On Nothing and Kindred Subjects (13 page)

Peter was so delighted with this arrangement that his gratitude knew
no bounds. He would frequently compliment himself in private on the
advantage of living with Paul, and when he went out to see his
friends it was with the jovial air of the Man with the Bottomless
Purse, for he did not feel the pound a year he had to pay, and Paul
always seemed willing to undertake similar expenses on similar
terms. He purchased a bronze over-mantel, he fitted the rooms with
electric light, he bought (for the common use) a large prize dog for
£56, and he was for ever bringing in made dishes, bottles of wine
and what not, all paid for by this lending of his. The interest
increased to £20 and then to £30 a year, but Paul was so rigorously
honest, prompt and exact in paying himself the interest that Peter
could not bear to be behindhand or to seem less punctual and upright
than his friend. But so high a proportion of his small income going
in interest left poor Peter but a meagre margin for himself and he
had to dine at Lockhart's and get his clothes ready made, which (to
a refined and sensitive soul such as his) was a grievous trial.

Some little time after a Fishmonger who had attained to Cabinet rank
was married to the daughter of a Levantine and London was in
consequence illuminated. Paul said to Peter in his jovial way, "It
is imperative that we should show no meanness upon this occasion. We
are known for the most flourishing and well-to-do pair of bachelors
in the neighbourhood, and I have not hesitated (for I know I had
your consent beforehand) to go to Messrs. Brock and order an immense
quantity of fireworks for the balcony on this auspicious occasion.
Not a word. The loan is mine and very freely do I make it to our
Mutual Position."

So that night there was an illumination at their flat, and the
centre-piece was a vast combination of roses, thistles, shamrocks,
leeks, kangaroos, beavers, schamboks, and other national emblems,
and beneath it the motto, "United we stand, divided we fall: Peter
and Paul," in flaming letters two feet high.

Peter was after this permanently reduced to living upon rice and to
mending his own clothes; but he could easily see how fair the
arrangement was, and he was not the man to grumble at a free
contract. Moreover, he was expecting a rise in salary from the
editor of the
Hoot
, in which paper he wrote "Woman's World",
and signed it "Emily".

At the close of the year Peter had some difficulty in meeting the
interest, though Paul had, with true business probity, paid his on
the very day it fell due. Peter therefore approached Paul with some
little diffidence and hesitation, saying:

"Paul: I trust you will excuse me, but I beg you will be so very
good as to see your way, if possible, to granting me an extension of
time in the matter of paying my interest."

Paul, who was above everything regular and methodical, replied:

"Hum, chrm, chrum, chrm. Well, my dear Peter, it would not be
generous to press you, but I trust you will remember that this money
has not been spent upon my private enjoyment. It has gone for the
glory of our Mutual Position; pray do not forget that, Peter; and
remember also that if you have to pay interest, so have I, so have
I. We are all in the same boat, Peter, sink or swim; sink or
swim…." Then his face brightened, he patted Peter genially on the
shoulder and added: "Do not think me harsh, Peter. It is necessary
that I should keep to a strict, business-like way of doing things,
for I have a large property to manage; but you may be sure that my
friendship for you is of more value to me than a few paltry
sovereigns. I will lend you the sum you owe to the interest on the
Common Debt, and though in strict right you alone should pay the
interest on this new loan I will call half of it my own and you
shall pay but £1 a year on it for ever."

Peter's eyes swam with tears at Paul's generosity, and he thanked
his stars that his lot had been cast with such a man. But when Paul
came again with a grave face and said to him, "Peter, my boy, we
must insure at once against burglars: the underwriters demand a
hundred pounds," his heart broke, and he could not endure the
thought of further payments. Paul, however, with the quiet good
sense that characterised him, pointed out the necessity of the
payment and, eyeing Peter with compassion for a moment, told him
that he had long been feeling that he (Peter) had been unfairly
taxed. "It is a principle" (said Paul) "that taxation should fall
upon men in proportion to their ability to pay it. I am determined
that, whatever happens, you shall in future pay but a third of the
interest that may accrue upon further loans." It was in vain that
Peter pointed out that, in his case, even a thirtieth would mean
starvation; Paul was firm and carried his point.

The wretched Peter was now but skin and bone, and his earning power,
small as it had ever been, was considerably lessened. Paul began to
fear very seriously for his invested funds: he therefore kept up
Peter's spirits as best he could with such advice as the following:—

"Dear Peter, do not repine; your lot is indeed hard, but it has its
silver lining. You are the member of a partnership famous among all
other bachelor-residences for its display of fireworks and its fine
furniture. So valuable is the room in which you live that the
insurance alone is the wonder and envy of our neighbours. Consider
also how firm and stable these loans make our comradeship. They give
me a stake in the rooms and furnish a ready market for the spare
capital of our little community. The interest WE pay upon the fund
is an evidence of our social rank, and all London stares with
astonishment at the flat of Peter and Paul, which can without an
effort buy such gorgeous furniture at a moment's notice."

But, alas! these well-meant words were of no avail. On a beautiful
spring day, when all the world seemed to be holding him to the joys
of living, Peter passed quietly away in his little truckle bed,
unattended even by a doctor, whose fees would have necessitated a
loan the interest of which he could never have paid.

Paul, on the death of Peter, gave way at first to bitter
recrimination. "Is this the way," he said, "that you repay years of
unstinted generosity? Nay, is this the way you meet your sacred
obligations? You promised upon a thousand occasions to pay your
share of the interest for ever, and now like a defaulter you abandon
your post and destroy half the revenue of our firm by one
intempestive and thoughtless act! Had you but possessed a little
property which, properly secured, would continue to meet the claims
you had incurred, I had not blamed you. But a man who earns all that
he possesses has no right to pledge himself to perpetual payment
unless he is prepared to live for ever!"

Nobler thoughts, however, succeeded this outburst, and Paul threw
himself upon the bed of his Departed Friend and moaned. "Who now
will pay me an income in return for my investments? All my fortune
is sunk in this flat, though I myself pay the interest never so
regularly, it will not increase my fortune by one farthing! I shall
as I live consume a fund which will never be replenished, and within
a short time I shall be compelled to work for my living!"

Maddened by this last reflection, he dashed into the street, hurried
northward through-the-now-rapidly-gathering-darkness, and drowned
himself in the Regent's Canal, just where it runs by the Zoological
Gardens, under the bridge that leads to the cages of the larger
pachyderms.

Thus miserably perished Peter and Paul, the one in the thirtieth,
the other in the forty-seventh year of his age, both victims to
their ignorance of
Mrs. Fawcett's Political Economy for the
Young
, the
Nicomachean Ethics
, Bastiat's
Economic Harmonies, The
Fourth Council of Lateran on Unfruitful Loans and Usury, The Speeches
of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Mr. Brodrick (now Lord Midleton), The
Sermons of St. Thomas Aquinas
, under the head "Usuria,"
Mr. W. S. Lilly's First
Principles in Politics
, and other works
too numerous to mention.

"
Saepe miratus sum
," I have often wondered why men were
blamed for seeking to know men of title. That a man should be blamed
for the acceptance of, or uniformity with, ideals not his own is
right enough; but a man who simply reveres a Lord does nothing so
grave: and why he should not revere such a being passes my
comprehension.

The institution of Lords has for its object the creation of a high
and reverend class; well, a man looks up to them with awe or
expresses his reverence and forthwith finds himself accused! Get rid
of Lords by all means, if you think there should be none, but do not
come pestering me with a rule that no Lord shall be considered while
you are making them by the bushel for the special purpose of being
considered—
ad considerandum
as Quintillian has it in his
highly Quintillianarian essay on I forget what.

I have heard it said that what is blamed in snobs,
snobinibus
quid reatumst
, is not the matter but the manner of their
worship. Those who will have it so maintain that we should pay to
rank a certain discreet respect which must not be marred by crude
expression. They compare snobbishness to immodesty, and profess that
the pleasure of acquaintance with the great should be so enjoyed
that the great themselves are but half-conscious of the homage
offered them: this is rather a subtle and finicky critique of what
is in honest minds a natural restraint.

I knew a man once—Chatterley was his name, Shropshire his county,
and racing his occupation—who said that a snob was blamed for the
offence he gave to Lords themselves. Thus we do well (said this man
Chatterley) to admire beautiful women, but who would rush into a
room and exclaim loudly at the ladies it contained? So (said this
man Chatterley) is it with Lords, whom we should never forget, but
whom we should not disturb by violent affection or by too persistent
a pursuit.

Then there was a nasty drunken chap down Wapping way who had seen
better days; he had views on dozens of things and they were often
worth listening to, and one of his fads was to be for ever preaching
that the whole social position of an aristocracy resided in a veil
of illusion, and that hands laid too violently on this veil would
tear it. It was only by a sort of hypnotism, he said, that we
regarded Lords as separate from ourselves. It was a dream, and a
rough movement would wake one out of it. Snobbishness (he said) did
violence to this sacred film of faith and might shatter it, and
hence (he pointed out) was especially hated by Lords themselves. It
was interesting to hear as a theory and delivered in those
surroundings, but it is exploded at once by the first experience of
High Life and its solid realities.

There is yet another view that to seek after acquaintance with men
of position in some way hurts one's own soul, and that to strain
towards our superiors, to mingle our society with their own, is
unworthy, because it is destructive of something peculiar to
ourselves. But surely there is implanted in man an instinct which
leads him to all his noblest efforts and which is, indeed, the
motive force of religion, the instinct by which he will ever seek to
attain what he sees to be superior to him and more worthy than the
things of his common experience. It seems to be proper, therefore,
that no man should struggle against the very natural attraction
which radiates from superior rank, and I will boldly affirm that he
does his country a good service who submits to this force.

The just appetite for rank gives rise to two kinds of duty, one or
the other of which each of us in his sphere is bound to regard.
There is first for much the greater part of men the duty of showing
respect and deference to men of title, by which I do not mean only
Lords absolute (which are Barons, Viscounts, Earls, Marquises and
Dukes), but also Lords in gross, that is the whole body of lords,
including lords by courtesy, ladies, their wives and mothers,
honourables and cousins—especially heirs of Lords, and to some
extent Baronets as well. Secondly, there is the duty of those few
within whose power it lies to become Lords, Lords to become, lest
the aristocratic element in our Constitution should decline. The
most obvious way of doing one's duty in this regard if one is
wealthy is to purchase a peerage, or a Baronetcy at the least, and
when I consider how very numerous are the fortunes to which a sum of
twenty or thirty thousand pounds is not really a sacrifice, and how
few of their possessors exercise a tenacious effort to acquire rank
by the disbursement of money, I cannot but fear for the future of
the country! It is no small sign of our times that we should read so
continually of large bequests to public charities made by men who
have had every opportunity for entering the Upper House but who
preferred to remain unnoted in the North of England and to leave
their posterity no more dignified than they were themselves.

There is a yet more restricted class to whom it is open to become
Lords by sheer merit. The one by gallant conduct in the field,
another by a pretty talent for verse, a third by scientific
research. And if any of my readers happen to be a man of this kind
and yet hesitate to undertake the effort required of him, I would
point out that our Constitution in its wisdom adds certain very
material advantages to a peerage of this kind. It is no excuse for a
man of military or scientific eminence to say that his income would
not enable him to maintain such a dignity. Parliament is always
ready to vote a sufficient grant of money, and even were it not so,
it is quite possible to be a Lord and yet to be but poorly provided
with the perishable goods of this world, as is very clearly seen in
the case of no fewer than eighty-two Barons, fourteen Earls, and
three dukes, a list of whom I had prepared for printing in these
directions but have most unfortunately mislaid.