On Nothing and Kindred Subjects (8 page)

It is on this account that I have always been at pains to note what
I heard in this way, especially the least expected, most startling,
and therefore most revealing dialogues, and as soon as I could to
write them down, for in this way one can grow to know men.

Thus I have somewhere preserved a hot discussion among some miners
in Derbyshire (voters, good people, voters remember) whether the
United States were bound to us as a colony "like Egypt." And I once
heard also a debate as to whether the word were Horizon or Horizon;
this ended in a fight; and the Horizon man pushed the Horizon man
out at Skipton, and wouldn't let him get into the carriage again.

Then again I once heard two frightfully rich men near Birmingham
arguing why England was the richest and the Happiest Country in the
world. Neither of these men was a gentleman but they argued politely
though firmly, for they differed profoundly. One of them, who was
almost too rich to walk, said it was because we minded our own
affairs, and respected property and were law-abiding. This (he said)
was the cause of our prosperity and of the futile envy with which
foreigners regarded the homes of our working men. Not so the other:
he
thought that it was the Plain English sense of Duty that
did the trick: he showed how this was ingrained in us and appeared
in our Schoolboys and our Police: he contrasted it with Ireland, and
he asked what else had made our Criminal Trials the model of the
world? All this also I wrote down.

Then also once on a long ride (yes, "ride". Why not?) through
Lincolnshire I heard two men of the smaller commercial or salaried
kind at issue. The first, who had a rather peevish face, was looking
gloomily out of window and was saying, "Denmark has it: Greece has
it—why shouldn't we have it? Eh? America has it and so's Germany—why
shouldn't we have it?" Then after a pause he added, "Even France has
it—why haven't we got it?" He spoke as though he wouldn't stand it
much longer, and as though France were the last straw.

The other man was excitable and had an enormous newspaper in his
hand, and he answered in a high voice, "'Cause we're too sensible,
that's why! 'Cause we know what we're about, we do."

The other man said, "Ho! Do we?"

The second man answered, "Yes: we do. What made England?"

"Gord," said the first man.

This brought the second man up all standing and nearly carried away
his fore-bob-stay. He answered slowly—

"Well … yes … in a manner of speaking. But what I meant to say
was like this, that what made England was Free Trade!" Here he
slapped one hand on to the other with a noise like that of a pistol,
and added heavily: "And what's more, I can prove it."

The first man, who was now entrenched in his position, said again,
"Ho! Can you?" and sneered.

The second man then proved it, getting more and more excited. When
he had done, all the first man did was to say, "You talk
foolishness."

Then there was a long silence: very strained. At last the Free
Trader pulled out a pipe and filled it at leisure, with a light sort
of womanish tobacco, and just as he struck a match the Protectionist
shouted out, "No you don't! This ain't a smoking compartment. I
object!" The Free Trader said, "O! that's how it is, is it?" The
Protectionist answered in a lower voice and surly, "Yes: that's
how."

They sat avoiding each other's eyes till we got to Grantham. I had
no idea that feeling could run so high, yet neither of them had a
real grip on the Theory of International Exchange.

But by far the most extraordinary conversation and perhaps the most
illuminating I ever heard, was in a train going to the West Country
and stopping first at Swindon.

It passed between two men who sat in corners facing each other.

The one was stout, tall, and dressed in a tweed suit. He had a gold
watch-chain with a little ornament on it representing a pair of
compasses and a square. His beard was brown and soft. His eyes were
very sodden. When he got in he first wrapped a rug round and round
his legs, then he took off his top hat and put on a cloth cap, then
he sat down.

The other also wore a tweed suit and was also stout, but he was not
so tall. His watch-chain also was of gold (but of a different
pattern, paler, and with no ornament hung on it). His eyes also were
sodden. He had no rug. He also took off his hat but put no cap upon
his head. I noticed that he was rather bald, and in the middle of
his baldness was a kind of little knob. For the purposes of this
record, therefore, I shall give him the name "Bald," while I shall
call the other man "Cap."

I have forgotten, by the way, to tell you that Bald had a very large
nose, at the end of which a great number of little veins had
congested and turned quite blue.

CAP (
shuts up Levy's paper, "The Daily Telegraph," and opens
Harmsworth's "Daily Mail," Shuts that up and looks fixedly at
BALD):
I ask your pardon … but isn't your name Binder?

BALD (
his eyes still quite sodden
): That is my name. Binder's my
name. (
He coughs to show breeding
.) Why! (
his eyes getting a
trifle less sodden
) if you aren't Mr. Mowle! Well, Mr. Mowle, sir,
how are you?

CAP (
with some dignity
): Very well, thank you, Mr. Binder.
How, how's Mrs. Binder and the kids? All blooming?

BALD: Why, yes, thank you, Mr. Mowle, but Mrs. Binder still has
those attacks (
shaking his head
). Abdominal (
continuing to
shake his head
). Gastric. Something cruel.

CAP: They do suffer cruel, as you say, do women, Mr. Binder
(
shaking his head too—but more slightly
). This indigestion—ah!

BALD (
more brightly
): Not married yet, Mr. Mowle?

CAP (
contentedly and rather stolidly
): No, Mr. Binder. Nor
not inclined to neither. (
Draws a great breath.
) I'm a single
man, Mr. Binder, and intend so to adhere. (
A pause to think.
)
That's what I call (
a further pause to get the right phrase
)
"single blessedness." Yes, (
another deep breath
) I find life
worth living, Mr. Binder.

BALD (
with great cunning
): That depends upon the liver.
(
Roars with laughter.
)

CAP (
laughing a good deal too, but not so much as
BALD): Ar!
That was young Cobbler's joke in times gone by.

BALD (
politely
): Ever see young Cobbler now, Mr. Mowle?

CAP (
with importance
): Why yes, Mr. Binder; I met him at the
Thersites' Lodge down Brixham way—only the other day. Wonderful
brilliant he was … well, there … (
his tone changes
) he
was sitting next to me—(
thoughtfully
)—as, might be here—(
putting
Harmsworth's paper down to represent Young Cobbler
)—and here like,
would be Lord Haltingtowres.

BALD (
his manner suddenly becoming very serious
): He's a
fine man, he is! One of those men I respect.

CAP (
with still greater seriousness
): You may say that, Mr.
Binder. No respecter of persons—talks to me or you or any of them
just the same.

BALD (
vaguely
): Yes, they're a fine lot! (
Suddenly
)
So's Charlie Beresford!

CAP (
with more enthusiasm than he had yet shown
): I say ditto
to that, Mr. Binder! (
Thinking for a few moments of the
characteristics of Lord Charles Beresford.
) It's pluck—that's
what it is—regular British pluck (
Grimly
) That's the kind of
man—no favouritism.

BALD: Ar! it's a case of "Well done, Condor!"

CAP: Ar! you're right there, Mr. Binder.

BALD (
suddenly pulling a large flask out of his pocket and
speaking very rapidly
): Well, here's yours, Mr. Mowle. (
He
drinks out of it a quantity of neat whisky, and having drunk it rubs
the top of his flask with his sleeve and hands it over politely to
)
CAP.

Cap (
having drunk a lot of neat whisky also, rubbed his sleeve
over it, screwed on the little top and giving that long gasp which
the occasion demands
): Yes, you're right there—"Well done.
Condor."

At this point the train began to go slowly, and just as it stopped
at the station I heard Cap begin again, asking Bald on what occasion
and for what services Lord Charles Beresford had been given his
title.

Full of the marvels of this conversation I got out, went into the
waiting-room and wrote it all down. I think I have it accurately
word for word.

But there happened to me what always happens after all literary
effort; the enthusiasm vanished, the common day was before me. I
went out to do my work in the place and to meet quite ordinary
people and to forget, perhaps, (so strong is Time) the fantastic
beings in the train. In a word, to quote Mr. Binyon's admirable
lines:

  "The world whose wrong
   Mocks holy beauty and our desire returned."

The reason the Dead do not return nowadays is the boredom of it.

In the old time they would come casually, as suited them, without
fuss and thinly, as it were, which is their nature; but when such
visits were doubted even by those who received them and when new and
false names were given them the Dead did not find it worth while. It
was always a trouble; they did it really more for our sakes than for
theirs and they would be recognised or stay where they were.

I am not certain that they might not have changed with the times and
come frankly and positively, as some urged them to do, had it not
been for Rabelais' failure towards the end of the Boer war. Rabelais
(it will be remembered) appeared in London at the very beginning of
the season in 1902. Everybody knows one part of the story or
another, but if I put down the gist of it here I shall be of
service, for very few people have got it quite right all through,
and yet that story alone can explain why one cannot get the dead to
come back at all now even in the old doubtful way they did in the
'80's and early '90's of the last century.

There is a place in heaven where a group of writers have put up a
colonnade on a little hill looking south over the plains. There are
thrones there with the names of the owners on them. It is a sort of
Club.

Rabelais was quarrelling with some fool who had missed fire with a
medium and was saying that the modern world wanted positive
unmistakable appearances: he said he ought to know, because he had
begun the modern world. Lucian said it would fail just as much as
any other way; Rabelais hotly said it wouldn't. He said he would
come to London and lecture at the London School of Economics and
establish a good solid objective relationship between the two
worlds. Lucian said it would end badly. Rabelais, who had been
drinking, lost his temper and did at once what he had only been
boasting he would do. He materialised at some expense, and he
announced his lecture. Then the trouble began, and I am honestly of
opinion that if we had treated the experiment more decently we
should not have this recent reluctance on the part of the Dead to
pay us reasonable attention.

In the first place, when it was announced that Rabelais had returned
to life and was about to deliver a lecture at the London School of
Economics, Mrs. Whirtle, who was a learned woman, with a well-deserved
reputation in the field of objective psychology, called it a rumour
and discredited it (in a public lecture) on these three grounds:

(
a
) That Rabelais being dead so long ago would not come back
to life now.

(
b
) That even if he did come back to life it was quite out of
his habit to give lectures.

(
c
) That even if he had come back to life and did mean to
lecture, he would never lecture at the London School of Economics,
which was engaged upon matters principally formulated since
Rabelais' day and with which, moreover, Rabelais' "essentially
synthetical" mind would find a difficulty in grappling.

All Mrs. Whirtle's audience agreed with one or more of these
propositions except Professor Giblet, who accepted all three saving
and excepting the term "synthetical" as applied to Rabelais' mind.
"For," said he, "you must not be so deceived by an early use of the
Inducto-Deductive method as to believe that a sixteenth-century man
could be, in any true sense, synthetical." And this judgment the
Professor emphasized by raising his voice suddenly by one octave.
His position and that of Mrs. Whirtle were based upon that thorough
summary of Rabelais' style in Mr. Effort's book on French
literature: each held a sincere position, nevertheless this cold
water thrown on the very beginning of the experiment did harm.

The attitude of the governing class did harm also. Lady Jane Bird saw
the announcement on the placards of the evening papers as she went
out to call on a friend. At tea-time a man called Wantage-Verneyson,
who was well dressed, said that he knew all about Rabelais, and a
group of people began to ask questions together: Lady Jane herself
did so. Mr. Wantage-Verneyson is (or rather was, alas!) the second
cousin of the Duke of Durham (he is—or rather was, alas!—the son of
Lord and Lady James Verneyson, now dead), and he said that Rabelais
was written by Urquhart a long time ago; this was quite deplorable
and did infinite harm. He also said that every educated man had read
Rabelais, and that he had done so. He said it was a protest against
Rome and all that sort of thing. He added that the language was
difficult to understand. He further remarked that it was full of
footnotes, but that he thought these had been put in later by scholars.
Cross-questioned on this he admitted that he did not see what scholars
could want with Rabelais. On hearing this and the rest of his
information several ladies and a young man of genial expression began
to doubt in their turn.