by Unknown
He would give me no more satisfaction, and at last went off to sleep again. I stood wondering what I should do with the watch, and at one time I thought of flinging it out of the window. In the end, however, I put it out at the door, and after that I had some sleep.
Since then I have seldom talked to Farquhar about his watch when he and I were alone. If there are a number of us together, however, we ask him the time. He would hand the watch round if in a sociable mood. It was a silver watch, and many persons who have examined it are of opinion that it was the first watch. Farquhar has been advised to take it to the British Museum. Of the various theories propounded with regard to it, one of the most curious was that it was not a watch at all. This was the suggestion of a foreigner who has travelled over nearly all the earth and has seen queer things. Very possibly, he says, it is only something made in the form of a watch, and what that something is Farquhar may discover unexpectedly any day. My own opinion, however, is that it is a watch.
Perhaps because he never had any other watch, Farquhar would not have recognized that there was anything peculiar about his watch had not his friends made it the subject of so much discussion.
When we asked him, in a matter-of-fact voice, what time it was, he pulled out his watch and began his calculations cheerfully. He never knew precisely how he arrived at his conclusions, for we were not in the secrets of his watch. While he gazed at it, however, he murmured things to himself, which some took for incantations, although the better informed recognized them as arithmetical problems. I knew, though I cannot say how I knew it, that he had first to decide whether his watch was slow or fast to-day. Some held that it was fast on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, and slow on the other days of the week, but the calculation, I am convinced, was more elaborate than that. At such a time he would glare fixedly into vacancy, as if trying to tame a wild beast by the power of the human eye. He was really thinking back to the key, so to speak, to his watch. I have never seen anyone so distressed with thought, unless perhaps a man who has offered to show the company a trick with cards and suddenly fears that he has forgotten the way. Once Farquhar knew whether his watch was fast or slow, his face cleared, and we were aware that he had reached comparatively smooth water. It was now merely a question of addition and subtraction, and he would even ask us how much twentyfive and seventeen made, or what was over after you took eighteen from forty. Despite these questions, however, his method was always a mystery, and we could not help feeling proud of him, when ultimately he gave us the time to a minute. There was no vulgar ostentation about him when he gave us the solution. He went through his calculations as if all watches were like his, and it was only when we raised a slight cheer that he realized that we had been getting up an entertainment.
Then, indeed, he became as indignant as a sensitive man might be whose pipe had been held up to derision. Light talk about his watch he took as an insult to himself, and sometimes he would not argue. He could argue, however, about his watch, generally in a series of angry barks. The curse of life, he said, was that nowadays it had no variety. We (his hearers) were so much alike that he could only distinguish us by our clothes. He said we did the same things in the same way; he knew what to expect of us with as much certainty as he knew that the bell would ring if he pulled the cord. In short, we were like our watches, all on the same plan, all going one way, and all going at the same rate. It was very different with his watch. It possessed a distinct individuality. Who, he would like to know, cared for a dog that would answer any stranger’s call Yet our watches were like such a dog. They would be as true to any other owner as to us; the moment they changed pockets they were subservient to a new master. His watch, on the other hand, was part of himself. His forefingers were of immense use to him, but suppose them cut off, would they be an atom of service to any other body? It was exactly so with his watch. If it were stolen, he would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that the thief could make nothing of it.
It may have been noticed that I have spoken of Farquhar’s watch in the past tense. This is because he has another watch now. I have also said that I had a little trouble with the watch. It was in this way. Farquhar had never let us open his watch to examine the works, or to see if it had any, and, though I am not inquisitive about other people’s affairs, I thought I would like to look into the watch. I got my opportunity one evening in his rooms, when he fell asleep while I was talking to him. Very softly I got his watch out of his pocket and off the chain, and opened it with the point of his bread knife, and was trying to bend one of the wheels into its proper place — for I understand watches — when something went wrong. There was a whirring of wheels, as if the watch were at last giving vent to its pent-up emotion. I laid it down in alarm, and then observed that the hands were going back and forward, gesticulating violently, like a man hailing a bus. When the watch had subsided a little, I thought I might venture on winding it up. Unfortunately while I wound I was watching the sleeper, and suddenly something went crack in the inside of the watch. I put it to my ear. It had stopped, and though I tried it with marmalade and struck it, nothing would make it go again. I paused to think. Knowing Farquhar well, I was aware that if he knew the particulars he would not scruple to say that I had broken the mainspring. To obviate all unpleasantness I thought the wisest course would be to replace the watch in his pocket, from which he thinks it has never been removed except by himself.
Farquhar has never worn his watch since, none of us can tell why. He has an idea that something must have happened to it, but he avoids the subject. He has bought a gold watch that keeps excellent time, and though formerly he was never too early or too late for an appointment, he now misses his train at least twice a week.
THE MAN FROM NOWHERE.
In his delightful book, “The Trials of a Country Parson,” Dr. Jessop says: “I cannot expect to be envied; but surely it is not such a very heavy calamity for a man never to catch sight of Truth or the World, or to find that there is not such a thing as an oyster-knife in his parish.” Dr. Jessop, therefore, does not know — and there must be many, others in his happy plight — that these two society papers made themselves at one time a debating society for discussing Mr. Rudyard Kipling, “The Man from Nowhere,” as he then called himself. “That everybody knows Mr. Kipling’s books” was the World’s argument, and “That nobody ever heard of Mr. Kipling” was Truth’s. As a result, while the World and other papers thought Mr. Kipling such a celebrity that they vied with each in describing the tags of his bootlaces, Truth and other papers talked contemptuously of log-rolling.
At the time of the World-Truth debate Mr. Kipling was a novelist who, six months previous, was almost quite unknown in this country. Therefore, his detractors seemed to urge, it is absurd that he can be a great man already. No, said his admirers, it is only remarkable, and therefore worth making a greater shout over. They certainly shouted so loudly as to justify the other side in calling him, not the Man from Nowhere, but the Man with many Friends. But to his friends let this folly be charged, not to him. Even if he did take their indiscriminate eulogies a little complacently, can we; with any generosity, blame a young man for liking to hear his work extolled? Whether Mr. Kipling has influential friends is a small matter. The great question is, Can he write? To which my own answer is that no young man of such capacity has appeared in our literature for years.
The suddenness of Mr. Kipling’s rise is to be accounted for by the circumstances in which his books were written. He is an Anglo-Indian, and in India the stories which we have only now an opportunity of reading have been known for a long time. Anglo-Indians were revelling — or should have been — in Mulvaney and Ortheris years before we ever heard of them. So prolific was Mr. Kipling, while still little more than a boy, that he came to England the other day the author of eight books. Not all of these are as yet accessible to our public, but we have only to take up any one of them to realize that there are two Bret Hartes in the world.
One of them is a book of ve
rses, called “Departmental Ditties,” and it is not the best. Mr. Kipling is too much of a cynic (as yet) to be a poet, and 10 a good many of his ditties are only spirited doggerel. His political verse is chiefly remarkable for bad taste, which unfortunately characterizes (as yet) even his prose productions. The latter are published in a somewhat -unfortunate form which shows them to the least possible advantage. The largest of his books published is “Plain Tales from the Hills,” and it is a collection of many stories, the scene of which is always laid in India. About half of this book would be better cut out, not because it is without merit, but because the other half is too good to be weighted by matter indifferent by comparison. Mr. Kipling is at his best when treating of Tommy Atkins in India, and of the natives. He shows meanly when writing cynical little tales of Anglo-Indian life, for though these are well enough for the columns of society journals, their view of life is contemptible, and their insight into the springs of human action seldom rises above “smartness.” The native sketches, which read marvellously true, ought to go into the book “In Black and White,” and the stories about Mulvaney and Ortheris, with “Soldiers Three,” and some charming stories in Macmillan’s, should make a book by themselves. Then, instead of having to look here and there for it, we would have the best of Mr. Kipling in two volumes.
But it will well repay anyone who appreciates a brilliant style, masterly character-sketching, and quaint humor, together with a pronounced gift of story-telling, to read the books as they are. Some of Mulvaney’s reminiscences and reflections are worth turning a whole library upside down to get at. Mulvaney is a private of enormous experience, the sworn friend of two other privates, Ortheris, a cockney, and Leeroyd from Yorkshire. Had he been able to keep from “the dhrink” he would certainly have got his commission, for he is a man of parts; as it is, he is an inimitable story-teller — always a fine animal, and for moments something better. One may question whether Lever ever drew such a jewel of an Irishman, for even Mickey Free is only a glorious caricature, and Mr. Kipling avoids burlesque. Mulvaney is obviously the author’s favorite among his characters, but Ortheris is not drawn with less skill; indeed, out of Dickens, there is hardly a cockney of the costermonger class to place beside him. One of Mr. Kipling’s complete triumphs, too, is gained with Ortheris. Now and again he seeks to give a touch of pathos to Mulvaney, but Mr. Kipling is too cynical to be sure of himself when he would be tender, and Mulvaney’s sentiment scarcely rings true. But there is genuine pathos walking hand in hand with humor in “The Madness of Private Ortheris,” a gem of a story, in which the cockney loses his head as he thinks of the delights of low life in London, among which (for he is far away in India) is the smell of rotten fish.
Here we have a flash into the causes that may make deserters of brave soldiers. It is only one of a hundred fine touches. Leeroyd is not drawn with much subtlety. He is only a stolid block, useful as a butt, but we never see the man inside the animal’s body.
Mulvaney and Ortheris are undoubtedly Mr. Kipling’s chief achievement as yet, and he cannot go on writing of them forever. Will he last? some critics are asking, and for my part I think he will. One would be reluctant to believe that a writer could begin so well, and then stop. It may be hoped that his cynicism (which is not Thackeray’s, but rather that of one who rejoices in being a cynic) will be shaken off, and that then his characters will have souls. Though his style is most picturesque and effective, it runs riot at times, and he is so anxious to be startling that he is occasionally disgusting. “Whin I roused, the dhrink was dyin’ out in me, an’ I felt as tho’ a she-cat had littered in my mouth,” is one of many phrases that should not appear in the collected edition of his works. Yet a young writer of Mr. Kipling’s capacity is more hopeful when he errs on the side of extravagant realism than when he is content to be inartistically conventional. He has not as yet drawn a lady with much success. On the whole, all we can say as yet — but it is a great deal — is that few, if any, novelists who have become great did such promising work at his age.
A HOLIDAY IN BED.
Now is the time for a real holiday. Take it in bed, if you are wise.
People have tried a holiday in bed before now, and found it a failure, but that was because they were ignorant of the rules. They went to bed with the open intention of staying there, say, three days, and found to their surprise that each morning they wanted to get up. This was a novel experience to them, they flung about restlessly, and probably shortened their holiday. The proper thing is to take your holiday in bed with a vague intention of getting up in another quarter of an hour. The real pleasure of lying in bed after you are awake is largely due to the feeling that you ought to get up. To take another quarter of an hour then becomes a luxury. You are, in short, in the position of the man who dined on larks. Had he seen the hundreds that were ready for him, all set out on one monster dish, they would have turned his stomach; but getting them two at a time, he went on eating till all the larks were exhausted. His feeling of uncertainty as to whether these might not be his last two larks is your feeling that, perhaps, you will have to get up in a quarter of an hour. Deceive yourself in this way, and your holiday in bed will pass only too quickly. —
Sympathy is what all the world is craving for, and sympathy is what the ordinary holiday-maker never gets. How can we be expected to sympathize with you when we know you are off to Perthshire to fish? No; we say we wish we were you, and forget that your holiday is sure to be a hollow mockery; that your child will jam her finger in the railway carriage, and scream to the end of the journey; that you will lose your luggage; that the guard will notice your dog beneath the seat, and insist on its being paid for; that you will be caught in a Scotch mist on the top of a mountain, and be put on gruel for a fortnight; that your wife will fret herself into a fever about the way the servant, who has been left at home, is carrying on with her cousins, the milkman, and the policeman; and that you will be had up for trespassing. Yet, when you tell us you are off tomorrow, we have never the sympathy to say, “Poor fellow, I hope you’ll pull through somehow.” If it is an exhibition you go to gape at, we never picture you dragging your weary legs from one department to another, and wondering why your back is so sore. Should it be the seaside, we talk heartlessly to you about the “briny,” though we must know, if we would stop to think, that if there is one holiday more miserable than all the others, it is that spent at the seaside, when you wander along the weary beach and fling pebbles at the sea, and wonder how long it will be till dinner-time. Were we to come down to see you, we would probably find you, not on the beach, but moving slowly through the village, looking in at the one milliner’s window, or laboriously reading what the one grocer’s labels say on the subject of pale ale, compressed beef, or vinegar. There was never an object that called aloud for sympathy more than you do, but you get not a jot of it. You should take the first train home and go to bed for three days.
To enjoy your holiday in bed to the full, you should let it be vaguely understood that there is something amiss with you. Don’t go into details, for they are not necessary; and, besides, you want to be dreamy more or less, and the dreamy state is not consistent with a definite ailment. The moment one takes to bed he gets sympathy. He may be suffering from a tearing headache or a tooth that makes him cry out; but if he goes about his business, or even flops in a chair, true sympathy is denied him. Let him take to bed with one of those illnesses of which he can say with accuracy that he is not quite certain what is the matter with him, and his wife, for instance, will want to bathe his brow. She must not be made too anxious. That would not only be cruel to her, but it would wake you from the dreamy state. She must simply see that you are “not yourself.” Women have an idea that unless men are “not themselves” they will not take to bed, and as a consequence your wife is tenderly thoughtful of you. Every little while she will ask you if you are feeling any better now, and you can reply, with the old regard for truth, that you are “much about it.” You may even (for your own pleasu
re) talk of getting up now, when she will earnestly urge you to stay in bed until you feel easier. You consent; indeed, you are ready to do anything to please her.
