CHAPTER V
A necessary digression--Introduced by story containing moral--One of thecharms of this book--The Journal that did not command success--Its boast:"Instruction combined with Amusement"--Problem: say what should beconsidered instructive and what amusing--A popular game--Expert opinionon English law--Another of the charms of this book--A hackneyed tune--Yeta third charm of this book--The sort of wood it was where the maidenlived--Description of the Black Forest.
A story is told of a Scotchman who, loving a lassie, desired her for hiswife. But he possessed the prudence of his race. He had noticed in hiscircle many an otherwise promising union result in disappointment anddismay, purely in consequence of the false estimate formed by bride orbridegroom concerning the imagined perfectability of the other. Hedetermined that in his own case no collapsed ideal should be possible.Therefore, it was that his proposal took the following form:
"I'm but a puir lad, Jennie; I hae nae siller to offer ye, and nae land."
"Ah, but ye hae yoursel', Davie!"
"An' I'm wishfu' it wa' onything else, lassie. I'm nae but a puir ill-seasoned loon, Jennie."
"Na, na; there's mony a lad mair ill-looking than yoursel', Davie."
"I hae na seen him, lass, and I'm just a-thinkin' I shouldna' care to."
"Better a plain man, Davie, that ye can depend a' than ane that would bea speirin' at the lassies, a-bringin' trouble into the hame wi' hisflouting ways."
"Dinna ye reckon on that, Jennie; it's nae the bonniest Bubbly Jock thatmak's the most feathers to fly in the kailyard. I was ever a lad to runafter the petticoats, as is weel kent; an' it's a weary handfu' I'll beto ye, I'm thinkin'."
"Ah, but ye hae a kind heart, Davie! an' ye love me weel. I'm sureon't."
"I like ye weel enoo', Jennie, though I canna say how long the feelingmay bide wi' me; an' I'm kind enoo' when I hae my ain way, an' naethin'happens to put me oot. But I hae the deevil's ain temper, as my mithercall tell ye, an' like my puir fayther, I'm a-thinkin', I'll grow naebetter as I grow mair auld."
"Ay, but ye're sair hard upon yersel', Davie. Ye're an honest lad. Iken ye better than ye ken yersel', an' ye'll mak a guid hame for me."
"Maybe, Jennie! But I hae my doots. It's a sair thing for wife an'bairns when the guid man canna keep awa' frae the glass; an' when thescent of the whusky comes to me it's just as though I hae'd the throat o'a Loch Tay salmon; it just gaes doon an' doon, an' there's nae filling o'me."
"Ay, but ye're a guid man when ye're sober, Davie."
"Maybe I'll be that, Jennie, if I'm nae disturbed."
"An' ye'll bide wi' me, Davie, an' work for me?"
"I see nae reason why I shouldna bide wi' yet Jennie; but dinna ye clackaboot work to me, for I just canna bear the thoct o't."
"Anyhow, ye'll do your best, Davie? As the minister says, nae man can domair than that."
"An' it's a puir best that mine'll be, Jennie, and I'm nae sae sure ye'llhae ower muckle even o' that. We're a' weak, sinfu' creatures, Jennie,an' ye'd hae some deefficulty to find a man weaker or mair sinfu' thanmysel'."
"Weel, weel, ye hae a truthfu' tongue, Davie. Mony a lad will mak finepromises to a puir lassie, only to break 'em an' her heart wi' 'em. Yespeak me fair, Davie, and I'm thinkin' I'll just tak ye, an' see whatcomes o't."
Concerning what did come of it, the story is silent, but one feels thatunder no circumstances had the lady any right to complain of her bargain.Whether she ever did or did not--for women do not invariably order theirtongues according to logic, nor men either for the matter of that--Davie,himself, must have had the satisfaction of reflecting that all reproacheswere undeserved.
I wish to be equally frank with the reader of this book. I wish hereconscientiously to let forth its shortcomings. I wish no one to readthis book under a misapprehension.
There will be no useful information in this book.
Anyone who should think that with the aid of this book he would be ableto make a tour through Germany and the Black Forest would probably losehimself before he got to the Nore. That, at all events, would be thebest thing that could happen to him. The farther away from home he got,the greater only would be his difficulties.
I do not regard the conveyance of useful information as my _forte_. Thisbelief was not inborn with me; it has been driven home upon me byexperience.
In my early journalistic days, I served upon a paper, the forerunner ofmany very popular periodicals of the present day. Our boast was that wecombined instruction with amusement; as to what should be regarded asaffording amusement and what instruction, the reader judged for himself.We gave advice to people about to marry--long, earnest advice that would,had they followed it, have made our circle of readers the envy of thewhole married world. We told our subscribers how to make fortunes bykeeping rabbits, giving facts and figures. The thing that must havesurprised them was that we ourselves did not give up journalism and startrabbit-farming. Often and often have I proved conclusively fromauthoritative sources how a man starting a rabbit farm with twelveselected rabbits and a little judgment must, at the end of three years,be in receipt of an income of two thousand a year, rising rapidly; hesimply could not help himself. He might not want the money. He mightnot know what to do with it when he had it. But there it was for him. Ihave never met a rabbit farmer myself worth two thousand a year, though Ihave known many start with the twelve necessary, assorted rabbits.Something has always gone wrong somewhere; maybe the continued atmosphereof a rabbit farm saps the judgment.
We told our readers how many bald-headed men there were in Iceland, andfor all we knew our figures may have been correct; how many red herringsplaced tail to mouth it would take to reach from London to Rome, whichmust have been useful to anyone desirous of laying down a line of redherrings from London to Rome, enabling him to order in the right quantityat the beginning; how many words the average woman spoke in a day; andother such like items of information calculated to make them wise andgreat beyond the readers of other journals.
We told them how to cure fits in cats. Personally I do not believe, andI did not believe then, that you can cure fits in cats. If I had a catsubject to fits I should advertise it for sale, or even give it away. Butour duty was to supply information when asked for. Some fool wrote,clamouring to know; and I spent the best part of a morning seekingknowledge on the subject. I found what I wanted at length at the end ofan old cookery book. What it was doing there I have never been able tounderstand. It had nothing to do with the proper subject of the bookwhatever; there was no suggestion that you could make anything savouryout of a cat, even when you had cured it of its fits. The authoress hadjust thrown in this paragraph out of pure generosity. I can only saythat I wish she had left it out; it was the cause of a deal of angrycorrespondence and of the loss of four subscribers to the paper, if notmore. The man said the result of following our advice had been twopounds worth of damage to his kitchen crockery, to say nothing of abroken window and probable blood poisoning to himself; added to which thecat's fits were worse than before. And yet it was a simple enoughrecipe. You held the cat between your legs, gently, so as not to hurtit, and with a pair of scissors made a sharp, clean cut in its tail. Youdid not cut off any part of the tail; you were to be careful not to dothat; you only made an incision.
As we explained to the man, the garden or the coal cellar would have beenthe proper place for the operation; no one but an idiot would haveattempted to perform it in a kitchen, and without help.
We gave them hints on etiquette. We told them how to address peers andbishops; also how to eat soup. We instructed shy young men how toacquire easy grace in drawing-rooms. We taught dancing to both sexes bythe aid of diagrams. We solved their religious doubts for them, andsupplied them with a code of morals that would have done credit to astained-glass window.
The paper was not a financial success, it was some years before its time,and the consequence was that our staff was limited. My own apartment, Iremember, included "
Advice to Mothers"--I wrote that with the assistanceof my landlady, who, having divorced one husband and buried fourchildren, was, I considered, a reliable authority on all domesticmatters; "Hints on Furnishing and Household Decorations--with Designs" acolumn of "Literary Counsel to Beginners"--I sincerely hope my guidancewas of better service to them than it has ever proved to myself; and ourweekly article, "Straight Talks to Young Men," signed "Uncle Henry." Akindly, genial old fellow was "Uncle Henry," with wide and variedexperience, and a sympathetic attitude towards the rising generation. Hehad been through trouble himself in his far back youth, and knew mostthings. Even to this day I read of "Uncle Henry's" advice, and, though Isay it who should not, it still seems to me good, sound advice. I oftenthink that had I followed "Uncle Henry's" counsel closer I would havebeen wiser, made fewer mistakes, felt better satisfied with myself thanis now the case.
A quiet, weary little woman, who lived in a bed-sitting room off theTottenham Court Road, and who had a husband in a lunatic asylum, did our"Cooking Column," "Hints on Education"--we were full of hints,--and apage and a half of "Fashionable Intelligence," written in the pertlypersonal style which even yet has not altogether disappeared, so I aminformed, from modern journalism: "I must tell you about the _divine_frock I wore at 'Glorious Goodwood' last week. Prince C.--but there, Ireally must not repeat all the things the silly fellow says; he is _too_foolish--and the _dear_ Countess, I fancy, was just the _weeish_ bitjealous"--and so on.
Poor little woman! I see her now in the shabby grey alpaca, with theinkstains on it. Perhaps a day at "Glorious Goodwood," or anywhere elsein the fresh air, might have put some colour into her cheeks.
Our proprietor--one of the most unashamedly ignorant men I ever met--Iremember his gravely informing a correspondent once that Ben Jonson hadwritten _Rabelais_ to pay for his mother's funeral, and only laughinggood-naturedly when his mistakes were pointed out to him--wrote with theaid of a cheap encyclopedia the pages devoted to "General Information,"and did them on the whole remarkably well; while our office boy, with anexcellent pair of scissors for his assistant, was responsible for oursupply of "Wit and Humour."
It was hard work, and the pay was poor, what sustained us was theconsciousness that we were instructing and improving our fellow men andwomen. Of all games in the world, the one most universally and eternallypopular is the game of school. You collect six children, and put them ona doorstep, while you walk up and down with the book and cane. We playit when babies, we play it when boys and girls, we play it when men andwomen, we play it as, lean and slippered, we totter towards the grave. Itnever palls upon, it never wearies us. Only one thing mars it: thetendency of one and all of the other six children to clamour for theirturn with the book and the cane. The reason, I am sure, that journalismis so popular a calling, in spite of its many drawbacks, is this: eachjournalist feels he is the boy walking up and down with the cane. TheGovernment, the Classes, and the Masses, Society, Art, and Literature,are the other children sitting on the doorstep. He instructs andimproves them.
But I digress. It was to excuse my present permanent disinclination tobe the vehicle of useful information that I recalled these matters. Letus now return.
Somebody, signing himself "Balloonist," had written to ask concerning themanufacture of hydrogen gas. It is an easy thing to manufacture--atleast, so I gathered after reading up the subject at the British Museum;yet I did warn "Balloonist," whoever he might be, to take all necessaryprecaution against accident. What more could I have done? Ten daysafterwards a florid-faced lady called at the office, leading by the handwhat, she explained, was her son, aged twelve. The boy's face wasunimpressive to a degree positively remarkable. His mother pushed himforward and took off his hat, and then I perceived the reason for this.He had no eyebrows whatever, and of his hair nothing remained but ascrubby dust, giving to his head the appearance of a hard-boiled egg,skinned and sprinkled with black pepper.
"That was a handsome lad this time last week, with naturally curly hair,"remarked the lady. She spoke with a rising inflection, suggestive of thebeginning of things.
"What has happened to him?" asked our chief.
"This is what's happened to him," retorted the lady. She drew from hermuff a copy of our last week's issue, with my article on hydrogen gasscored in pencil, and flung it before his eyes. Our chief took it andread it through.
"He was 'Balloonist'?" queried the chief.
"He was 'Balloonist,'" admitted the lady, "the poor innocent child, andnow look at him!"
"Maybe it'll grow again," suggested our chief.
"Maybe it will," retorted the lady, her key continuing to rise, "andmaybe it won't. What I want to know is what you are going to do forhim."
Our chief suggested a hair wash. I thought at first she was going to flyat him; but for the moment she confined herself to words. It appears shewas not thinking of a hair wash, but of compensation. She also madeobservations on the general character of our paper, its utility, itsclaim to public support, the sense and wisdom of its contributors.
"I really don't see that it is our fault," urged the chief--he was a mild-mannered man; "he asked for information, and he got it."
"Don't you try to be funny about it," said the lady (he had not meant tobe funny, I am sure; levity was not his failing) "or you'll get somethingthat _you_ haven't asked for. Why, for two pins," said the lady, with asuddenness that sent us both flying like scuttled chickens behind ourrespective chairs, "I'd come round and make your head like it!" I takeit, she meant like the boy's. She also added observations upon ourchief's personal appearance, that were distinctly in bad taste. She wasnot a nice woman by any means.
Myself, I am of opinion that had she brought the action she threatened,she would have had no case; but our chief was a man who had hadexperience of the law, and his principle was always to avoid it. I haveheard him say:
"If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I shouldrefuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force, I feel Ishould, though not a fighting man, do my best to protect it. If, on theother hand, he should assert his intention of trying to obtain it bymeans of an action in any court of law, I should take it out of my pocketand hand it to him, and think I had got off cheaply."
He squared the matter with the florid-faced lady for a five-pound note,which must have represented a month's profits on the paper; and shedeparted, taking her damaged offspring with her. After she was gone, ourchief spoke kindly to me. He said:
"Don't think I am blaming you in the least; it is not your fault, it isFate. Keep to moral advice and criticism--there you are distinctly good;but don't try your hand any more on 'Useful Information.' As I havesaid, it is not your fault. Your information is correct enough--there isnothing to be said against that; it simply is that you are not lucky withit."
I would that I had followed his advice always; I would have saved myselfand other people much disaster. I see no reason why it should be, but soit is. If I instruct a man as to the best route between London and Rome,he loses his luggage in Switzerland, or is nearly shipwrecked off Dover.If I counsel him in the purchase of a camera, he gets run in by theGerman police for photographing fortresses. I once took a deal oftrouble to explain to a man how to marry his deceased wife's sister atStockholm. I found out for him the time the boat left Hull and the besthotels to stop at. There was not a single mistake from beginning to endin the information with which I supplied him; no hitch occurred anywhere;yet now he never speaks to me.
Therefore it is that I have come to restrain my passion for the giving ofinformation; therefore it is that nothing in the nature of practicalinstruction will be found, if I can help it, within these pages.
There will be no description of towns, no historical reminiscences, noarchitecture, no morals.
I once asked an intelligent foreigner what he thought of London.
He said: "It is a very big town."
I said: "What struck you most about it?"
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He replied: "The people."
I said: "Compared with other towns--Paris, Rome, Berlin,--what did youthink of it?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "It is bigger," he said; "what more can onesay?"
One anthill is very much like another. So many avenues, wide or narrow,where the little creatures swarm in strange confusion; these bustling by,important; these halting to pow-wow with one another. These strugglingwith big burdens; those but basking in the sun. So many granaries storedwith food; so many cells where the little things sleep, and eat, andlove; the corner where lie their little white bones. This hive islarger, the next smaller. This nest lies on the sand, and another underthe stones. This was built but yesterday, while that was fashioned agesago, some say even before the swallows came; who knows?
Nor will there be found herein folk-lore or story.
Every valley where lie homesteads has its song. I will tell you theplot; you can turn it into verse and set it to music of your own.
There lived a lass, and there came a lad, who loved and rode away.
It is a monotonous song, written in many languages; for the young manseems to have been a mighty traveller. Here in sentimental Germany theyremember him well. So also the dwellers of the Blue Alsatian Mountainsremember his coming among them; while, if my memory serves me truly, helikewise visited the Banks of Allan Water. A veritable Wandering Jew ishe; for still the foolish girls listen, so they say, to the dying away ofhis hoof-beats.
In this land of many ruins, that long while ago were voice-filled homes,linger many legends; and here again, giving you the essentials, I leaveyou to cook the dish for yourself. Take a human heart or two, assorted;a bundle of human passions--there are not many of them, half a dozen atthe most; season with a mixture of good and evil; flavour the whole withthe sauce of death, and serve up where and when you will. "The Saint'sCell," "The Haunted Keep," "The Dungeon Grave," "The Lover's Leap"--callit what you will, the stew's the same.
Lastly, in this book there will be no scenery. This is not laziness onmy part; it is self-control. Nothing is easier to write than scenery;nothing more difficult and unnecessary to read. When Gibbon had to trustto travellers' tales for a description of the Hellespont, and the Rhinewas chiefly familiar to English students through the medium of _Caesar'sCommentaries_, it behoved every globe-trotter, for whatever distance, todescribe to the best of his ability the things that he had seen. Dr.Johnson, familiar with little else than the view down Fleet Street, couldread the description of a Yorkshire moor with pleasure and with profit.To a cockney who had never seen higher ground than the Hog's Back inSurrey, an account of Snowdon must have appeared exciting. But we, orrather the steam-engine and the camera for us, have changed all that. Theman who plays tennis every year at the foot of the Matterhorn, andbilliards on the summit of the Rigi, does not thank you for an elaborateand painstaking description of the Grampian Hills. To the average man,who has seen a dozen oil paintings, a hundred photographs, a thousandpictures in the illustrated journals, and a couple of panoramas ofNiagara, the word-painting of a waterfall is tedious.
An American friend of mine, a cultured gentleman, who loved poetry wellenough for its own sake, told me that he had obtained a more correct andmore satisfying idea of the Lake district from an eighteenpenny book ofphotographic views than from all the works of Coleridge, Southey, andWordsworth put together. I also remember his saying concerning thissubject of scenery in literature, that he would thank an author as muchfor writing an eloquent description of what he had just had for dinner.But this was in reference to another argument; namely, the properprovince of each art. My friend maintained that just as canvas andcolour were the wrong mediums for story telling, so word-painting was, atits best, but a clumsy method of conveying impressions that could muchbetter be received through the eye.
As regards the question, there also lingers in my memory very distinctlya hot school afternoon. The class was for English literature, and theproceedings commenced with the reading of a certain lengthy, butotherwise unobjectionable, poem. The author's name, I am ashamed to say,I have forgotten, together with the title of the poem. The readingfinished, we closed our books, and the Professor, a kindly, white-hairedold gentleman, suggested our giving in our own words an account of whatwe had just read.
"Tell me," said the Professor, encouragingly, "what it is all about."
"Please, sir," said the first boy--he spoke with bowed head and evidentreluctance, as though the subject were one which, left to himself, hewould never have mentioned,--"it is about a maiden."
"Yes," agreed the Professor; "but I want you to tell me in your ownwords. We do not speak of a maiden, you know; we say a girl. Yes, it isabout a girl. Go on."
"A girl," repeated the top boy, the substitution apparently increasinghis embarrassment, "who lived in a wood."
"What sort of a wood?" asked the Professor.
The first boy examined his inkpot carefully, and then looked at theceiling.
"Come," urged the Professor, growing impatient, "you have been readingabout this wood for the last ten minutes. Surely you can tell mesomething concerning it."
"The gnarly trees, their twisted branches"--recommenced the top boy.
"No, no," interrupted the Professor; "I do not want you to repeat thepoem. I want you to tell me in your own words what sort of a wood it waswhere the girl lived."
The Professor tapped his foot impatiently; the top boy made a dash forit.
"Please, sir, it was the usual sort of a wood."
"Tell him what sort of a wood," said he, pointing to the second lad.
The second boy said it was a "green wood." This annoyed the Professorstill more; he called the second boy a blockhead, though really I cannotsee why, and passed on to the third, who, for the last minute, had beensitting apparently on hot plates, with his right arm waving up and downlike a distracted semaphore signal. He would have had to say it the nextsecond, whether the Professor had asked him or not; he was red in theface, holding his knowledge in.
"A dark and gloomy wood," shouted the third boy, with much relief to hisfeelings.
"A dark and gloomy wood," repeated the Professor, with evident approval."And why was it dark and gloomy?"
The third boy was still equal to the occasion.
"Because the sun could not get inside it."
The Professor felt he had discovered the poet of the class.
"Because the sun could not get into it, or, better, because the sunbeamscould not penetrate. And why could not the sunbeams penetrate there?"
"Please, sir, because the leaves were too thick."
"Very well," said the Professor. "The girl lived in a dark and gloomywood, through the leafy canopy of which the sunbeams were unable topierce. Now, what grew in this wood?" He pointed to the fourth boy.
"Please, sir, trees, sir."
"And what else?"
"Toadstools, sir." This after a pause.
The Professor was not quite sure about the toadstools, but on referringto the text he found that the boy was right; toadstools had beenmentioned.
"Quite right," admitted the Professor, "toadstools grew there. And whatelse? What do you find underneath trees in a wood?"
"Please, sir, earth, sir."
"No; no; what grows in a wood besides trees?"
"Oh, please, sir, bushes, sir."
"Bushes; very good. Now we are getting on. In this wood there weretrees and bushes. And what else?"
He pointed to a small boy near the bottom, who having decided that thewood was too far off to be of any annoyance to him, individually, wasoccupying his leisure playing noughts and crosses against himself. Vexedand bewildered, but feeling it necessary to add something to theinventory, he hazarded blackberries. This was a mistake; the poet hadnot mentioned blackberries.
"Of course, Klobstock would think of something to eat," commented theProfessor, who prided himself on his ready wit. This raised a laughagainst Klobstock, and pleased the Professor.
"You," continued he, pointing to a boy in the middle; "what else wasthere in this wood besides trees and bushes?"
"Please, sir, there was a torrent there."
"Quite right; and what did the torrent do?"
"Please, sir, it gurgled."
"No; no. Streams gurgle, torrents--?"
"Roar, sir."
"It roared. And what made it roar?"
This was a poser. One boy--he was not our prize intellect, Iadmit--suggested the girl. To help us the Professor put his question inanother form:
"When did it roar?"
Our third boy, again coming to the rescue, explained that it roared whenit fell down among the rocks. I think some of us had a vague idea thatit must have been a cowardly torrent to make such a noise about a littlething like this; a pluckier torrent, we felt, would have got up and goneon, saying nothing about it. A torrent that roared every time it fellupon a rock we deemed a poor spirited torrent; but the Professor seemedquite content with it.
"And what lived in this wood beside the girl?" was the next question.
"Please, sir, birds, sir."
"Yes, birds lived in this wood. What else?"
Birds seemed to have exhausted our ideas.
"Come," said the Professor, "what are those animals with tails, that runup trees?"
We thought for a while, then one of us suggested cats.
This was an error; the poet had said nothing about cats; squirrels waswhat the Professor was trying to get.
I do not recall much more about this wood in detail. I only recollectthat the sky was introduced into it. In places where there occurred anopening among the trees you could by looking up see the sky above you;very often there were clouds in this sky, and occasionally, if I rememberrightly, the girl got wet.
I have dwelt upon this incident, because it seems to me suggestive of thewhole question of scenery in literature. I could not at the time, Icannot now, understand why the top boy's summary was not sufficient. Withall due deference to the poet, whoever he may have been, one cannot butacknowledge that his wood was, and could not be otherwise than, "theusual sort of a wood."
I could describe the Black Forest to you at great length. I couldtranslate to you Hebel, the poet of the Black Forest. I could writepages concerning its rocky gorges and its smiling valleys, its pine-cladslopes, its rock-crowned summits, its foaming rivulets (where the tidyGerman has not condemned them to flow respectably through wooden troughsor drainpipes), its white villages, its lonely farmsteads.
But I am haunted by the suspicion you might skip all this. Were yousufficiently conscientious--or weak-minded enough--not to do so, Ishould, all said and done, succeed in conveying to you only an impressionmuch better summed up in the simple words of the unpretentious guidebook:
"A picturesque, mountainous district, bounded on the south and the westby the plain of the Rhine, towards which its spurs descend precipitately.Its geological formation consists chiefly of variegated sandstone andgranite; its lower heights being covered with extensive pine forests. Itis well watered with numerous streams, while its populous valleys arefertile and well cultivated. The inns are good; but the local winesshould be partaken of by the stranger with discretion."