SHOULD WE SAY WHAT WE THINK, OR THINK WHAT WE SAY?
A MAD friend of mine will have it that the characteristic of the age isMake-Believe. He argues that all social intercourse is founded onmake-believe. A servant enters to say that Mr. and Mrs. Bore are in thedrawing-room.
“Oh, damn!” says the man.
“Hush!” says the woman. “Shut the door, Susan. How often am I to tellyou never to leave the door open?”
The man creeps upstairs on tiptoe and shuts himself in his study. Thewoman does things before a looking-glass, waits till she feels she issufficiently mistress of herself not to show her feelings, and thenenters the drawing-room with outstretched hands and the look of onewelcoming an angel’s visit. She says how delighted she is to see theBores—how good it was of them to come. Why did they not bring more Boreswith them? Where is naughty Bore junior? Why does he never come to seeher now? She will have to be really angry with him. And sweet littleFlossie Bore? Too young to pay calls! Nonsense. An “At Home” day isnot worth having where all the Bores are not.
The Bores, who had hoped that she was out—who have only called becausethe etiquette book told them that they must call at least four times inthe season, explain how they have been trying and trying to come.
“This afternoon,” recounts Mrs. Bore, “we were determined to come.‘John, dear,’ I said this morning, ‘I shall go and see dear Mrs. Bounderthis afternoon, no matter what happens.’”
The idea conveyed is that the Prince of Wales, on calling at the Bores,was told that he could not come in. He might call again in the eveningor come some other day.
That afternoon the Bores were going to enjoy themselves in their own way;they were going to see Mrs. Bounder.
“And how is Mr. Bounder?” demands Mrs. Bore.
Mrs. Bounder remains mute for a moment, straining her ears. She can hearhim creeping past the door on his way downstairs. She hears the frontdoor softly opened and closed-to. She wakes, as from a dream. She hasbeen thinking of the sorrow that will fall on Bounder when he returnshome later and learns what he has missed.
And thus it is, not only with the Bores and Bounders, but even with uswho are not Bores or Bounders. Society in all ranks is founded on themake-believe that everybody is charming; that we are delighted to seeeverybody; that everybody is delighted to see us; that it is so good ofeverybody to come; that we are desolate at the thought that they reallymust go now.
Which would we rather do—stop and finish our cigar or hasten into thedrawing-room to hear Miss Screecher sing? Can you ask us? We tumbleover each other in our hurry. Miss Screecher would really rather notsing; but if we insist—We do insist. Miss Screecher, with prettyreluctance, consents. We are careful not to look at one another. We sitwith our eyes fixed on the ceiling. Miss Screecher finishes, and rises.
“But it was so short,” we say, so soon as we can be heard above theapplause. Is Miss Screecher quite sure that was the whole of it? Or hasshe been playing tricks upon us, the naughty lady, defrauding us of averse? Miss Screecher assures us that the fault is the composer’s. Butshe knows another. At this hint, our faces lighten again with gladness.We clamour for more.
Our host’s wine is always the most extraordinary we have ever tasted.No, not another glass; we dare not—doctor’s orders, very strict. Ourhost’s cigar! We did not know they made such cigars in this workadayworld. No, we really could not smoke another. Well, if he will be sopressing, may we put it in our pocket? The truth is, we are not used tohigh smoking. Our hostess’s coffee! Would she confide to us her secret?The baby! We hardly trust ourselves to speak. The usual baby—we haveseen it. As a rule, to be candid, we never could detect much beauty inbabies—have always held the usual gush about them to be insincere. Butthis baby! We are almost on the point of asking them where they got it.It is just the kind we wanted for ourselves. Little Janet’s recitation:“A Visit to the Dentist!” Hitherto the amateur reciter has not appealedto us. But this is genius, surely. She ought to be trained for thestage. Her mother does not altogether approve of the stage. We pleadfor the stage—that it may not be deprived of such talent.
Every bride is beautiful. Every bride looks charming in a simple costumeof—for further particulars see local papers. Every marriage is a causefor universal rejoicing. With our wine-glass in our hand we picture theideal life we know to be in store for them. How can it be otherwise?She, the daughter of her mother. (Cheers.) He—well, we all know him.(More cheers.) Also involuntary guffaw from ill-regulated young man atend of table, promptly suppressed.
We carry our make-believe even into our religion. We sit in church, andin voices swelling with pride, mention to the Almighty, at statedintervals, that we are miserable worms—that there is no good in us. Thissort of thing, we gather, is expected of us; it does us no harm, and issupposed to please.
We make-believe that every woman is good, that every man is honest—untilthey insist on forcing us, against our will, to observe that they arenot. Then we become very angry with them, and explain to them that they,being sinners, are not folk fit to mix with us perfect people. Ourgrief, when our rich aunt dies, is hardly to be borne. Drapers makefortunes, helping us to express feebly our desolation. Our onlyconsolation is that she has gone to a better world.
Everybody goes to a better world when they have got all they can out ofthis one.
We stand around the open grave and tell each other so. The clergyman isso assured of it that, to save time, they have written out the formulafor him and had it printed in a little book. As a child it used tosurprise me—this fact that everybody went to heaven. Thinking of all thepeople that had died, I pictured the place overcrowded. Almost I feltsorry for the Devil, nobody ever coming his way, so to speak. I saw himin imagination, a lonely old gentleman, sitting at his gate day afterday, hoping against hope, muttering to himself maybe that it hardlyseemed worth while, from his point of view, keeping the show open. Anold nurse whom I once took into my confidence was sure, if I continuedtalking in this sort of way, that he would get me anyhow. I must havebeen an evil-hearted youngster. The thought of how he would welcome me,the only human being that he had seen for years, had a certainfascination for me; for once in my existence I should be made a fussabout.
At every public meeting the chief speaker is always “a jolly goodfellow.” The man from Mars, reading our newspapers, would be convincedthat every Member of Parliament was a jovial, kindly, high-hearted,generous-souled saint, with just sufficient humanity in him to preventthe angels from carrying him off bodily. Do not the entire audience,moved by one common impulse, declare him three times running, and instentorian voice, to be this “jolly good fellow”? So say all of them.We have always listened with the most intense pleasure to the brilliantspeech of our friend who has just sat down. When you thought we wereyawning, we were drinking in his eloquence, open-mouthed.
The higher one ascends in the social scale, the wider becomes thisnecessary base of make-believe. When anything sad happens to a very bigperson, the lesser people round about him hardly care to go on living.Seeing that the world is somewhat overstocked with persons of importance,and that something or another generally is happening to them, one wonderssometimes how it is the world continues to exist.
Once upon a time there occurred an illness to a certain good and greatman. I read in my daily paper that the whole nation was plunged ingrief. People dining in public restaurants, on being told the news bythe waiter, dropped their heads upon the table and sobbed. Strangers,meeting in the street, flung their arms about one another and cried likelittle children. I was abroad at the time, but on the point of returninghome. I almost felt ashamed to go. I looked at myself in the glass, andwas shocked at my own appearance: it was that of a man who had not beenin trouble for weeks. I felt that to burst upon this grief-strickennation with a countenance such as mine would be to add to their sorrow.It was borne in upon me that I must have a shallow, egotistical nature.I had had l
uck with a play in America, and for the life of me I could notlook grief-stricken. There were moments when, if I was not keeping awatch over myself, I found myself whistling.
Had it been possible I would have remained abroad till some stroke ofill-fortune had rendered me more in tune with my fellow-countrymen. Butbusiness was pressing. The first man I talked to on Dover pier was aCustoms House official. You might have thought sorrow would have madehim indifferent to a mere matter of forty-eight cigars. Instead ofwhich, he appeared quite pleased when he found them. He demandedthree-and-fourpence, and chuckled when he got it. On Dover platform alittle girl laughed because a lady dropped a handbox on a dog; but thenchildren are always callous—or, perhaps, she had not heard the news.
What astonished me most, however, was to find in the railway carriage arespectable looking man reading a comic journal. True, he did not laughmuch: he had got decency enough for that; but what was a grief-strickencitizen doing with a comic journal, anyhow? Before I had been in Londonan hour I had come to the conclusion that we English must be a people ofwonderful self-control. The day before, according to the newspapers, thewhole country was in serious danger of pining away and dying of a brokenheart. In one day the nation had pulled itself together. “We have criedall day,” they had said to themselves, “we have cried all night. It doesnot seem to have done much good. Now let us once again take up theburden of life.” Some of them—I noticed it in the hotel dining-room thatevening—were taking quite kindly to their food again.
We make believe about quite serious things. In war, each country’ssoldiers are always the most courageous in the world. The othercountry’s soldiers are always treacherous and tricky; that is why theysometimes win. Literature is the art of make-believe.
“Now all of you sit round and throw your pennies in the cap,” says theauthor, “and I will pretend that there lives in Bayswater a young ladynamed Angelina, who is the most beautiful young lady that ever existed.And in Notting Hill, we will pretend, there resides a young man namedEdwin, who is in love with Angelina.”
And then, there being sufficient pennies in the cap, the author startsaway, and pretends that Angelina thought this and said that, and thatEdwin did all sorts of wonderful things. We know he is making it all upas he goes along. We know he is making up just what he thinks willplease us. He, on the other hand, has to make-believe that he is doingit because he cannot help it, he being an artist. But we know wellenough that, were we to stop throwing the pennies into the cap, he wouldfind out precious soon that he could.
The theatrical manager bangs his drum.
“Walk up! walk up!” he cries, “we are going to pretend that Mrs. Johnsonis a princess, and old man Johnson is going to pretend to be a pirate.Walk up, walk up, and be in time!”
So Mrs. Johnson, pretending to be a princess, comes out of a wobbly thingthat we agree to pretend is a castle; and old man Johnson, pretending tobe a pirate, is pushed up and down on another wobbly thing that we agreeto pretend is the ocean. Mrs. Johnson pretends to be in love with him,which we know she is not. And Johnson pretends to be a very terribleperson; and Mrs. Johnson pretends, till eleven o’clock, to believe it.And we pay prices, varying from a shilling to half-a-sovereign, to sitfor two hours and listen to them.
But as I explained at the beginning, my friend is a mad sort of person.
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