by Grant Allen
Let us go behind the scenes and see what the idyllic prospect looks like from the rear. We must proceed with great deliberation, and we must take our rustic society stratum by stratum. First, then, there are the idle men who have inherited or earned fortunes, and who like to settle in luxurious houses away from great centres of population. Such men are always in great force on the skirts of quiet old towns, and they are much revered by the tradesmen. I cannot help thinking that the fate of the average “retired” man must be not a little dolorous, for I find that the typical member of that class conducts himself in much the same way no matter where he pitches his habitation in broad England. He is saved if he has a hobby; but, without a hobby, he is a very poor creature, and his ways of living on from day to day are the reverse of admirable. If such a revolutionary institution as a club has been established in the town, he may begin his morning’s round there; or, in default of a club, there is the “select” room in the principal hotel. If he is catholic in his tastes and hungry for conversation, he may wander from one house of call to another, and he meets a large and well-chosen assortment of hucksters who come to bind bargains with the inevitable “drink”; he meets the gossip who knows all the secrets of the township, he meets flashy persons who have a manly thirst which requires perpetual assuagement. Then he converses to his heart’s content; and, alas, what conversation it is — what intellectual exertion is expended by these forlorn gossips in the morning round that takes up the time of many men in a quiet town! There is a little slander, a good deal of peeping out of windows, a little discussion of the financial prospects ascribed to various men in the neighbourhood, and an impartial examination of everybody’s private affairs. The regular crew of gossips hold it as a duty to know and talk about the most minute details of each other’s lives, and, when a man leaves any given room where the piquant chatter is going on, he is quite aware that he leaves his character behind him. The state of his banking account is guessed at, the disposition of his will is courageously foretold, the amounts which he paid to various shopkeepers are added up with reverence or scorn according to the amount — and the company revel in their mean babble until it is time to go to another place and pull the character and the financial accounts of somebody else to pieces. By luncheon time most of these useful beings are a little affected in complexion and speech by the trifling potations which wash down the scandal; but no one is intoxicated. To be seen mastered by “drink” in the morning would cause a man to lose caste; and, besides, if he said too much while his tongue was loose, he would not be believed when next he set down a savoury mess for the benefit of the company. Through all the talk of these wretched entities, be it observed that money, money runs as a species of key-note; the men may be coarse and servile, but a shrewd eye can detect every sign of purse-pride. Let a gentleman of some standing walk past a window where the grievous crew are wine-bibbing and blabbing, and some one will say, “Carries hisself high enough, don’t he? He ain’t got a thousand to fly with. I bet a bottle on it! Why, me, or Jimmy there, or even old Billy Spinks, leaving out Harry, and let alone the Doctor — any one on us could buy him out twelve times over, and then have a bit of roast or biled for Sunday’s dinner!” This remark is received as a wise and trenchant tribute to the power of the assembly, and they have more “drink” by way of self-gratulation. Those poor “retired” men, and “independent” men, often go deeper and deeper down the incline towards mental and moral degradation until they become surprisingly repulsive specimens of humanity. In all their dreary perambulations they rarely speak or hear an intelligent word; they are amazingly ignorant concerning their country’s affairs, and their conceptions of politics are mostly limited to a broad general belief that some particular statesman ought to be hanged.
As to the government of these quiet old places, there is much to be said that is depressing. While men prate about the decay of trade and the advance of poverty, how few people reflect on the snug fortunes which are amassed in out-of-the-way corners! We hear of jobbery in the metropolis, and jobbery in Government departments, but I take it that the corporations of some little towns could give lessons in jobbery to any corrupt official that ever plundered his countrymen. Some town councils may be very briefly and accurately described as nests of thieves. The thieves wear good clothes, go to church, and do not go to prison — at least, the cases of detection are rare — but they are thieves all the same. As a rule, no matter what a man’s trade or profession may be, he contrives to gather profit pretty freely when once he joins the happy band who handle the community’s purse. In some cases the robbery is so barefaced and open that the particulars might as well be painted on a monster board and hung up at the town cross; but tradesmen, workmen, and others who have their living to make in the town are terrorised, and they preserve a discreet silence in public however much they may speak evil of dignities in private. As a general rule, a show of decorum is kept up; yet I should think it hardly possible for the average vestry or council to meet without an interchange of winks among the members. John favours Tommy’s tender when Tommy contracts to horse all the corporation’s water-carts, dust-carts, and so forth; then Tommy is friendly when John wants to sell his row of cottages to the municipality. If Tommy employs two horses on a certain work and charges for twenty, then John and some other backers support the transaction. Billy buys land to a heavy extent, and refuses to build on it; houses are risky property, and Billy can wait. An astute company meet at William’s house and take supper in luxurious Roman style; then James casually suggests that the east end of the town is a disgrace to the council. Until the block of houses in Blank Street is pulled down and a broad road is run straight to join the main street, the place will be the laughingstock of strangers. James is eloquent. How curious it is that the new road which is to redeem the town from shame must run right over Billy’s building plots, and how very remarkable it is to think that the corporation pays a swinging price for the precious land! Billy looks more prosperous than ever; he sets up another horse, reduces rivals to silence by driving forth in a new victoria, and becomes more and more the familiar bosom friend of the bank manager. I might go on to give a score of examples showing how innocent rate-payers are fleeced by barefaced robbers, but the catalogue would be only wearisome. Let any man of probity venture to force his way into one of these dens of thieves and see how he will fare! It is a comic thing that the gangs of jobbers consider that they have a prescriptive right to plunder at large, and their air of aggrieved virtue when they are challenged by a person whom they call an “interloper” is among the most droll and humiliating farces that may be seen in life. The whole crew will make a ferocious dead set at the intruder who threatens to pull their quarry away from them; he will be coughed down or interrupted by insulting noises, and he may esteem himself highly fortunate if he is not asked to step outside and engage in single combat. Everything that mean malignity can do to balk him will be done, and, unless he is a very strong man physically and morally, the opposition will tire him out. There is usually one dominant family in such towns — for the possibility of making a heavy fortune by a brewery or tannery or factory in these quiet places is far greater than any outsider might fancy. The members of the ruling family and their henchmen arise in their might to crush the insolent upstart who wants to see accounts and vouchers: the chairman will rise and say, “Let me tell Mr. X. that me and my family were old established inhabitants in this ancient borough long before he came, and we’ll be here long after he has gone bankrupt. We don’t require no strangers: the people in this borough has always managed their own affairs, and by the help of Providence they’ll go on in the good old way in spite of any swell that comes a-sniffin’ and a-smellin’ and a-pryin’ and a-askin’ for accounts about this and that and the other; and I tell the gentleman plain, the sooner this council sees his back the better they’ll be pleased; so, if he’s not too thick in the skin, let him take a friendly hint and take himself off.” A withering onslaught like this is received with tumultuous app
lause, and other speakers follow suit. It is seldom that a man has nerve enough to stand such brutality from his hoggish assailants, and the ring of jobbers are too often left to work their will unchecked. Are such people fit for political power? Ask the wretched rich man who indirectly buys the seat, and hear his record of dull misery if he is inclined to be confidential. He does not like to leave Parliament, and yet he knows he is merely a mark for the licensed pickpocket; he is not regarded as a politician — he is a donor of sundry subscriptions, and nothing more. The men in manufacturing centres will return a poor politician and pay his expenses; but the people in some quiet towns have about as much sentiment or loyalty as they have knowledge; and they treat their member of Parliament as a gentleman whose function it is to be bled, and bled copiously. A sorry sight it is!
One very remarkable thing in these homes of quietness is the marvellous power possessed by drink-sellers. These gentry form the main links in a very tough chain, and they hang together with touching fidelity; their houses are turned into scandal-shops, and they prosper so long as they are ready to cringe with due self-abasement before the magistrates. No refined gentleman who keeps himself to his own class and refrains from meddling with politics could ever by any chance imagine the airs of broad-blown impudence which are sometimes assumed by ignorant and stupid boors who have been endowed with a license; and assuredly no one would guess the extent of their political power unless he had something to do with election business. The landlord of fiction hardly exists in the quiet towns; there is seldom a smiling, suave, and fawning Boniface to be seen; the influential drink-seller is often an insolent familiar harpy who will speak of his own member of Parliament as “Old Tom,” and who airily ventures to call gentlemen by their surnames. The man is probably so benighted in mind that he knows nothing positive about the world he lives in; his manners are hideous, his familiarity is loathsome, his assumptions of manly independence are almost comic in their impudence; but he has his uses, and he can influence votes of several descriptions. Thus he asserts himself in detestable fashion; and people who should know better submit to him. One electioneering campaign in a quiet town would give a salutary lesson to any politician who resolutely set himself to penetrate into the secret life of the society whose suffrages he sought; he would learn why it is that the agents of all the factions treat the drink-seller with deference.
So the queer existence of the tranquil place moves on; petty scandal, petty thieving, petty jobbery, petty jealousy employ the energies of the beings who inhabit the “good old town” — the borough is always good and old — and a man with a soul who really tried to dwell in the moral atmosphere of the community would infallibly be asphyxiated. Nowhere are appearances so deceptive; nowhere do the glamour of antiquity and the beauty of natural scenery draw the attention away from so vile a centre. I could excuse any man who became a pessimist after a long course of conversations in a sleepy old borough, for he would see that a mildew may attack the human intelligence, and that the manners of a puffy well-clad citizen may be worse than those of a Zulu Kaffir. The indescribable coarseness and rudeness of the social intercourse, the detestable forms of humour which obtain applause, the low distrust and trickery are quite sufficient to make a sensitive man want to hide himself away. If any one thinks I am too hard, he should try spending six whole weeks in any town which is called good and old; if he does not begin to agree with me about the end of the fifth week I am much in error.
XXII. THE SEA.
Is there anything new to say about it? Alas, have not all the poets done their uttermost; and how should a poor prose-writer fare when he enters a region where the monarchs of rhythm have proudly trodden? It is audacious; and yet I must say that our beloved poets seem somehow to fail in strict accuracy. Tennyson wanders and gazes and thinks; he strikes out some immortal word of love or despair when the awful influence of the ocean touches his soul; and yet he is not the poet that we want. One or two of his phrases are pictorial and decisive — no one can better them — and the only fault which we find with them is that they are perhaps a little too exquisite. When he says, “And white sails flying on the yellow sea,” he startles us; but his picture done in seven words is absolutely accurate. When he writes of “the scream of the maddened beach,” he uses the pathetic fallacy; but his science is quite correct, for the swift whirling of myriads of pebbles does produce a clear shrill note as the backdraught streams from the shore. But, when he writes the glorious passion beginning, “Is that enchanted moan only the swell Of the long waves that roll-in yonder bay?” we feel the note of falsity at once — the swell does not moan, and the poet only wanted to lead up to the expression of a mysterious ecstasy of love. Again, the most magnificent piece of word-weaving in English is an attempted description of the sea by a man whose command of a certain kind of verse is marvellous. Here is the passage —
“The sea shone
And shivered like spread wings of angels blown
By the sun’s breath before him, and a low
Sweet gale shook all the foam-flowers of thin snow
As into rainfall of sea-roses, shed
Leaf by wild leaf in the green garden bed
That tempests still and sea-winds turn and plough;
For rosy and fiery round the running prow
Fluttered the flakes and feathers of the spray
And bloomed like blossoms cast by God away
To waste on the ardent water; the wan moon
Withered to westward as a face in swoon
Death-stricken by glad tidings; and the height
Throbbed and the centre quivered with delight
And the deep quailed with passion as of love,
Till, like the heart of a new-mated dove,
Air, light, and wave seemed full of burning rest” —
and so on. Superb, is it not? And yet that noble strain of music gives us no true picture of our dear, commonplace, terrible sea; it reminds us rather of some gaudy canvas painted for the theatre. The lines are glorious, the sense of movement and swing is conveyed, and yet — and yet it is not the sea. We fancy that only the prose-poets truly succeed; and the chief of them all — the matchless Mr. Clark Russell — gets his most moving effects by portraying the commonplace aspects of the water in a way that reminds people of things which they noticed but failed to admire promptly. Mr. Russell’s gospel is plain enough; he watches minutely, and there is not a flaw of wind or a cross-drift of spray that does not offer some new emotion to his quick and sensitive soul.
I want all those who are now dwelling amid the shrewd sweetness of the sea-air to learn how to gain simple pleasure from gazing on the incessant changes that mark the face of the sea. The entertainment is so cheap, so fruitful of lovely thought, so exhilarating, that I can hardly keep my patience when I see those wretched men who carry a newspaper to the beach on a glad summer morning, and yawn in the face of the Divine spectacle of wave and cloud and limpid sky. Let no one think that I picture the sea as always gladsome. Ah, no! I have seen too much of storm and stress for that. On one awful night long ago, I waited for hours watching waves that reared and thundered as if they would charge headlong through the streets of the town. The white crests nickered like flame, and below the crests the dreadful inky bulge of each monster rolled on like doom — like death. Throughout the mad night of tempest the guns from many distressed vessels rang out, and I could see the violent sweep of the ships’ lights as they were hurled in wild arcs from crest to crest. Many and many a corpse lay out on those sands in the morning; the bold, bronzed men stared with awful glassy stare at the lowering sky; the little cabin-boy clasped his fragment of wreckage as though it had been a toy, and smiled — oh, so sweetly! — in spite of the cruel sand that filled his dead eyes. There was turmoil enough out at sea, for the steadily northerly drift was crossed by a violent roll from the east, and these two currents were complicated in their movement by a rush of water that came like a mill-race from the southward. Imagine a great city tossed about by a mo
nstrous earthquake that first dashes the streets against each other, and then flings up the ruins in vast rolls; that may give some idea of that memorable storm. One poor, pretty girl saw her husband gallantly trying to make the harbour. Long, long had she waited for him, and day by day had she tried to track the vessel’s course; the smart barque had gone round the Horn, and escaped from the perils of the Western Ocean in dead winter, and now she was heaving convulsively as she strove to run into harbour at home. Right and left the grey billows hit her, and we could see her keel sometimes when the wan light of the morning broke. The girl stared steadily, and her face was like that of a corpse. The barque swung southward, and with the speed of a railway engine rushed on to the stones; the pretty girl moaned, “Oh me! — oh me!” She never saw her lad again until his battered body was in the dead-house of the pier. A commonplace red-haired woman was in a dreadful state of mind when she saw a large fishing-boat trying to run for the harbour. Her husband and two sons were aboard, she said, so she had reasons for anxiety. The boat was pitched about like a cork; and presently one fearful sea fairly smashed her. The red-haired woman fell down upon the sand, and lay there moaning.
