
 for the uprising of their souls. Love and 
 adoration they must and will have, and 
 if they find it not within the precincts of 
 their own castles, they promptly, and with 
 no thought of consequences, seek for it 
 elsewhere. They would tell you, and be- 
 lieve it to be true, that they drifted into 
 their fatal error ; but those of the world 
 who know their kind, know also that, given 
 what they desire, they do not count its 
 cost or the penalty their action carries 
 with it. They yearn to let their stifled 
 passions have full play, and if at the end
 
 1 2 The Morning Kiss. 
 
 of a brief Elysium they find the shadow 
 of unfaithfulness, they still hug to their 
 hearts the thought they have at least been 
 loved and have lived, if only to fall from 
 the heights of Olympus to the depths of 
 Hades. 
 
 Nor are women the only sinners in this 
 direction, for men are equally sensitive, and 
 many a man, who thought himself neglected 
 by his wife, has found in another's charms 
 some consolation for his wounded vanity. 
 
 Divorce court records but tell the bare 
 facts so far as they concern the law ; they 
 seldom, if ever, trace the history of the 
 family skeleton to its true source. As the 
 spring runs on until it merges into the 
 river, so do the trivialities of life provide 
 the mainspring which sets up the rift within 
 the lute, and that frequently from no 
 greater cause than the missing of the morn- 
 ing kiss. 
 
 The moral is obvious. 
 
 Men more than women should remember
 
 The Morning Kiss. 1 3 
 
 that courtesy costs nothing, and that if the 
 thoughtfulness and attention of their en- 
 gagement days were but carried into their 
 wedded life, they would have little to fear 
 from the demons of jealousy or apathy. 
 If this were carried out to the full, there 
 would be more happy homes than there 
 are, and thousands of women would worship 
 their husbands who now drag out a hope- 
 less existence instead of trying honestly to 
 do their duty in the sphere of life to 
 which it has pleased God to call them.
 
 HAVING A DRINK. 
 
 THE convivial operation known as "having 
 a drink " is one of the most popular customs 
 of this, our Island of England, and if it 
 were only carried out in a reasonable and 
 rational manner it would be one of the 
 pleasantest. But it is not; as many a man 
 can testify to his sorrow, especially when 
 he wakes up "next morning" with a 
 parched throat and a head three sizes too 
 large for his hat. 
 
 It is when this feeling comes over him 
 that the average man begins to moralise, 
 and it is strange how confoundedly moral 
 he generally is "next morning." When 
 he comes to reflect how many drinks he 
 consumed during the progress of the day 
 before, he usually arrives at the conclusion 
 
 that the game is not worth the candle, 
 
 14
 
 Having a Drink. 1 5 
 
 and that from thence he will, to use a 
 vulgarism, " chuck it up " and reform. 
 And he means it, but the flesh is weak 
 and the spirits of the night before were 
 strong, and as strength invariably over- 
 comes weakness, he decides to "treat 
 resolution" with "just one" to pull him- 
 self together prior to commencing his walk 
 along the trying path of temperance or 
 teetotalism. But the primrose path of 
 dalliance is a tempting thoroughfare, and 
 has ere this lured men on when they knew 
 in their heart of hearts that they ought to 
 stick to the road of resolution. He has 
 one drink and tackles it with a firmness of 
 resolution and an unfirmness of hand that 
 look on the face of it a fair sign that he 
 means to depart from the ways of the night 
 before and give it a miss for the future. 
 
 But at this particular moment a friend 
 turns up and he feels bound, as a matter 
 of common courtesy, to ask him to "have 
 one," which he promptly does, accompany-
 
 1 6 Having a Drink. 
 
 ing the action by an endorsement of his 
 friend's ideas as to the folly of extensive 
 imbibing of alcoholic refreshment. Well, 
 so far, so good, but the second friend feels 
 that he cannot accept a drink without ask- 
 ing his chum to have another in return, so, 
 with emphatic remarks as to this being the 
 last one, they imbibe once more. They are 
 in no particular hurry, and do not feel 
 particularly inclined to face the cares and 
 anxieties of business so early in the morn- 
 ing, and so they sit and chat about things 
 in general, and as often as not the 
 chances of certain gee-gees in particular. 
 While this is going on certain other birds- 
 of-a-feather have appeared upon the scene 
 and a commiseration committee is promptly 
 formed by the suffering ones. This is the 
 beginning of the end, and the two resolute 
 reformers are gradually lured back to 
 the old paths they trod the day before. 
 Resolution is routed by companionship, and 
 conversational conviviality reigns supreme.
 
 Having a Drink. 1 7 
 
 That any sensible man goes out in the 
 morning with the deliberate intention of 
 getting inebriated is, on the face of it, 
 absurd, but that men do regularly get 
 into that condition without intention is a 
 patent fact. With these it is, as I have 
 pointed out already, companionship and 
 sociability that brings about the undesired 
 result, and so long as men have brains and 
 education so long will they seek to vary the 
 monotony of business life by the relief afforded 
 by the enticing accompaniments of a refresher. 
 
 It is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say 
 that a large percentage of ordinary business 
 is done over a morning bitter and its 
 subsequent results, and this is a point that 
 must be a source of annoyance to the rabid 
 teetotaller, who will find it an absolute 
 impossibility to put down drinking so long 
 as commerce and alcohol are combined. 
 
 There is no one more intemperate than 
 your platform teetotaller, with his sweep- 
 ing assertions and his smug hypocrisy, 
 
 B
 
 1 8 Having a Drink. 
 
 which do more harm to the cause he 
 wishes to urge than he can possibly 
 imagine. That drinking is frequently the 
 cause of misery and poverty I admit, but 
 it will never be put down by the rabid 
 railings of paid advocates. It has become 
 a custom, and if it is an evil it has to 
 some extent become a necessary one. The 
 ordinary drinker does little harm to any- 
 one but himself, and is entirely without 
 the pale of the agitator's condemnation. 
 
 The shady side of the drink question 
 is a deeper study, and cannot be treated 
 in the same way as the above examples, 
 which are types of every - day drinking 
 among average middle - class, commercial, 
 and private individuals. When it comes 
 to the case of the chronic drinker, who 
 does his imbibing on the quiet, it is 
 another matter. Drink, to him, is life 
 rapidly leading to death, it is true and he 
 could no more get on from day to day 
 without his constant "nips" than he could
 
 Having a Drink. 1 9 
 
 fly. Many cases of this sort are hereditary, 
 but there are to be found, in the seamy 
 side of life, cases where men have been 
 driven to drink by circumstances over 
 which they had no control. Faithless 
 wives, false friends, and the millstone of 
 misfortune are all things calculated to 
 drive a man to drink, and if the Elysium it 
 provides be a fatal one, it is still to him, 
 pro tern., a respite from his sorrows, and 
 dulls the powers of a wracking brain whose 
 action brings back memories of the past, 
 and heaps up shadows that he dare not 
 face. There is no reformation for this class 
 of drinkers, and when they end their miser- 
 able lives by suicide or any other means, their 
 friends can only whisper a fervent "Amen," and 
 pray to God to guard them from a similar fate. 
 There is no harm in drinking, providing 
 it be done reasonably and rationally, and 
 it is only when the alchoholic demon 
 gets possession of men, body and soul, that 
 it becomes a blot upon our civilisation.
 
 DOMESTIC NUISANCES. 
 
 THERE are many kinds and orders of 
 domestic nuisances even excluding the 
 domestic tabby (responsible for breakages 
 and disappearances of an extraordinary 
 kind), and the punctual and frequently 
 unsatisfied collector of taxes. There is, for 
 instance, a certain type of the domestic 
 slavey who possesses an unique collection 
 of original ideas eminently unsuited to her 
 position in life. This kind of nuisance 
 seems to have a notion that she ought to 
 be allowed to solve, at her employer's ex- 
 pense, the problem of how to obtain the 
 maximum amount of wages for the minimum 
 amount of labour. She has also peculiar 
 ideas as to the meaning of a specified hour 
 (at which hour she has to relinquish her 
 young man and return to the domicile 
 
 20
 
 Domestic Nuisances. 2 1 
 
 where she breaks pots and retails her woes 
 to her fellow slaveys), and fondly imagines 
 that 9 P.M. means 9.30, and 10 o'clock as 
 near 10.45 as she can with any degree of 
 safety make it. 
 
 But it is not of the nuisances of the 
 kitchen or basement that I desire to 
 speak. It is of the recreative or drawing- 
 room types that I wish to discourse. They 
 are the bete noir of people who are so placed 
 in life that they pass a certain portion of 
 their leisure time at "At Homes" and 
 domestic evening parties. Like many other 
 people in this vale of tears, they labour 
 under the fond delusion that they are, like 
 a certain well-known pen, "a boon and a 
 blessing to men " and women. But a 
 painful experience has proved they are in 
 error. They are the innocent cause of pain 
 and suffering in the bosoms of their friends 
 and enemies, who are occasionally driven to 
 do rash things in consequence of their 
 efforts.
 
 22 Domestic Nuisances. 
 
 Firstly, there is the amateur reciter, who 
 will recite pieces that have been hacked to 
 death by all sorts and conditions of elocu- 
 tionists. This nuisance appears to think 
 that people are not yet familiar with the 
 fact that a certain young party of historic 
 fame was blessed with the cognomen of 
 Norval, and that his respected sire fed sheep 
 upon the Grampian Hills. He also desires 
 to impress on the minds of the limited 
 public he appeals to, that one Horatius did 
 deeds of daring in keeping at bay the 
 Tuscan army " in the brave days of old." 
 Now, as all schoolboys and children of a 
 larger growth are as familiar with these 
 facts as he is, I cannot help thinking that 
 the reciting nuisance is, in addition to 
 inflicting pain upon innocent people, wast- 
 ing his time and energy by unnecessary 
 reiteration of fact or fiction. This nuisance 
 is a curious example of the fact that the 
 human anatomy is not at all times what it 
 should be. He invariably has trouble with
 
 Domestic Nuisances. 23 
 
 his hands and arms. He gets them into 
 the most peculiar positions, and finally, 
 after imitating the action of windmill sails, 
 and indulging in other gesticulatory efforts 
 of an equally peculiar kind, he dives his 
 hands into his trousers pockets and lays the 
 flattering unction to his soul that he has 
 overcome the difficulty of being perfectly at 
 ease. Poor deluded mortal, if he only 
 knew how awkward he looks he would take 
 a few elementary lessons in gesticulation 
 and then cease reciting altogether. But he 
 is not constructed in that manner. He be- 
 lieves he has a mission to fulfil, and he 
 will proceed upon the uneven tenor of his 
 elocutionary way without regard to the con- 
 sequences either to himself or his hearers. 
 
 Then there is that terrible nuisance, the 
 amateur tenor, who delights to announce 
 vocally his admiration for a maiden rejoic- 
 ing in the name of Sally and residing in a 
 common or garden alley. I have long had 
 my doubts as to the accuracy of Miss
 
 24 Domestic Nuisances. 
 
 Sarah's address, and have a notion that 
 the poet who sung her praises used an 
 alley for the purposes of rhyme only. Else, 
 why did he become so familiar and call the 
 lady Sally instead of Sarah. Might he not, 
 with more propriety, have written 
 
 Of all the girls that are so smart 
 There's none like pretty Sarah, 
 
 She is the darling of my heart, 
 And no maid could be fairer. 
 
 This would at least have been more polite, 
 and would also have been a sort of pallia- 
 tion for the liberty taken in publishing 
 the lady's private address. But poets have 
 no sense of the ordinary fitness of things. 
 
 But to return to the domestic tenor. 
 Whatever the failings of domestic tenors 
 may be, no one can deny that their vocal 
 aims and desires are identical. There is a 
 similarity about them which is appalling. 
 They delight to sit at the threshold of 
 their sweethearts' chambers and sigh. They 
 all want their lady-loves to "come into the 
 garden," and they are one and all wildly
 
 Domestic Nuisances. 25 
 
 anxious to fall like soldiers (I wonder how 
 a soldier really does fall ?). Then again, 
 they all have a message to send to a 
 maiden, whom, strange to say, they all 
 "loved best." Now, however laudable these 
 aims and desires may be, one is apt to be- 
 come tired of hearing of them when they 
 are trotted out on every possible occasion. 
 Domestic tenors are of various qualities, 
 and the suffering inflicted by their efforts 
 varies largely in accordance with the 
 strength or weakness of their vocal powers. 
 No amateur tenor is ever happy until he 
 has a big top note, and when he gets it, so 
 do all his friends until they are weary of 
 it. That top note is usually fatal, and is 
 the cause of the tenor's fall both musically 
 and socially. After a more than usually 
 severe dose of the tenor nuisance I have 
 often yearned for another world, where the 
 tenor did not warble and his hearers were 
 at rest. 
 
 The patience of ordinary mortals is, in
 
 26 Domestic Nuisances. 
 
 the matter of aspiring artists, long-suffer- 
 ing, but when it comes to infant prodigies, 
 even the most forbearing people are apt to 
 rebel. Infant prodigies are, without doubt, 
 the most terrible of the domestic nuisances, 
 they are exhibited whenever opportunity 
 occurs, and they attempt the most trying 
 feats of art in a manner which makes feel- 
 ing folks tremble. There is not an instru- 
 ment invented that has any terror for the 
 infant prodigy. From the pianoforte to the 
 violincello, from the cornet to the trombone 
 all are alike to him. He will try his 
 hand at anything, and I fully expect to 
 be asked out some evening for the purpose 
 of seeing some six-year-old infant emulate the 
 feats of Sandow or attempt to take down 
 the record of the last Italian fasting man. 
 A tax on prodigies would be a blessing. 
 
 A terrible nuisance is the old gentleman 
 who has a story to tell, but which, in spite 
 of the fact that he has been trying to tell it 
 regularly for the past fifteen years, he has
 
 Domestic Nuisances. 27 
 
 never completely finished. He laughs con- 
 sumedly at his own stories, thereby break- 
 ing the thread and spoiling what to him is 
 the point of his narrative. It is no use 
 trying to avoid him, for he is certain, like 
 Mephistopheles, to "have you" by-and-by. 
 He buttonholes you in a semi-confidential 
 way and whispers into your ear. He is 
 irrepressible, and as much to be avoided 
 as the Eussian influenza. 
 
 Then there is the lady pianist, a domestic 
 nuisance guaranteed to drive anyone with 
 a musical taste completely mad in the 
 shortest possible space of time. Once 
 place her in front of the pianoforte, 
 and Tennyson's brook is, in the matter 
 of running on, a fool to her. She 
 plays with an utter disregard for conse- 
 quences, and the number of correct notes 
 she plays in a piece is only equalled by 
 the number that she doesn't. She plays 
 Schumann and Chopin on the same lines, 
 and seems to take a fiendish delight in
 
 28 Domestic Nuisances. 
 
 rendering well-known compositions in such 
 a manner as to render them unrecognisable 
 to those previously familiar with them. 
 There are, I know, people who would con- 
 sider this a praiseworthy ambition. The 
 composers of the pieces might, were they 
 asked, think otherwise. She plays with a 
 boarding-school style, and has about as much 
 music in her soul as the animal that ele- 
 vated the proverbial fiddler. There is 
 usually a hum of conversation going on 
 during her performance, which produces a 
 sigh of relief at its conclusion. Whether 
 these various domestic nuisances were 
 brought into the world to exact penance 
 from sinful mortals I have never yet been 
 able to ascertain. But there is no doubt 
 that an extensive acquaintance with them 
 conduces to a sadder state of mind, and 
 many people may, after a social evening, 
 be tempted to ask, "What have I done to 
 deserve this 1 ?" a state of affairs not 
 unlikely to lead to penitential feeling.
 
 LOVE. 
 
 LOVE has been precociously described as 
 "an itching of the heart that you can't 
 get at to scratch," and there might be a 
 worse definition of the tantalising passion. 
 
 There is something about love which 
 defies description, and it seems at times to 
 revel in its very vagueness. It is the most 
 cosmopolitan of all the passions, and has 
 even less respect for persons than the law, 
 with which it occasionally brings worthy 
 people into close contact. The chawbacon 
 of the country, who giggles and smiles all 
 over his particularly open countenance 
 when he comes across his "gurl," is affected 
 in exactly the same way as the Johnnie 
 who gets what he calls "awfully dead 
 spoons dontcher know" on his last new 
 feminine fancy. You can never calculate
 
 30 Love. 
 
 on love, and the histories which pretend 
 to give the world some idea of the god of 
 love as personified by the young gentleman 
 with a plentiful supply of arrows and a 
 scarcity of apparel, one and all point to 
 the fact that he is a mischievous young 
 monkey who takes a savage delight in 
 thoroughly annoying mortals who cannot 
 "round" on him. Like a big favourite in 
 a horse race, he's always an " odds on " 
 chance. If the relative positions of the 
 parties concerned were put on record at 
 their proper rate of odds they would read 
 much as follows : 
 
 THE MATRIMONIAL STAKES. 
 
 Cupid, by Mischief, out of Spite, 9 to 4 on. 
 Johnnie, by Mash, out of Mind, 2 to 1 against. 
 Claudine, by Dead Set, out of Engagement, evens. 
 
 The principal feature of love is its un- 
 reliability. You can never rely upon it ; 
 and I venture to say that were Cupid to 
 set up an establishment for supplying 
 young men and maidens with love potions
 
 Love. 3 1 
 
 or barbed arrows at the lowest possible cash 
 terms, he would find himself in the bank- 
 ruptcy court in a very short space of time. 
 
 He does not even condescend to give 
 people time to get used to his vagaries, 
 but being, as it were, on tour, he spots 
 out some unoffending mortal, sends one of 
 his arrows into his heart and, hey presto ! 
 the mortal straightway falls in love with 
 some fair damsel whom in all probability 
 he has never seen before, and whom he 
 has as much chance of marrying as he has 
 of flying to the moon. And Cupid thinks 
 it is funny. 
 
 In the songs and ballads love is supposed 
 to be a thing to yearn for, and if the 
 things said of it were true there could not 
 be found any single patent medicine to 
 equal it. But these writers of love songs 
 do not always tell the truth ; they have 
 so much of what they call " poetic licence " 
 to go at, and if you begin to argue the 
 point with them they trot out their licence
 
 32 Love. 
 
 (for which they do not pay any fee) and 
 tell you you know nothing about love or 
 the beauties of verse. The latter assertion, 
 so far as their own productions go, is 
 generally true. 
 
 Let us take a glance at the real way 
 in which love takes hold of people as 
 opposed to the teachings of the spring 
 poets. 
 
 A young man meets a girl, say at a 
 dance. He has never seen her before, but 
 the moment that his eyes rest upon her 
 pearl-powdered cheek (in the distance) he 
 becomes aware that unless he can induce 
 her to take a permanent interest in himself 
 his life henceforth will be a blank. How 
 he arrives at this decision is a thing which 
 has never yet been solved ; sufficient for 
 the day, or night, is the evil thereof he 
 does! 
 
 Then he gets someone to introduce him 
 to her and gets a freezingly polite bow as 
 the result of his labours.
 
 Love. 33 
 
 In the old ballads he would have gone 
 down upon his knees and declared his 
 burning passion upon the spot and upon 
 the carpet. But here he only says a few 
 common-place things about the weather and 
 then leaves his lady-love. He goes home 
 and dreams about her, and when he gets 
 up he exhibits indifference as to the con- 
 tents of the breakfast-table. At business 
 he mixes up attempt at verse with com- 
 mercial correspondence, and gets into trouble 
 in consequence. Even this does not damp 
 his ardour or his love. 
 
 He knows the lady's address and spends 
 the evening lounging about in front of the 
 house with a view to catching a glimpse 
 of her through a window or of seeing her 
 shadow on the blind. So long does he 
 stay that the policeman on the beat at 
 length takes a personal interest in him, 
 and then he goes home thoroughly con- 
 vinced that the lady is in love with him 
 and that it only requires time, patience
 
 34 Love. 
 
 and opportunity for him to win her. This 
 kind of thing goes on until the lady 
 marries some one else, when her silent 
 admirer comes to the conclusion that he 
 had been badly used and takes violently 
 to liquid solace. 
 
 This is the reality of love, and the poets 
 know nothing at all about it, take my 
 word for it. The poets tell us that " love 
 that slumbers dies." Now I venture to 
 say that if love, in the form of male 
 humanity, dared to slumber when in the 
 presence of his inamorata he would be too 
 busy to die, for the lady would wake him 
 up to a proper sense of the obligations 
 due from a lover. 
 
 Love, even in its purest form, is the 
 most selfish of all the passions, and is 
 productive of jealousy and other equally 
 objectionable things. 
 
 The young man who is in love objects 
 to the object of his passion being pleasant 
 to any other Johnnie, and if the young
 
 Love. 35 
 
 man himself happens to be agreeable to 
 anyone but his special girl he may look 
 out for squalls on the first convenient 
 opportunity. If by any chance he com- 
 plains about a modest flirtation he is told 
 that he is mean and selfish, yet should 
 he follow suit he is certain to be informed 
 that he is acting dishonourably and play- 
 ing fast and loose with his lady-love's 
 affections. 
 
 Believe me, love is very pretty in the 
 abstract and in the ballads but in reality 
 it is an annoying and mischief-making 
 passion. In its earlier stages it leads to 
 spooning, thence to matrimony, and thence 
 to the divorce court. And yet people are 
 daily asking why bachelors are on the 
 increase ? As if any sensible man would 
 go out of his way to become acquainted 
 with a passion calculated to upset his 
 plans, cause him sleepless nights, and 
 materially interfere with his digestion.
 
 MEMORY. 
 
 MEMORY, broadly speaking, is a marvel- 
 lous mystery of nature, and not even the 
 cleverest scientists are able, definitely, to 
 say of what it really consists. That we 
 have what is called memory we all know, 
 that there are many people who can re- 
 member well, while others remember badly, 
 we are also aware, but what is the actual 
 process of mental storage has never yet 
 been accurately propounded. 
 
 Wonderful feats of memory are on record, 
 and it is told of some men that they could 
 read a whole column of a London daily 
 paper through once, and then repeat it 
 correctly. I have never yet come across 
 such a man, and in spite of the belief of 
 other people I decline to accept the feat as 
 
 a fact. Actors frequently are compelled to 
 
 36
 
 Memory. 37 
 
 study their parts very rapidly, but I never 
 yet met one who would undertake to 
 "collar" a column of newspaper type at 
 one reading. I have had some consider- 
 able experience of mnemonics, and my own 
 opinion is that the memory can be trained 
 and by practice improved, but I should 
 doubt it going so far as to perform such 
 a feat. 
 
 Of aids to memory there are no end, but 
 I do not think them of much value, as I 
 imagine all they teach could be acquired 
 by constant use of the memory. These 
 aids are mostly diagrammatic and require 
 the student to think of one thing for the 
 purpose of remembering another. It is 
 told of a professor of the art of mnemonics, 
 that after he had lectured on the advant- 
 ages of his system and proved that once 
 you learned it you could not forget any- 
 thing, he had to send a small boy to the 
 lecture hall after he departed to say that 
 he had forgotten his umbrella. Verb sap.
 
 38 Memory. 
 
 A form of memory that is most annoy- 
 ing is the " convenient " memory. Its 
 possessor has a happy, or unhappy, knack 
 of forgetting things he desires to ignore. 
 It is no use telling him how to im- 
 prove his memory, he will conveniently 
 forget what you tell him, and when you 
 lend him an umbrella on a wet night, you 
 may be certain that if it rains the follow- 
 ing day he will forget to return it. In 
 youth there is no phrase more familiar to 
 the ears than "Oh, I forgot." It is a 
 curious phrase, and may be generally 
 traced to two causes, the first of which 
 is a desire not to do a particular action, 
 and the second an absolute lapse of 
 memory. In either case the consequences 
 are usually unpleasant for all parties con- 
 cerned. It is a common cry that husbands 
 are lacking in mnemonic power in reference 
 to domestic commissions, and " Oh, I forgot 
 all about it " is a common sentence in the 
 castle of domesticity.
 
 Memory. 39 
 
 Without memory a large percentage of 
 life would be a blank, and much happiness 
 would be lost to thinking men and women. 
 To forget is sometimes a negative pleasure, 
 to remember is often a perfect Elysium of 
 silent joy. Memory is a convenient faculty 
 and does not, as a rule, hamper itself with 
 the unpleasant past, but only gathers into 
 its fold those things which have been part 
 and parcel of the happiest periods of de- 
 parted time. As Mr Jerome happily says, 
 " It is the brightness, not the darkness, that 
 we see when we look back. The sunshine 
 casts no shadows on the past. The road 
 that we have traversed stretches very fair 
 behind us. We do not see the sharp 
 stones. We dwell but on the roses by 
 the wayside, and the strong briars that 
 stung us are, to our distant eyes, but 
 gentle tendrils waving in the wind. God 
 be thanked that it is so that the ever- 
 lengthening chain of memory has only 
 pleasant links, and that the bitterness and
 
 40 Memory. 
 
 sorrow of to-day are smiled at on the 
 morrow." 
 
 Who is there that has not at some period 
 of life enjoyed the luxury of an hour with 
 memory, when childhood and youth have 
 come back with all the reality of their pre- 
 existence, and when the scenes and actions 
 of departed years have passed in dioramic 
 order through the cells of memory. Every 
 pleasure of the past has its secret hiding- 
 place in the mnemonic storehouse, whence 
 it creeps slily out at unexpected moments 
 to remind us of its presence and to bid 
 us remember, perchance when life seems 
 sad, that we have tasted its sweets as well 
 as its bitters. 
 
 To some people the saddest memories 
 are a pleasure, for even if the thoughts of 
 departed loved ones are tinged with grief, 
 they are ever surrounded by the remem- 
 brances of the happiness we shared with 
 them ere the old reaper gathered them into 
 his fold and rowed them solemnly across the
 
 Memory. 4 1 
 
 silent river. This is why God's Acre is 
 tended with such care, and why the last rest- 
 ing-places of the departed dear ones are strewn 
 with the floral emblems of purity and love. 
 
 Youth is full of sentimental memories, 
 and even jilted maidens store up in the 
 book and volume of their brains memories 
 of the honied words so fondly spoken by 
 their deceitful lovers. 
 
 True-hearted lovers live largely on the de- 
 lights of memory. What girl who has been 
 wooed, has not a well-filled treasure-house of 
 memories ? Each word, each action, during the 
 happy days of love-making, are religiously 
 preserved, and when circumstances prevent 
 the usual evening meeting, memory comes to 
 the rescue, and the lovers live over their last 
 meeting ; and, aided by the spur of memory, 
 weave fond thoughts of love within their 
 minds, which help to strengthen their affec- 
 tion and bring them solace for the disappoint- 
 ment resulting from their being temporarily 
 parted.
 
 42 Memory. 
 
 Even the old folks are tinged with the 
 fever of love memories, and many a tale of 
 departed pleasure is recounted by Darby 
 and Joan as they sit round the fire in the 
 autumn of life and dream of the days that 
 will never return.
 
 AMATEUR TIPSTERS. 
 
 THERE are certain things in this world 
 which are best avoided by the man who 
 desires to live a peaceful and sober life, 
 and to be free from those worries and 
 anxieties which beset sorely - tried mortals 
 in spite of their best endeavours to avoid 
 them. 
 
 Amongst these are amateur tipsters and 
 their tips. 
 
 There is no one who is so certain as a 
 man who has a tip. He knows it will come 
 off, and he tells all his friends to back it, 
 though he occasionally has sense enough 
 not to back it himself, which proves that 
 there are times when a man's common sense 
 overweighs his infatuation in spite of him- 
 self though it is perhaps fair to add that 
 he frequently refrains from "having a bit 
 
 43
 
 44 Amateur Tipsters. 
 
 on" from the important fact that he is 
 minus the "bit" to have on. 
 
 There are many types of tipsters as there 
 are many kinds of tips (though variety in 
 the matter of tips is usually but poor con- 
 solation to the backer thereof), and I will 
 touch on the salient points of one or two 
 of them from the point of view of ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Firstly, there is the fatal tipster who 
 has got what he designates " a dead snip," 
 and which invariably so he says has 
 come direct from the owner or trainer of 
 the horse he knows cannot lose the race he 
 tips it for. It has long been a mystery to 
 me why an owner or trainer should give 
 his "dead snips" to people who have no 
 connection with him, and whose interest 
 in the turf is limited to supplying accom- 
 modating bookmakers with their weekly 
 amount of loose cash, yclept "pocket 
 money." For I have noticed that the 
 purveyor of good things given him by
 
 Amateur Tipsters. 45 
 
 owners and trainers generally holds a 
 position in the world of commerce, the 
 salary attached to which could hardly be 
 considered fabulous. Yet he would give 
 you the impression that he was in the 
 secret of the great stables of the turf and 
 on familiar terms with half the leading 
 members of the Jockey Club. Where he 
 in reality gets his tips is a mystery, but 
 apparently he gets them with a regularity 
 that, if he backed them all, would speedily 
 land him in the Bankruptcy Court. But 
 as he never fails to trot out a "dead snip" 
 for every important race of the season, I 
 can only conclude that, for reasons best 
 known to himself, he does not. When he 
 does happen to back a winner he en- 
 deavours to convey the impression that 
 he has won a large stake (most likely a 
 modest half-crown would be his largest 
 stake on a race), but when he backs a 
 loser he never tells his friends of the fact* 
 but insinuates that he had a private hint,
 
 46 Amateur Tipsters. 
 
 also from an owner or trainer, at the last 
 moment that his tip was being saved for 
 something else. 
 
 Then there is the tipster who is lucky. 
 He usually commences his career by in- 
 vesting a very modest stake on a horse he 
 sees tipped in a sporting paper, which 
 manages to get first past the post. He 
 knows nothing at all about racing, but 
 having a run of luck he at once poses as 
 an authority on the turf and tells all his 
 friends and acquaintances that he is " in 
 the know," and can put them up to one 
 or two good things now and then. By 
 the time he has backed a few winners 
 he has commenced to read all the sporting 
 papers and blooms out as a tipster whose 
 information is to be respected and relied 
 upon. This tipster is not quite so danger- 
 ous as the man who claims acquaintance 
 with owners and trainers, for he usually gets 
 so mixed up by the legion of papers he reads 
 that he at length has no definite opinion as
 
 Amateur Tipsters. 47 
 
 to the winner of any particular race, but 
 goes into details as to the chances of several 
 candidates for each race and advises his 
 friends to have a bit on "both ways," 
 advice, which if followed out, hardly in- 
 creases the belief of his friends in his 
 ability as a tipster. 
 
 Another type of the amateur tipster is the 
 man, usually middle-aged, who believes in 
 form. Of all the army of amateur tipsters, 
 he is the man most to be avoided. He 
 never moves without Form at a Glance 
 in his pocket, and I verily believe he 
 attempts to increase his acumen by sleeping 
 with the sacred and much-thumbed volume 
 under his pillow. He can tell you the per- 
 formances of almost any horse on the turf, 
 and can point out on the publication of 
 the weights for a handicap which horse 
 ought to win on form, and whether any 
 horse has not been fairly handicapped on 
 its merits. To follow his tips it would be 
 necessary to have a banking account of
 
 48 Amateur Tipsters. 
 
 unlimited capacity, for it is one of his 
 great ideas that if a horse has shown form 
 it must be backed every time it runs. " It 
 is sure to win in the long run," he argues, 
 and in the "long run " backers of his tips 
 are landed on to the verge of ruin, and 
 find that when the vaunted good thing 
 does come off that they have either got 
 tired of backing it or are in such a financial 
 condition that it is not convenient to put 
 down the stake necessary to verify the 
 tipster's opinion. There is one remarkable 
 feature about this type of tipster his firm 
 and unshaken belief in his method of find- 
 ing winners. In spite of reverses which 
 would have disheartened most men, he 
 sticks to his opinion that form is the key- 
 stone to turf success, and his only regret is 
 that fortune has not enabled him to hold on 
 long enough. 
 
 A terrible type of tipster is the man who 
 is a distant relation of a jockey, and who 
 gets his tips through the medium of the
 
 Amateur Tipsters. 49 
 
 jockey's father, cousin, or brother-in-law. 
 He always impresses on you the fact that 
 his information must be reliable, because 
 the jockey who sent it is his forty-first 
 cousin, three times removed (I wonder how 
 often a cousin can remove, and yet remain 
 a relation ? ) and that he is specially 
 engaged to ride the horse he sends, and he 
 says it can't lose. Yet it not unfrequently 
 does. The peculiarity of this man's tips 
 is that they are always the horses his far- 
 removed relative is engaged to ride, and 
 who seems to be imbued with a notion that 
 if he rides a horse it must win, a notion 
 which, I regret to say, experience has 
 rudely shattered, for his position in the list 
 of winning jockeys is very nearly at the end. 
 Now, I think there is a moral to be 
 deduced from these amateur tipsters and 
 their ways, and that is that it is one of the 
 strongest weaknesses (pardon the para- 
 doxical phrase) of the human constitution 
 for men to wish to pose as authorities on
 
 50 Amateur Tipsters. 
 
 something. All men, if they are worthy 
 of the name, are possessed of a tinge of 
 ambition and a wish to dispense information 
 more or less reliable to their fellow- 
 men. They like to feel that they are 
 benefactors, and in their inmost souls the 
 amateur tipsters are, I feel certain, fully 
 convinced when they give you a tip that 
 they are doing you a genuine service. 
 They act with the most laudable motives, 
 else why should they dispense their infor- 
 mation in perfect confidence and secrecy 
 to everybody they come across ? This 
 being the case, one can only regret the 
 fatality which generally precludes their 
 efforts from resulting in permanent pecuni- 
 ary benefit to their friends and followers.
 
 SHABBY GENTILITY. 
 
 THERE is no more tantalising state of 
 existence in this vale of tears and sorrow, 
 than that known to the world as the shabby- 
 genteel. Like the proverbial drop of water 
 on the rock it has a wearing effect, a 
 tendency to make men bitter and women 
 mean. The whole atmosphere surrounding 
 the kingdom of shabby-gentility is tinged 
 with cynicism and its inmates are apt to 
 degenerate into scoffers. They always find 
 what they call Fate against them ; their 
 lives are one round of shadows, and it not 
 unfrequently happens that when the grim 
 old reaper calls for one of their fellows, the 
 careworn remnants of humanity he leaves 
 behind almost regret he had not called 
 for them and left their comrade. 
 
 Few outside the fringe of the shabby- 
 si
 
 52 Shabby Gentility. 
 
 genteel domain know the ways and manners 
 of its people. They little think of the 
 struggle life is to them especially to those 
 who in brighter scenes lived happier lives. 
 There is no house in the semi-respectable 
 back streets and bye-ways where shabby- 
 gentility resides that has not a history 
 encased within its doors. No need to 
 leave the neighbourhood if you desire to 
 hear a thrilling story or a sad romance. 
 They are all here, ready to your hand, if 
 only you can get their heroes and heroines 
 to unfold them for you. But shabby 
 gentility is proud, very proud. Close 
 clasped within hearts that beat beneath 
 its threadbare garments it keeps its secrets 
 and full often takes them with it to its 
 last home in the green churchyard, where 
 sorrow sleepeth and life's shadows cease. 
 Yet, there is some humour to be found in 
 the midst of all the sadness, some eccen- 
 tricity of character worthy the study of a 
 Dickens or a Sims. There is, for instance,
 
 Shabby Gentility. 53 
 
 the military type of shabby gentility who 
 once held a commission in Her Majesty's 
 army, and who, having retired from active 
 service and gone through a fortune left him 
 by a benevolent relative, has entered the 
 land of the shabby-genteel to eke out the 
 remainder of his days on the munificent 
 pension granted him by a not-too-grateful 
 country. He is a figure in his little world 
 and is familiarly known as "The Major." 
 He has lost his money, but he has pre- 
 served his style ; and though his clothes 
 are not of the latest, yet there is a 
 certain air of aristocracy about them 
 that never fails to have its effect 
 upon the casual observer. ' ' Once a 
 gentleman always a gentleman" is his 
 belief, and in spite all his reverses he has 
 never lost that undefinable something that 
 stamps a man of birth and breeding. He 
 may only be able to wear the simplest 
 flower in his closely-buttoned frock coat, 
 but he wears it with all the distinction
 
 54 Shabby Gentility. 
 
 with which he was wont to sport his 
 expensive button-holes in other days in 
 Regent Street or Rotten Row. The damsel 
 who supplies him with his morning bitter 
 at the hotel he frequents prizes more a 
 simple pansy from his button-hole than she 
 does the expensive roses brought her by 
 her wealthy but plebeian admirers. Yet 
 he is shabby-genteel, and he feels his 
 position acutely when by accident an old 
 friend passes him by with the stoniest of 
 smiles and the slightest inclination of a 
 wealthy head. He is considered a real good 
 sort of fellow by those who meet him in 
 the evening at the aforesaid hostelry, where 
 he tells tales of the world he once knew over 
 the cup that both cheers and also inebriates. 
 He can crack a joke with the best of them, 
 and when the laughter rings out loud and 
 long, little know his chorus of the memories 
 gnawing at his heart-strings, or of the black 
 ghosts of the dead past that rise to greet 
 him in his back room on his return to the
 
 Shabby Gentility. 55 
 
 place he has of necessity made his home. 
 They are not shabby-genteel. 
 
 Then there is the neat-figured young lady 
 who goes out about half-past eight in the 
 morning and returns within measurable 
 distance of six in the evening. She has 
 seen better days, and is now employed in 
 the not too congenial occupations attached 
 to the office of a daily governess. Her 
 pallid face, gradually decaying garments, 
 and sad smile tell of the wear and tear of 
 shabby-gentility. She was wont and that 
 not many years ago to dwell in the halls 
 of dazzling light and to receive the flattery 
 and adulation of the wealthy and the 
 aristocratic. Speculation, reckless expendi- 
 ture, and over-reaching after position in the 
 world of society ended in ruin and disgrace, 
 and the once-adored darling of the country 
 side found herself reduced to the necessity 
 of earning her own living in a world which 
 has a contempt for shabby-genteel people. 
 Her life is one daily round of drudgery, of
 
 56 Shabby Gentility. 
 
 trying to cram her stock of knowledge into 
 minds not noted for their powers of recep- 
 tivity, and of bearing patiently the im- 
 pertinences and insults of her precocious 
 pupils who, being the children of middle-class 
 opulence, are not lacking in middle-class 
 arrogance, and look upon a governess as a 
 being two or three degrees removed from a 
 housemaid or a gardener. Small wonder if 
 the girl, after a long round of such drudgery 
 as this, falls a victim to the pleading of 
 some good-looking scoundrel, and leaves the 
 haunts of shabby -gentility for what to her 
 looks like a dream of bliss, but which, alas ! 
 too often turns out to be a reality of 
 degradation. 
 
 Another type of the shabby-genteel is 
 the white-haired lawyer's clerk, who has 
 struggled for years for position and peace, 
 but who is as near his goal to-day as he 
 was thirty years ago. He is not unlike 
 the lawyers one sees on the stage ; staid, 
 respectable and poor very poor. He has
 
 Shabby Gentility. 57 
 
 a regular salary and is in the employ of a 
 firm of some note in the world. But his 
 salary is not a large one, and he is ex- 
 pected to keep up a decent appearance in 
 the interest of his employers, who never 
 think for a moment that the salary they 
 pay him must, to a man with a wife and 
 family, mean an existence and not a living. 
 He is one of those unfortunate people 
 who are too useful to make any mark in 
 the world. Anything in the ordinary 
 routine work of his office he can do, and 
 it is his misfortune to have it to do 
 on any occasion when there is a push of 
 business. He has grown up in the dingy 
 old office where he went as a youth, and 
 has pottered on in regulation fashion while 
 less able but more spasmodically brilliant 
 juniors were promoted over his head. No 
 one ever appeared to think of him being 
 promoted the place would not seem the 
 same if he were removed from his position, 
 and when he once asked for a change his
 
 58 Shabby Gentility. 
 
 employers laughed and said he was too use- 
 ful where he was and they really could not 
 think of such a thing. And so he went 
 on vegetating, earning the respect and con- 
 fidence of all about him ; but getting no 
 nearer the top of the tree than he was the 
 first day he mounted the stool he will in 
 all probability occupy until he dies. He 
 has grown so used to shabby-gentility now 
 that he would feel ill at ease if he were 
 suddenly removed to a sphere where 
 pinching and scraping to make ends meet 
 did not form part and parcel of his daily 
 life. There is not much difference in the 
 lives of those who live in this world I write 
 of. They are all occupied with the same 
 object the terrible attempt to make their 
 neighbours think they are not what they 
 are. They tend with care their garments 
 and their secrets, and try to hide both 
 from the light of day. They do not live, 
 they only exist, and few, if any, of those 
 without the pale know what an awful heart-
 
 Shabby Gentility. 59 
 
 aching business such existing is. There- 
 fore, I say to those who are well favoured 
 by Dame Fortune, do not sneer at the 
 shabby-genteel, but lend them a helping 
 hand when occasion offers, and believe me, 
 you will get more satisfaction out of the 
 action than you are ever likely to obtain 
 from the usual sneer, which has an effect 
 you do not wot of upon the lives of these 
 poor unfortunates.
 
 THE DKAMA OF LEGS. 
 
 IT has long been the firm opinion of certain 
 actors, who spend many weary months of 
 the year resting, that the British drama is 
 slowly but surely going to the dogs. Which 
 dogs are to be the recipient of the histrionic 
 property I have not yet been able to dis- 
 cover. These actors (and their name is 
 legion) will tell you, in the strict confidence 
 begotten of a soothing beverage of. a spiritu- 
 ous nature, that in their day the stage was 
 worth calling a stage, and the work they 
 did was a credit and an ornament to the 
 profession they condescended to adorn. 
 
 These grumblers belong to the heavy school 
 of acting favoured by our fathers and grand- 
 fathers, who took their drama seriously, and 
 could compare the relative methods of one 
 
 actor with another with a critical acumen 
 
 60
 
 The Drama of Legs. 61 
 
 not known to the ordinary playgoers of the 
 present day. Actors in those days were on 
 familiar terms with their auditors, and were 
 wont to discuss with them in convivial 
 fashion the merits and demerits of their 
 various performances. And in the old 
 stock days the actor's vocation was a varied 
 one. In those hard-working times the public 
 was regularly treated to what a modern 
 versifier calls 
 
 "The real legitimate and Billy Shakespeare's plays," 
 
 and verily each player in his season played 
 many parts. 
 
 Whether these ancient Thespians were 
 accurate in their canine prognostication is 
 a matter for longer debate than my present 
 space permits ; but it is an undeniable fact 
 that the form and fashion of the English 
 drama has undergone a material change 
 since the old days of stock companies. In 
 the old times pantomime was a thing- 
 written and produced with some respect to
 
 62 The Drama of Legs. 
 
 juvenile auditors, and was looked forward 
 to from season to season. A book was 
 written and people actors and actresses 
 were engaged to play it. The Merry Clown 
 and his welcome " Here we are again " were 
 greeted with genuine laughter by young 
 and old alike, and the story preceding his 
 antics was of a rational character. Nowa- 
 days his occupation's gone ; his fooling is 
 done by "speciality" people in the open- 
 ing, and he finds himself doing a fifteen 
 minutes' harlequinade to a beggarly array 
 of empty benches. People to-day who are 
 engaged to appear in pantomimes virtually 
 have a book written to play them. 
 
 And the drama ? That has changed also. 
 In place of the plays our fathers watched 
 with interest we are presented with comedy- 
 drama, (why not tragedy-farce as well ?) 
 farcical comedy, comic opera, and burlesque. 
 And which takes the most money ? Comic 
 opera and burlesque. And why? Because 
 the public live at such a rate in the nine-
 
 The Drama of Legs. 63 
 
 teenth century that they have neither the 
 time nor the inclination to take their 
 dramatic fare seriously. To them the 
 theatre is a place of amusement pure and 
 simple. It is a place to rest in, a place 
 where the worry of business may be cast 
 to the winds, and the antidote of laughter 
 obtained as a remedy for the bane of high- 
 pressure. Fun and plenty of it is the 
 motto of the average playgoer of to-day, 
 and it is to this feeling for pleasure and 
 amusement that the drama of legs owes the 
 hold it has obtained upon the playgoing 
 public. The modern frequenter of the 
 theatre does not care to think, and as 
 serious drama, and even so-called comedy 
 drama, requires some mental effort on 
 the part of the spectator, it is always 
 launched upon the sea of public opinion 
 with much uncertainty. Plays, which to 
 earnest students of the stage contain 
 strength and beauty, have failed to attract 
 the public, and have after a brief existence
 
 64 The Drama of Legs. 
 
 been relegated to oblivion. The few pieces 
 of serious interest that have really suc- 
 ceeded of late years have owed much of 
 their success to the individual efforts of a 
 particular actor. In serious drama at the 
 present day it is frequently the actor or 
 actress who makes the play, and not the 
 author. Your stage-managing actor is a sore 
 destroyer of your author's lines and theories. 
 And the drama of legs what is it ? It 
 consists, broadly speaking, of two parts 
 comic opera and burlesque. The former is 
 of several grades, and, with the exception 
 of the admirable nonsense written by Mr 
 W. S. Gilbert, it is principally noticeable 
 for the baldness of its dialogue, the 
 insanity of its lyrics, and the want of 
 originality in its plots. The latter consists 
 of an olla podrida of nonsense, jokes, 
 comic songs, dances and gags, and an un- 
 limited display of the human form divine 
 on the part of principals and chorus in 
 tights and trunks. No one ever expects
 
 The Drama of Legs. 65 
 
 rationality in a modern burlesque, and 
 providing the leading lady usually cast 
 for the leading boy is possessed of a neat 
 figure, a pretty face and the semblance of 
 a voice, she is as likely to pile up a 
 fortune as a Nitrate King or a popular 
 jockey. In addition to this, she may 
 marry a duke and probably live un- 
 happily ever afterwards. Dukes and Earls 
 are particularly partial to the drama of 
 legs and its exponents. Whether we owe 
 the drama of legs to the modern comedian 
 a distinct type from the comedian of 
 the past or whether the comedian to the 
 drama of legs I am not prepared to state ; 
 but it is a certainty that in connection 
 with the form of dramatic art in question 
 there has risen up a school of comedians 
 whose efforts lie solely in the direction of 
 personal eccentricity. So far does this 
 culture of personal peculiarities go in the 
 drama of legs, that parts and pieces are 
 specially put together for the purpose of
 
 66 The Drama of Legs. 
 
 allowing an eccentric comedian to go on 
 and play himself, as it were. The amount 
 of mental effort and study saved to the 
 comedian by this phase of the drama of 
 legs must be enormous. No manager inter- 
 ested in the drama of legs can hope to 
 succeed without a chorus of damsels willing 
 to wear the garments often limited in 
 quantity of burlesque. Students of ana- 
 tomy find the theatre a pleasant place 
 wherein to combine study of the human 
 form and recreation, for not even the most 
 carping critic can accuse the modern leg 
 drama pioneers of restricting their artistes 
 in the direction of anatomical display. They 
 are peculiar people are these chorus sup- 
 ports of the drama of legs, and live in a 
 world entirely their own. They are capable 
 of looking more inanimate than anything on 
 earth, and the regularity with which they all 
 do the same things in identically the same 
 manner is positively astounding. There is 
 nothing like it out of the drama of legs.
 
 The Drama of Legs. 67 
 
 Yet they live and flourish, and are to be 
 found on the stage of our theatres during 
 the largest proportion of the dramatic year. 
 
 The producers one can hardly say 
 authors of the drama of legs all work on 
 the same lines. They give a catchy title 
 to their work, such as "Guy Fawkes," 
 " Lancelot the Lovely," and " Little Doctor 
 Faust," which names serve to indicate that 
 the piece has some slight connection with 
 the subject its title parodies or burlesques. 
 
 Those who seek for a story in this form 
 of the drama of legs will be woefully 
 disappointed. It is not considered a neces- 
 sity. Besides, it might interfere with the 
 vagaries of the comedians, who, if they had 
 to preserve it, would not be able to gag 
 ad libitum, and that would be fatal in a 
 drama of legs. To misquote the poet, 
 
 " Pieces come, and pieces go, 
 But gags go on forever." 
 
 No one is sacred ; they use the names and
 
 68 The Drama of Legs. 
 
 peculiarities of our greatest men for the 
 purpose of ridiculing them before the public, 
 and of gaining cheap applause at their 
 expense. It is indeed a disgrace to the 
 playgoers of to-day that such should be the 
 state of affairs, but so it is. 
 
 Therefore, it seems to me that those 
 people who tell us that the stage is in a 
 better state than it was in the days of our 
 fathers are labouring under a sad delusion. 
 The social status of the actor may be a 
 better one than in the times when he was 
 dubbed a rogue and vagabond by Act of 
 Parliament, but that I fancy is largely due 
 to the Socialistic tendency of the age. 
 Amusement and not education is the cry 
 from all sides of the theatre, and until the 
 world moves at a slower rate, it will con- 
 tinue to be so. The drama of legs feasts 
 the eyes, pleases the ears, and supplies 
 sensuous idleness and real weariness with 
 pleasant sensations hence its tremendous 
 hold upon the public. It is no use preach-
 
 The Drama of Legs. 69 
 
 ing against it ; there it is, a necessary evil 
 of the times, and there it will remain until 
 a radical change comes over the play- going 
 community.
 
 DOMESTIC MUSIC. 
 
 PERHAPS the most pernicious and demoralis- 
 ing of the recreations of this, our Island 
 of England, is that terrible bugbear known 
 as domestic music. I verily believe it is 
 responsible for more sin and inquity than 
 any other form of English entertainment. 
 Lying, hypocrisy, and doubly - concentrated 
 deception are one and all accentuated by 
 the influence of domestic music. It has 
 caused husbands to deceive their wives 
 and families, and in his Kreutzer Sonata 
 Tolstoi tells with terrible force how a wife 
 used it as a blind for the purpose of 
 humbugging her husband. But without 
 attempting to treat the subject with the 
 severity of the Russian novelist, who con- 
 siders that music may rise to "the height 
 of indecency," I propose to show some of the 
 
 70
 
 Domestic Music. 7 1 
 
 results accruing from indulgence in domestic 
 music. I have frequently wondered whether 
 Mr Gilbert had been the victim of domestic 
 music shortly before he wrote the " Mikado ? " 
 Surely so ; else he would never have 
 perpetrated the keen and cutting satire 
 of making his heroine fall in love with an 
 amateur first trombone who, on his own 
 confession, was "no musician." 
 
 In no place is the demoralising tendency 
 of domestic music more en evidence than 
 in the drawing-rooms of the middle - class 
 communities. During the miseries of that 
 essentially English institution, an evening 
 at home, music is always more or less to 
 to be found in the programme. And what 
 is the result ? 
 
 Lying! Sugar-coated lying perhaps, but 
 none the less lying. 
 
 Let us diagnose the case and unearth 
 the reasons for cause and effect. We will 
 commence with the young gentleman who 
 is labouring under the delusion that he is
 
 72 Domestic Music. 
 
 the possessor of a tenor voice. He is asked 
 out so that he may experiment upon old- 
 time songs, and new fangled waltz - re- 
 frained ballads of love and sentiment. 
 
 He is fully aware of the prevalent fallacy 
 as to his vocal powers, and gives himself 
 airs only equalled in their absurdity by 
 some of the so-called music he is so fond 
 of warbling. As soon as things get into 
 something like order in the drawing-room, 
 he is asked to sing something. 
 
 He has been sitting in a corner of the 
 room for some time, waiting for the moment 
 when he shall be asked to perform, and 
 is bursting with an ambition to show what 
 he can do. He has brought a roll of music 
 with him, and has carefully left it on the 
 hall table. This gives him the opportunity 
 of leaving the room to fetch his songs, and 
 thus draw people's special attention to the 
 fact that he is going to sing. 
 
 Yet when the hostess requests him to 
 favour them with " one of your charming
 
 Domestic Music. 73 
 
 ballads, Mr Thomson," he feigns a well- 
 studied hesitation, and remarks that "he 
 would much rather not." 
 
 Of course he is pressed to oblige, 
 and after some humming and hawing he 
 consents. 
 
 This is the first phase of the hypocrisy 
 resulting from Mr Thomson's vocal posses- 
 sion. The second follows and it is the 
 worse of the two when he has tried to 
 sing a song and has so distorted it that 
 the composer would fail to recognise it. 
 
 The hostess tells him that his singing 
 is "really charming," the young ladies call 
 it "lovely," and his rival, the baritone, who 
 hates tenors in general, and Thomson in 
 particular, perjures himself by giving it as 
 his opinion that he has " a very fine 
 voice." 
 
 And all the outcome of domestic music. 
 Very shocking it is to feel that what should 
 be a harmless form of amusement produces 
 such lamentable results.
 
 74 Domestic Music. 
 
 Many a peaceful and respectable house- 
 holder has, ere this, had cause to regret 
 the existence of domestic music. 
 
 For instance, a nice, quiet old gentleman 
 of studious habits may find his next-door 
 neighbour has a passion for the cornet. 
 This being so, the old gentleman is likely 
 to be driven frantic by the efforts of his 
 neighbour to perfect himself as a cornet 
 soloist. He practises all the evening and 
 rises early in the morning to resume his 
 studies. It can therefore be no matter 
 for surprise if the studious one indulges 
 in strong, not to say profane, language. 
 And should he be tempted to transgress 
 the rules of sobriety occasionally, it can 
 scarcely be wondered at. An amateur who 
 is trying to play the cornet is calculated 
 to drive any rational member of society 
 to the verge of distraction. 
 
 There is but one way to settle such a 
 man, and that is to employ a man who 
 knows nothing at all about music to take
 
 Domestic Miisic. 75 
 
 the house next door and perpetually practise 
 on the trombone. 
 
 Yet the man and his torment are simply 
 the result of domestic music. He is anxious 
 to appear before his friends as an instru- 
 mentalist. Poor mortal, poor friends. The 
 old lady, who told her son to "put his 
 fiddle away until he had learned to play 
 it," had, in spite of her Hibernian blunder, 
 much method in her madness. She knew 
 perfectly well that the preparation for the 
 production of domestic music is as likely 
 as not to lead to fatal results moral or 
 physical. 
 
 I am told, upon the authority of a 
 teacher of the instrument, that the flute 
 is becoming a popular and fashionable 
 instrument with the fair sex, and ere long 
 the lady flautist will be included on all 
 occasions when domestic music is to the 
 fore. I regret to hear it, for next to the 
 man who plays upon the cornet I should 
 place in the category of musical nuisances
 
 76 Domestic Music. 
 
 the lady who plays upon the flute. Yet 
 there is much sin and wickedness in the 
 world, and domestic music, and especially 
 female flautists, may be a form of penance 
 designed by a long-suffering Providence. 
 If the pain inflicted be equivalent to the 
 sins committed by performers and listeners, 
 the remedy will, indeed, be a drastic one. 
 
 The lady pianist is on the same level 
 with the tenor, the only difference being 
 that her sex entitles her to be the recipient 
 of more perversions of the truth in the form 
 of compliments than the male pretender. 
 
 Seriously, domestic music is undermining 
 the moral nature of the young people who 
 indulge in it. They say things about each 
 other that they do not mean and know to 
 be untrue, and their only excuse is that 
 the truth is not pleasant at all times, and 
 that they must be civil to the people they 
 meet at their own and other people's houses. 
 
 And all this is the outcome of domestic 
 music.
 
 PICTORIAL ADVERTISEMENTS. 
 
 MR WILLIAM TIREBUCK, of Dome fame, once 
 sent out a circular announcing a lecture, 
 entitled "Blank Walls," and I doubt not 
 that he would draw, in his own peculiar 
 and fanciful style, a graphic picture of the 
 disadvantages, from an intellectual point 
 of view, arising therefrom. No one knows 
 better than Mr Tirebuck the pleasures 
 missed by the possessors of blank walls. 
 
 Professor Herkomer years ago went further 
 than the domestic regions touched upon by 
 Mr Tirebuck, and turned his serious atten- 
 tion to the hoardings of the highways and 
 bye- ways of large towns, and tried, in vain, 
 to inculcate in the minds of those responsible 
 for the adornment of the posting stations 
 the lesson that wall - posters should be 
 
 77
 
 78 Pictorial Advertisements. 
 
 treated in the same way as a picture on 
 the artist's easel. 
 
 He drew a poster in the Greek fashion, 
 but as it related to nothing in particular 
 it failed to attract the attention of the 
 commercial advertisers, who consider that 
 any artistic merit in a poster is a waste 
 of time if it does not throw into relief the 
 particular virtues of the article they desire 
 to sell. 
 
 " Sweet are the uses of advertisement," 
 said a well-known scribe, and he spoke 
 with knowledge and accuracy. Advertise- 
 ments bring before the public notice the 
 value of many things they want and many 
 things they do not want. 
 
 If a man desires to furnish his house 
 when on the eve of matrimony, he has but 
 to turn up the pages of a magazine or 
 cast his eye over the first hoarding he 
 passes, and he will find advertisements of 
 how to furnish a cottage or a mansion, with 
 illustrations of how the mansion will look
 
 Pictorial Advertisements. 79 
 
 when furnished, not forgetting sketches of 
 the people who are likely to be in it, and 
 who always appear to me as though they 
 were having an intensely uncomfortable 
 time of it. It is, however, seldom that 
 he is supplied with a sketch of the cottage 
 "furnished completely" (or incompletely) 
 for five pounds. It is a sine qua non in 
 designing pictorial posters that nothing 
 shall be shown which is not attractive. 
 
 There are many lessons to be learned 
 from the contents of the hoardings and 
 from sources one would little dream of. 
 For instance, the hoardings have long im- 
 pressed upon the public the importance of 
 asking for Glenfield's starch and seeing that 
 they got it. " See that you get it." Do 
 not be put off with worthless imitations 
 but see that you get it. What a lesson in 
 firmness may be learned from these simple 
 words placed beneath the flaming picture 
 of a box of the well-known starch. Do not 
 be weak - minded do not be deceived by
 
 8o Pictorial Advertisements. 
 
 the bland persuasion of the enterprising 
 tradesman with a desire to palm off an 
 inferior article at an extra profit. No, be 
 advised by the poster, and, asserting your 
 manliness, " see that you get it." You 
 will then be able to go home with the 
 conscious feeling that you have defended 
 your rights, and when your shirts and 
 collars are washed and ironed you will not 
 be able to grumble because they are not 
 stiff enough for your fastidious taste. This 
 will probably lead to a lesson in forbear- 
 ance ; and if you be an honest man, you 
 will feel that the pictorial poster is capable 
 of producing results not thought of by a 
 casual observer. 
 
 No article of commerce has had more 
 pictorial attention paid to it than soap. 
 Even artists of repute have turned their 
 serious attention to the cleansing necessity, and 
 poets have been laid under contribution for the 
 purpose of testifying to the virtues of a par- 
 ticular make which is publicly stated to be
 
 Pictorial Advertisements. 8 1 
 
 ''matchless for the hands and complexion." 
 "The Nightingale, the Lily and the Rose" 
 have united to sing its praises, and I once 
 saw a drawing of a dirty-looking individual 
 who had written to the makers, " I used 
 your soap ten years ago and I have used 
 none other since." His appearance bore 
 witness to the veracity of his testimonial. 
 
 From pictorial advertisements connected 
 with this soap one may get a pretty 
 definite idea of infantile happiness. A 
 child in its bath has lost a cake of this 
 soap, and it is announced that "he won't 
 be happy till he gets it," and on a 
 companion picture where it is shown that 
 the child has recovered the lost tablet it 
 states "he's happy now." What a con- 
 crete summary of life, and all from a soap- 
 maker's pictorial advertisement. All men 
 are unhappy when they see anything they 
 prize, and their sum of happiness is not 
 complete until they gain or recover the 
 things they desire. Judging from the
 
 82 Pictorial Advertisements. 
 
 specimens of beauty depicted on the pictures 
 as resulting from the use of this soap, it 
 appears to me that it only requires a 
 constant use of the commodity to ensure 
 universal loveliness throughout the length 
 and breadth of the land. 
 
 Other soaps there are for which equal 
 merit is claimed, and one brand I have 
 noted, the advertisement of which, with 
 conspicuous honesty, states that it " will 
 not wash clothes." There is something 
 surprising in the fact of there being 
 anything modern soap cannot do. In 
 fact, I have often wondered it was not 
 announced that the latest invention in 
 soaps would cure all the ills that flesh is 
 
 heir to. 
 
 But that is, not unnaturally, left for the 
 
 pills and patent medicines to accomplish 
 Wonderful things these. 
 
 If half they say upon the walls 
 About the pills were true, 
 All folks would be so jolly well 
 They'd not know what to do.
 
 Pictorial Advertisements. 83 
 
 In fact, if all the posters state were 
 even partially carried out there would be 
 no work left for the doctors, and the 
 vendors of pills would have to retire from 
 the fact that nobody was ill. In this 
 direction all the pictures are those of 
 people who, having taken patent pills and 
 medicines, have been restored from the 
 brink of the grave to the height of good 
 health. 
 
 The one striking thing about the pictorial 
 and other advertisements of these patent 
 healing preparations is their modesty. Here 
 is a specimen of one of them. 
 
 " Camomile Pills, the most certain pre- 
 server of health, a mild, yet speedy, safe 
 and effectual aid in cases of indigestion 
 and all stomach complaints, and, as a natural 
 consequence, a purifier of the blood and 
 sweetener of the whole system." 
 
 Now, what could be nicer than the 
 above. You are out of sorts, you take a 
 dose of these pills and at once your whole
 
 84 Pictorial Advertisements. 
 
 system is sweetened, and you feel a new 
 man. 
 
 People who pass a hoarding with its 
 scores of pictorial advertisements and note 
 not with care its varied announcements 
 do not know the lessons they are miss- 
 ing, and the boons and blessings, from 
 patent pens to electric belts, they are 
 allowing to pass unnoticed. 
 
 Attraction is the watchword of the 
 modern advertiser, and it is to the craze 
 for distinction that the development of 
 pictorial advertisement is due. Thou- 
 sands of pounds are yearly spent on it, 
 and if young artists would turn their 
 attention to pictorial posters, and fling 
 to the winds tall notions about Art (with 
 a capital A), when they are barely exist- 
 ing by the production of pot-boilers, they 
 would be able to live in comfort, and 
 gradually improve their art work in their 
 leisure time. To those who turn up their 
 noses at the notion if any such there be
 
 Pictorial Advertisements. 85 
 
 to-day it will be interesting to know 
 that one of England's greatest artists 
 kept his family during the early days 
 of his career by producing carpet designs, 
 while during the intervals of his labour 
 he worked at his pictures, which he could 
 not sell then, but which were destined 
 to take the world by storm in later years. 
 Pictorial advertisement taken seriously is 
 a phase of the age in which we live, 
 and shows that the producers of soaps, 
 pills, and other commodities are prepared 
 to encourage art productions when they 
 are suited to their purposes. If this 
 only resulted in pleased senses through 
 the medium of the street hoardings, it 
 would convey a boon on thousands whose 
 eyes are rested by the pictures ; but it 
 would do more than that it would train 
 the eyes and minds of the uneducated to 
 appreciate beauty and colour.
 
 BREACH OF PROMISE. 
 
 THE individual who described marriage as 
 woman's triumph over man might with 
 equal truth have given the same definition 
 to an action for breach of promise, for even 
 if a woman fails to get the substantial 
 damages she invariably sues for, it is a 
 triumph for her to feel that she has 
 avenged herself on her treacherous lover 
 and shown the world generally and the 
 jury in particular what nonsense some men 
 can write when under the influence of the 
 god of love. Actions for breach of pro- 
 mise arise from various causes, but gener- 
 ally with but one object cash. It may, I 
 think, be taken as correct that no woman 
 who has any respect for herself or real 
 affection for her lover ever figures in a 
 court of law as a wronged and jilted maiden. 
 
 86
 
 Breach of Promise. 87 
 
 No, the woman who, metaphorically, lays 
 bare her bosom and places her lacerated 
 heart on view is not of a nature to feel 
 much affection of any kind, and as for the 
 pure and honest love that brings sunshine 
 into the mansion and the cottage, it is a 
 thing totally unknown to her. One of the 
 principal reasons why women reduce their 
 affection to the level of pounds, shillings 
 and pence is that they desire to "take it 
 out" of the man who has, in their opinion 
 and in that of their friends, fooled them. 
 As a matter of fact, they look upon the 
 affair as a matter of wasted time which 
 they think should be paid for at the 
 highest possible rate. It is one of the 
 peculiar weaknesses of a woman's nature 
 that she does not take her reverses (if one 
 can call the loss of a fickle lover a reverse) 
 rationally. Women always go to extremes, 
 and a woman who has had her affections 
 trifled with, either pines away and dies 
 prematurely, declines all future chances of
 
 88 Breach of Promise. 
 
 matrimony, or sues her lover for breach of 
 promise. There is no relying on women, 
 in such cases as these. They are too 
 erratic. One of the worst types of plaintiff 
 is the lady who is described in the papers 
 as "a designing woman." She is a veritable 
 female bird of prey, and lives only that she 
 may make mankind feel to the full that 
 women are necessary evils, and that some 
 of them are more evil than necessary. This 
 woman has al] her powers of fascination 
 under her finger and thumb, and can turn 
 on her charms to order. She has studied 
 men and their ways, and knows how to draw 
 them into her net and how to keep them 
 there (if they be desirable) when she gets 
 them. She is a proof that humanity can 
 be moulded to the will, and the pas- 
 sions of nature, so dwarfed and strangled 
 that they almost cease to be actualities. 
 She is a society hawk, and is ever on the 
 look-out for victims to swoop down upon 
 and devour. When she gets her victim
 
 Breach of Promise. 89 
 
 into her toils he has to pay dearly before 
 he can escape, and when she brings her 
 action for breach of promise she lays her 
 damages on thick, and it is a case of 
 thousands or nothing. In court she uses 
 her regulated charms to the full, and not 
 unfrequently has more effect on the jury 
 than the eminent Q.C. who is engaged to 
 point out to the Court and the world that 
 his client is a badly-used and wronged 
 woman. This lady invariably wins her 
 case, and frequently it is only a question of 
 the amount she is to receive for having lured 
 a man on to do something foolish under 
 the influence of an amorous intoxication. 
 
 Another kind of plaintiff is the girl who 
 is persuaded by her friends that she ought 
 to make her lover pay for jilting her. She 
 is usually from the country, and has been 
 "keeping company" with one of the desir- 
 able lights of the countryside, who, probably 
 finding the charms of some town lady more 
 to his taste, leaves Phyllis to her fate, at
 
 9O Breach of Promise. 
 
 which, personally, she would most likely not 
 feel much hurt (they seem to have a 
 philosophical way of looking at things in 
 the country), but her friends feel it is their 
 duty to see that she avenges her wrongs, 
 and so an action is brought by the jilted 
 but not-hurt damsel, who simpers in the 
 witness-box and feels very uncomfortable 
 all through the trial. At the conclusion of 
 the case she gets small damages and makes 
 an enemy of a man who respected her and 
 would when she married someone else 
 have stood as godfather to her children, 
 and been a friend to both her husband and 
 herself for life. 
 
 Then there is the actress plaintiff (who 
 has been much to the fore of late years 
 with success), who sues her refractory 
 admirer with the full knowledge that if 
 she does not get all she desires, pecuniarily, 
 out of him, she is obtaining a magnificent 
 advertisement, and that her salary is pretty 
 certain to increase soon afterwards. I have
 
 Breach of Promise. 91 
 
 known a lady rise from the position of 
 chorus-girl to that of leading lady in a 
 provincial company for no other reason 
 than that she had been jilted by a sprig 
 of the nobility. Hamlet was right, and 
 the philosophy of his friend Horatio was a 
 long way from including all the things in 
 earth or heaven. I vow he never thought 
 of such a transformation as I have just 
 named resulting from a breach of promise 
 action. 
 
 From the defendant's point of view the 
 law is decidedly objectionable. It virtually 
 means that a man may not change his mind 
 on a vital question without the risk of hav- 
 ing to pay dearly for it. 
 
 Many a man has married a woman he did 
 not care for rather than parade his error 
 before the world and have his correspondence 
 made fun of by a barrister, who in the 
 exercise of his profession has no heart and 
 no respect for the feelings of others. 
 
 Custom has made it the rule for men not
 
 92 Breach of Promise. 
 
 to sue for breach of promise when a woman 
 throws them over, yet a woman who, tak- 
 ing advantage of an opportunity and a 
 man's weakness, lures him on to an offer 
 he regrets directly afterwards can sue him 
 for breach of promise if he decides to 
 rectify his folly and to save both the 
 woman and himself from being wrecked on 
 the troubled sea of matrimony. If a man 
 does take the law into his own hands, and 
 tries to equalise things by suing the false 
 fair one who has changed her mind, he 
 generally succeeds in getting the smallest 
 damages possible, and is chaffed and laughed 
 at by his friends and acquaintances. Yet, 
 if a woman is allowed to sue for breach 
 of promise (and, I ween, they are quite as 
 fickle as men), why in the name of fortune 
 should it be considered mean for a man 
 to do it? Are not our affections as valu- 
 able as a woman's? Yea, verily, they 
 are. 
 
 One of the amusing tribe of defendants is
 
 Breach of Promise. 93 
 
 the middle-aged or slightly decaying gentle- 
 man who has placed his hand and heart 
 at the disposal of the lady whose charms 
 to put it mildly are on the wane, and 
 who feels that she is not likely to have 
 many more chances of becoming the loving 
 spouse of a husband past his youth and 
 with a comfortable income. There is a 
 Bardell-wrsws-Pickwick sort of air about 
 these once-amorous fogies which makes one 
 feel that they ought to make it up and 
 settle down into middle-class domesticity. 
 
 The defendant with means usually admits 
 the case against him and engages ex- 
 pensive counsel to try and convince the 
 jury that the damsel who is suing him 
 has not suffered to any appreciable extent. 
 This defendant's affection is of the mercurial 
 order, for he invariably marries some one 
 else within a short time of his case being 
 settled. 
 
 Breach of promise actions appear to be 
 part of the wild oats of titled youths with
 
 94 Breach of Promise. 
 
 a leaning towards the stage and its beauties 
 of the female species. 
 
 The most entertaining part of a breach 
 of promise action invariably arises from the 
 reading of letters fatal evidence in these 
 cases. These epistles are interesting as 
 showing the number of adjectives it is 
 possible to get into one letter, and not 
 unfrequently they form a sermon on the 
 way in which the passion of love fades 
 and dies under given conditions. They 
 are wise in their generation who pen them 
 not. Whether a lady who sues a man 
 for breach of promise deserves our pity 
 is a much-debated question, as is the 
 question whether the law on the point 
 should be altered. The moral of the whole 
 thing is simple. Do not make a promise 
 if you don't mean to keep it, but if you 
 break it square things out of court.
 
 FOKGETFULNESS. 
 
 FORGETFULNESS is not of necessity the re- 
 sult of what is called " a bad memory," 
 but far more frequently arises from pure 
 carelessness or lacking in the matter of 
 concentration. The boy with his head 
 full of his games forgets things of graver 
 import from the mere fact that the faculty 
 of concentration is being entirely devoted 
 to the less important object or occupation. 
 
 The lover forgets some small commission 
 undertaken on behalf of his mother or 
 sister because his thoughts are with his 
 lady-love. And the business man, with his 
 mind full of the details of his ventures, 
 forgets to buy his wife some present he 
 has promised her, with the result that 
 there is, on his arrival at home, " a storm 
 
 95
 
 96 Forgetfulness. 
 
 in a teacup," which is more annoying than 
 enduring. 
 
 And all the outcome of forgetfulness. 
 
 As illustrating the peculiar results of 
 forgetfulness, it is told of a paterfamilias 
 that, on leaving a steam boat laden with 
 packages, lie was asked by the captain, 
 " Who owns these three children ? " Where- 
 upon he remarked, " I knew I'd forgotten 
 something." 
 
 It is recorded of an eminent scientist 
 that he used to forget that he had eaten 
 his meals, and it is a fact that a bride- 
 groom once forgot to turn up at the church 
 on the morning when he was to have 
 changed single blessedness for matrimonial 
 uncertainty. It has never yet been ascer- 
 tained whether this strange lapse of memory 
 was due to physical or moral causes, but 
 the fact that the bridegroom was missing 
 when inquired for, rather points to the 
 latter than the former. 
 
 The gentlemen who " borrow " things and
 
 Forgetfulness. 97 
 
 do not return them owing to forgetfulness, 
 are of a numerous and varied class, and in- 
 clude in their ranks the nimble-fingered pur- 
 loiner of the silk pocket-handkerchief and the 
 enterprising burglar who " borrows " any- 
 thing that is not too hot or too heavy to 
 remove. He invariably forgets to return 
 the articles he purloins, unless caught in 
 the act by his natural enemy a policeman. 
 
 There are few things more forgotten in 
 this world than books. They outrival 
 umbrellas. Once lend a man a book and 
 it is almost a certainty that you will see 
 it no more. 
 
 There is something peculiar about books, 
 and they produce a forgetfulness which is 
 really extraordinary. 
 
 An apropos story comes into my mind. 
 A man was spending the evening with a 
 friend and was particularly struck with his 
 collection of books, included in which were 
 many rare copies and first editions. As he 
 
 was taking his departure he picked a book 
 
 G
 
 98 Forgetfulness. 
 
 from tlie shelf and said to Ms friend, "By 
 the way, old man, you might lend me this 
 for a day or two." To which the host, 
 pointing to the contents of the book-case, 
 replied, "Not likely, my boy; / borrowed 
 those" 
 
 It is one of the great essentials of a 
 true gentleman or lady that they never 
 forget the little things which go to make 
 life pleasant, and no one is ever likely to 
 have their feelings hurt by either one or 
 the other owing to an accidental reference 
 to some subject which is painful and which 
 they desire to forget. 
 
 To many people forgetfulness is indeed 
 a boon, and many a poor devil has com- 
 mitted suicide from the mere fact that his 
 organism was so finely wrought that he 
 could not stand the perpetual strain of 
 memory. To such a man, forgetfulness is 
 Heaven, and he would sooner have his mind 
 a blank than be endowed with the faculties 
 of thought and memory. He wants to
 
 Forgetf nines s. 99 
 
 forget, and anything that makes him re- 
 member the shadows and thorns of his 
 wretched existence is a thing to be 
 avoided. 
 
 Do you think the woman who has given 
 her heart's love to a scoundrel and had it 
 lacerated by his coward hand, wants to 
 remember the days when, with implicit 
 faith and perfect love, she fell from purity 
 to shame ? No, rather the silent river with 
 its rushing tide than the perpetual memory 
 of such a past. It is the absence of the 
 power to forget which drives these deserted 
 and dishonoured women into the primrose 
 path where pleasure's cup helps to drown 
 memory and guides them to a haven of 
 forgetfulness. Do you, good reader, never 
 feel that there are things in your life you 
 would like to pass into the region of 
 oblivion where thought and memory lie 
 dead, and where the ghosts of departed 
 days do not flit to and fro from hour to 
 hour with wan worn faces, which seem per-
 
 TOO Forgetjulness. 
 
 petually to be saying "Do you remember?" 
 Conscience does indeed " make cowards of 
 us all," and it is when we feel its power 
 that we desire to forget. 
 
 It is no pleasure for the broken-down 
 man to remember the days when he 
 revelled in the delights of purple and 
 fine linen. No, he would rather forget 
 that he ever knew the pleasures attached 
 to them. 
 
 Apart from this phase, forgetfulness leads 
 to much unpleasantness, and I know of 
 no more pitiable object than the man of 
 forgetful habits, who, having tied a piece 
 of string round his finger to remind him to 
 " remember not to forget " something, has 
 to stand and ruminate because he has 
 entirely forgotten what it was he had to 
 remember. The last state of that man is 
 certainly worse than the first. Equally 
 absurd is the position of the man who 
 wakes up in the middle of the night with 
 the horrible thought that he has forgotten
 
 Forget fulness. 101 
 
 to lock or bolt the door. He gets out of 
 bed and shiveringly dons such of his 
 apparel as will prevent his catching cold, 
 and goes to remedy the accident. Arrived 
 at the door he finds to his intense astonish- 
 ment and annoyance that it is both locked 
 and bolted. Then he returns to bed, mak- 
 ing uncomplimentary remarks about himself 
 as he ascends the stairs, but not even the 
 satisfaction of knowing that he had not for- 
 gotten, repays him for the anger he feels 
 at having had to get up because he fancied 
 he had neglected the thing. As he drops 
 off to sleep he mentally decides that in 
 future the door may take care of itself ; 
 and if every door in the house is left open 
 he will not get up to see to them. 
 
 As I said at the start, so I say at the 
 finish forgetfulness is the result of care- 
 lessness or want of concentration, and a 
 little training in this direction would soon 
 remedy all the evils resulting from it.
 
 HOLIDAYS AND HOLIDAY-MAKERS. 
 
 " WHERE are you going for your holidays ? " 
 " Don't know ; haven't quite decided yet." 
 This question and answer are, at certain 
 periods of the year, heard almost every day, 
 for it is at these times that people gener- 
 ally begin to wish for a change and feel a 
 desire for fresh fields and pastures new. 
 They want to get away from the humdrum 
 or exciting life they have led since their 
 last holiday, and to leave behind them 
 their cares and their business for such 
 length of time as circumstances permit. 
 They have come to the end of their 
 working tether, and want to enjoy the 
 delicious luxury of perfect idleness. There 
 are many people who have no idea of the 
 real delights to be obtained from a state of 
 
 102
 
 Holidays and Holiday-Makers. 103 
 
 dolce far niente. I once heard the head- 
 master of a well - known grammar school 
 say, in reply to a question as to his idea 
 of a perfect holiday, that he liked nothing 
 better than to "lie on his back and bask 
 in the sunshine." And those who have in 
 the summer-time tried the experiment will 
 endorse his opinion. To lie at ease and 
 dream away the hours in an absolute state 
 of laziness is far more of a holiday than the 
 regulation trips so popular with the masses, 
 who, for the most part, know nothing of 
 the Elysium of a "summer madness," which 
 resolves itself into weaving fancies in the 
 sunlight, and smoking the pipe of peace 
 in an old and un weeded country garden, 
 when the sun's sweet glow throws its rain- 
 bow tints on the surrounding landscape and 
 glints on the spire of some old church 
 whose very appearance and surroundings 
 are redolent of peace and quietness. There 
 is a delightful drowsiness about the very 
 atmosphere, the birds seem to rest more
 
 IO4 Holidays and Holiday-Makers. 
 
 frequently than elsewhere, and the bells 
 pealing over the lea as the cattle plod their 
 homeward way seem laden with suggestions 
 of perpetual rest. But whatever difference 
 of opinion may exist as to the best way 
 to spend a holiday, there are few who do 
 
 not share the belief that, to misquote the 
 poet, 
 
 There's nothing half so sweet in life 
 As a fortnight's rest. 
 
 Let us take a brief survey of the manners 
 and customs of the general run of humanity 
 when it is out for its annual holiday. To 
 begin at the beginning of the alphabet we 
 find that the most caricatured and sneered- 
 at holiday - makers are those residents of 
 the great city popularly known as "'Arry 
 and 'Arriet," who are generally supposed to 
 revel in the delights of " 'Appy 'Ampstead," 
 or to find the perfection of enjoyment in a 
 week at Margate. Whether they obtain 
 rest from their stay at Margate or invigor- 
 ation from " 'Appy 'Ampstead " may be
 
 Holidays and Holiday-Makers. 105 
 
 doubted, but that they obtain a certain 
 kind of rough enjoyment is indisputable. 
 As beauty is supposed to be dependent 
 on the eyes of the beholder, so enjoy- 
 ment is dependent on the constitution of 
 the individual. What is enjoyment to 
 'Arry would be purgatory to the scholar. 
 Young people, whilst drawing the line at 
 the boisterous enjoyment of 'Arry and 
 'Arriet, generally like to make their holi- 
 days as lively as they can, and sea-side 
 resorts are their favourite hunting-grounds. 
 You find them in abundance at Bridlington, 
 Blackpool and the Isle of Man. They go 
 in for what they call fun, and do as much 
 real hard work in a day as they do in a 
 week at home. After the day's enjoyment 
 is over they repair to the various boarding- 
 houses and continue the fun inside with 
 the result that they retire to rest tired 
 out. I have known specimens of this type 
 of holiday-maker go to a favourite haunt 
 for a fortnight and then come home in such
 
 io6 Holidays and Holiday-Makers. 
 
 a state as to necessitate a three weeks' 
 recuperating trip to some less lively district. 
 Yet were you to insinuate that they did 
 not know how to enjoy a holiday they 
 would laugh at you. If it be true that 
 change is rest they ought to be thoroughly 
 rested, for they not only get change of 
 scene but they entirely alter for a fort- 
 night their lives and habits. 
 
 Aristocratic people choose their holiday 
 haunts according to the caprice of fashion, 
 one year perhaps going to Scarborough and 
 the next to Whitby, but wherever they 
 pitch their tents their modus operandi is 
 much the same. 
 
 They are seldom to be seen at any 
 resort that has not a saloon and a band, 
 for it is upon this regulation promenade 
 that they disport themselves morning and 
 evening. It is the saloon parade that 
 enables the daughters of society and their 
 maternal relatives to show off their holiday 
 frocks, hats, and sunshades to the delight
 
 Holidays and Holiday-Makers. 107 
 
 of themselves and the envy of their less 
 fortunate sisters. This process is carried 
 on morning and evening, the afternoons 
 being generally devoted to sleeping or 
 very occasionally driving. Society has an 
 objection to turning out in the afternoon 
 when away for its holiday. Sleep is 
 necessary for the preservation of the good 
 looks of the ladies knocked up by a 
 London season and the male representa- 
 tives find it "too much fag" to turn out. 
 Thus they go the rounds day after day and 
 pull themselves together for the remainder 
 of the year, for holiday-making with Society 
 is as often as not a process of repairing 
 damaged constitutions. Those denizens of 
 the world where the creme de la crSme 
 reside who go abroad when their friends 
 stay at home are usually supposed to do 
 so more from motives of economy than 
 choice. A holiday to them is a necessity 
 from other points of view than those of 
 health and rest.
 
 io8 Holidays and Holiday -Makers. 
 
 Paterfamilias, with a middle-class posi- 
 tion and a sprinkling of olive branches, 
 usually hies him with his belongings to 
 some quiet, inexpensive seaside place where 
 his youngsters can inhale an unlimited 
 quantity of ozone, and where he can sit 
 on the rocks and smoke while his better- 
 half does needle- work or revels in the con- 
 tents of a railway novel. These good people 
 are not, as a rule, folks of many ideas, but 
 they get more real value out of their annual 
 vacation than the racketing youngsters or 
 the Society swells. 
 
 Some sprinkling there has been of late 
 from all the above types who have gone in 
 for a big rush to the Norwegian fjiords, 
 which they explore at the most rapid rate 
 possible. They come back with marvellous 
 stories of their experiences, and impress 
 upon all their friends and acquaintances 
 the vital importance of their starting for 
 Norway at the earliest possible moment. 
 
 If you want hurrying out of your life
 
 Holidays and Holiday-Makers . 109 
 
 take their advice ; if you want a rest, do 
 not. 
 
 There are no people who appreciate and 
 enjoy a holiday so thoroughly as the tired 
 brain-workers. They know the value of 
 rest to an extent undreamed of by the 
 ordinary holiday-makers. They do not go 
 off on frisky excursions, nor do they go to 
 the latest fashionable resort of Society. No ; 
 they go to some quiet spot far from the 
 madding crowd, and there amid pleasant 
 and peaceful surroundings revive their 
 worn-out energies. To them the country 
 in its summer garments is a perfect paradise 
 the flowers have a sweeter odour than else- 
 where, and the atmosphere seems filled with 
 a sense of repose. They return to their 
 labours (and there is no such tiring labour 
 as brain-work) like giants refreshed, per- 
 pared to do their utmost to enlighten or 
 assist their fellows. 
 
 Now for a parting word to holiday-makers 
 generally. If you want to get some meed
 
 i io Holidays and Holiday-Makers. 
 
 of value from your holidays do not select 
 a spot where the genus racketer is to be 
 found. His presence mars the prettiest of 
 scenery, and his modus operandi is opposed 
 to the rational method of taking a rest. 
 
 If you are thoroughly tired out, take niy 
 advice and select some quiet country village 
 where the world you live in is a thing of 
 hearsay only. Nature unadulterated is the 
 best remedy for overwork, and the versifier 
 who said 
 
 " To the fields away ! for nature presses, 
 
 On toiling foreheads a balmy kiss. 
 There's nothing so sweet as her wild caresses, 
 No love more full to the lips than this," 
 
 knew the value of rest and knew also 
 where to find it.
 
 INADEQUATE SALARIES. 
 
 THERE is but little doubt that a very large 
 percentage of the workers in the lower 
 strata of commercial England are under- 
 paid. 
 
 Men are working long hours at starva- 
 tion wages, and if they ask for an increase 
 of salary they are told that no advance 
 can be made in the rate of payment from 
 the fact that plenty of men out of employ- 
 ment are quite ready to take their places 
 at even a lower rate of remuneration than 
 they are receiving. 
 
 This may be, and probably is, perfectly 
 true, but it does not alter one iota the 
 fact that inadequate salaries are paid by 
 thriving firms to men whose labours they 
 must know perfectly well are morally and
 
 112 Inadequate Salaries. 
 
 commercially worth considerably more money 
 than they are paying for them. 
 
 And this is not only the case in one 
 special line of business, but, so far as those 
 whose position is below that of a " head," 
 is a general thing in all trades, and in 
 not a few of the professions. 
 
 I venture to say that no small amount of 
 the money amassed by some of the wealthy 
 but plebeian pillars of commercial England 
 has been made at the expense of men who 
 were paid inadequate salaries. 
 
 The payment of salaries which are neither 
 commensurate with the ability of position 
 of the recipient must have, and has, a most 
 demoralising effect upon those whose lot 
 in life compels them to accept remunera- 
 tion which they know full well is not 
 what they should, in fairness and justice, 
 receive for the work they are employed 
 to perform. Let us take a glance at some 
 of the fatal results accruing from the pay- 
 ment of inadequate salaries.
 
 Inadequate Salaries. 113 
 
 Take the case of a young man who is 
 in the prime of life, and who has taken 
 unto himself a wife, whose lot is cast in 
 such conditions as her husband can provide 
 for her. 
 
 The husband is employed in a good house 
 of high standing in the world of commerce, 
 and has, perhaps, worked himself up from 
 a lowly position in that firm's office to 
 the post of an ordinary desk-tied clerk, who 
 does his monotonous routine work from nine 
 o'clock in the morning until six o'clock in 
 the evening. He is allowed one hour for 
 his dinner, and if he be ten minutes late 
 on his return from the frugal meal he is 
 either severely frowned at by the head of 
 his department, or is told in a manner 
 highly suggestive of satire that he is not 
 a punctual servant. He dare not reply to 
 his superior officer, and has to grin and 
 bear the rebuke with the inward thought 
 that he has frequently to work long past 
 the stipulated hours of his engagement, and
 
 H4 Inadequate Salaries. 
 
 that without either thanks or remuneration 
 for his "overtime." For his work he is 
 paid a miserable pittance, and his only 
 excuse for saddling himself with a wife and 
 the consequent domestic responsibilities is 
 that he is certain to obtain a rise in posi- 
 tion ere long. Fatal hope ! 
 
 When he applies to his employers for 
 an increase of salary on the double ground 
 that he has been in their employ since he 
 was a youth, and that he has a wife to 
 keep, he is again frowned upon and treated 
 to a lecture on the folly he has committed 
 in letting his natural feelings get the better 
 of his common sense. To this is added a 
 few words as to the way in which the 
 firm has raised him to the position he 
 occupies, and it is very broadly hinted that 
 "the honour" of connection with so highly- 
 esteemed a house should be some recom- 
 pense for the inadequate salary paid by 
 the "highly-esteemed" house. So the clerk 
 has to drudge on as best he can, and his
 
 Inadequate Salaries. 1 1 5 
 
 wife and children have to bear the pain 
 and degradation which are the salient 
 features of life when it is a daily and 
 weekly struggle to make ends meet. 
 
 I sometimes wonder if some of these 
 commercial magnates ever think as they 
 sit at their well-appointed tables with their 
 dinners of many courses in front of them, 
 what life must mean to the underlings 
 whose ill-paid labour enables them to make 
 their fortunes. I fancy not, or they would 
 surely make some attempt to alleviate their 
 sufferings. There are, however, worse cases 
 to be found than that of the man with 
 his wife and children dragging on a weary 
 existence in a vain endeavour to keep up 
 appearances. Many young men are not 
 blessed with strength of will sufficient to 
 resist the temptations of their daily life, 
 and it is to these that inadequate salaries 
 are more than ordinarily dangerous. 
 
 There is, and always has been, much out- 
 cry against gambling in general and among
 
 n6 Inadequate Salaries. 
 
 the youths of the country in particular. 
 Many reasons have been assigned as the 
 cause of it, and I wonder that no one has 
 ever suggested inadequate salaries as one 
 of the great reasons for, and incentives to, 
 gambling, particularly in the direction of 
 betting on horse-racing. 
 
 Let me explain. 
 
 A young man is in the receipt of 
 small salary. He has friends and acquaint- 
 ances whose financial status is, fortunately 
 for them, better than his. They are able 
 to enjoy the pleasures of life fully, are not 
 compelled, as he is, to think twice before 
 he spends once. To them a night's enjoy- 
 ment or an extra drink or two are of no 
 importance. To him they may mean pinch- 
 ing and scraping for a week or a fortnight. 
 
 Yet he is loth to give up the pleasure 
 he loves so well, and can afford so ill. His 
 friends or acquaintances are perchance of a 
 sporting turn of mind, are lucky, and not 
 un frequently back a winner or two. All
 
 Inadequate Salaries. 117 
 
 this is so easily done and seems such a 
 pleasant way of adding to a limited income, 
 that the ill-paid member of the clique begins 
 to fancy he has only to back horses and 
 he will straightway make a heap of money. 
 Acting on the advice of his friends, he 
 puts a modest amount on a horse, and 
 wins. From that moment he is a doomed 
 man. Horse-racing is to him the high road 
 to fame and fortune ; his inadequate salary 
 troubles him no longer, for has he not 
 found a perpetual panacea for all his ills. 
 But there comes a day when the horses he 
 backs do not win, and he loses all he has 
 made and more. He has gone so far that 
 he cannot give it up, and even his limited 
 income is used in the endeavour to retrieve 
 himself. But ill luck lasts long, and he 
 goes from bad to worse. At last he gets 
 a big " tip " from a sporting acquaintance, 
 who tells him it is certain to win. But 
 he has no money to back the good thing 
 with. Then comes the final fall. An open
 
 1 1 8 Inadequate Salaries. 
 
 cash-drawer and an empty office offer oppor- 
 tunity, and with the certainty that he will 
 be able to replace the money directly after 
 the race, he helps himself to his employer's 
 money. The horse loses, and he is dis- 
 charged without a character, if he be not 
 prosecuted for theft. 
 
 And all the outcome of an inadequate 
 salary. 
 
 Had he been decently paid, the longing 
 for unobtainable pleasure would have been 
 checked, the temptation would have been 
 avoided, and he would have been a respected 
 member of society. And so it runs on 
 through the world of commerce. Many ill- 
 paid workmen are made to suffer and sin, 
 while their masters are amassing fortunes 
 with no care as to their servants' welfare.
 
 GOING ON TO THE STAGE. 
 
 A WARNING. 
 
 THERE is no trade, profession, or calling 
 which the ordinary individual considers so 
 easy to go into as that of the stage. Yet 
 there is no calling in which the blanks are 
 so numerous, the work so laborious, and 
 the disappointments so tantalising. 
 
 Most people who contract a dose of what 
 is known as "footlight fever" seem to be 
 under the erroneous impression that even 
 ordinary intelligence is on the stage, as in 
 the proverbial government office, totally 
 unnecessary. This is the first false notion 
 that is usually impressed upon the mind 
 of the embryo Henry Irving, or the would- 
 be Sarah Bernhardt. These uninitiated 
 
 119
 
 1 20 Going on to the Stage. 
 
 aspiring Thespians fondly imagine that all 
 they have to do to ensure a permanent 
 entrance behind the scenes is to insert an 
 advertisement in the Era or the Stage, 
 stating that they are prepared to play a 
 small part for an opening, and the rest is 
 easy. Poor deluded mortals ! 
 
 If they only knew as they generally 
 do, early enough that the profession is 
 crowded out with capable and experienced 
 artistes, who are only too willing to work 
 for the same salary they are prepared to 
 supply high - class incompetency at, they 
 would stick to their lasts ay, even to 
 shoemaking with a satisfied mind, and not 
 rush in where angels, if they lived on 
 earth, would most assuredly fear to tread. 
 It is no use beating about the bush in 
 writing about the stage as a profession, 
 and the sooner amateurs know that, unless 
 they are especially gifted, have plenty of 
 money, or immense influence, they are 
 almost certain to fail, the better.
 
 Going on to the Stage. 121 
 
 To succeed upon the stage it is a sine 
 qua non that, in addition to peculiar 
 talents, the aspirant must be capable of 
 hard work, patience, and the necessary 
 fortitude to face failure, snubs, jealousy, 
 and its attendant spite, and the weary 
 waits called " rests," that so frequently 
 beset the actor in his way through the 
 shoals and quicksands of the world of stage- 
 land. People seem to have an idea that, 
 to those stars they applaud at the various 
 theatres they visit, life on the stage has 
 always been as they see it. False notion, 
 indeed, is this. Their position has only 
 been gained by years and years of incessant 
 toil and privation, and if they but told the 
 world the true story of their fight, ere 
 chance or influence placed them where they 
 are, there would be less sunshine than 
 shadow in it, I warrant. 
 
 No ! The stage is a place to be avoided 
 by those who are not more than usually 
 adapted for it, and the percentage of these
 
 122 Going on to the Stage. 
 
 is so infinitesimal in the ordinary walks of 
 life, that to ninety - nine out of every 
 hundred who propose to "go on to the 
 stage" it is perfectly safe to apply Punch's 
 advice to those about to marry "Don't!" 
 " The glitter and glare of the road to 
 fame," as seen from the front, is all very 
 well in its way, but when the gilt is 
 removed from the theatrical gingerbread 
 there is very little left that is worth the 
 taking. 
 
 And to-day the state of things is, owing 
 to the society craze for the boards, worse 
 than ever it was, for the profession is 
 crammed with young swells and society 
 women, who, having enough money to live 
 on apart from anything they earn, can 
 afford to give their services to managers 
 free, in addition to using their influence on 
 his behalf, on such occasions as it may be 
 to his or their interests to do so. These 
 society mummers are the stage's worst 
 enemies, for in addition to adding to the
 
 Going on to the Stage. 123 
 
 superabundance of mediocrity at present in 
 the profession, they are taking the bread 
 out of the mouths of men and women who 
 have spent a lifetime in learning their 
 business, and who are willing to supply a 
 legitimate return for what I suppose, to be 
 up to date, I must designate a "living 
 wage." The proof of this is, that not only 
 in London, but in one or two other towns, 
 it is possible to pick up, at low salaries, a 
 capable travelling company in practically a 
 few hours. This being so, what chance has 
 the ordinary inexperienced individual in the 
 race of the stage ? None. He has his 
 trade to learn the fact never enters his 
 head and he has to take his chance in a 
 crowd where he is handicapped to the 
 fullest extent ere he starts on the contest. 
 
 In no other competition would a man 
 even dream of fighting against such odds. 
 Yet such is the fascination of the stage, 
 that men imbued with a fair education, and 
 an average amount of common sense, throw
 
 1 24 Going on to the Stage. 
 
 up decent positions to go upon a will-'o- 
 the-wisp hunt, that they must know they 
 have no earthly chance of being success- 
 ful in. 
 
 Again, no, my would-be tragedy and 
 comedy merchants. Leave the stage to 
 those who are on it, and their name is 
 legion, and if you want any solace for your 
 wounded vanity, take a glance at the 
 Stage and Era every week, and add up 
 the number of talented people who are 
 " resting " or " disengaged " (it is usually 
 the same thing), and be thankful you are 
 not of their number, at the same time 
 remembering that they are but a tithe of 
 the poor men and women who are not 
 only " out," but who are, many of them, 
 on the verge of starvation and the work- 
 house. 
 
 The stage is not all bouquets, applause, 
 Johnnies, presents, and glorification, varied 
 by pink tights and diamonds. On the 
 contrary it is about as tiring a life as you
 
 Going on to the Stage. 125 
 
 can find in a day's march, and the actor 
 who is revelling from the front in the 
 ringing applause of a crowded house, fre- 
 quently acts with an aching heart and a 
 heap of memories of the " might have 
 been," which are sufficiently weighty to 
 have taken all the sunshine from his life, 
 and make him care but little for a success 
 that came too late, and the knowledge 
 which is only made the more bitter when 
 he goes home from the playhouse and 
 knows that the woman who shared his 
 privations is not there to enjoy his success. 
 
 These may seem pessimistic views to 
 take of a most popular profession, but 
 I am writing warning words which I 
 know are true, and I write as much 
 in the interest of the actors as the 
 amateurs. 
 
 Let the latter rest contented with their 
 lot, and if they want to air their Thespian 
 fancies, let them restrict their efforts to 
 amateur theatricals, where charity covers a
 
 126 Going on to the Stage. 
 
 multitude of bad acting, and confine their 
 stage proclivities to taking advice and hints 
 from professional exponents of an art that 
 is as difficult as it is admirable.
 
 BACKING HORSES. 
 
 WHEN a hot favourite for a big race gets 
 beaten by a stable companion that stands 
 at a longer price, it is usual for backers of 
 the short-priced gee gee to decry the 
 turf, and to designate racing as the most 
 gigantic swindle on the surface of the 
 Almighty's universe. That there is some 
 truth in their assertion I am bound, from 
 experience, to admit, for the annals of the 
 turf in recent years have furnished speci- 
 mens of refined and well-planned roguery, 
 which were worthy the brains of a Balfour 
 or the daring of an east-end London 
 burglar. Yet in spite of this common 
 knowledge the ordinary backer i.e. the 
 genus punter still pursues the even tenor 
 of his way with a persistence worthy of a 
 
 better cause, and a recklessness that would 
 
 127
 
 1 28 Backing Horses. 
 
 do credit to a Beresford or a Stanley. He 
 knows perfectly well in his better senses 
 that he "didn't ought to," but he does. 
 
 The persistent punter has as much chance 
 of making money at the game as he has 
 of stopping waves with a pitch-fork. 
 
 The methods he uses to attain his ends 
 are unique in their imbecility, and no sane 
 man would dream of applying them to any 
 ordinary business transaction, the ultimate 
 aim of which was the making of that 
 necessary evil money. 
 
 Perhaps the principal and most extraor- 
 dinary characteristic of the ordinary backer 
 is the way in which he allows other people 
 to rule and change the vacuum that he calls 
 his mind. 
 
 He is always getting a straight tip 
 direct from the stable, my boy but valu- 
 able and reliable as his information is sup- 
 posed to be, he is invariably persuaded by 
 someone else to back another horse. There 
 is one thing that the punter is always to
 
 Backing Horses. 129 
 
 be relied on for, and that is, the way in 
 which he can tell you what ought to have 
 won on form. He is a walking encyclo- 
 paedia of form, and invariably carries the 
 latest edition of McCall in his pocket. 
 Another of his strong points is his know- 
 ledge after the race of the fact that 
 winners of big handicaps have been especi- 
 ally kept for them. In spite of which 
 knowledge he generally fails to back them. 
 
 And now for a glance at his methods. 
 
 He is usually blessed with a firm belief 
 in the opinions and advice of the sporting 
 writer of one particular paper, and tells you 
 with an air of superiority that he knows 
 for a fact that he is paid an enormous 
 salary, and in a moment of confidence im- 
 parts the information that he knows who 
 he is. This is done to impress you with 
 his, the punter's, standing in the world of 
 sport. 
 
 He backs the tips of his pet until he 
 finds that he is likely to arrive early in the
 
 1 30 Backing Horses. 
 
 land of " brokedown," and then, taking the 
 advice of another of his tribe, flies for aid 
 to the tipster of some other paper who has 
 chanced to have a run of luck. 
 
 Frequently he is a subscriber to the 
 papers and telegrams of an advertising 
 tipster, and so long as he is doing well, 
 swears by him, leaving him like he did the 
 sporting writers, when his luck changes. 
 
 He has not even the courage of his 
 opinions, and if his first love comes back to 
 form and sends a lot of winners, he curses 
 his folly for not having stuck to him all 
 through. 
 
 He follows particular horses in the same 
 way, and after having preached them 
 during the whole time they were losing, 
 fails, principally from want of funds, to 
 back them when they romp home at remun- 
 erative odds, backed only by the connections 
 of the stable in which they are trained. 
 Ah ! my poor deluded backer, you are, 
 in the words of that pathetic ballad "At
 
 Backing Horses. 131 
 
 Trinity Church I met my doom," the 
 M. U. G. 
 
 You have no earthly chance ; for the 
 little backer, with the rarest exceptions, 
 gets beaten in the end. 
 
 To paraphrase the words of young Laertes 
 when he slanged the Sky Pilot who refused 
 to say the burial service over his sister, 
 Ophelia, when she suicided : 
 
 I tell thee, foolish backer, 
 A man of fortune shall thy " bookie" be, 
 When thou'rt stone broken. 
 
 In writing thus, I am perfectly aware 
 that general gambling will never be put 
 clown by Act of Parliament, nor will bet- 
 ting on the turf, for if the latter were dis- 
 pensed with there is but little doubt that 
 the turf, as it is at present constituted, 
 would cease to exist. And so long as the 
 powers that be in the land are allowed to 
 have their thousands on, I fail to see why 
 the punter should not have his half-crown 
 on also.
 
 1 3 2 Backing Horses. 
 
 But the main points of my article 
 remain the same. The punter will prob- 
 ably reply that the big backers make it pay, 
 and why shouldn't he ? Allowing that the 
 big backers do which, with one or two ex- 
 ceptions, I doubt considerably they are in 
 a better position to get at the way the 
 wind is blowing than are the entire army 
 of punters combined. And even then we 
 hear of big owners retiring in disgust, 
 either from the fact that their horses have 
 been run on the cross without their know- 
 ledge, or that they have failed to make 
 racing a financial success. 
 
 All the plungers of late years have gone 
 under, and the warnings off within easy 
 remembrance rise up in the mind with the 
 blackest surroundings. 
 
 These are facts that the ordinary punter 
 should ponder over. 
 
 I would not, for a moment, deprive any 
 man of the pleasure of a casual bet, but, 
 it is the fact that he does not stop there
 
 Backing Horses. 133 
 
 that ruins him. Trying to get it back is 
 the bugbear of the punter, and the oppor- 
 tunity of the bookmaker. 
 
 As showing what chance the punter who 
 relies upon advertising tipsters has, the 
 following remarks of the Duke of Portland 
 are interesting : " There is no doubt that 
 many young people are tempted to bet by 
 the glowing advertisements they see in 
 certain of the daily sporting papers. Well, 
 gentlemen, I would take this opportunity 
 of warning them, from my own personal 
 experience, against those who insert these 
 advertisements. As I was not present at 
 Ascot this year, I thought I would try 
 what information these wise men could 
 impart to me about the likely results of 
 the races which were to take place, so I 
 sent 7, 14s. to thirteen of these self-styled 
 infallible prophets. The result was they 
 sent me nineteen winners, and ninety-five 
 losers, and four of them only sent me one 
 winner to thirty-five losers. I am glad to
 
 1 34 Backing Horses. 
 
 say I did not yield to the temptation of 
 backing their tips, or I fear, instead of 
 being with you to-day, I should be charge- 
 able to you on the rates, and you would 
 be helping to support me in the work- 
 house." 
 
 I am perfectly aware that if I wrote from 
 now until the crack of doom whenever 
 that may be I should not stop punting, 
 for in the words of old Thomas Carlyle, 
 " The world contains so many million 
 people, mostly fools."
 
 WASTED TIME. 
 
 IP all the time that is wasted in the 
 course of a year were accumulated it would 
 amount to something considerable. Every- 
 body wastes some portion of his or her 
 time, possibly on the Indian's principle, 
 that they have "all the time there is" to 
 go at, and that they may as well fool with 
 some of it. 
 
 Some people waste time because they 
 have nothing else to do. They are blessed 
 by the possession of such means as make 
 labour not a necessity. Their existence is 
 a perpetual state of dolce far niente and 
 they do not count time, but as a means of 
 regulating their movements and showing 
 them how the years roll by. So they 
 waste it at their ease in a pleasantly 
 
 indolent way, and if they do no good with 
 
 135
 
 136 Wasted Time. 
 
 their time they do no harm. They are the 
 butterflies of life, who, when the summer of 
 England has ended its spasmodically miser- 
 able career, fly to other climes to waste the 
 remainder of the year amid the flowers. 
 Even the school-boy habitually wastes his 
 time and spends as much of the day as 
 he can looking at the lagging clock, and 
 mentally wishing old Time would hurry 
 up and arrive at the hour when lessons 
 and tyrannical masters shall cease from 
 troubling and the pupil be at rest. 
 
 What is the result ? Arrived at manhood 
 he finds he is behind his fellows in the 
 race of life, and lives perpetually regretting 
 that he wasted his time at school. Let him 
 labour as he will he cannot recover the lost 
 ground, and there will ever and anon crop 
 up some unpleasant reminder of his wasted 
 time. Terrible sinners in the matter of 
 wasted time are the young men whose ages 
 vary from eighteen to twenty-four. They 
 do no more at business than bare necessity
 
 Wasted Time. 137 
 
 compels, and their evenings are wasted in 
 aimless frivolity, if in nothing worse. They 
 smoke heavily and, alas ! too often, they 
 drink heavily too. They spend their even- 
 ings in music-halls or public-houses. 
 
 Many of them indulge in that dangerous 
 and far from remunerative amusement, small 
 betting. They spend their meal hours in 
 the company of betting men and loafers, 
 and fondly imagine that they are becoming 
 acquainted with the ways of the turf. 
 Fatal delusion ! They are only wasting 
 their time and losing their money. 
 
 Any idea of utilising their spare time for 
 the purposes of self-improvement never 
 seems to strike these would-be mashers, 
 the result being that their rise in the world 
 of commerce is frequently a slow one, the 
 prizes being taken by those of their fellows 
 who have not wasted their time. 
 
 Believe me, wasted time is but a poor 
 amusement at the best. Why, people who 
 habitually waste their time do not even
 
 1 38 Was fed Time. 
 
 know how to enjoy legitimately-earned rest. 
 There is nothing more enjoyable in life 
 than the brief respite of the busy man, who, 
 feeling he has not wasted his time during 
 the remainder of the year, lays himself out 
 to enjoy to the full a well-earned holiday. 
 
 There are men whose wasted time is 
 tinged with sadness. Men who toil and 
 labour through long years of suffering to 
 attain a given end, and all to no purpose. 
 Poor inventors whose busy brains toil 
 through the long nights when the work 
 of the day is over, toil, invent, and 
 scheme, only to find when the labour is 
 over and the day of life is far spent that 
 for lack of the wherewithal to carry on the 
 work it must be given up, and the loving 
 care and anxious thought of years must, 
 upon the eve of completion, be abandoned. 
 
 Verily this is the irony of Fate ; and 
 such wasted time merits the sympathy of 
 those who think. Another inventor who 
 does not merit sympathy, but who wastes
 
 Wasted Time. 139 
 
 time on his hobby, is the man who will 
 invent things no one is ever likely to 
 require. A peculiarity about the results of 
 his wasted time is that his patents invari- 
 ably fail to act when put into use, and he 
 lives in a continual state of scheming 
 improvements for inventions which are con- 
 demned as impracticable. All to no pur- 
 pose ; he lacks the constructive ability and 
 the grit necessary to work out details with 
 care and accuracy, and the result once more 
 is wasted time. 
 
 An awful example of wasted time comes 
 from the arena where resides the terrible 
 bugbear of Society the amateur poet. 
 Now he can waste time, though it would 
 take half-a-dozen men of average talent 
 to convince him of the fact. You cannot 
 stem the flow of his so-called poetic 
 eloquence. He has even survived the 
 English springs of the past few years, 
 and while his fellows have been railing at 
 the clerk of the weather and swearing the
 
 140 Wasted Time. 
 
 climate was going to the dogs, he has 
 trotted out his verse with stolid regularity 
 and pointed out to the grumblers that they 
 had their eyes shut ; and has shown them 
 beauties which they in their benighted 
 state had failed to find. A wonderful man 
 is the spring poet. 
 
 But he wastes his time ; for his poems 
 either repose at the bottom of the editorial 
 waste-paper basket or are returned with 
 the editor's compliments "declined with 
 thanks." 
 
 And so the world wags, and time is 
 wasted in many ways by many people 
 who, if they but took the trouble to utilise 
 the time they waste, might put it to pro- 
 fitable use, both for themselves and their 
 fellows.
 
 MARRIED LIFE. 
 
 THERE is an old proverb which says, that 
 " married life is either Hell or Heaven," 
 and experience has proved that it is a 
 tolerably fair estimate of the ordinary 
 results of matrimony. 
 
 Marriage, as a rule, is the result of a 
 chapter of circumstantial accidents, that is 
 when it is not deliberately planned for the 
 purpose of connecting families and property, 
 or with the object of alleviating the im- 
 pecuniosity of the aristocracy by means of 
 the wealth of the democracy. 
 
 If a poll could be honestly taken of the 
 majority of middle-class benedicts, it would, 
 I doubt not, be found that a very large 
 percentage of them regretted their marri- 
 ages, and would, were it not for the 
 
 opinion of their world, have sought freedom 
 
 141
 
 142 Married. L ife. 
 
 in divorce ere they had been wedded a 
 couple of years. 
 
 If all men and women could find their 
 ideals and marry them, then matrimony 
 would be the perfection of Utopia, but 
 as few ever do so, it remains one of the 
 lotteries of life a lottery which, in the old 
 sweet way, contains more blanks than 
 prizes. As a matter of fact, the process of 
 drifting is responsible for a great many 
 marriages, and many a man has married a 
 girl because he found he had drifted into 
 a position he never dreamed of, but which 
 he could not very well get out of without 
 the risk of an action-at-law. This kind of 
 marriage as often turns out what the world 
 calls a satisfactory one as otherwise. 
 Without being actually in love the con- 
 tracting parties have a certain feeling of 
 respect and affection for each other, and 
 even if, in their saner moments, they find 
 they have made a mistake, they take the 
 bull by the horns and mutually decide to
 
 Married L ife. 143 
 
 make the best of a bad job. Nothing of a 
 serious character ensues in the family 
 mansion, and they both settle down to a 
 humdrum life of monotonous domesticity 
 with placid resignation, finding such solace 
 for their wasted existence as their children 
 and their home afford. They are happy in 
 an aimless sort of way, and go on vegetat- 
 ing until they cross the bar with the 
 satisfaction in their hearts that they have 
 done their duty to their children and not 
 done any material wrong to their fellow- 
 creatures. 
 
 Not so the woman who really loves. To 
 her, marriage with the man she worships 
 and these women do worship is Elysium, 
 the Alpha and Omega of life. She is the 
 personification of the line, "love is of man's 
 life a part ; 'tis woman's whole existence." 
 To her there is no such thing as respect in 
 wedded life ; she gives herself body and 
 soul to her husband, and so long as her 
 faith in him be not shattered she is his
 
 144 Married L ife. 
 
 slave, ready to do his bidding, and to share 
 his adversity with the same grace that she 
 shares his prosperity. 
 
 But once she discovers that he is in any 
 way playing her false she becomes a 
 changed woman. Love turns to contempt, 
 and if she does not take the course of 
 criminality, she lapses into a state of cold- 
 ness that is not calculated to create a feel- 
 ing of affection in the household. From 
 this state she in another way drifts also, 
 but is drifting from her home and her 
 husband, and she seeks elsewhere for the 
 balm of love she cannot obtain at home. 
 
 The end is easily foretold. She comes 
 across another man, and, in the feigned 
 adoration he supplies, finds solace for a 
 wounded pride and a shattered faith. No 
 need to follow the play to the fall of the 
 curtain. It has been too often paraded be- 
 fore an edified public through the medium 
 of the Divorce Court. 
 
 And thus it is and thus it will be until
 
 Ma rried Life. 145 
 
 humanity be transformed and the passions 
 of men and women altered. Married life 
 is a game of chance, and it only requires 
 the hand of Fate to hold an unseen card 
 in the rubber of life to upset the best-laid 
 schemes of men and women. 
 
 The moral is obvious. If you marry, do 
 so prepared to make the best you can of 
 the results, and if you find the right 
 woman, guard her as you would a jewel of 
 the greatest value. Do not expect wives 
 or husbands to be immaculate, and never 
 make mountains out of mole-hills. Never 
 meet trouble half-way, and always re- 
 member that to err is human, to forgive 
 divine.
 
 PICTURE GALLERIES. 
 
 MODERN schemes for the education of 
 the masses have taken various forms, 
 and have been more or less appreciated 
 by the great unwashed. It has long 
 been considered that a great factor in the 
 artistic and intellectual education of the 
 middle classes is the picture gallery. It 
 is argued by those specially interested 
 in the matter that an acquaintance with 
 pictures and other works of art must of 
 necessity have a refining influence on the 
 minds of the people. With this idea in 
 view, picture galleries have been erected 
 and filled with pictures from the brushes 
 of artists ancient and modern. ^Estheti- 
 cism has been rampant of late years, and 
 the disciples of floral worship and flop- 
 ping attitudes have laboured vigorously to 
 
 146
 
 Picture Galleries. 147 
 
 imbue the minds of the public with their 
 peculiar cult. 
 
 We have been told the bright colours 
 which Mr Ruskin considers the delight of 
 healthy humanity are outre, and that the 
 true artistic sense only deals in half tones. 
 Dingy greens and sickly yellows have been 
 held forth as typical of aesthetic colour, and 
 peacocks' feathers have been held in high 
 esteem. It has further been put forth 
 that it was the correct thing to languish 
 over lilies and to pose over poppies in 
 " stained - glass attitudes " of the most un- 
 comfortable kind. 
 
 All this has been done by a body of 
 enthusiasts whose efforts were intended 
 to create a purer taste in the minds 
 of the masses. Some of the results of 
 their efforts are to be seen in our picture 
 galleries to-day, where aesthetic maidens of 
 lank proportions are portrayed on canvas 
 with appearances which suggest phthisis and 
 the attendance of the family doctor. The
 
 148 Picture Galleries. 
 
 painting disciples of the cult are given 
 over body and soul to repose, and they 
 depict pallid young men and maidens in 
 a perpetual state of yearning principally, 
 it seems to me, for the unattainable. This 
 idea I have gleaned from the various scraps 
 of poetry usually appended to the titles 
 of aesthetic pictures in exhibition catalogues. 
 ^Esthetic poets all yearn. It seems to do 
 them good. I have even known an aesthetic 
 poet try to transfer the yearning of his 
 poems to canvas. The result was astound- 
 ing. Yet, in spite of the efforts of the 
 aesthetic there is, judging from the usual 
 contents of our galleries, much work left 
 for them to accomplish ere their mission 
 can be said to be completed. They have 
 still to grapple with the demon of 
 mediocrity which reigns in every collection 
 of pictures outside the National Gallery, 
 and is particularly rampant in provincial 
 exhibitions. 
 
 Professor Herkomcr once said, " Beware
 
 Picture Galleries. 149 
 
 of old masters," and he might with equal 
 force have added " and budding painters," 
 for their efforts do much to weaken the 
 educating effect of work of real merit, 
 They are the artistic old men of the sea, 
 and hang on to the edge of the world of 
 art, and gain a false reputation from the 
 mere fact of having their pictures placed 
 side by side with the work of abler men. 
 
 A lengthy experience of picture galleries 
 and exhibitions has gradually brought the 
 conviction to my mind that there are fewer 
 real artists in our island than one would 
 be led to suppose from the amount of art 
 talk and literature periodically placed before 
 the public. For one artist with invention, 
 colour, sense, and mastery of technique, 
 there are hundreds who have none of these 
 qualities, but who are merely the producers 
 of better-class " pot-boilers " mere imitators 
 of the genuine artist. 
 
 A type of picture which is specially 
 annoying and is to be met with in all
 
 150 Picture Galleries. 
 
 galleries, is the one which figures in the 
 catalogue as "The Portrait of a Lady." 
 The lady's name is never given, and much 
 anxiety of mind is thus caused to spectators 
 as to the identity of the lady in question. 
 How are they to tell whether the portrait 
 be good or bad ? For anything they 
 know the lady may be entirely different 
 to the picture, and therefore it is simply 
 a waste of time to express an opinion as 
 to the accuracy of the production. These 
 anonymous portraits invariably show that 
 the ladies who are thus painted have a 
 special weakness for evening dress, and are 
 in the habit of displaying as much of the 
 human form divine as the laws of society 
 and decency permit. Then, there are the 
 artists who will paint small children in 
 large bonnets which seem to have be- 
 longed to their grandmothers. The children 
 always appear to be intensely uncomfort- 
 able, and give one the impression that 
 they have been undergoing the operation
 
 Picture Galleries. 151 
 
 of sitting for their photographs. In the 
 catalogue they appear as " Cherry Ripe," 
 "Little Mrs Gamp," "Little Miss Muffit," 
 and other equally inappropriate names. 
 Occasionally they are depicted as im- 
 personating their elders, and then they are 
 re-named and appear in the catalogues 
 under such titles as " I'm Grandmamma " 
 or "The Little Mother." But they are 
 always the same children with the same 
 doll - like expression of irritating sweet- 
 ness. One never, by any chance, sees 
 them out of a picture gallery, and it 
 must be intensely exasperating to the 
 father of a family to know that his own 
 offspring fall so far short of the child- 
 standard set up by the modern painters. 
 These children are generally painted full-face, 
 for if by any chance the artist painted 
 them in profile, their bonnets would en- 
 tirely preclude the possibility of their 
 faces being seen. 
 
 Anyone taking up a catalogue of a
 
 152 Picture Galleries. 
 
 picture exhibition at random, might with 
 reason conclude that the study of phrenology 
 was largely practised by modern painters, 
 for no exhibition is complete without it 
 has several specimens of the type of 
 picture known as "A Study of a Head." 
 This specimen of art is perhaps one 
 degree less interesting than " The Por- 
 trait of a Lady," for you are not only 
 at the same disadvantage in reference to 
 whose head has been studied, but there 
 is an entire absence of information as to 
 the result of the study. Really, painters 
 should be more considerate. Another annoy- 
 ing style of picture comes from the artists 
 who paint marine subjects. It generally 
 consists of a tremendous quantity of sea 
 and sky and one or two small boats, so 
 diminutive as to be almost indistinguish- 
 able. This style of picture usually figures 
 in the catalogue as "Fishing Boats off 
 Scarborough," " An Approaching Storm," 
 or "A Sea Piece, with Shipping." The
 
 Picture Galleries. 153 
 
 painters of this style of picture are re- 
 markable for the large amount of canvas 
 they cover, and the small amount of 
 detail they put on to its surface. Their 
 subjects are so manipulated that almost any 
 title having reference to things marine 
 would fit them. This is convenient and 
 must save them an immensity of thought 
 in the matter of selection. " Homely 
 pathetic" subjects are immensely popular 
 with the painters of better-class "pot- 
 boilers," and in all galleries are to be 
 found pictures of sorrowing wives and weep- 
 ing children, whose respective and respected 
 relatives have gone to the bourne from 
 whence no traveller returns. By way of 
 equalising this phase of art you may 
 occasionally find a picture dealing with the 
 return of a warrior from the wars or a 
 prodigal to the paths of rectitude. Few of 
 the " homely pathetic " pictures touch a 
 real chord of sympathy, and are as a rule 
 more provocative of laughter than tears.
 
 154 Picture Galleries. 
 
 This is especially noticeable when a 
 domestic subject is taken in hand by a 
 front-rank artist, for the very delicacy with 
 which he handles his subject shows up the 
 coarseness and crudeness of the exponents of 
 mediocrity who rely solely on the strength 
 of their subjects (frequently worn thread- 
 bare) for their success with the crowd. 
 
 Now, it seems to me that our picture 
 galleries are too large, the result being 
 that mediocrity flourishes where perfection 
 alone should reign. To be the means of 
 educating the masses, picture galleries should 
 contain work from the best painters only, 
 and the producers of mediocre pictures 
 should be entirely barred. There is seldom, 
 if ever, any beauty in second-rate pictures, 
 and if nothing but the best examples of 
 English and foreign art were admitted to 
 our galleries, the taste of the public would 
 be trained in the right direction and their 
 artistic instincts would gradually become 
 horoughly developed. Promoters of art
 
 P^ct^t,re Galleries. 155 
 
 exhibitions will, I am fully aware, argue 
 that it would be most difficult to obtain 
 such a collection as I advocate, but that 
 does not alter the facts. So long as "pot- 
 boilers" are admitted wholesale to exhibi- 
 tions, so long will there be sneering from 
 the cultivated and want of appreciation 
 from the crowd. Beauty, whether in colour 
 or form, appeals to all ; but when it is 
 dwarfed by surroundings of ugliness and 
 mediocrity, it loses a large percentage of 
 its power of attraction.
 
 FADS AND FADDISTS. 
 
 THE old Yorkshireman who is reputed to 
 have said, "There's nowt so queer as folks," 
 might with perfect veracity have added 
 that there was an equal amount of peculi- 
 arity about the fads of the said " folks." 
 Fads are extraordinary things, and one 
 never knows how they spring into exist- 
 ence. They may be non-existent one day 
 and in full bloom the next. They grow 
 with all the rapidity of the mushroom and 
 depart with snail-like slowness. They are 
 like their possessors, of all sorts and con- 
 ditions, and do not confine themselves to 
 any particular sphere of life. Young men 
 and maidens, old men and children are 
 all liable to them, and old ladies who have 
 
 not had the fortune or misfortune to enter 
 
 156
 
 Fads and Faddists. 157 
 
 the state of matrimony often get most of 
 the sweetness of their lives out of them. 
 
 Not only individuals but organisations 
 are subject to the effects of fads, and it 
 is to a peculiar fad more or less authenti- 
 cated of the late Earl of Beaconsfield, that 
 we owe the existence of Primrose Day and 
 Primrose Leagues. Politicians and Puritans, 
 Saints and Sinners alike are all victims to 
 fads. In fact, " the world is a melee of 
 special constables, each bent upon getting 
 his own fad enforced at the point of the 
 truncheon." Had there never been any 
 fads there would have been no mashers, 
 and high collars and their accompanying 
 discomforts would not have existed. Fads 
 are responsible for more things in this 
 world than a casual observer would be 
 tempted to imagine. Men take things up 
 as fads, and by sticking to them long 
 enough in many cases produce results un- 
 dreamed of at the time the fad took pos- 
 session of them. Take the case of a man
 
 158 Fads and Faddists. 
 
 with a taste for mechanics. He potters 
 about in his miniature workshop experi- 
 menting at his leisure. It is his fad. One 
 day he discovers that some improvement 
 might be made in the tools he is using, 
 and he sets to work to find out how. 
 The result is a patent that not only en- 
 riches the inventor, but proves of practical 
 use to a portion of the world at large. 
 Simply the result of a fad. 
 
 But there are fads which do not carry 
 with them the redeeming feature of use- 
 fulness, and their possessors are, not unfre- 
 quently, a nuisance to their friends and 
 acquaintances. For instance, there is the 
 ventilating faddist, a being who has a 
 theory for remedying all errors of atmo- 
 sphere and temperature. Once let him get 
 a foothold in your homestead and you are 
 doomed. He will never leave you, but 
 your peace of mind will. He will tell you 
 the exact amount of cold air necessary for 
 the preservation of good health, and if your
 
 Fads and Faddists. 159 
 
 rooms be pleasantly warm and comfortable 
 he will, even on the coldest day, talk 
 scientifically about vitiated atmosphere until 
 you feel it is your bounden duty to open 
 all the windows in spite of the fact that 
 you are subject to rheumatism and neuralgia. 
 He is a walking catalogue of patent venti- 
 lators, and the vigour of his recommenda- 
 tions is suggestive of a commission on 
 results. Another faddist is the man with 
 a mania for old china, which he accumulates 
 to the full extent his means will allow. 
 This faddist is very often a living proof 
 of the veracity of the adage that a little 
 knowledge is a dangerous thing. He will 
 buy almost anything, provided it be a pot, 
 and has an appearance of age. Therefore, 
 on the principle that people with brains 
 and no money are made for the benefit 
 of people with money and no brains, certain 
 dealers in modern - ancient pottery provide 
 for his delectation a choice selection of 
 pots of more or less value principally the
 
 1 60 Fads and Faddists. 
 
 latter which they palm off for the real 
 articles at prices commensurate with their 
 value as genuine relics of departed ages. 
 In spite of this, he is perfectly happy in 
 the enjoyment of his fad ; and unless some 
 unkind friend shatters his happiness by 
 proving his collection more or less worth- 
 less, he will end his days in the belief 
 that he is an authority on Ceramic art, and 
 that his collection is of the utmost value. 
 He is not the only faddist who lives in a 
 dreamland of his own. The peculiarity of 
 his pots is their intense ugliness. This is 
 supposed to add to their value. 
 
 Then there is the man who has a peculiar 
 fad in reference to medicine and the pro- 
 viders thereof. His pet aversion is a 
 medical man, and he will insist upon doc- 
 toring himself. He has a large collection of 
 medical dictionaries and cyclopaedias, and 
 keeps a miscellaneous assortment of drugs 
 and patent medicines on the premises. If 
 by any accident you tell him you are not
 
 Fads and Faddists. 1 6 1 
 
 feeling quite up to the mark, he at once pre- 
 scribes for you, and suggests an alternative 
 list of medicines, patent and otherwise. 
 
 As an ally to the ventilating faddist he 
 would be invaluable from a doctor's point 
 of view. He says it saves doctor's bills, but 
 it is a peculiar thing that all his know- 
 ledge is of no avail when he is taken 
 seriously ill. On the contrary, he is invari- 
 ably told by the despised doctor he is 
 compelled to call in that he has been do- 
 ing his level best to ruin his constitution 
 generally and has materially lessened his 
 chances of recovery in the case immedi- 
 ately in question. This faddist is one 
 whom experience cannot teach, for no 
 sooner does he recover (under the treat- 
 ment of his pet aversion) than he is as 
 ready as ever to fly to his old fads when 
 he feels unwell. Foolish faddist ! If he 
 but knew it, he is spending more money on 
 worthless nostrums than would pay for advice 
 and medicine from a reliable practitioner.
 
 1 62 Fads and Faddists. 
 
 I once knew a man who had a fad as to 
 the peculiar style of cloth he used for his 
 trousers. He always wore a peculiar large 
 check pattern, and ordered his breeches by 
 the dozen pairs. Winter or summer he 
 never changed his check (no imputation as 
 to his commercial stability intended). If 
 he be living still, he is certain to be wear- 
 ing the same check trousers as of yore. 
 The principal objection to this peculiar fad 
 was that it gave people the impression 
 that its owner never got a new pair of 
 trousers. And such a notion is hardly one 
 a man would care for his friends to entertain. 
 Yet I verily believe the man would have sooner 
 given up a friend or two than have given up 
 his beloved check. You couldn't check his 
 fad. There are certainly some advantages 
 attached to a large check. It is not only dis- 
 tinctive, but it can, on occasion, be used with 
 advantage as a substitute for a draught-board. 
 
 A faddist who is a nuisance to many 
 people is the man or woman who desires to
 
 Fads and Faddists. 163 
 
 possess what an eminent journalist once 
 called " an indiscriminate collection of other 
 people's signatures." In a word I mean 
 the autograph -hunter. He, it is generally a 
 man, usually goes very mad on his fad, 
 but there is monetary method in his 
 madness. He has no sense of delicacy, and 
 gathers in his, or other people's, signatures 
 with an eye to the main chance, for auto- 
 graphs have a saleable value. He will 
 worry the life out of a celebrity with a 
 persistence worthy of a better cause, and 
 having at last obtained his prize will show 
 it in triumph to his friends, with an inti- 
 mation that he saw the same celebrity's 
 autograph advertised for sale in a paper 
 for a certain sum of money. He worries 
 his victims in all sorts of ways, and is for 
 ever trying to invent new methods for 
 obtaining signatures from people who, like 
 the late Charles Keade, think autograph 
 collectors an emphatic nuisance. 
 
 And the old maid's fads, what are they ?
 
 1 64 Fads and Faddists. 
 
 "Silly," says the world. But are they in 
 reality so? I think not. Are they not 
 rather a cloak behind which lie hidden the 
 sweetest memories of a happy girlhood ; 
 memories of a time when the flowers and 
 blossoms of spring seemed laden with love, 
 and the world but a garden where grew the 
 flowers of hope and contentment. Believe 
 me, there is much true sentiment and rev- 
 erence pent up beneath the womanish fads 
 the world sneers at, if only one had the key 
 to the mystery. There is seldom any harm 
 in the fads indulged in by the old ladies of 
 the world, be they maids or widows. In 
 both cases the peculiarities are invariably 
 the outcome of departed days, and the 
 sleek tabby, who is tended and cared for 
 with a seeming extravagance by its maiden 
 owner, knows it will never have a kinder 
 mistress. The widow's fads usually take the 
 form of idolising relics, and who shall 
 grudge her the right to shed her heart- 
 felt tears over a picture or a lock of hair ?
 
 Fads and Faddists. 165 
 
 To her they are not the inanimate things 
 they are to us, they speak full eloquently 
 of the past and bring to mind with vivid 
 reality many pleasures long since passed 
 away. Life is sad enough to those whose 
 idols exist only in the mind, without the 
 scoffers making fun of their little eccentri- 
 cities. Therefore, do not sneer at the little 
 fads which emanate from the corner of a 
 woman's heart, where loving memories are 
 stowed away and where the sunlight of 
 departed hours still shines at intervals when 
 the world is sleeping and she is alone with 
 her thoughts.
 
 THE WEATHER. 
 
 THERE is something terribly aggravating 
 about weather in general, and the weather 
 of this country in particular. It is so un- 
 reliable. There is no placing the slightest 
 confidence in it, and the way it ignores the 
 barometers and the prophets is simply 
 appalling. It seems to have lost all 
 sense of the fitness of things of late 
 years. 
 
 In the good old days of which we hear 
 so much, we are told "the weather was 
 worth calling weather." In those much 
 vaunted days they had so say the chroni- 
 clers regular seasons, and spring, summer, 
 autumn and winter, could be relied upon 
 to turn up with the atmospheric sur- 
 
 166
 
 The Weather. 167 
 
 foundings expected in connection with 
 them. 
 
 We have no such things now-a-days, and 
 snow-storms in July are as likely to be 
 chronicled as the fact that there is not the 
 slightest use for skates from December to 
 March. The whole system is disarranged. 
 And the erratic movements of the weather 
 seem to have been more pronounced since 
 the Americans began to anticipate it by 
 their prior-to-date forecasts. When you 
 come to look at it, the thing is hardly sur- 
 prising, and the perverse way in which the 
 weather upsets the tables of the prophets 
 may he put down as its practical and pecu- 
 liar method of telling interfering weather 
 prophets to mind their own business, and 
 not interfere with things they do not 
 understand. I say this may be the case, 
 but, whatever be the cause, there is a wide 
 difference between the prophets and the 
 weather they predict. For the sake of 
 suffering humanity they really ought to
 
 1 68 The Weather. 
 
 try and conciliate the elements. The un- 
 certainty of the elements is likely to result 
 in an unlooked-for calamity, for it will, if 
 it goes on, put to rout a stock theme of 
 conversation. For years the weather has 
 been the great subject for opening or help- 
 ing on a conversation, and the salutation, 
 "Good morning, glorious morning, isn't it?" 
 has frequently led to many an interesting 
 chat. Then how entertaining and interest- 
 ing the discussions as to the probable 
 weather the day would bring forth. The 
 man who foretold rain felt that if his 
 friend did not provide for the coming 
 downpour he had not any confidence in his, 
 the prophet's, acumen. And if it did rain, 
 how self-satisfied he felt. Now, this kind 
 of conversation is apt to be dangerous, for 
 so erratic have the elements become that 
 at the very moment you are stating it is a 
 fine day, it is as likely as not that the 
 rain will come down in torrents, and the 
 people to whom you have expressed your
 
 The Weather. 169 
 
 opinion will go away with the impression 
 that you are not an observant person, 
 which is, to say the least of it, annoying. 
 A curious phase of remarks relating to the 
 weather is that they are mostly bare state- 
 ments of fact which must be palpable to 
 everyone they are made to. It has always 
 seemed to me to be an inference that 
 there is something wanting in a man's 
 powers of perception to tell him in the 
 midst of blue sky and bright sunshine that 
 it is a fine day, or to inform him when the 
 rain is spoiling his best suit and getting 
 through his thin shoes that it is a wet one. 
 Yet these absurd truisms are repeated by 
 the hundred daily, whereas on any other 
 subject than the weather people would as 
 soon think of flying as of indulging in 
 them. 
 
 I suppose the fact is that weather has 
 become such an anomaly that people do 
 not consider it worth treating rationally. 
 And then look at the way it treats the
 
 170 The Weather. 
 
 spring poets, who must be imbued with a 
 faith only equalled by that of a Salvation 
 Army soldier in his General. Season after 
 season they try to convince the world that 
 spring is all they paint it a lovely season 
 where nature and the birds burst forth 
 with equal success. But it won't do in the 
 present state of affairs. There is nothing 
 poetic about catarrh, and very little senti- 
 ment attached to influenza. But they both 
 come round with the spring. If things go 
 on as they are much longer, the calendar 
 will have to be re-arranged, and the posi- 
 tions of the various seasons transposed. 
 But even then there would be no certainty 
 that the weather might not, just for spite, 
 turn round altogether. It might be worth 
 while to try the experiment on the off- 
 chance. 
 
 There is a keen sense of annoyance 
 experienced when one looks at some of the 
 old pictures dealing with picnics and other 
 pleasures of the summer. Picnics, in the
 
 The Weather. 171 
 
 pictures, are depicted as taking place in the 
 midst of the most delightful weather and 
 surroundings. The light gauzy frocks of 
 the ladies flutter in the breeze, and the 
 flannels of the gentlemen tell of the heat 
 of a glorious afternoon. This is in the 
 pictures. Now-a-days the whole thing is 
 changed, and people go to picnics with a 
 liberal supply of macintoshes and umbrellas, 
 and have their pleasure largely spoiled by 
 anticipations of a visit from Jupiter Pluvius. 
 And yet we are living in the much-praised 
 nineteenth century, with its phonographs, 
 its electric light, and its scientific research. 
 The Australian prelate who refused to pray 
 for rain on the ground that the people did 
 not give the rain a chance had, in all pro- 
 bability, other reasons for his non-compli- 
 ance with his flock's request. He doubtless 
 knew how unreliable the weather is, and he 
 did not care to experiment where the 
 prophets and the almanacks had failed. 
 He was a wise man.
 
 172 The Weather. 
 
 One thing that it is always safe to do 
 when dealing with the weather is to 
 grumble at it and sneer at the weather 
 forecasts and their producers. Not only 
 does this relieve you, but it coincides with 
 the feelings of your friends who grumble 
 with you in a sympathetic spirit. 
 
 If the weather prophets would get within 
 reasonable distance of the weather they 
 might be tolerated, but when they prophesy 
 storms they don't come, and when their 
 prognostications point to delightful weather 
 it is certain to rain. And yet there are 
 people who daily turn to the forecasts in 
 their morning papers with a firm belief 
 that they are going to be informed with 
 accuracy as to the kind of weather that 
 will be around during the day. Poor 
 deluded mortals ! They are the people 
 whom experience does not teach. They 
 store up old almanacks, and when, by acci- 
 dent, a prophecy comes off they show it 
 to their friends, and tell of the wonders in
 
 The Weather. 173 
 
 store for them in the way of weather pre- 
 dictions for the future. They are judici- 
 ously silent as to the failures of their 
 pet prophets. These people live in fond 
 anticipation that some of these days we 
 shall again be favoured with that much- 
 talked of season, " a good old-fashioned 
 Christmas." 
 
 As it is no use crying over spilt milk (it 
 only makes it more watery, as H. J. Byron 
 said), so it is but little use to shed tears 
 about the failure of the prophets and the 
 state of the weather. We can only growl 
 and bear it, and wait patiently until such 
 times as it sees fit to leave off fooling and 
 stick to its business with some semblance 
 of seriousness. It has got on the loose, 
 and, as is usual in such cases, it will have 
 to have its own time to come round in. 
 
 So in the meantime we can only study 
 the almanacks, barometers and forecasts, in 
 the hope that one of these days things 
 may get righted. At the same time let us
 
 1 74 The Weather. 
 
 get what consolation we can from the lines 
 of that truthful idyl which says, 
 
 " Whether it's cold or whether it's hot 
 We've got to weather it, whether or not."
 
 PEOPLE WHO WANT TO KNOW. 
 
 WITHOUT the pale of that educational arena 
 where the thirst for information is fostered 
 by Act of Parliament, and where children 
 and their elders are crammed with varied 
 knowledge until they can pass examina- 
 tions at the rate of 98 and 99 per cent., 
 there exists a class of people who, with no 
 regard to educational advancement, are 
 always wanting to know something. If 
 you volunteer an ordinary piece of informa- 
 tion, or tell them the state of affairs in 
 relation to certain events, they do not rest 
 satisfied with the bare statement supplied, 
 but at once ask why such a state of affairs 
 exists ? They want to know the cause for 
 each effect of life, and more especially so 
 if it be domestic. Whether they thoroughly 
 
 attend to their own business may be ques- 
 ts
 
 176 People Who want to know. 
 
 tioned ; but that they take a deep and 
 continual interest in other people's admits 
 of no possible doubt whatever. You see 
 they want to know, and if some of the 
 means whereby they gain their ends are 
 open to criticism, they do not consider 
 that ; and if asked why they thus en- 
 deavour to lay bare the skeletons in the 
 domestic cupboards of other people, they 
 invariably give as their illogical reason 
 that they want to know. They ferret out 
 a cause for the actions of their neighbours, 
 they wonder why the Government does 
 not alter its plans in accordance with their 
 own ideas, and they see nothing objection- 
 able in their wanting to know the income 
 and expenditure of their friends and ac- 
 quaintances. In fact, they ask so many 
 questions and want to know so much that 
 there always seems to be considerable 
 danger of their developing into peregrinat- 
 ing notes of interrogation. Heavy sinners 
 in this respect are the daughters of Eve.
 
 People Who want to know. 177 
 
 It seems to be part of their constitution to 
 annex, during their lives, an unique collec- 
 tion of more or less accurate information 
 about things in general, and their friends 
 in particular. If these ladies were not so 
 fond of " wanting to know," the tongue of 
 scandal would be silenced, and the pleasures 
 of afternoon tea would depart. 
 
 From the cradle to the grave the thirst 
 for indiscriminate information is gradually 
 developed ; and children are, with less evil 
 results than their elders, great delinquents 
 in the direction of wanting to know. For 
 instance, when Master Johnny, cetat four, is 
 told that he has become the possessor of a 
 new sister, he at once begins to ask ques- 
 tions, and immediately wants to know 
 where his relative came from ? On his 
 nurse, with the absence of veracity usual 
 on such occasions, informing him that the 
 latest addition to the household was found 
 "under the gooseberry bush," he evinces a 
 desire to know which particular bush it 
 
 M
 
 178 People Who want to know. 
 
 was, and at the same time suggests a 
 voyage of discovery with a view to possible 
 contingencies in the direction of a further 
 supply of relatives. Should the fairy-tale 
 be that the doctor brought the new arrival 
 with him in his pocket, Master Johnny 
 shows that he has doubts as to the holding 
 capacity of the said pocket, and straight- 
 way proposes to interview the doctor on 
 the subject. He wants to know. Another 
 species of want - to - know people are the 
 individuals who write to newspapers and 
 weekly journals for information, and who 
 expect to be supplied with it immediately 
 if not sooner. 
 
 They expect editors of papers, and espe- 
 cially such papers as are labelled "domes- 
 tic," to be walking catalogues of facts and 
 fashions, periods and passions ; and they 
 worry them week after week with queries 
 on every conceivable subject, which they 
 fondly imagine will be answered in their par- 
 ticular paper the same week they send them.
 
 People Who want to know. 179 
 
 I have lately perused much literature, if 
 it can so be called, of the "Answers to 
 Correspondents " order, and I cannot but 
 think that the ordinary (and now and then 
 extraordinary) readers who want to know 
 must have a high and reliable opinion of 
 the modern editor. Their faith is a thing 
 to dream about. You cannot shake it. 
 They pour their secret troubles into the 
 editorial ear, as though the literary ruler 
 were a priest and his office and waste-paper 
 basket but details of the confessional. In 
 this connection readers of the better-class 
 sensational weeklies of the Family Herald 
 type are perhaps the worst sinners. They 
 fancy the editor of their pet paper ought 
 to be able to advise them on any domestic 
 difficulty they may meet with, and in the 
 matter of love, courtship and marriage, they 
 would sooner take his opinion than that of 
 a dream-book or a gipsy. He ought to feel 
 flattered, but I am much afraid he will not 
 see the faith in his powers in that way.
 
 180 People Who want to know. 
 
 He hasn't time to go into the niceties 
 of the situation it takes him all his 
 time to answer the questions sent him 
 each week. Let us glance at one or two 
 queries sent by ladies who are incapable of 
 managing their love - affairs and their 
 young men. Here is a damsel who has, 
 apparently, not yet learned the art of hook- 
 ing her fish. She writes to a popular 
 weekly, and this is the state of affairs she 
 desires the editor to straighten up : " In 
 Suspense" has for five years been receiving 
 the attentions of a gentleman, but with 
 hardly any understanding whatever. Now 
 he avoids her. What is she to do ? Should 
 she write to him for an explanation ? Now, 
 as the editor could not possibly know 
 either the young man or " In Suspense," 
 he could as he did only generalise on 
 the state of affairs with the result that his 
 reply left the lady exactly where she was. 
 If correspondents only knew it, the domestic 
 affairs of their editorial idol keep him as
 
 People Who want to know. 1 8 1 
 
 fully occupied as it is desirous in the 
 interests of his non - corresponding readers 
 he should be. Married men usually object 
 to being bothered with other people's 
 experiences of the un evenness of the path 
 of true (more or less) love. You see they 
 have travelled the road themselves. Still, 
 in spite of good advice and gently admin- 
 istered sarcasm, the correspondent still 
 flourishes and tells his or her tales of 
 blighted affection or broken vows with an 
 objectionable regularity. I am beginning 
 to think that these ill-used lovers and per- 
 plexed maidens rather glory in their crosses. 
 It gives them an opportunity of writing to 
 an editor ; and I am firmly convinced that 
 they gloat over the replies in the seclusion 
 of their bedrooms and begin to have a 
 glimmering and fatal suspicion that they 
 may one day become authors and write for 
 the papers. And all the outcome of want- 
 ing to know. 
 
 Another of the want-to-know order to be
 
 182 People Who want to knotn. 
 
 avoided is the man who writes queries on 
 etiquette. He is a social terror. Judging 
 from the number of questions this indi- 
 vidual asks, one might conclude that 
 he ought not to be allowed out without a 
 guide. If he be as ignorant of the rules of 
 Society as his questions suggest, he might 
 in all fairness be expected to take his soup 
 with a fork and peas with his fingers. If 
 his ignorance be not assumed he may be 
 pardoned for wanting to know. 
 
 Then there is the old lady, with money, 
 who wants to know how to make a will, 
 and who never seems struck with the idea 
 that she might consult a solicitor, who 
 would not only relieve her anxiety in the 
 present but prevent litigation in the future. 
 Possibly the old lady has no belief in the 
 lights of the law, and prefers to dispose of 
 her goods and chattels without the aid of 
 a solicitor. Well, experience has taught 
 ere this, that men of law are not the 
 pleasantest things to have about the
 
 People Who want to know. 183 
 
 house. They, too, frequently want to 
 know. 
 
 Correspondents who ask the same ques- 
 tions are numerous, and the phrase "up- 
 wards of a hundred" seems to trouble the 
 minds of not a few of them, for they ask 
 the meaning of it unceasingly. Heights of 
 mountains, depths of rivers, the age of 
 actresses, and the value of shares are all 
 things that people want to know through 
 the medium of the papers they patronise. 
 And if they don't get replies they write 
 spiteful letters to the editor. You see they 
 know that editors live out of the public, 
 and they do not wish them to forget the 
 fact. 
 
 And thus the world goes round and 
 people all want to know. From the dazzl- 
 ing halls of light to the humble cottage 
 there is a great and yearning desire to 
 know about things and people, and Lady 
 Geraldine de Montmorency is as eager to 
 know the particulars of her dearest friend's
 
 184 People Who want to know. 
 
 faux pas as Mrs Mooney, the charwoman, 
 is to hear the thrilling details of the latest 
 disagreement between her friends and her 
 neighbours, Mr and Mrs O'Flannigan. They 
 are both actuated by the same desire, and 
 curiosity is the mainspring which sets them 
 on ; and though mischief may result from 
 their desire they do not generally act from 
 motives of spite. They do it simply and 
 solely because they want to know.
 
 PANTOMIMES. 
 
 PANTOMIME, in its truest sense, has ceased 
 to exist, and in this nineteenth century of 
 culture and learning the public is treated 
 to a mixture of music-hall fooling and 
 harlequinade horseplay ; a display of vul- 
 garity and mediocrity which our fathers 
 would have hissed off the stage had any 
 theatrical manager had the audacity to 
 present it to them. Yet season after season 
 these inane one might almost say insane 
 productions are to be seen in the best 
 theatres, and thousands of pounds are spent 
 in dressing and backing up pantomimes 
 which are like unto pantomime proper as 
 chalk is like unto cheese. Originally panto- 
 mimes were, as their name denotes, per- 
 formances done in dumb show, and they 
 
 185
 
 1 86 Pantomimes. 
 
 are, on the authority of Geneste, said to 
 have been introduced into England about 
 the year 1723. 
 
 Colley Gibber tells of a pantomime piece 
 founded on the story of " Mars and Venus," 
 wherein the passions were so happily ex- 
 pressed, and the whole story so intelligibly 
 told by a mute narration of gesture only, 
 that even thinking spectators allowed it 
 both a pleasing and rational entertainment. 
 Now if it were possible so many years ago, 
 when things theatrical were in their in- 
 fancy, to tell in dumb show an intelligent 
 story, how is it that to-day we are, in 
 spite of our knowledge and experience, com- 
 pelled to put up with pantomime wherein, 
 nine times out of ten, the ordinary nursery 
 tales beloved of the children are so badly 
 handled by writers of pantomime books 
 that they are as unintelligible as the dumb 
 shows of the past were intelligible and enter- 
 taining. I was told, not long ago, by a 
 stage manager of many years' experience,
 
 Pantomimes. 187 
 
 that the book was almost of less import- 
 ance than any other part of the machinery 
 of pantomime, and that the success or 
 failure of a modern pantomime depended 
 but to a small extent upon its author. 
 
 On this point I join issue with the 
 stage-manager, for if the framework or con- 
 struction of a pantomime book be faulty, 
 I am certain, from experience, that the pro- 
 duction will invariably run the risk of 
 failure. An author's lines, I admit, do not, 
 at this day, count for much. 
 
 And why ? 
 
 For the very good and simple reason 
 that many of the people engaged are 
 unable to speak them. This tendency to 
 disregard the author is of recent growth, 
 and may, I think, be said to date from 
 the time when music-hall performers began 
 to usurp the places of legitimate actors and 
 actresses in pantomime. 
 
 Modern pantomime books are made, not 
 written, and it is this very introduction of
 
 1 88 Pantomimes. 
 
 uneducated " speciality " people which is re- 
 sponsible for the downfall of interesting, 
 sensible, and pleasing pantomimes. 
 
 I can remember the day when a panto- 
 mime writer took some pains with his 
 book, filled it with smart lines, good puns, 
 and topical and local hits. 
 
 In a book done for a theatre with a 
 high reputation for pantomime, which I 
 read the other day, I found all these 
 essentials to success conspicuous by their 
 absence. 
 
 In the days departed the actors and 
 actresses paid full attention to the author, 
 and made his points and lines tell with 
 the audience. Now-a-days such a state of 
 affairs is rare indeed. At a well-known 
 provincial theatre recently a big star from 
 the music halls was engaged to play a 
 principal part in the Christmas show. On 
 turning up at the first rehearsal he went 
 to the stage-manager, and showing him his 
 part said,
 
 Pantomimes. 189 
 
 " What's this for ? " 
 
 "That's your part; you've got to learn 
 it," replied the official. 
 
 ' ' Learn this," said the astonished star ; 
 "why, it takes me twelve months to learn 
 a song." 
 
 And the truth of his confession was fully 
 demonstrated, for he never learned the part, 
 and stuck to the text that he was " en- 
 gaged to do his business," which consisted 
 of singing so-called comic songs which were 
 devoid of all the elements of humour. 
 
 It is performers of this order, and their 
 name is legion, who kill all attempts on 
 the part of the author, and who mar by 
 their vulgarity and ignorance the best 
 attempts at genuine pantomime. 
 
 As they are the bugbear of the author 
 who has to write parts for them, so are 
 they the bugbear of the manager, who, 
 having engaged them at extravagant salaries, 
 is bound to utilise such ability as they 
 possess to the best advantage, and gener-
 
 190 Pantomimes. 
 
 ally to the disadvantage of more talented 
 people, who, if they had the opportunity, 
 would do much to keep pantomime free from 
 the blots which are yearly to be seen in 
 it, even at the best theatres. 
 
 Even the songs introduced into modern 
 pantomime are, for the most part, entirely 
 and totally irrelevant to the subject on 
 which the book is based. 
 
 Yet they are put in year after year, and 
 people who would turn their eyes up in 
 pious horror if anyone suggested their visit- 
 ing a music hall listen, night after night, 
 to the very songs which have, during the 
 year, become the favourites of the music- 
 hall patrons. Why respectable and educated 
 people should be compelled to listen to a 
 song which tells of the adventures of a gay 
 young spark of not too moral habits, and 
 has for its catch-phrase the charming words, 
 "Hi Tiddley Hi, Ti Ti Ti," is one of the 
 things which, as Lord Dundreary put it, 
 "no fellah can understand." Yet songs of
 
 Pantomimes. 191 
 
 this type are to be found in all the panto- 
 mimes throughout the country, and people 
 are paid big salaries for singing them. 
 
 The result is that the story suffers from 
 the fact that frequent opportunities have 
 to be given for the introduction of such 
 songs, and changes have to be made for the 
 benefit of people whose " business " must 
 go in somewhere and who can, in the 
 majority of cases, do nothing but the 
 special items they have hawked about 
 music-halls and pantomimes for years. 
 
 All of which points to, and strengthens, 
 my contention that the construction of a 
 pantomime is of more importance than many 
 people professionally interested are apt to 
 think. 
 
 Let the pantomime author lay down 
 clearly the framework of his story, indi- 
 cating where special items can be intro- 
 duced without breaking the thread of his 
 tale, and modern pantomime would at least 
 be intelligible and rational, while there
 
 192 Pantomimes. 
 
 would be no interference with the story 
 for the benefit of the genus music-hall 
 performer. 
 
 Until this be done, and done properly, 
 pantomime will continue to be an olio pod- 
 rida of absurdity with neither head, tail, 
 nor middle. 
 
 Another danger of modern pantomime is 
 the damage it does to the reputation of 
 artists of high standing in the world 
 dramatic. Unless the parts they are pro- 
 vided with have a strong connection with 
 the story, which is seldom the case, they 
 are certain to be overshadowed by the 
 rough horseplay of the music-hall people 
 in the cast, whose only idea is to get 
 laughs, no matter how they get them. 
 Many a clever legitimate comedian, engaged 
 at a high salary, has failed in pantomime 
 owing to a bad part and a preponderance 
 of " speciality " turns. 
 
 Bad parts are always the bete noir 
 of the actor, but in the legitimate drama
 
 Pantomimes. 193 
 
 he is not hampered by horse-collar comedians 
 as he invariably is in modern pantomime. 
 Thus a bad or ill-fitting part in pantomime 
 is but the prelude to certain failure to 
 the artistic comedian, who is not able to 
 compete fairly with those inartistic nonde- 
 scripts to whom a part is of no conse- 
 quence provided they get an opening in a 
 big scene for their special business. They 
 are the little old men of the sea of 
 pantomime, and by their tenacity and 
 cheek do more with their limited stock- 
 in-trade than the actor or actress can do 
 after years of experience and training, for 
 he or she is baulked and blocked at every 
 turn and corner by the inartistic buffoonery 
 of the mechanical and misnamed music-hall 
 " comedian." 
 
 N
 
 SYMPATHY. 
 
 THERE is no feeling in the whole range 
 of the human passions calculated to do so 
 much good at so small a personal cost as 
 sympathy. It appeals to rich and poor 
 alike, and is as highly valued by a peer 
 as by a peasant, and is equally at the com- 
 mand of both. 
 
 Sympathy is the balm that soothes the 
 wounded feelings and helps to smooth the 
 rough corners of life ; is far more potent 
 than any medicine, and has this difference 
 from that objectionable commodity that it 
 is usually received with heartfelt joy and 
 leaves no taint or taste behind it when it 
 has done its work. 
 
 From the cradle to the grave sympathy 
 
 plays an important part in the affairs of 
 
 194
 
 Sympathy. 195 
 
 this fleeting life of ours, and many a child 
 has had its budding ideas crushed out of it 
 from the want of sympathy. The mother 
 alone knows thoroughly the value of sym- 
 pathy among children, and many a little 
 one has been coaxed into the development 
 of talents which might otherwise have been 
 allowed to drift, and thus have been lost 
 to the world in which they were in after 
 years to play an important part. There is 
 nothing more fatal to the enlargement of 
 a child's ideas than constant snubbing, and 
 if parents and teachers would use a little 
 more sympathy than they frequently do, 
 there would be many happier and brighter 
 children in the world than there are at 
 present. This fact is well known to the 
 better class of teachers, who are quick to 
 sympathise with their charges and are ever 
 ready to foster and develop any peculiar 
 phase of character or genius that may assert 
 itself during the period children are under 
 them.
 
 1 96 Sympathy. 
 
 What can be more tender than the 
 sympathy of a woman to a sister in mis- 
 fortune the jilted lover or the sorrowing 
 wife bereaved of her first-born or her 
 husband? To a woman placed in such a 
 position the sympathy of her sex is more 
 precious than gold, and many a woman has 
 gone out of her mind ere this, from the 
 mere fact that she had no one to sympathise 
 with her, no sister to whom she could open 
 the flood-gates of her heart and with freely- 
 flowing tears lay her tired head upon her 
 breast and gain consolation and sympathy 
 in her hour of need. 
 
 Apart from the phases already touched 
 upon, sympathy enters largely into other 
 scenes of life. To the artist, sympathy is 
 equally as valuable as applause, and even 
 the actor, who is usually supposed to live 
 upon the latter, knows in his heart, if he 
 be an artistic performer, that sympathy is 
 of equal or greater importance than the 
 plaudits of a well-pleased audience.
 
 Sympathy. 197 
 
 Even the statesman strives to earn the 
 sympathy of nations, and if he fails to 
 gain the sympathy of his constituents at 
 election times, his chances of success are 
 certain to be small. 
 
 Sympathy is a great factor in the ruling 
 of the world, and if it be wisely and gener- 
 ously used may be calculated to do a vast 
 amount of good, while, if withheld, it may 
 frequently cause desolation and despair to 
 enter the homes of the rich and poor alike.
 
 DREAMS. 
 
 "DREAMS," says the poet, "are but the 
 phantasy of an idle brain," and there is no 
 doubt that the dreams of the ordinary day- 
 dreamer are the result of his having no 
 special object to occupy his mind. Yet, 
 even in the busy hive of commerce you 
 frequently find dreamers, men who, while 
 deeply engaged in the exercise of their 
 calling, still dream in the respites from 
 their duties, and hope in the days to come 
 to find their dream-hopes realised. But 
 they seldom live to see the consumma- 
 tion of their desires. Why? Generally 
 because their dreams are of the impos- 
 sible. The possession of wealth without 
 
 work, or of the Utopia, where everyone is 
 
 198
 
 Dreams. 199 
 
 happy, and where the worries and anxieties 
 of life have no existence. 
 
 Then, on the other hand, there are the 
 men whose dreams of avarice never to 
 be realised only help to bring a sordid 
 bitterness into their lives and to make the 
 careers of those with whom they are con- 
 nected sunless and unhappy. The con- 
 tented man seldom dreams, at least not 
 in this direction, and he fares far better 
 than the greed -loving grinder of men who 
 knows no sympathy, and who looks upon his 
 employes as mere machines to be used for 
 the purpose of aiding him in his attempts 
 to realise his godless and hell-chained 
 ambitions. This man's dreams are the 
 ghosts of his days and nights, and he goes 
 to rest if such a man can rest with his 
 head full of speculative schemes, and wakes 
 up to go forth into the world to achieve, 
 if possible, at any cost his avaricious pur- 
 pose. Poor fool ! What will it avail him in 
 the end even should he succeed ? Nothing,
 
 2OO Dreams. 
 
 for to the fell sergeant the millionaire is 
 not more than his maid-servant, or the king 
 one whit the greater than the peasant. His 
 dreams, unfulfilled, caused him misery of 
 mind, and when by chance they become 
 tangible realities they usually result, after 
 his death, in family feuds caused by the 
 contents of his will and the planting of 
 thorns in the bosoms of those who hoped 
 to reap the benefit of the dreamer's toil- 
 ing and misery. 
 
 Thus end his dreams, and he leaves 
 the world more miserable than he found 
 it, unwept and unloved. 
 
 Everybody dreams. Even the little 
 ones. The gay little maiden just bud- 
 ding in the spring-time of life, has her 
 day-dreams. Lovely visions of the time 
 when she will go out into the gay world 
 and see its full-blown flowers and inhale 
 to the full their fragrance. As she grows 
 older her dreams increase, and the horizon 
 of her visions becomes a wider, if not a
 
 Dreams. 201 
 
 happier one. She learns in time that the 
 flowers are not all fragrant with the per- 
 fume of love and happiness, but that the 
 rose and lily may grow side by side with 
 blossoms less fragrant and less beautiful. 
 Poor child, 'tis a pity her day-dreams are 
 not with her for ever, that the joy they 
 bring to her in the hours of her silent 
 meditation has to be rudely shattered by 
 the stern realities of a common-place exist- 
 ence, where the dreams of domesticity are 
 of a peace that hinges on the impossible, 
 and where a perpetual round of monotony 
 teaches her that dreaming is a thing to 
 avoid or to exist only of the memories of 
 the past, or the epitaphs of the "might- 
 have-been." 
 
 The schoolboy dreams of the day when 
 he will be a man and set the world on 
 fire with his prowess or his ingenuity. He 
 dreams of the proud period of life when 
 he will discard knickerbockers for trousers, 
 and "go to business like father."
 
 2O2 Dreams. 
 
 There is a story told of a youthful 
 aspirant for fame, whose dreams evidently 
 took a practical turn, for on being asked 
 by a casual acquaintance what he was 
 going to be when he grew up, answered, 
 "The same as father, sir." "And what is 
 father?" queried the questioner. To which 
 the lad replied solemnly, " Oh ! he's a 
 bishop, sir." 
 
 That boy knew something ! 
 
 But there are some lads whose dreams 
 are not of this order, and who in their 
 little minds have dreaming tendencies in 
 the direction of the future. The lad, who 
 with no hint from others, thinks he would 
 like to be an engineer or a soldier is but 
 dreaming, and if parents and guardians 
 were willing to help him in the direction 
 he desires to go, instead of thinking for 
 him they would frequently make a more 
 than averagely useful citizen of him in- 
 stead of condemning him to a life of com- 
 mercial drudgery, which he loathes and
 
 Dreams. 203 
 
 which takes all the ambition out of him, 
 and only adds one more soul to the great 
 army of middle-class mediocrity. 
 
 Thus it is all the world over. Dreams 
 and disappointment go hand-in-hand, and 
 for one case of happy realisation there are 
 thousands of waiting mortals whose dreams, 
 first coming in the hey-day of life with the 
 freshness of hope, gradually sink behind 
 the clouds of despair and overshadow with 
 their gloom and heartrendings their journey 
 to the land where the dreamers cease from 
 dreaming, and the weary are at rest.
 
 SLEEP? AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 LAST night I dreamed a dream. And lo, "I 
 wakened in a strange, sad place, shadowed 
 in gloom and dreamy mystery." A place 
 where revelry held high domain, and 
 wildest pleasure ruled the roost around. 
 There lovely women and majestic men 
 were lolling idly by a running stream 
 whose waters murmured as they flowed 
 along into a weird, unearthly song, the 
 cadence of which seemed to form itself 
 into this refrain : 
 
 Leisure and pleasure are joys for aye, 
 Dance thro' the night and drink thro' the day ; 
 Curse on the past and the future unknown 
 Love and delight in the present we own. 
 
 The wine flowed freely, and luxurious love 
 
 seemed monarch of the place. The women 
 
 204
 
 Sleep ? An Allegory. 205 
 
 syrens kissed their yearning lords, whose 
 lips were eager for their ruby touch. 
 
 And then methought I joined the throng 
 and was surrounded by a bevy of golden- 
 haired damsels whose arms stretched for- 
 ward to entwine my neck. Lovely they 
 were, yet in my inmost soul I feared and 
 dreaded what their kiss might bring. 
 
 At last they left me all but one ; a sad- 
 eyed maiden with a face so fair that mortal 
 man had sold his soul to death and hell 
 for but one hour of her love and life. 
 
 We strayed into a shaded grove apart 
 from the laughing crowd, and there intently 
 in her eyes I gazed and let the fetters of 
 my heart lie loose. Once did her rose-lips 
 touch my cheek and straight within me rose 
 a wild desire to possess her, body and soul, 
 for ever. Her face changed to that of my 
 angel upon earth for one brief second, and 
 fame, honour, and wealth were as nought 
 compared to the ecstasy of her sweet salute. 
 
 Then did we speak of love. With chang-
 
 206 Sleep ? An Allegory. 
 
 ing features and with mocking laugh she 
 spoke of the God of Love. Her fair smiles 
 vanished, and her eyes were filled with 
 scorn and hate. "Love," she said, "is the 
 mockery of life, the lode-star of despair 
 and death. It is the one passion that 
 brings broken hearts to women and hate 
 to men. It is the forerunner of shattered 
 faith, and nameless graves, and seared 
 victims whose name is legion and whose 
 end is sleep." "But," I answered, "I have 
 loved on earth, and even now hold sacred 
 in my heart the image of my better angel, 
 whose love and faith are to me as the 
 lighthouse to the sinking mariner." Then 
 did the syren's mocking laugh ring out 
 once more, filling the scent -laden grove 
 with its grating notes, and twining her 
 graceful arms around me once again, she 
 whispered : " Listen and be warned. You 
 think she loves you. Make the most of 
 your joy, for ere your lease of life be run 
 her heart may change, her faith and love
 
 Sleep ? An Allegory. 207 
 
 turn into contempt and hate. And in 
 some moment when you hold her to your 
 heart with joy, she may crush your hopes 
 for ever, and leave you cursing on life's 
 barren shore. All women have one victim 
 in their lives. It is their due as recom- 
 pense for the broken hearts of their sisters 
 who believed and fell. Take care you are 
 not hers." 
 
 With this she pressed her lips to mine 
 once more and left me. I tried to follow 
 her but could not move. Some unseen 
 power held me back, until with a mighty 
 effort I broke the baneful bonds of sleep 
 and woke to find the grey dawn rising 
 without, the beads of perspiration stand- 
 ing on my throbbing forehead, and myself 
 murmuring in tones of agony : 
 
 " Oh, God, there is no hell like sleep." 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : DIGBY, LONG & Co., PUBLISHERS, 
 18 Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, E.C.
 
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