likeness, and hauls you, now this side, a certain church in the neighbourhood of now that, to point out how it is exactly which I have the misfortune to reside. Mumbles' eye, and Mumbles' beard, and That church, or rather its steeple, contains, how the artist has unintentionally caught to the perpetual discomfort of the vicinithe Mumbles expression, to refresh your ty, what I believe is considered a remarkmemory on which branch of the subject ably fine peal of bells, of which it is appar he gives imitations of Mumbles under dif- ently very proud. Consequently it never ferent circumstances, until he has riveted misses an opportunity of airing its chimes. the attention of the whole room. He likes It is scrupulous in acknowledging anniverthis. He says it is "such fun." Travel, saries of all sorts with full and noisy hontoo, stimulates him wonderfully, especially ours. No ceremonial of any kind can foreign travel. Any shreds of decorum come off within a radius of three miles, no he preserved at home he discards the mo- foundation-stone can be laid, building inment he sets foot on the Continent. Life augurated, or new street opened, without there he considers to be invariably con- that belfry bursting out into an insane ducted on the broadest farce principles. hymn of thanksgiving. If the smallest He avails himself unstintingly of all the princelet from the Danubian principalities facilities for burlesque afforded by the happens to cross the boundaries of the language, manners, and customs of the parish the ringers will immediately rush country. He loves to deliver, vivâ voce, up the steeple and give vent to the paroextravagant renderings of inscriptions on chial joy in a peal of at least an hour's walls or in shop windows, and, if you are duration; and when public occasions fail, so unfortunate as to have him for a travel- any local event, such as the vicar having got ling companion, to address you in public a new surplice, or the beadle's child being in a dialect of his own construction, the successfully vaccinated, is, I suspect, made principle of which is that it is a wild cari- to serve as an excuse. There is besides a cature of the tongue of the people about regular weekly jingle (a parishioner of the you. He refuses to contemplate the pos- last century, an old lady, whose memory sibility of any one not an Englishman un- can hardly be sufficiently detested, having, derstanding a word of English, so that his I believe, left by will a boiled leg of mutcriticisms and jokes are free from all re- ton and trimmings to be rung for every straint, and he has a way of recommend- Friday evening), which is, I think, as exing himself to officials, fron whom you asperating and idiotic a performance as wish to obtain some information or favour, ever tortured mortal tympanum, and by cutting into the conversation and in- which always winds up with something vesting them with fanciful titles, such as that sounds as if the steeple were seized "Old Stick-in-the-mud," "Old Collywob- with a gigantic sneezing fit. What with bles;" in consequence of which, perhaps, all this, and the occasional favours of stray it is that the concierge curtly tells you amateur ringers, who are afterwards comthat this is not the day for seeing the Mu- mended in the sporting papers for having seum, and the Chef-de-Gare refuses to rung a complete set of grandsire triples, mark your through-ticket so as to enable whatever that may be, in two hours and you to dine and go on by the next train. forty minutes, we of the parish might as Take him anywhere, at home or abroad, well be in the "Ringing Island" of Rabein public or in private, on the top of Mont lais. The person I have spoken of as "the Blanc or on the top of an omnibus, he is man with the voice" is very like that a very good fellow it may be, but -a church, and for a similar reason is a plague most intolerable nuisance. In fact, I can to all who are unlucky enough to be withonly conceive of two situations in which in earshot of him. Nature has unkindly he can possibly be of any use, comfort, endowed him with a fine organ, of which or advantage to his fellow-creatures, at he is so proud, and of the sound of which a picnic, or at a wedding, those being he is so enamoured, that he is scarcely occasions on which, owing to the opera- ever silent. It is a rich, sonorous bass ortion of a natural law, liveliness is apt gan of such a pervading quality that it to be deficient because it is expected. completely fills a room, and comes rolling Here he might be valuable as a natural and tolling round you, absorbing, as it reservoir of spontaneous vivacity; but were, all other sounds. Like the lady's elsewhere he is, I repeat, a nuisance. voice in Marmion it is ever in your ear, and you cannot hear the very friend who is at the same table with you. There is something in the tone of it that reminds one of that great being who stands be There is a man whom I have been hating for some time to whom I can give no title but that of "the man with the voice." He is always associated in my mind with hind the chairman's chair at a public A man who is always doing a particular dinner, and enjoins upon gentlemen silence for a toast, and to charge their glasses. Indeed, I am rapidly coming to believe as history what I once in a moment of irritation struck out as a mere theory, that the individual in question is a retired toast-master, who, having saved money, has become a speaking director in some city company. He is exactly the man to talk of an enterprize worthy of this great commercial metropolis" in a tone that would carry conviction to all who have ears and are led by them. The adroitness with which, for the purpose of bringing out his voice, he avails himself of all the most pompous and sonoriferous words of the language is something marvellous. Not only does he use three words where another would use one, but where an ordinary person would employ a word of one syllable he contrives to get in one of three. Catch him missing an opening for a sesquipedalian term. The mere ceaseless sound of his voice would be aggravation enough, but unfortunately it is impossible to avoid hearing what he says, and of course when a man talks continually his talk must be mainly twaddle. In this particular case it is not too harsh to say that the talk is twaddle. Slightly to parody the words of the poet, he holds it true, whate'er befall, that thing, even though that thing be a perfectly innocent, innocuous thing, is, I maintain, a legitimate object for hatred. Nature has implanted in us an instinctive love of variety and abhorrence of monotony, and any one running counter to this instinct excites a natural animosity. This is the moral underlying the well-known story of the gentleman coming out of Crockford's and kicking the man who was tying his shoe on the doorstep. We have nothing to do with the truth of the allegation that the person kicked was "always tying his shoe:" we have only to consider it as a justification of the kicking, and as such it is complete. Kicking is, perhaps, in a case of the sort, an extreme measure, but that is merely a matter of detail and does not affect the principle, which is that monotony of behaviour justifies the feeling of hatred. The particular expression of that feeling will, of course, always depend upon individual temperament. There is a man, for instance, opposite to whom I have very often the discomfort of sitting, and who is always smiling. Smiling in the abstract, or even a habit of smiling, is not a reasonable ground for enmity. But this man's smile is a fixed and perpetual smile that never waxes or wanes, but at all times, and under all circumstances, conditions, and weathers remains the same, as if it had been painted on his face by a country sign-board painter. It is also a vague and indefinite smile, which, apparIf he can get nobody else to talk to he will ently, has no reference to anything in parengage one of the club waiters in conver- ticular, but is, I suppose, in some way sation, quite regardless of the fact that he connected with the contemplation of life is depriving other members of their proper in general. At first I thought it indicatshare of attendance, and he takes about a ed merely a sort of stolid content with life, quarter of an hour to order his dinner. but there is a certain perplexity of exHe is evidently not a person of a very pression joined with it which is inconsisthigh order of intellect, but it is impossible ent with that view. It is the kind of smile to suppose him such a fool as to believe a person is apt to put on when told a that the continuous sound of his voice can story, the point of which is given in be the same pleasure to others that it is to some language of which he is ignorant; himself. Therefore he must belong to one and I incline to the notion that having or other of two classes of people, the long puzzled over the problem of life he purely selfish who never allow the comfort has at last arrived at the suspicion that or convenience of others to weigh a grain there is a joke of some sort at the bottom in the balance against their own gratifica- of it, and that he wears this perpetual tion; or else the equally objectionable class of those who simply ignore the existence of their fellow-creatures, and in all their doings evince a stolid disregard of the fact that they themselves are not the only beings in creation; the sort of people, in short, who never think of shutting doors behind them, or of making way or room for anybody. But there is an additional reason for hating the man with the voice. 'Tis better to have talked rank bosh smile as a good provisional expression of countenance, which will not commit him too far in case it should turn out to be no joke. At any rate there it is, an eternal, fatuous, and exasperating smile. But I have never felt myself called upon to kick that man because he is always smiling. Kicking is not in my line. At the same time I am bound to say I doubt if I could withhold my sympathy from any gentle 756 man who, suffering as I do, was impelled so, whether you are in a recipient mood or Stodgemore is another man I hate, be- you. There is nothing you can say or do not, he is always at his post pumping into cause he is always doing something, and that he does not seize upon as an opportualso, because that something is of itself nity to be improved. If he catches you disagreeable. Stodgemore's self-imposed looking lovingly at the tint of your host's mission is to promote the spread of gen- Marcobrunner he is down upon you with eral information in society. aware that society is tortured by a thirst son why coloured glasses are used for hock I am not a query as to whether you know the reafor general information, but he evidently and on your giving some unscientific anthinks it is, and that he, Stodgemore, is swer about its being the fashion, or colthe one man who can satisfy that thirst. our always being pleasant to the eye, he He is what is called "a well-informed is in great spirits, and for the next halfman." He reminds me of that ogre who hour he drills it into you that there are used to be introduced in juvenile books. certain rays in the solar spectrum which Of course, I don't mean the good old- have the property of decomposing the fashioned ogre who lived in a castle, and pyroxylate of balderdash upon which the had a hearty appetite for children, but bouquet of all wines of the hock class dethat dreadful being who prevades the pends. Perhaps you foolishly think to more modern fiction offered to youth, the instructive uncle of the Peter Parley school, who takes William and James out for a walk, and is able to account for everything in nature up to the milk in the cocoa-nut; who knows everything, and answers questions such as no William or James yet born ever put, and is diffuse in describing the ingenious structure of a bird's nest when any real William or James would very much rather be robbing it. stop him by a joke and in your frivolous way you institute some desperate comparison between a hock-glass and a hic-cup. stop Niagara with a bulrush. You merely You might as well think to afford him new matter, for he at once falls upon you and your wretched joke, and shows that the latter is no joke at all, but simply the offspring af your ignorance, the word being really hic-cough, which, in obedience to Grimm's law, has come to be pronounced as you give it. He is a perfect upas-tree for all things of the nature of jokes, metaphors, playful exaggerations, or jocose similitudes. They cannot live within the range of his breath. Dreadful at all times, he is especially terrible when some exploration of Livingstone, or speculation of Darwin, or new theory about the Gulf-stream, or fresh discovery of kitchen-middens, is running its course as a table-talk topic. didactic treatment you begin to loathe Livingstone, and almost wish Darwin Under his dead. What he is to young people-or would be if he were not as unreal a creation as ever came from romancer's brainStodgemore is to adult society. Conversation ceases to be conversation when he joins in it: it becomes a lecture. He has a strange love for the dry side of every subject, and instead of helping to lubricate the wheels of social talk, as is the duty of a good citizen and companion, he is ingenious only in introducing grit. We have, all of us, I suppose, felt some curiosity as to that wonderful man who writes those articles in the papers commencing with "It is not generally known,” and have rashly fancied, perhaps, that a person bored and to be held bound to feel gratiTo be bored is bad enough. But to be with such vast and varied stores of infor- tude for being bored, is a burden too grievmation must be a delightful companion; ous to be borne with patience by any but but a slight acquaintance with Stodgemore a highly philosophical temperament, and will speedily dispel any such curiosity or this it is which intensifies the irritation fancy. Information is a very good thing, produced by Stodgemore and his school. and a knowledge of things not generally They always make it so obvious that they known is, with certain limitations, desir- regard you in the light of a person deeply able; but there are few of us, I imagine, beholden to them. For the same reason. who wish to be always acquiring informa- to some extent, I hate another person, the tion and always imbibing knowledge. man who takes an interest in me. Most of us require intervals for digestion, course to a properly constituted mind this certain periods of unbending, when we are would be no just cause for hatred. By Of content to leave facts and fallacies alone. the way, there are certain phrases which I This is what Stodgemore will not see. believes that at all times and seasons it is and this is one of them."A properly He hate as much as I do any human being. your duty to learn and his to teach, and constituted mind" is one of those unmean ing, pompous phrases that have obtained a position beyond their merits because they have an imposing look, and come in well at the end of a sentence. Who ever met a person of a properly constituted mind? I have every possible respect for the present reader, but I am just as certain that he or she is not a person of a properly constituted mind as I am that he or she is not an Apollo Belvedere or a Venus de' Medici. There has never yet been a properly constituted mind, any more than there has been a living representative of the artist's ideal of corporeal beauty; and I have no doubt perfection in the one case would prove as disagreeable as it has been argued it would prove in the other. Be this as it may, not having a properly constituted mind, I hate the man who takes an interest in me, because, while I don't in the least want his interest, he shows me very plainly that he considers it lays me under an obligation. Theoretically, of course, one ought to be obliged to people who take an interest in one. It is so kind and benevolent of them: besides, what earthly good can they get by it, if it isn't the mere pleasure springing from benevolence? But there are people who take an interest in you because taking an interest in people is their main occupation in life; who seem to have nothing else to do but to go about the world taking an interest in people; who take an interest in you as others take an interest in ferns or polyps; to whom you furnish a study and a pursuit. Now I submit it is rather hard to be expected to feel thankful for an interest of this sort. The man who takes an interest in you in this way shows it in making himself acquainted with the minutest details concerning you, and you are painfully conscious in his company of being what I may called pigeon-holed, of being methodically entered in his mental register as a person of such and such ways and habits, and such and such ideas. From time to time he takes stock of you, to use a commercial phrase, to see whether you have changed at all, and whether it may be necessary to make any alterations in the estimate he has made of you. He is quick in detecting any variation. "Why how is this?" he says. "You say you like A, and yet you used to like B, you know." He seems rather aggrieved that you did not send him notice of the change, and, in fact, treats you very much as the Registrar-General treats the birth and death rate of the kingdom. Like that functionary he is, he conceives, necessary to your welfare; he firmly believes you could not get on without him. When he pays you a visit of inspection he does not call it a visit. He looks in on you," as if he were a sort of Sun, but for whose countenance your life must be an Arctic winter, devoid of light or warmth; and he has a happy knack of looking in on you at moments when your occupation is in some way specially calculated to afford him new material for a note about you. He finds you, let us say, conning the almanac of the year before last, which you have just taken up to see when the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race of that year came off, and at once pounces upon your employment as a characteristic eccentricity. Naturally you don't care to explain or apologize in such a case, least of all to him, and down you go forthwith as a person whose habitual oddity is reading old almanacs. While your life and his last he never forgets this circumstance, for his is usually one of those minds which, without a great capacity for a variety of ideas, are remarkable for the tenacity with which they hold any idea they have once taken in. From that time forth when you meet him his greeting is: "Been reading any old almanacs lately; eh?" or (should his interest in you take a less jocular and more earnest tone) if he hears you confess to not having yet had leisure to do something, he gently reminds you of the discovery by remarking that "if you didn't waste your time reading old almanacs you would have plenty of leisure for useful pursuits." It is this air of inquisitive superiority that makes him especially odious. He is always on the look-out for instances of deviation on your part from the line he has chalked out as the only one to be followed. He is always at you with questions of "Why do you do this?" "Why don't you do that? He is, in short, one of those wearisome people of whom you ask only one favorthat they will leave you alone; which happens to be, of all others, just the favour they cannot bring themselves to grant you. As I said at the beginning, a little honest self-examination will prove to the satisfaction of any one that he hates a great many more people than he at first supposed. The above are all specimens of definite hatreds, the causes of which are obvious, and which can be explained without invoking the aid of metaphysics. But besides these there is a class of hatreds which cannot be traced to any definite cause. Your dislike of Doctor Fell will sometimes ripen and deepen into the more positive form of antipathy; and in the latter stage, He flattered. It is clear that you have made as in the former, the reason why you cannot tell. Or, if you can tell the reason, you cannot persuade yourself that it is a fair and a just reason. Let me give an example to wind up with. You hate-or, at least, if you don't, I do the man who is everywhere. Arguing the matter with yourself dispassionately, you must admit there is nothing in ubiquity to justify the feeling of hatred, and yet, unless you are a philosopher, it is next to impossible not to hate the man who, wherever you go, is there likewise; against whom you run at every turn; from whom you seem to have no escape; who is, in fact, as far as you are concerned, everywhere. It may be that the animosity is reciprocal, and that he, when you make your appearance, also mutters, "Confound that fellow, he's everywhere!" but this, of course, only strengthens the proposition that the feeling is natural, though no doubt irrational. But the most interesting problem is whether the man who is everywhere is absolutely so, or is merely linked by fate with you in particular; whether, when other people get, let us say, a special invitation card requesting the honour of their presence at the ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the Stoke Pogis Athenæum, they also invariably find the man who is everywhere in one of the best seats, on the best possible terms with the authorities, which is your unfailing experience of him: or is he simply a being whose walk in life is in some mysterious way connected with yours, so that where he goes you are constrained to go, and where you go, there destiny compels him to turn up? As far as the aggravation goes, it matters very little which hypothesis you adopt. Whether or not there are others who are similarly affected, it is sufficient for you that you cannot present yourself at fête or flowershow, private view or morning concert, without encountering the man who is everywhere. It is on the more private occasions that you especially resent his ubiquity. In some nook in the Bavarian highlands, perhaps, you have contracted that sort of acquaintance, which ripens so MUCH bewildered is the little dog Walrapidly under the roof of a mountain inn, lace at the first head of game he flushes with a very pleasant man in knickerbockers, on the Moor of Monbraher. Wallace is a whose specialite seems to be the political rather obese clumber, whose sporting excomplications in Central Europe, but who, periences have been hitherto confined to when the period for exchanging cards pheasant coverts, and the turnips of the arrives, turns out to be Richard Tinto, English counties, and he has never before R.A., an artist whose works have delighted wagged his tail over an Irish moorland. you many a year. One result is a friendly He comes to a dead halt opposite a great note, when April comes round, asking you bunch of withered flags rising from a black to look in at his studio to see his Academy ooze of peat and water. Wallace does not pictures before the crush comes. You are know what to make of it. There is some From The Pall Mall Gazette. THE MOOR OF MONBRAHER. |