MACMILLAN’S MAGAZINE

(No. 9. New Segrigs, Jury, 1906)

THE ENEMY’S CAMP

CHAPTER XXVIII

Cuarves took a last look at his reflection in the water as he
stood on the bridge over the lock, and decided that on the whole
he would do. The resources of Oldborough had been somewhat
strained that afternoon to supply the demands of three
unreasonable strangers, who all wanted perfectly fitting clothes,
cut in the latest tashion, then and there. This, however, the
manager of the principal emporium regretfully assured them
could not be ; a perfect fit they could have ; the latest fashion
they could have, (the manager, of course, did not know of the
rapidity with which fashions alter in the Metropolis and he was
referring to the latest but four) ; but it was impossible that they
could have these things on the instant. Let them give him
a little reasonable time and he would match his establishment
against any similar establishment in London, a somewhat over-
rated city, as he hinted.

Charles enquired what the manager considered a reasonable
time. Could he let them have the clothes to-morrow? The
manager smiled decorously at what was an obvious witticism on
the part of a prospective client, and, revolving the matter in his
head, finally promised that the clothes should be ready in a
fortnight. He explained that this was unusually precipitate, but
as he was upon his mettle he would do it. It is to be feared
that neither Charles nor his friends appreciated this offer as the
concession it really was, for the one laughed, the others shrugged
their shoulders, and all were unanimous in saying that they
might as well wait fourteen years as fourteen days. Charles
then declared that he would send his telegram after all, and the
three made as if to depart.

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642 THE ENEMY’S CAMP

But the manager could not see custom leaving him without a
special effort to keep it somehow, and he hurriedly added that
perhaps Charles would like a suit of white flannels, such as he
had just made for a gentleman in the neighbourhood and not
yet sent home. Now he came to look at him, Charles’s
measurements must be almost identical with those of the man in
question, and the suit was there now ; Charles might do worse
than try it on. It was forthwith produced, and found more or
less satisfactory. The unknown gentleman was apparently a
trifle broader in the back, but otherwise there was little amiss
with the fit. Finally, despite suggestions from both the Admiral
and Majendie that Charles looked on the whole more presentable
in his old clothes,and that the new suit would fit either of them with
greater precision, Charles became the proud possessor of the un-
known gentleman’s garments at a somewhat extravagant price.

This success rendered the manager more hopeful, and he
remembered that he might be able to do something of the same
kind for the Admiral and Majendie, who asked whether he had
any more clients of about their size. It appeared that, by all
that was fortunate, two other unknown gentlemen, who in point
of measurement might have been doubles of the Admiral and the
Doctor, were also customers of his, and in fact were at the
moment awaiting two grey flannel suits. In a word, in less than
half an hour the three left the shop clad in the suits of the three
unknown gentlemen and carrying their old clothes neatly wrapped
in brown paper, together with sundry minor purchases that are
necessary to a respectable outfit. An early cup of tea was
enjoyed in Oldborough’s one restaurant, and then the dog-cart
was taken from the stable and they drove back to Packington
well content with their afternoon’s work.

It was only, then, about half-past five, when Charles, feeling
more like himself than he had for some time, paused to gaze at
the reflection of dazzling white that greeted him from the river
below, and then went purposefully on towards the encampment.
His glimpse of Cicely in the morning had fully determined him
to lose no more time, and he had come straight from Packington,
depositing his brown paper parcel in the mill as he passed.

Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Lauriston were seated peacefully in
the two deck-chairs at the door of the store-tent, the one smoking
a cigar, the other engaged on a piece of needlework destined some
day to fetch its weight, or nearly its weight, in gold at a bazaar.

en? ae oe ee ee a ae ee ae

DPD

THE ENEMY’S CAMP 643

Tea had been somewhat early, in deference to Cicely, who had
suddenly announced that the evening was the best time for
fishing, and that, unless tea was at four, one did not get any even-
ing. She accordingly gained her evening and went off to make
the most of it, promising Mr. Lauriston some very large fish.
As she had already angled that morning not unsuccessfully her
energy provided subject for comment, and when Agatha and
Doris had departed also in the boat her uncle and her aunt
talked placidly of Cicely and her doings. ‘ The child is getting
quite energetic,” observed Mrs. Lauriston, threading her needle
with unerring hand.

Mr. Lauriston assented. ‘‘ The holiday’s doing her a lot of
good,” he said. ‘She was getting rather pale, I thought, before
we came down here ; but I’ve never seen her in better health and
spirits than she is now.”’

“It was a very good idea of yours, Henry,” said his wife
generously ; “‘ a complete change for all of us and an inexpensive
one. We've had lovely weather too.” Mrs. Lauriston was in
an amiable mood. Everything had gone well since the camp
had moved a second time, and she was in complete ignorance of
the house-boat’s return. Her party, for various reasons, had not
thought it necessary to acquaint her with the fact, and once
having learnt that the dreaded vessel had gone from its moor-
ings she had not contemplated the possibility of its coming back.
Moreover she had that afternoon made up her mind on the
subject of the fallen willow, as Martin’s laborious form about fifty
yards away showed.

Mrs. Lauriston’s voice, therefore, betrayed only surprise when
she presently exclaimed: ‘ Henry, here’s someone coming ;
yes, he must be coming to the camp, the path doesn’t lead any-
where else.”

Mr. Lauriston looked up, and was suddenly tongue-tied, for
there, not fifty yards away, came stepping briskly and clad in
shining white raiment,—the magnificent Charles.

“Who is it? Is it anyone you know?” demanded Mrs.
Lauriston. Fortunately, her eyes being upon the stranger
and not on her husband, she did not detect his confused inability
to speak. Realising, however, that she had not had an answer
she repeated her question.

Charles meanwhile was getting nearer and nearer and the crisis
was becoming acute. But, as will have been noticed before, it

644 THE ENEMY’S CAMP

was always in a crisis that Mr. Lauriston’s military training came
to his aid, and all the ex-volunteer in him awoke as he decided
that if you go half-way to meet a danger it is robbed by so much
of its imminence. He rose from his seat and explaining things
to his wife thus, “‘ Yes, young friend of mine—able fellow—
City,” he left her side and advanced to meet Charles, nerving
himself for the almost inevitable crash, but feeling like some
small boat tossing rudderless upon the illimitable sea, or perhaps
more like some unhappy volunteer private who remains alone on
the stricken field, his officers all shot down and not even an acting
corporal left to superintend his subsequent manceuvres. Yet
even in so grave a case training comes to aid the helpless, and
even as that forsaken private will spring smartly up to attention
and hope for the best, so did Mr. Lauriston keep a firm front
and advance to greet his inopportune visitor, hoping that all
might yet be well, though it seemed scarcely possible. All
things considered the private was in better case. He had only
to deal with an enemy, whereas Mr. Lauriston had to deal with
a woman, and moreover with a wife, to whom he had mentioned
the word City. Suppose Charles were to deny all knowledge of
the City? But there is no need to dwell on coming ills, and
Mr. Lauriston was determined to keep conversation as close to
stocks and shares and as far from house-boats as, without rude-
ness, a man and a householder might.

He met Charles with a certain amount of hearty gesture
which was intended to indicate, for his wife’s benefit, the surprise
one naturally feels at the sudden and unexpected appearance
of an old friend, shook hands warmly, and then led him towards
the lady.

“1 thought you might possibly look in on us,’ he was saying
as they came within earshot, and Mrs. Lauriston rose to greet
the guest.

‘My dear,” said her husband, hurriedly, “1 don’t think you
have met my friend ”—the friend’s name was a little obscured by
a fit of coughing and Mrs. Lauriston therefore did not catch it.
That was no great matter; the name could be ascertained after-
wards, but she warned her husband against recklessly swallowing
cigar-smoke in that manner.

Charles’s experienced eye took in the situation to a certain
extent, and he perceived that it would be well to proceed warily.
Mrs. Lauriston did not appear the kind of lady to whose better

—= -ehee fe 1 PR leet COU lUcelUlUC UCU CU UC lUC MCC Ce

THE ENEMY’S CAMP 645
acquaintance a husband’s introduction is necessarily a passport.
He decided that his remarks should at first be few, though
good, for he realised that the better acquaintance of the
other and younger lady seen this morning might depend on
the favour of this one. A hasty but searching glance round
the camp had revealed the fact that the other and younger
lady was not there now. “Is it permitted?” he asked, with
that deferential smile that won him golden opinions wherever
married ladies co congregate. Mr. Lauriston had just offered
him his cigar-case, and Charles’s tone implied that Mrs.
Lauriston had only to indicate the proceeding by the merest
glance and he would give up smoking for ever. The homage
was not lost upon her, and she gave him permission very
graciously. In Ealing something more definite than a mere
glance would be required to check a young man from using
tobacco permanently, and Mrs. Lauriston appreciated this tactful
reminder of the power of her sex.

“* How are Consols to-day ?” asked Mr. Lauriston suddenly,
true to his determination to keep the conversation away from
house-boats.

“ Consols? ” said Charles vaguely, not of course comprehending
the reason of the question. It seemed an odd one, and he
looked at Mr. Lauriston to see what he meant by it.

That gentleman’s eye expressed a dumb entreaty, though
of what nature Charles could not be sure, and his mouth gave
an explanation that was no explanation. “We don’t see a
paper down here,” he said. “They showed a slight upward
tendency a week ago, and I was wondering if they had begun to
recover.

“Yes, they are recovering wonderfully,” said Charles, whose
knowledge of Consols was of a much less recent date than Mr.
Lauriston’s, but who was desirous of answering the appeal rather
than the question.

“Are they indeed?” said Mr. Lauriston with interest.
“They haven’t touched ninety, I suppose?” He credited his
visitor with greater technical knowledge than that deceptive
person possessed, for Charles’s conversation displayed a variety
that was apt to give an impression of sound information on all
subjects, a result often attendant on a judicious use of generali-
ties. Therefore it came about that Charles was not sure whether
Consols were inordinately high at ninety. But it seemed safer

646 THE ENEMY’S CAMP

to say that they had not reached that giddy height. “1 thought
not,” said Mr. Lauriston ; “ they will never see a hundred again.”

** Never,” Charles agreed.

“ How,” asked Mr. Lauriston, “are West Nigerians ? People
seemed a bit shy of buying when I left town.”

“ Not going off well,” answered Charles. ‘ People are shyer
than ever.”

“1 can’t say I’m surprised,” said Mr. Lauriston.

“I’m not surprised myself,” Charles admitted, wondering
what it was all about and when it was going to end.

* You're not touching Kamschatkans, are you ?”’ Mr. Lauriston
enquired.

“ No,” Charles confessed ; “I’m not at all sure of them.” He
began to feel that this kind of conversation lacked interest, and
looked at Mrs. Lauriston to see if she showed signs of boredom ;
but that excellent lady seemed satisfied. City talk did not bore
her because she understood it to be right and necessary, and in
this instance she found, or thought she found, in these deep
sayings an indication that the visitor was a man of substance.
He was also personable in his white flannel suit, and had not on
the whole a married appearance. It wasalmosta pity that Agatha
had gone out in the boat.

“| heard on good authority the other day,” resumed Mr.
Lauriston “that the London, Bournemouth, and West Coast is
going in for the electrification of its system.

“ Really ?” said Charles.

“ A fact,” continued his host. ‘1 hold some shares, and am
in hopes that it will send their value up again to what I gave for
them.”

“‘ There certainly ought to be a rise,” Charles assented rather
wearily, ignorant of the fact that a considerable portion of his
own handsome competence came from this source. His man of
business would doubtless have had more to say on the matter,
and Charles felt that he would gladly have left all expression of
opinion to him. For sometime Mr. Lauriston conversed on
the money-market in a similar strain, until the other realised
that his supply of relevant answers was getting extremely low.
He turned to the lady in desperation. “But it seems a little
out of place to talk of these things in so pastoral a spot, doesn’t
it?” he said, hoping that the feminine desire to take a share
in whatever conversation is going on would support him.

THE ENEMY’S CAMP 647

Mrs. Lauriston, however, could not be considered a great
talker, unless she had something that must be said. ‘“ Men have
to talk about business, of course,” she decided ; “ and naturally
you have a good deal to discuss even in the country.”

“]’m afraid it must bore you very much,” urged Charles.

“Qh no,” said Mrs. Lauriston. “I don’t understand money
matters, so I never listen. My niece Agatha knows more about
them than I do, and she says they are very interesting.” She
felt that there was no harm in putting in a good word for
Agatha. This acute young business-man might perhaps be
looking out for a wife of the kind that would be able to help
him in his affairs, and Mrs. Lauriston, like a good aunt, never
neglected her opportunities of seeking to secure a comfortable
settlement for her elder niece. Cicely, of course, was such a
mere child that there was no need to think of her as yet.

Charles straightway began to wonder if that were Agatha, that
vision of the morning. If so, appearances were deceptive, for he
would have staked a good deal on the vision’s total immunity
from interests of that nature. It would prove very disappointing
if she too insisted on discussing the money-market and showed a
critical insight into the methods of fraudulent millionaires. An
impulsive feminine desire for the heads of fraudulent persons
generally would be pretty and seemly ; but a calm analysis of
their defalcations with reasoned judgments on the vexed ques-
tions of trusts and watered stock, such as Mr. Lauriston was at
that moment giving, would consort but ill with the rare charm
of her appearance. Charles waited tactfully until Mr. Lauriston
had dissected the particular millionare in question, and then
sought a little more enlightenment as to this gifted niece.

“Your niece does not speculate herself, I suppose ?’’ he
asked playfully.

Mrs. Lauriston was a little shocked. Ealing ladies may be
intelligent, but they do not for that reason hasten to squander
their intelligence in such a way. ‘“ Of course not,’’ she answered
with decision.

Charles felt that one of his few remarks had fallen short of
the standard of goodness, and he hastened to try and condone
it. “Ladies are interesting themselves in the money-market
more and more,” he said.

“So I have been told,” replied Mrs. Lauriston. “I cannot
say I approve of such a thing. No niece of mine, I am

648 THE ENEMY’S CAMP

sure, would ever compete with men in that way.” Her tone
was rather frigid. This young man was evidently one of those
revolutionary persons who are prepared to admit the equality
of the sexes, and Mrs. Lauriston was by no means ready to
part with the consciousness of feminine superiority. Perhaps,
after all, it was as well that Agatha had gone out in the boat.

Charles perceived that another of his few remarks had hardly
been good, and he relapsed into silence while Mr. Lauriston
dissected a defaulting solicitor, and after this had been done
thoroughly he rose to take his leave. Mrs. Lauriston did not
press him to come again. The more she thought of it the more
she resented his suggestion that a niece of hers should have
dealings in the City, and she decided that he was not the kind
of person whom she could invite to Bel Alp. His manners
were good enough certainly, but she was by no means so sure of
his morals.

Charles walked back towards the mill somewhat dissatisfied
with things in general. He had, it was true, paid his call, but
hardly with the good results he had anticipated. He was vexed
with Mr. Lauriston for manipulating the conversation as he had
done, and he was vexed with himself for an unaccustomed failure
to conciliate a lady ; and lastly he was even more vexed at the
absence of the other lady who, after all, could not be so very
deeply immersed in business matters and whose appearance was
very likely justified. He would, however, call again before long
and endeavour to set matters right ; he had little doubt of his
ability to do so if he could once divert the talk into more reason-
able channels. Thus meditating he turned into the mill to fetch
the parcel which he had left there.

The inside of the mill was a scene of ropes hanging from and
ladders leading to the floor above, of corn-bins, sacks, and the
usual signs of industry, with a coating of flour over all. In the
left-hand corner was the office, a little room partitioned off from
the rest by wooden walls, and containing a desk, stool, and cup-
board. Charles had, with the clerk’s permission, placed his parcel
on the desk, and he now stepped in to pick it up. On the thresh-
old he paused, looking straight in front of him. The doors of the
roomy cupboard were open and in it, on the lowest shelf, lay
plain to view an indubitable Gladstone bag with the initials §.H.
staring him in the face. He sprang in and seized it with an eager
hand meaning to bear it off without delay. But as he pulled it

nes. nl i:P, uae cht nen hUenlUeme eelCee USlCUD..l Ue. hae eee

THE ENEMY’S CAMP 649

out of the cupboard it struck him that it felt strangely light, and
he undid the straps and opened it. Then a sad sight met his
eyes. The neatness that did such credit to his valet was gone,
and with it was gone most of the raiment. The blue suit had
vanished, the brown boots and the Panama hat, while the things
that were left nearly all betrayed signs of use; crumpled shirts
and collars, a varied collection of brilliant and ill-treated ties, all
betrayed an alien and careless hand. Charles remained thunder-
struck for a time, but at last recovered himself, shut the bag up,
put it in the cupboard again, grasped his parcel and departed,
without disturbing any of the miller’s men who were all in the
upper part of the mill, and without noticing in the extreme corner
of the shelf a heap of old clothes that might have made things
more clear to him if he had examined them. He went home
puzzling over the circumstance and meditating how to get to the
bottom of the mystery.

In the meanwhile he was the theme of some conversation
between Mr. and Mrs. Lauriston. ‘A baronet?” that lady
exclaimed after her husband had given a few reluctant answers.
“And you talked of nothing but the City, and I thought he was
a stockbroker! Henry, why was I not told? Where does he
live? Why didn’t you ask him to stop to supper?” And for
a considerable time Mr. Lauriston, without mentioning the
house-boat, was fully occupied in endeavouring to account satis-
factorily for Charles, for himself, and for many other things not
immediately connected with either. He felt that, though the
baronet might condone the vessel, there were many features of
the case which would make explanation difficult for a husband.

CHAPTER XXIX

“ THERE was a girl once,—but you're not listening,” began
Cicely.

“I’m listening very hard,” asserted Talbot, looking at her a
trifle uneasily. She had surveyed his notably correct attire with
an interest somewhat too minute to please him, and she had
seemed secretly amused. He pulled down his sleeve nervously (it
was a trifle too short for his arm), and her gaze then fell on his
brown boots, which he in turn contemplated with dissatisfaction.
They were still a little tight ; what was worse they looked tight,

E E*

650 THE ENEMY’S CAMP
and he knew it. He settled himself determinedly, however, and
looked at her instead.

Cicely smiled in a superior manner, and leaned back more
comfortably against her favourite tree by the perch-hole. “ You'll
have to listen,” she announced ; “it’s for your good.”

“] didn’t expect this of you,” demurred Talbot. A prolonged
study of Cicely had distracted him from his minor discomforts,
and he felt himself again.

“ Besides, 1 want your advice, as I don’t think the girl behaved
very well,” continued she.

“ They never do,” he assented, readily enough.

Cicely smiled again. ‘“ You speak feelingly ?” she suggested.
* Otherwise you can’t be excused, you know.”

“ There are exceptions,” conceded Talbot gallantly.

“Mostly exceptions,” she insisted.

“] don’t know ; I’m quite content to know one.”

Cicely accepted the compliment demurely. ‘“ However this
girl didn’t behave at all well,” she resumed.

“Poor fellow,” Talbot sighed tragically. ‘Did he ever get
over it?”

“] haven’t told you the story yet,” she said firmly. “1’m
going to begin at the beginning.”

“* What a very unusual proceeding,” he laughed. Cicely’s eye
demanded instant explanation. ‘I thought you always began at
the end and finished with the middle,” he said. “ It doesn’t keep
one waiting for the point ; and it’s a very hot afternoon.”

“This isn’t a novel,’ objected Cicely, “and it hasn’t got an
end yet.”

“* Then of course I can’t hear it ; ] quite understand. ‘There
was a girl once,’ I think you said.”

“There were several of them,” corrected Cicely, “and the
others were all nice.”

“And the one who wasn’t was the prettiest ?’’ he enquired.
Cicely’s eyes danced with merriment, purposeful merriment. He
felt vaguely apprehensive, but he persevered. ‘ They were all
jealous of her ?”

“« They were rather afraid of her, I think ; she was a very big
girl.” Again she looked mischievously at the correct angler.
Then she paused to frame her parable.

“ And who was he?” Talbot suggested.
Cicely was not to be hurried. ‘“ They all went down to—to

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THE ENEMY’S CAMP 651

a little country place, and they agreed they wouldn’t take many
dresses and things, but be quiet and not be bothered with men.”

“ Not even with an uncle?” he said, becoming dimly sus-
picious that this was that inexcusable thing, a story with a
purpose.

“No, they went down quite by themselves ; and you mustn't
interrupt, or I shall never get to the end at all.”

“* As you said there wasn’t one, that won’t matter very much,”
he observed.

“They went down quite by themselves,” Cicely resumed
firmly.

‘Did any of them fish ?” he asked.

“ They didn’t, but the curate did.”

“ And he taught them ?”’ Talbot betrayed a slight anxiety.

“He was a very nice curate,” answered Cicely circuitously ;
“and one of them, the big one, saw him when she was going for
a walk. He wasn’t fishing at all properly, so she stopped a bit
and showed him how to do it. He was quite grateful because
he had never caught anything before, which was rather dull, of
course. And she told him a lot he didn’t know.”

“‘She seems to have been quite capable of doing that,” was
Talbot’s comment.

“* She went back and didn’t say.a word to anybody,” continued
Cicely.

‘Some remnant of good feeling ?”’ he suggested.

Cicely had recourse to a greengage. It was a deceptive green-
gage, and its flavour was unworthy of the honour of her selection.
She put it gently down and smiled to herself; he would not
interrupt much longer, she suspected. ‘ There was another
girl down there,” she went on, “who hadn’t quite understood
what they meant to do and had packed a very pretty dress,—
by mistake, of course—so the rest when they found it out pro-
tested, and the big girl took away her portmanteau in the night.”
Talbot started. Cicely did not look at him ; instead she con-
tinued rapidly. ‘ You see, there was a party of curates down there,
and the big girl said she would be sure to dress herself up and get to
know them, so she took away the pretty dress and went in it to
see the one who fished, and she went in it without letting anybody
know, and at last they found out and they thought it very mean
of her, and—”

An inarticulate grunt that expressed many things untranslate-

652 THE ENEMY’S CAMP

able into any self-respecting feminine vocabulary interrupted the
narrative. Cicely paused willingly enough ; she lacked Mrs.
Lauriston’s practice in continuous speech. “You said?” she
enquired, the question sounding rather timidly even to her-
self.

Her tone restored Talbot a little. “I don’t care what they
thought,” he declared. ‘‘ What did the curate think ?”

“He thought the dress didn’t fit at all well,” rejoined Cicely
cruelly, having recovered her self-possession.

“Who's been telling you all this?” demanded Talbot with
steady ferocity. ‘ Majendie? Crichton?”

“Oh dear, he’ll go and beat them, or something dreadful,”
thought Cicely ; and, indeed, a shy peep at him was not reassur-
ing. Talbot both felt and looked as if a little violent exercise at
someone else’s expense would do him good. “ No, neither of
them told,” she declared hurriedly.

“Someone told you ; who was it?” Cicely looked at him in
admirable surprise with a dainty assumption of feminine dignity.
“‘] beg your pardon,” conceded Talbot in some contrition. But
he still boiled inwardly, and picking up his rod he threw his line
savagely into the unoffending river. Fortune was kind and sent
a perch to sacrifice itself on the altar of indignation. The
unexpectedness of the bite and the necessity of landing the fish
in some measure restored Talbot's temper.

* Will this buy the information?” he said holding up the
fish.

“I believe you’re getting curious,” she returned. “No, it
isn’t intelligent interest ; that’s only for things that concern
yourself, you know.”

He had been about to interrupt ; but she held up a restrain-
ing finger. Contemplation of a very shapely little hand in a
becomingly dictatorial attitude distracted him momentarily, but
he persisted. “Of course I want to know when it’s your
story.”

Cicely nodded her august approval of his altered manner.
* But I don’t know that I ought to tell you.”

Talbot repressed impatience. ‘‘ What did the curate do?” he
asked with an effort.

“He told the big girl,” said Cicely calmly ; “and she was
very rude to him.”’

Talbot considered this point. “I suppose I deserved that,”

ny

wa oa— rH

THE ENEMY’S CAMP 653

he admitted in a wholly unconvinced tone. ‘ But did he tell the
other curates ?” he asked with feeling.

“TI never heard of his doing that,’”’ Cicely rejoined deliberately.
She smiled inwardly at his look of relief. Yes, he was being a
little, just a little, well—absurd, and it was all for herself, which
was quite what it should have been.

“He must have been a very nice curate,’ said Talbot in
gratitude ; “I’m sure there couldn’t have been a nicer any-
where.”

“] thought you didn’t like curates,” observed Cicely, with
a little touch of self-appreciation.

“As I said, there are exceptions, and I should be quite
content to know that one,” he replied pointedly.

Cicely felt that, in his own estimation at least, Talbot was
rapidly ceasing to possess just the little absurdity that was
required of him. ‘I don’t think you've quite seen the moral
of my tale,” she objected.

“ You said there wasn’t one,” he returned.

“] said there wasn’t an end, but I didn’t say there wasn’t a
moral,” she answered.

“ But you mustn’t put the moral before the end,” stated
Talbot. “ Think of the fables in the copybooks.”

“ Remember the bargain,” retorted Cicely.

*“|’m not teaching you anything ; I’m only reminding you.”

Cicely shook her head. “I didn’t want that ; I wanted your
opinion of the big girl.”

* [ll tell you on one condition.”

“No conditions,” stoutly declared Cicely.

“ Well, may I ask a question ?”” Talbot was firm.

“]T won't promise anything; I’ve told you what the curate
thought.”

Talbot remembered what the curate thought, and despite
himself he once more acquired something of what had been
expected of him. “ Did the curate’s aunt tell him about the big
girl ?’’ he demanded with a sternness curiously inappropriate to
the form of the question.

“«Oh, do say it again just like that,” laughed Cicely.

Talbot’s sense of humour returned ; he had had his answer.
However he meant to make sure. “ Did the curate’s aunt and
the girl who had lost her dress spend every morning looking for
the Gladstone—portmanteau, I mean, in the wood ?”

654 THE ENEMY’S CAMP

“ Intelligent interest ?” asked she, nodding an answer.

“] understand,” said Talbot. “The curate guessed of
course. He was a very clever curate,” he added with a polite
bow.

“Tt wasn’t very hard to guess.’ Cicely deprecated the
compliment. ‘ You see it wasn’t the big girl’s style at all.”

“You don’t seem to sympathise with the big girl,” hazarded
Talbot hopefully.

“How could 1? Don’t you think it was very wrong of
her?”

“But did the curate sympathise with her?” he returned to
the charge.

“You couldn’t expect a really nice curate to do that, could
you ?” fenced Cicely. “ Besides, the other girl’s shoes didn’t fit
her at all.”

Talbot moved his feet painfully. Certainly he was beginning
to feel just a little absurd, despite his consciousness of lofty
motives. But, as he had evidently not been betrayed and had
only been discovered by Cicely, his confidence returned.
“Didn't the curate like that rather?” he enquired.

“It amused him, of course,” Cicely agreed readily, “and
there isn’t much to do in the country.”

“1 expect he was really pleased if he was a nice curate,”
Talbot insisted. ‘ It was all done to please him, you see.”

“ But he was very sorry for the other girl, and he would have
liked to know her perhaps,” Cicely returned with deliberation.
“It was very mean of the big girl, but perhaps the other was
afraid of her, you see.”

“The other girl shouldn’t have brought that dress,” declared
Talbot. “It was all his,—her fault from the beginning. She
shouldn't have provoked them by wanting to get to know the
curates and so have put temptation in their way.”

“But only really dishonest people take advantage,” said
Cicely rebukingly. “The schoolmistress and the nurse didn’t
steal things when they went to see the other curates. They
were really straightforward people.”

“Was the curate,—I mean did he tell his aunt and uncle
that he went fishing with the big girl ?” asked Talbot slyly.

“‘T don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” said Cicely loftily.
She, however, had seen his point clearly and her manner became

increasingly dignified.

ee se Ss

ers ct oO

THE ENEMY’S CAMP 655

Talbot understood that his retort had gone home, so he for-
bore to press it further. ‘‘ Everybody would have done what
the big girl did. The schoolmistress and the nurse both wanted
to find the portmanteau so that they might hide it again,—only
they didn’t get the chance,” he ended with an unrepentant
chuckle.

“T don’t think that makes it any better,”—Cicely was severe
—and the dress might have suited them better too.”’

Talbot ignored this return to the original indictment. “ If
you really want my opinion about the big girl,” he said deter-
minedly, “I think she was quite right. She took it away to
prevent the others meddling about with curates.”

“That’s not a very nice way of putting it,” protested Cicely
demurely.

But Talbot was not to be interrupted. “It’s the fact,” he
averred. ‘* They didn’t go down to be bothered with curates,—
quite right too. Of course, when the big girl met she curate,
that was different. She just used the portmanteau because ‘i
he hesitated and was on the verge of abandoning narrative in the
third person.

“Now you're trying to steal my story,” Cicely objected ;
“that’s too bad of you.”

“|’m only giving you my opinion,” he returned, “as you
asked me to.”

“It's rather a hasty opinion,” she considered, “and you don’t
seem a bit sorry for the girl who lost her portmanteau. The
curate was very sorry for her indeed ; he told his aunt so.”

“ What did his aunt say?” Talbot enquired in some alarm.

“His aunt said she would introduce him to the other girl,
and the curate thought he would be sure to like her ; he felt so
sorry for her.” Cicely’s voice expressed volumes of orthodox
compassion.

“Oh, did he?” Talbot was indignant, but he reflected that
the introduction had not yet taken place, which in some measure
consoled him. ‘ You’ve not come to the end though,” he
added.

“You don’t deserve to hear the end,” she decreed ; “ you
don’t think of anybody but the big girl.”

“On the contrary,” Talbot asserted ; “ I’ve been thinking all
the time of the curate, and how nice it was of him to understand
and forgive her.”

656 THE ENEMY’S CAMP

“] never said he did that,” Cicely returned.

“ But he did though,” Talbot insisted confidently.

“TI think you might leave me my own story.” Cicely pre-
tended injury.

“ T only wanted to find an end for it,” he pleaded.

Cicely was silent for a moment. “Isn’t that a fish biting ?”
she eventually digressed.

Talbot did not even turn to look. ‘ Some stories shouldn’t
have an end,” he went on slowly, “except the old ending which
isn’t one.”

Cicely smiled shyly. However, she evaded his meaning.
“The curate said the big girl must give the portmanteau back.
He didn’t approve of borrowed plumes.”’

“Or stolen sweets ?”” asked Talbot.

“If you like to put it that way,” Cicely admitted serenely.

“ He never told his aunt and uncle, you know,” Talbot
explained.

“ He liked to be thought a good angler ; it was very natural
of him,” she said for the defence.

“Very,” Talbot conceded, “but unusual. That’s why he
was so nice, of course.”

“It’s very unusual for curates to be nice, do you mean ?”

“‘ Nothing is so unusual as to be natural. To be natural is
to be nice, and I must say I like a natural curate,” he ended
politely.

“* Have you been making an epigram ?” Cicely asked suspici-
ously.

“I apologise,” he said ; “ it’s the fault of the curate.” Cicely
looked for elucidation. ‘ Nice ones make one feel so delight-
fully young,” he explained.

* And only very young people make epigrams? The big girl
was not very young,” she said reprovingly. ‘ But,” she
resumed, “‘don’t you think she ought to give back the port-
manteau ?”

“‘ That depends,” said Talbot judicially.

“On what ?”

“On the end of the story,” he answered.

“JT think she ought,” Cicely continued ; “and I’ve decided
what she ought to do besides.”

“‘T expect she has decided too,”” Talbot said firmly.

“1 must be going back now.” Cicely prepared to rise.

nf FS OO.

-

THE ENEMY’S CAMP 657

Talbot humoured her. A few moments were occupied in
disposing the perch in the basket. Then Cicely delivered her
parting shot. ‘And the big girl ought to bring the other to the
curate’s aunt when she’s given back the portmanteau.” With
that she accepted his hand and got up.”

Talbot laughed. “You have forgotten one thing,” he said.
“ The big girl didn’t know the curate’s aunt. Your story will
have to be developed a little before that. To-morrow after-
noon ?” he questioned after a slight pause.

Cicely nodded.

“Then the curate wasn’t really angry at all,” he declared
triumphantly.

“No nice curate ought to be angry,” said Cicely, and dis-
appeared round the corner of the mill.

CHAPTER XXX

Cuar_es returned towards the house-boat deep in thought,
traversing the path among the osiers with slow steps. The
sudden discovery of his Gladstone bag had for the moment
diverted his mind from the other camp, and he was filled with a
keen desire to know who was wearing his unexceptionable blue
suit, his brown boots and Panama hat, and also why the person
was doing this thing. Evidence seemed to point in one direction,
the direction of Talbot, who had taken his property away. But
for what purpose the brutal Talbot, who prided himself on his
disreputable exterior, could be wearing the apparel it was im-
possible to imagine. Charles felt like a jury which is asked on
purely circumstantial evidence to convict a hitherto unblemished
bishop of stealing a billiard-cue, and he felt that the thing needed
much more proof. Other possibilities arose before him. It
might be that one of the mill-hands was taking advantage of
the resources unexpectedly put in his way, and was conducting a
country courtship clad in Charles’s raiment. That was improb-
able too ; among London valets and lady’s-maids such a thing
was not unknown, but so humorous a conceit was hardly to be
looked for in the country. Yet it was not more improbable than
that the rugged Talbot should have sought to modify himself.
Feminine influence and Talbot, of course, were things that

658 THE ENEMY’S CAMP
Charles would never have associated together even for the sake
of argument. The whole thing was a great puzzle, and he
resolved to consult his new allies, Majendie and the Admiral,
who might be able to offer some plausible explanation.

He found them still sitting over the remains of tea and con-
versing with William, who seemed immoderately amused about
something, and who when he saw Charles’s resplendent white
suit relapsed into a fresh peal of laughter. As a matter of fact
he had just been the recipient of certain rather unwilling con-
fessions from the Doctor and the Admiral, consequent on his
unsparing criticism of their altered appearance and his pertinent
enquiries as to the reason for it. Charles looked at him rather
blankly ; he had been prepared for reproach, and even contumely,
but hardly for boisterous mirth. Moreover his allies had made
no confession to him, and he therefore missed some of the
humour of the situation. He received no enlightenment, for
William, after recovering himself, went away to fish, leaving the
well-dressed trio together.

“What was he laughing at?” demanded Charles, when he
had gone.

“ You,” said the Admiral succinctly. The extorting of con-
fessions had not been done without discomfort to the persons
concerned, and he was glad to be able to distribute it a little more
evenly.

“Why? I don’t understand. What’s the matter with me?”
Charles enquired suspiciously.

“Oh, nothing ; is there Majendie ?”’ said the Admiral.

** No, nothing at all,” the Doctor chimed in readily.

The seeds of discomfort, once sown, are of rapid growth.
Charles put a hand up to his tie, which felt all right, glanced at
his white suit which, so far as he could see, looked as right as it
was in it to look. There was nothing much amiss with his white
boots either, and altogether the reason for William’s laughter
seemed hard to discover. He decided that the only dignified
course was to ignore it. “I’ve found my Gladstone bag,” he
announced as the most effectual method of diverting the con-
versation and so avoiding further uncomfortable mystery.

He was successful and the others were plainly impressed.
“Found it? Where?” they exclaimed together.

“ Not far away,” said Charles. It would not, he thought, be
politic to divulge the precise locality as yet, and besides a little

THE ENEMY’S CAMP 659
unsatisfied curiosity might be good for them, as well as a just
return for the discomfort they had caused him.

“You needn’t have gone to Oldborough after all,” said
Majendie.

“] shouldn’t have found it if I hadn’t,” Charles admitted ;
“and besides the clothes are gone out of it.” This elicited
demands for further particulars, and he proceeded to tell them
of the condition of the bag when he found it, and of the obvious
signs that someone had been wearing the clothes for some time.

“It can’t be Talbot,” declared the Admiral when the narrative
was finished. ‘‘ He spends all his time fishing, and you know
what he is about clothes even in London.”’

“ Unless he’s gone mad,” suggested Majendie rather hope-
fully. “He seemed queer that day we moved from the other
place, if you remember.”

“ He wasn’t mad at lunch anyhow,” said Charles reflectively.
“ He very nearly found out that we were going into Oldborough.”
It had in fact been the case that Talbot had noticed an air of
conspiracy about the three, but he had not troubled much as to
the nature of the plot. An absorbing interest is apt to lessen
the importance of other things, and the prospect of seeing Cicely
a second time that day had indisposed him for searching analysis
of other people’s business. A giant running his course takes no
notice of pigmies, and Talbot felt himself, by reason of the
recent exaltation and ennobling of his character, to have become
no inconsiderable giant,—when not actually in Cicely’s presence.
When he was with her it was different. In some circumstances
a woman by taking thought is able to abstract several cubits from
a man’s mental stature.

“ The insane often display a species of cunning which is decep-
tive,” urged the Doctor, adjusting his eye-glasses. But his theory
was not favourably received. Neither of the others felt that
they could impute madness to Talbot, though it was difficult
to connect him with the occurrence by any other method of
reasoning.

Charles, however, had thought out a plan by which it would be
possible to arrive at the truth, and settle the identity of the ass
who was wearing the lion’s blue suit, brown boots, and Panama
hat, as he vaguely phrased it to himself. ‘“ I’ve decided what to
do,” he said.

The others looked to him for enlightenment. ‘“ A watch must

660 THE ENEMY’S CAMP

be kept,” he continued, “all day. We will do it in relays.
Whoever it is, is certain to go into the mill at some time or
other. If it’s Talbot, whoever is on guard must follow him and
see where he goes to and what he does. If it’s anyone else just
knock him down and sit on him, or bring him along here so that
he may be talked to kindly.”

“ How about the clothes?” asked the Admiral. ‘ You don’t
want to knock your own clothes down in the mud, do you ?”

“] don’t care about the clothes, of course,” said Charles
rather loftily. ‘ One could not be expected to wear them again,
so it doesn’t matter what becomes of them. It’s the theory of
the thing that matters. Whoever the person is, he’s got to
learn that he can’t go about in another man’s clothes with
impunity.”

“ Supposing it is Talbot?” asked Majendie, who foresaw, in
that contingency, some difficulty in imparting the piece of
information suggested.

“*Oh, if it is Talbot,” began Charles, and then hesitated. He
also saw the difficulty. “Oh, well, in that case one will have to
consider the next step ; it doesn’t do to be precipitate. But let
us hope it isn’t,”” he concluded.

‘It would be much easier to deal with a stranger,” the Admiral
admitted.

* Well then,” Charles went on, “it’s agreed. You, Admiral,
will take the first watch from nine till eleven ; you, Majendie,
will come on from eleven till one; lll get Lauriston to
take the afternoon with me; and we'll divide the evening
among us.”

Majendie and the Admiral looked at one another askance.
The prospect of spending a morning in the manner suggested
did not commend itself to either of them ; indeed it was im-
possible, for they had made other arrangements. The fact that
but a week more remained of their holiday had had some effect
on their view of things, and they proposed to spend this week to
the best advantage. There might possibly be some advantage
about Charles’s scheme, but it was not the best, and it did not
really accrue to them. “I can’t manage to-morrow, I’m afraid,”
said Majendie. “I don’t mind an hour or two on Sunday
morning.”

Charles regarded him with surprise. “ Why can’t you manage
to-morrow ?”’ he asked.

» oo

t

— - — =e

as ~~ —" ~~ _— -

THE ENEMY’S CAMP 661

Majendie was perplexed for an answer. He had no immediate
wish to take Charles into his confidence ; one confession in a day
is enough discomfort for any man, and it was not necessary to
begin another, for William had yielded to persuasion, entreaty,
and threat, and had promised to keep his own counsel about
what he had heard. He accordingly decided to equivocate. “To
tell you the truth,” he said with a great show of candour, “I
want to fish to-morrow.”

** All day ?”’ enquired Charles, his surprise in no way dimin-
ished. Majendie did fish sometimes, but he had never been
known to do so with conviction; it was understood that he
merely took out a rod when he had nothing better to do.
Charles was of the opinion that the employment suggested by
himself was a good deal better, and his tone expressed it.

“Well,” explained Majendie with growing frankness, “1 want
to score off Talbot. I’ve found some tremendous great fish,—
chub—in a certain hole, and if I could catch one or two it would
make him look small. They’re much bigger than anything he’s
caught ; and besides he hasn’t caught many lately, so it would be
a double score.”

“You won't score off him that way,” said Charles sceptically.
“You won't catch them, and if Talbot sees you fishing he'll
find out where they are and he’// get them, so it will be a score
off you. I wouldn’t give him the opportunity ; much better
not let him know anything about them.”

But Majendie was proof against Charles’s insidious reasoning.
*‘]’ll promise you he shan’t know about them,” he replied ;
“but I mean to catch them myself if I can. Time is getting
short, too ; that’s why I want to begin to-morrow.”

“‘ The shorter the time the less reason for wasting it,” argued
Charles ; but the Doctor was determined and would not consent
to Charles’s programme.

The other then turned to the Admiral. ‘ At any rate you don’t
want to fish,” he asserted.

The Admiral admitted it, but it seemed that his time also was
no less fully occupied, “I’ve got to finish a series of sketches
I’m engaged on,” he said.

* Sketches ! ’”’ exclaimed Charles in a tone of indignant con-
tempt. He was beginning to doubt the reality of the professions
of good-will that had been made to him a short time ago. They
would not, it appeared, stand the test of practical utility. “A

662 THE ENEMY’S CAMP

holiday task ?” he enquired sarcastically. ‘Let us have a look
at them.”

“ Not until they are finished,” the Admiral answered firmly ;
there were difficulties in the way of exhibiting them, not the least
being that they were not his own or even in his possession. “I
will show them to you some day,” he conceded with a swift
mental vision of a tasteful drawing-room of the future whose
walls should be appropriately ornamented with water-colour land-
scapes, the joint work of a certain gifted couple, and the admira-
tion of all persons of culture.

But Charles, knowing nothing of the drawing-room, somewhat
warmly denied any real desire to behold the masterpieces, intima-
ting that he had asked to see them in a spirit of irony, and that
the Admiral was too obtuse to appreciate that fact. The
Admiral was moved to retort, and a brisk discussion ensued,
after which Charles departed, saying that he ought to have
known better than to expect any assistance from two persons
so self-centred and so narrow-minded as his friends. Herein
he judged them hardly, as, had he been acquainted with all
the circumstances, he himself would readily have admitted.
But, since he knew nothing, he departed in dudgeon to bathe,
and to scheme vengeance against the unknown purloiner of his
raiment.

(To be continued.)

TECHNICAL EDUCATION

Tue proposals to establish two institutions to give technical
education in branches of applied science superior to that at present
offered in any public college in this country, has again brought
the subject of technical education before the public. Of late
years the working man has monopolised the attention of the
benevolent and ‘he charitable.

There is much diversity of opinion as to the value of technical
education to workmen. Many contend that a workman ought
only to do the manual work he has been trained to do, and that
those above him should do the calculating and designing. On
the other hand, people in general take it for granted that the
more intelligent a man is the better workman he will be, and
also, that of any two workmen the one who has some technical
education (other things being equal) will be the most valuable.
The inference that improved technical education will enable us
as a nation to keep the lead in commerce is not clear, as will be
shown further on.

For good, or for ill, there has been an economic change in this
country, from agricultural production to commercial production ;
we have gone from the plough to the factory, which sucks into
its gorged system half the life, blood, and bone of our rural
districts. A change has taken place and is still taking place, and
it is useless to attempt any solution which ignores such a change.
Education has done much to prove the absurdity of the conten-
tion that “the poor should be contented with their stations and
not aspire beyond them,” and the combinations of labour have
done the rest.

The higher education of the apprentice is advocated ; but are
we prepared for technical education? Has the elementary
education of the apprentice proceeded upon rational lines so that
he is competent to appreciate the higher education given him, or

664 TECHNICAL EDUCATION
offered him, as a technical student or as an apprentice? Mr.
Balfour’s address at the opening of the Manchester School of
Technology was chiefly interesting in that it impressed on the
public at large the need and the reasons for technical education ;
but he said “that he more than doubted whether the students
were mentally equipped to profit by the instruction there to be
given.” This is a principle which has hitherto certainly not
been sufficiently grasped.

The attitude of the workman of the present day toward
technical education is a difficult one, his utilisations of it being
hampered in many ways. Applied theory, like applied art, vexes
his soul. The pity is that workmen are such mere workmen,
and that employers, generally, are such unmitigated employers.

A great deal is heard about the loss of our commercial position,
and especially about the great strides made by Germany. But
what has technical instruction done for Germany? Lord Rosebery
said in a speech some time ago that “ Germany was twenty years
ahead of us in technical education.” That may be, and although
Germany was probably the pioneer in technical education, yet
made in Germany is notoriously synonymous with cheap and
nasty, and even Russia can produce better articles than Germany.
Russian sugar, for instance, is far superior to German, and Russian
cotton textiles are better and more durable than German. In a
recent report our Consul at Stuttgart states “that at the present
time the more German manufacturers exert themselves to find a
market for their goods, the less their profits become”; and a
more recent report implies that Germany’s rise has been bought
at the cost of the physical degeneration of her workers.

Technical education is not the panacea for all the ills that trade
is heir to; there will, of course, be cycles of commercial pros-
perity and depression, as there always have been, in the best
technically educated country. Commerce is able to work verit-
able miracles, bringing into contact the extremes of civilisation,
enlarging and disseminating ideas, and helping forward that
universal peace and goodwill which is, and must be, the highest
ideal of humanity. The captains of our great commercial enter-
prises must by intelligent anticipations forecast and create means
for the productions of to-morrow. Our workmen must there-
fore be of such a kind that they can readily and intelligently
adapt themselves to the altered circumstances of to-day, and the
probably altered conditions of to-morrow.

A Amat = Bs OO °:

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TECHNICAL EDUCATION 665

It is often proved very conclusively that the glut in the labour-
market is unfortunately only a glut of unskilled or indifferently
skilled labour. Such a state of things might be taken philoso-
phically and left to the consolation which lies in the theory of
the survival of the fittest; but it generally happens that the
fittest are gradually crushed out of a profession which more than
many others needs education, brains, and business capacity to
make it successful. How best to provide the proper antidote
against the greatest danger of modern existence is a question of
no mean significance. The dogma of the decadence of our
workmen we have always with us, and it is instructive now and
then to throw ourselves back half a century or so and to review
the work of those days from the point of view of the men who
lived in them.

One of the greatest needs of the day is to find some practicable
method of interesting men in their work, and in promoting the
successful operation of their employers. Of course tc expect
that men will strive after perfection or despatch solely for the
benefit of the employer, or from sheer love of work, without the
incentive of personal material benefits, would be the philosophy
of a fool. Love of gain is an incentive to ambition, and ambition
is merely vanity ennobled. If a workman knows that good
execution, promptness, and prevention of waste will redound to
his immediate pecuniary benefit, he is naturally apt to be more
attentive ; for it may be taken as a rule of life with the average
man that he will be careless, or possibly vicious, where he does
not expect to be supervised or where he suffers no pecuniary loss.
Such a state of affairs as at present exists, not only in this
country but in Germany notwithstanding her boasted excellence,
obviously proves that somewhere things are radically wrong.

A workman may acquire much information by reading, but
even practical articles are so generally mixed with arithmetic and
mathematics, or with technical terms, as to make the parts
involving the simplest calculation unreadable and rather irritating
to the average workman. A healthy, well-informed, and well
cultivated imagination is beyond and above all rules. Paradoxical
though it may seem, men understand less now, when they
read more, than in the days when books and papers were few and
difficult to obtain. Success and achievement are brought about
by persistent, intelligent, and well directed effort. Effort backed
up by indomitable will, courage, and hope will bring about the

666 TECHNICAL EDUCATION

most happy and gratifying results. Too often the average man,
for the want of a little energy, dozes his spare time by his fire-
side, and meanders through life with the elementary knowledge
he possessed at fourteen, knowing barely sufficient to gain a
livelihood.

Technical education is fondly supposed to be the one thing
needful to produce efficient workmen ; but modern conditions of
life do not tend to cultivate a disposition to work faithfully and
cheerfully. The tendency of modern conditions of labour is to
specialise ; work becomes purely mechanical, affording not the
slightest opportunity for the exercise of thought or judgment, or
arousing sufficient interest to find out peculiarities or develope
special talent. Take any of our great factories ; the work is so
specialised that the nearer the man is to being a machine the
nearer to perfection is he as a workman.

The primary object of technical education is apparently the pro-
duction of beautiful and sound work, yet scores of things occur
in practice, and have to be adopted, that are totally at variance
with the teachings of the technical schools. Of what use is
technical education when the price of work is cut so low that the
workman's abilities are hampered in order to make the job pay?
And yet how glibly, in our art and technical schools, we hear
lecturers advocating all that is sound and esthetic, while in prac-
tice we have to depart from the poetically esthetic to the absurdly
practicable and payable.

Anyone setting out to teach others a technical knowledge of
their craft, whether it be to train students with a view to their
practising it as a means of livelihood, or with the aim of guiding
others to some understanding of what they see, should approach
the subject from some point of view other than of trying to show
them some main principles or guiding instincts which lead to
certain results. How often we find that many of the brightest
and best pupils fail from the lack of ability to put their technical
knowledge to a practical use after they have left the technical
school. A gulf exists between the technical school and the appli-
cation of the knowledge acquired.

At the same time, it does not follow that because a man
possesses a technical knowledge of his craft he is necessarily a
skilled workman. Therein lies a world of difference, and it is
easy to perceive how great an advantage (other things being equal)
the workman, who applies his technical knowledge practically,

TECHNICAL EDUCATION 667
will necessarily possess over those who go blindly on using
methods and materials without that discriminating knowledge
which really means so much to those who possess it in its fulness.
It is, however, only this dual and Herculean task, this firm
welding together of theory and practice, in which the ultimate
success of technical education lies. Workmen are not always as
adaptable as they should be, and it is clear that work will follow
the best workmen of the kind that is wanted.

The glamour of technical education has a strange persistent
fascination, but it often leads to the slough of despond. If
technical education is to mean anything, it must be put into the
hands of persons having considerable experience of trade, and in
a position to grasp the facts, and the present and future require-
ments, of the trade of the country. Scores of technical institutes
are established without any scheme, and are pushed by persons
who have no practical experience of trade and its continually
fluctuating conditions.

Technical education on a good sound teaching basis is the great
need of the age, but there is only one thing more difficult
than the creation of the necessary scheme to this end, and that
is the unfailing energy, tact, and requisite skill of the teachers
and the technical committees to carry the ideal to a happy accom-
plishment. If any scheme of technical education is to be of
real and lasting benefit different tactics will have to be adopted.
Instead of being in such a hurry to provide technical schools
it would be worth while to consider the qualifications and
fitness of the teachers. The apparent qualification of a technical
teacher is that he shall have passed certain examinations.
Technical students are largely what their teachers have made
them, and a bad examiner does infinitely more harm than a
thousand stupid students. Possession is known to beget
indifference in many cases, when once the edge of novelty has
worn off.

At our technical schools a certain course is invariably mapped
out at the beginning of a session, and certain books procured
and adhered to. The instructor teaches his pupils building-
construction ; he teaches them architectural or mechanical
drawing ; he teaches them the chemistry and physics of materials,
or some abstract mathematical system of proportions, often to
their infinite and irrevocable loss of ability for any broader
grasp; but does he ever attempt to teach wherein lies the

668 TECHNICAL EDUCATION
success of one method or system, or the failure of the other,
to produce a desired result? Does he ever attempt, when
teaching the theory of a subject, to apply theory in the simplest
and most practical manner? Does he encourage the pupils
to throw conventional methods to the winds of heaven and to
think for themselves, to constantly study new methods, to
derive suggestions from things that come casually under their
vision, and to select those that are best fitted for their use and
adoption? Any fool can do what he is told. The value of
thinking is apparent in everyday life. The happiest achievements
are those creative and not imitative, those that spring free,
sudden, uninvited, the happy inspiration of the moment, the con-
ception innate with the added creative power of the hand eager
to achieve.

The whole tendency of modern education is to cultivate the
memory, and the memory is often cultivated at the expense of
the power to think. Students are taught to lay up in their minds
the tabulated experiences of other people, rather than to grasp the
methods and needs of the present day, and to habituate them-
selves to cultivate their own ingenuity and observation. Artificial
memory is a useful thing in cases where the human brain is
deficient in retentive powers. Professors of mnemonics teach
their pupils to remember one thing by associating it with
another. It is only by observation and by experiment that we
can determine facts.

A much greater evil is the systematic encouragement offered
by tutors for examinations to persons utterly unfitted for the
positions for which they are supposed to be qualified after satisfying
the examiners. Apparently dull and respectable nullity has a
way of getting singled out, rewarded, and encouraged to under-
take work for which it is not fitted.

It is often painfully obvious that students in our technical
classes are not equal to receiving the modicums of science
provided, with the consequence that many begin and few finish a
session. If there is to be progress in our workmen it must be
by means of a sound elementary and technical education, not
only of our children, but also of those who are grownup. The
present system is too narrow and too bookish ; text-books are
notoriously at variance on subjects which are ascertainable facts.
Generally the teacher's acquaintance with the subject is only
book-knowledge, and the students are crammed with facts they
but half understand, soon forget, and cannot apply in practice.

a meter FF a2 Fe

TECHNICAL EDUCATION 669

They are set to work at examination-papers, often drafted by
men almost as impractical as themselves. The examination-
system is one of the chief curses of technical education in this
country ; it tends to shape all minds to the same conventions of
thought and the same intellectural methods, to paralyse the
power to think and feel, which constitute the only intellectual
qualities by which a man can be said to be an individuality,
or in which an examination is of any real value. The
object of examinations should not be to test knowledge
already acquired, but to test the ability for applying it
practically. To be of any real purpose they must test the
candidate’s experience, or his ability to think. The present
system of examination depends mainly on the candidate’s power
of memory and his knowledge of other people’s experience,
that is, the theoretical learning and knowledge acquired from
books. It is generally more dangerous to get a prize than to
miss one.

The term practical is sometimes applied to an ignorant man,
and the term theoretical to a conceited one. Determination will
often make a youth become an excellent workman in spite of all
sorts of hindrances; but difficulties are obstacles to be
surmounted, and should be removed from the path of one trying
to learn, that he may become more efficient.

What is undoubtedly wanted is a freer interchange of inter-
national literature and methods on technical subjects. Every
technical school should have a library of technical literature
composed of periodicals and text-books of every country. It is
safe to say that there is no technical institute in England which
possesses such a library, or in which the latest methods—as of
building-construction, for instance—are taught. The products
of yesterday are not the products of to-day or to-morrow.

The success of technical education largely depends upon the
co-operation of the employers of labour; and instead of
complaining that they are hampered by inefficient workmen and
adverse tariffs they should do more to encourage technical
education. The construction of every building demands
knowledge and methods according to its particularity. We want
to be freed from the dead formalism of the last decades ; we want
a brisk and unconstrained solution of the tasks of our modern
and progressive times. There lies the only way in which
to produce the intelligent, adaptable workman of the next
generation. A. C. Passmore

THE VEGETARIAN GUEST

To the domestic difficulties of the close of the nineteenth cen-
tury,—the bicycling parlour-maid, the “ between-girl ”’ who insists
on having tea at eleven in the morning, the rebellious daughters,
and the cooks (in sporting phrase) very wild and strong on the
wing—the twentieth century adds another for the hospitable, —
the diner-out who with unbashful forehead proclaims himself a
vegetarian. Ten years ago he would have found it easier to say
he was a Mahommedan. At that time the word might have
suggested vague notions of elderly men wearing soft hats and
long hair, eating dishes of cabbages and raving between mouth-
fuls, or spinsters with spectacles and propaganda ; but it was sug-
gestion and not actuality. And the heretic who broke from the
taith of beef and mutton was either effaced from the British
dinner-table by self-banishment, or, if he found himself there,
had at least to make a show of conformity.

Since then insidious changes have come about. Apart from a
small but resolute set of persons whose motives rest on philo-
sophic teaching, and those who, as patients, follow the advice of
certain doctors, a considerable number of young people have been
struck by a few conspicuous examples of athletes breaking from
the venerable conventions and traditions of diet. The latter
have deliberately, and very successfully, challenged the orthodox
on their own chosen ground of sports and pastimes ; and the
prestige of the beef-and-beer school has suffered severe damage
in consequence. This has been further undermined by the success
of the Japanese against the Russians, the popularity of the former
and their diplomatic relations with us drawing attention both to
their triumph and the method of its achievement. The dis-
ciples of the newest faith were not slow to point out their
abstemiousness and the resulting hardihood ; and the movement
continues vigorous.

The old-fashioned hostess, whose prejudices against feminine

THE VEGETARIAN GUEST 671
bicycling, motoring, unreticent novels, and neo-Germanic philo-
sophy have one by one been trampled on and crushed until she
is resigned to almost anything, might have learnt in time to
tolerate even the vegetarian in the abstract; but when he now
presents himself in a concrete form at her own dinner-table the
situation is one for which her education has given her no
guidance. Her distress, moreover, does not arise through her
limitations. She, poor thing, primarily desires her guest’s comfort
and happiness, not having learnt enough philosophy to know any
better ; and a refusal of her meat-offerings is apt to leave her
bereft of resources. Sometimes a guest will dislike beef, or it
will be forbidden by his doctor ; a lamb-cutlet is the remedy if
he is a reasonable creature. He who takes no butcher’s meat
is more of a nut to crack, in mixed metaphor ; yet for him there
is still chicken or pheasant, dressed after any recipe found in the
part of a lady’s newspaper that is not advertisement. But the
man who will eat neither fish, flesh, nor fowl is a red-herring
whose trail leads her into very unexplored regions.

So she gives him a special mess of potatoes, carrots, and turnips
done as sloppily as possible by a cook with a lofty contempt for
all gastronomical fanatics ; and he, clearly unable to refuse it,
looks ruefully at the huge plateful before him, and wonders how
much he can leave without impoliteness. After which ordeal
he nibbles soft bread through the courses until pudding-time.
Fortunately for him suet pudding is not the mode at our dinner-
table, so he can probably take his part with the rest,—if the
previous dish has not altogether stricken him. But thereafter
anchovy or marrow savoury gives him another period of idleness,
perhaps the fourth or fifth since the beginning.

This state of things can hardly be anything but uncomfortable
both to guest and hostess ; and as the writer has had reason to
sympathise with both, and believes that such embarrassments can
be easily prevented, he ventures to put his experiences and con-
clusions at the disposal of those who entertain his brethren
abstainers from flesh-food.

A preliminary word to the latter may be in season,—that it
is most unfair for a newly-converted vegetarian, who intends to
conform to his principles, not to take his hostess into his con-
fidence when he accepts her invitation. It may be true—most
probably it is so—that from the food provided other than meat
he can get sufficient nutriment ; but he must always remember

672 THE VEGETARIAN GUEST
that this is a possibility which his hostess from her training is
usually unable to realise. Beef-tea for the invalid, beef-steak for
the robust, are the pillars of her simple faith ; and the guest
who refuses meat is as one preferring Hamuetr without the
Prince. And to a certain extent she is right. The modern
dinner is the product of evolution, and the proper balance of
foods has been struck in the process ; the omission of the item of
meat entirely destroys this balance and spoils the sequence.

The question to be solved is how far this can be rectified
without disturbing the other diners. Let it be assumed that the
guest has done his preliminary duty, and that the hostess is fore-
warned as to his aberration; what is her best course in the
emergency ?

In the first place she must, if possible, get more information.
The tyranny of the word vegetarian has been pointed out else-
where by the writer and others; it gives no more clue to a
man’s taste than the fact that he is not a teetotaler indicates his
favourite wine. For example, a dish of lentils or butter-beans,
properly prepared and cunningly flavoured with mushroom,
onion, and tomato, would be wholly vegetable, and its flavour
might wring reluctant approval from a professional epicure ; but
it might be worse poison to one of Dr. Haig’s patients than the
other guests’ portion. And poached eggs, besides blazoning the
guests’ singularity in conspicuous white and gold, are entirely
distasteful and forbidden to the fruitarian.

Further data therefore are required, and perhaps a nice exercise
of tact in getting them without undue cross-examination of the
guest or worrying his family. The rough method of cutting the
knot by asking the guest’s own assistance in his part of the bill-of-
fare may here be noticed, but not commended. Apart from the
natural embarrassment of a man asked to dictate to his hostess
about his dishes and the proper way to dress them, the guest is
in such case deprived of the pleasing charm of uncertainty which
is the right of every diner-out, and sits down to his meal in the
spirit of the school-boy resigned to his weekly resurrection-pie.

Between the one extreme of seeking no information and the
other of asking too much lies the golden mean of getting suffi-
cient and no more. Circumstances will often give a clue; a
middle-aged sportsman who has suffered from gout is likely to be
under doctor’s orders, whereas a healthy young man with a ten-
dency to hero-worship may be under the influence of some

THE VEGETARIAN GUEST 673
humanitarian ; the lady who holds the theory that she belongs
to the lost tribe of Ephraim and dabbles in astrology will
probably take nothing grosser than Brazil-nuts, unless she
changes her mind between invitation and feast, and insists on a
simple diet of minced beef through all the courses.

The time is certainly ripe for vegetarians to be properly classi-
fied, a task which may be commended to those in authority at
their councils ; but, with the warning that some individuals may
be placed under two headings, the writer ventures to give a pro-
visional classification of his own, premising that he does not
consider those who eat poultry and game, or even fish, as vege-
tarians at all. On this basis the widest class will include those
who abstain from these foods and butcher’s meat, usually from
humanitarian motives. Asa rule, these will eat any dish made
of ordinary edible vegetables, cheese, milk and butter, and
probably eggs ; these might be called inclusive vegetarians, or,
better still, simple vegetarians. This is the easiest class of all
for the caterer. A smaller number exclude eggs only from this
list, and as the average hostess is apt to believe that eggs are the
only possible substitute for beef-steaks (though even then very
inadequate) the guest in this category ought to be able to let her
know his peculiarity. In fact he wants a label, and the task of
inventing an appropriate one may be commended to ingenious
minds. The writer can only think of the hideous device of
the eggs-clusive vegetarian and hopes someone else will be more
fortunate.

Freedom of choice is still more restricted to those who follow
the methods and advice of Dr. Alexander Haig and his school ;
and the crippled sportsman who could convey his wishes in two
unexpurgated words to his prospective hostess, when under this
treatment for gout or rheumatism, would probably be grateful for
the opportunity. He would then be known as a non-purin veget-
arian ; and peas, beans, lentils, mushrooms, eggs, and asparagus
would all be on the proscribed list.

A few persons exclude eggs, and also milk and milk-products,
and these might claim that, with due regard to accuracy, they
only were entitled to be called vegetarians, just as some inhabit-
ants of the Channel Islands are reported to hold that England
belongs to them rather than they to England, because they still
represent its Norman Conquerors. But neither claim is practical,
and the secondary meaning of the word vegetarian, as one who

No. 9—VOL. I F F

674 THE VEGETARIAN GUEST

abstains from meat but not necessarily animal products, is too
firmly established to be discontinued. Literal vegetarians might
be used to describe these folk ; strict vegetarians might do, but
this combination has also been used to describe those who do not
allow themselves to be bullied or cajoled into taking meat occa-
sionally,—a class probably increasing.

Then there are those who do not eat ordinary garden or root
vegetables and subsist on fruit (including nuts) and cereals.
These may be called fruitarians. A few fruitarians include milk,
butter, and cheese ; perhaps these might be described as mixed
fruitarians. They would reject all such dishes as potatoes, beet-
root, carrots, lettuce, celery, and so forth. As a matter of botany,
or logic, perhaps they ought to except tomatoes and peas and
beans ; but practically the hostess will do best to assume that
these also are excluded.

To complete the list, mention should perhaps be made of those
exalted persons who will eat fresh fruit and nuts only and refuse
food over which the fire has passed,—a handful of occultists and
mystics who would not be likely even to sit down at a table on
which meat was allowed to appear. It will be assumed here that
they present a problem with which the ordinary hostess is not
likely to be troubled.

When this good lady has captured her vegetarian, and, if
possible, successfully classified him, she has to face her practical
difficulties. These will principally lie in the earlier part of the
meal, and her problem is to keep him entertained, occupied, and
nourished with good food within his rules while those known in
the select circles of Farringdon Street by the abhorrent term
kreaphagists are consuming their “scorched corpse” in various
disguises.

One consideration that the hostess should by no means ignore
is that her guest’s tastes or principles shoud not be indulged in
a manner conspicuous enough to cause him any possibility of
discomfort. An opponent of vegetarianism,—the sort of person
who signs himself Manly Britisher when he deigns to give his
opinion to newspaper readers on the subject—might say that if
a vegetarian is such a poor creature as to be ashamed of his
principles he ought not to be accorded any indulgence ; but a
kindly hostess should see a little further. No sensible vegetarian
ought to be afraid of his diet in any company ; but he is as much
entitled to the graces of modesty and polite self-effacement as

THE VEGETARIAN GUEST 675

any other civilised gentleman. This modesty, and the natural
hesitation of any considerate man to force opinions of his own
on people plainly not sharing them, is somewhat strained when
in a solemn and silent pause after the soup and before the other
guests are supplied with fish, boiled or poached eggs are set in
front of him,—crede experto !

So far as possible then, any special dishes for him should be
supplied to him at the same time as others are receiving their
portions, and a tactful and ingenious hostess may even set
herself the task of making up his food in some resemblance to
that which she supplies to her other guests. If he is an ordinary
vegetarian it need not be especially difficult ; and even with the
fruitarian a little dexterity with the dark brown “ nut-meat”’ or
*“ Vejola”’ might serve to deceive an unobservant neighbour and
preclude any necessity for an apology, probably known by heart
to its speaker.

Of course, it is here assumed that the ordinary guests will be
given the food to which they are accustomed. On one occasion
the writer sat down with nine other entirely unconverted people
to a dinner of several courses, every item ot which he could take,
and all rose entirely satisfied ; but it is not everyone’s privilege
to know a lady of such brilliant resource as his hostess on that
occasion, and the vegetarian guest cannot at present expect such
indulgence. If he is supplied with his own food unobtrusively,
he should be more than content.

As a practical matter, each course may now be considered in
detail. Passing by hors-d’euvres which can be refused by any
guest without difficulty (such things as olives, etc., might be put
before the vegetarian in lieu of the usual anchovies) there will be
the soup. Often two sorts are supplied, clear and thick ; and to
save trouble, a simple expedient is to have one soup of which the
vegetarian can partake. There are several clear soups which
can be made in conformity with his wishes and yet be palatable
to others,—the writer has tasted one flavoured as from meat-stock
which he would have supposed an ingredient if he had not known
that that was impossible—but the ordinary ju/zenne and other stock-
soups are too popular for innovations, and the hostess will
probably prefer that the purée should be the chosen one. There are
many good recipes,—potato-soup, artichoke and tomato, pea-soup,
or even chestnut-soup for the fruitarian; but let her carefully
bear in mind that thick soup with a basis of meat-stock, though

676 THE VEGETARIAN GUEST

labelled and flavoured with tomato or any other vegetable, is not
‘a proper dish to set before”’—a vegetarian. It is possible he
may take it, and also possible that he may not find out its com-
position, either then or later ; but to allow him to do so must be
stigmatised as trickery, and a guest who found out such deception
would be very well justified in refusing any further invitation
from the same source. And the experiment would as likely as
not be unsuccessful if tried on a vegetarian of any standing whose
taste would probably be sharpened by his diet. If the taste is
masked or disguised the consumer may again discover the trick
by discomfort later on,—for which he will be duly grateful—
because the toxins in meat act as a poison in his purified
veins.

When the fish comes the vegetarian can no longer join in the
same fare as the rest ; he cannot even keep himself going with
potatoes and other vegetables as he can later on in the meal,
unless perhaps there is egg-sauce and he eats it on his bread—a
proceeding not very refined. Some light dish therefore may be
provided for him. If the hostess adopts the suggestion
offered above, butter-beans somewhat resemble white fish in
colour and the task of turning out a butter-bean fritter,
according to recipes found in any vegetarian cookery-book,
to look like a fried sole would not be a difficult one. But, of
course, this dish would not suit a non-purin vegetarian.

After the fish there will be at least two meat-courses which to the
unregenerate constitute the serious part of the dinner ; and with
proper contrivance the vegetarian may be congenially occupied.
Before making particular suggestions, a general survey of the
position may be useful.

The lore of proteids and albumenoids is to-day babbled in the
half-penny newspapers and very likely in the school-room and
nursery ; everyone therefore knows that when the ordinary
diners take their meat they have their proportion of flesh-forming
ingredients. The vegetarian will also require his share of
proteid ; by taking an unduly large helping of cheese at the end
of the meal he may be able to equalise matters with the others
if he does not have a special dish, but this is not a comfortable
proceeding, and the end of the meal is not the right time for
concentrated nourishment ; there is a reason why cheese comes
there at an ordinary dinner but it is not applicable to the
vegetarian. The special dish, then, should, so far as nourishment

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THE VEGETARIAN GUEST 677

is concerned, be of equal or similar value to meat, and the old-
fashioned hostess, who imagines that adequate substitutes for
beef and mutton in this respect cannot be found, may look in any
modern table of food-values and find she is very greatly mistaken.
Probably the table will not convince her, and she will continue
to think that there is some subtle life-giving essence in butcher’s
meat not contained in other nitrogenous bodies ; but the point
is that her ¢? and his hunger will be amply satisfied by the
substitute if it is palatably served to him. And she may console
herself by the doctrine ascribed (perhaps erroneously) to
Christian Scientists, that if certain animals think thistles whole-
some, then they will inevitably find health and nourishment on
this diet.

Thistles will not be included in the food-tables ; but a glance
down the column of proteids will at once show that peas, beans,
lentils, nuts, and cheese contain percentages for the most part
higher than meat, and from these she will do well to make
her choice.

An unconverted stranger who enters a vegetarian restaurant
may experience a mild amazement when he hears such familiar
combinations as chop and tomatoes or steak and sauté being
ordered ; a reference to the bill-of-fare will show him that haricot
chop or lentil steak is in the list of savouries, and an actual trial
will teach him that chops, steaks, fritters, and cutlets are what
he might call risso/es, made up like meat-risso/es or fish-cakes
and usually of about the same solidity. These, as their rather
absurd names indicate, take the place of meat in the non-car-
nivorous scheme, and alike for the vegetarian and meat-eater the
chop has one function and the light and juicy tomato has another,
and these functions are not to be confounded.

The ordinary savoury will have some basis of peas, beans, or
lentils, and properly prepared is a dish which will satisfy any
healthy person’s taste and appetite. With it may be handed the
vegetables prepared for the other diners, and the guest so indulged
may consider himself very well treated. For non-purin vege-
tarians macaroni may be substituted for peas or lentils, though it
is somewhat less nutritious; or a nicely dressed dish with a
chestnut basis may prove a sympathetic accompaniment to the
host’s latest stories.

Another point which must be remembered is that the ordinary
diner has great aid to his digestion because he cannot swallow his

678 THE VEGETARIAN GUEST
meat without using his teeth properly ; but from the residue of
tood which he shares in common with the vegetarian, all bran and
husks and other incentives to mastication have been carefully
removed. Even with the rigid discipline that is generously
ascribed to the vegetarian, he will find an effort of will in
keeping soft food in his mouth for more than a moment or
two without swallowing it; one authority has remarked that
the ordinary process of taking porridges and puddings and
similar food could more correctly be described as drinking
than eating. Two obvious inconveniences result from this, and
probably the vast majority of vegetarian failures and backsliders.
In the first place, the food does not receive a very necessary pre-
paration for its reception, and is therefore indigestible ; in the
second, there is a temptation to take too much of it to eke out
the time consumed by the other guests more fortunately situated
in this respect. Therefore,—and this is a matter of primary
importance—the vegetarian must have something to bite. Ifa
souffié or anything soft is supplied to him, it should be placed on
fried toast if possible, and the present practice of supplying toast
to diners instead of soft bread must be regarded also as doubly
important to him. It should be seen that the supply does not
run short, as sometimes happens ; and the simple expedient of
cutting the pieces of varying thickness will ensure that each
person can suit himself and his teeth in the matter of crispness.
Triscuits and shredded wheat or other biscuits can be substituted
for toast, but the latter is the simplest and best for the purpose.

And above all, and at the risk of repetition, no sloppy food,
which is probably unwholesome in any case, but, if the writer’s
experience is any test, is more trying for vegetarians than for
mixed feeders. One or twoslices of boiled beef may combine
with water-logged carrots, turnips, and cabbages into a nutritious
meal ; but without the boiled beef such a dish is neither nutritious,
appetising, nor digestible. Soft food may be enjoyed: a lentil
cutlet or chestnut souffé is soft, but if properly made not sloppy ;
and even with these chipped or sauté potatoes may be given, if
they conform with the general scheme of the dinner to the
rest.

Another urgent counsel,—and once more, against preconceived
notions—rather give the vegetarian too little than too much of
his special dishes. The very foolish error that a vegetarian
requires a sloppy diet of four times the bulk that a “ sensible

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THE VEGETARIAN GUEST 679

person”” takes dies hard, and leaves as a legacy the impression
that he requires at least more food than the unconverted. If he
was so ill-advised as to try subsisting on potatoes and cabbages,
probably he would ; but on diet judiciously chosen he requires
not more, but usually less than other people. The old mistake
lingers even in vegetarian restaurants. The writer has seen an
attractive young lady with a plateful of a patent food whose very
proprietors have to warn the public that a little goes a long way,
and of which a tablespoonful is a generous allowance ; this food,
whose chief virtue is a gritty crispness which makes it digestible,
she proceeded to make into an emulsion with milk and then con-
sume, while her neighbour, deficient in the moral courage to
explain her many mistakes, looked on helplessly. She returned
the next day, looking none the worse ; but the soundest con-
stitution will not stand this sort of thing long, and it has no part
in a sane vegetarianism.

To sum up, the hostess who desires the comfort of her
particular guest, and is willing to take a little trouble to this end,
will supply soup which he can take with the rest, and thereafter,
until the sweets, one or perhaps two special dishes for him, and
dry toast,—and if he has to dispense with the special dish or the
toast, let it be with the former. Such dishes will be in lieu of
those with a meat-basis supplied to the other guests and com-
posed to this end. A choice of two will also allow for the
personal equation.

The sweets will probably be neutral ground for all guests, so
not much need be said about them. But it must be remembered
that the fruitarian does not usually take anything made with
eggs ; and, a matter for all vegetarian dishes, lard ought not to
be used either in frying or otherwise. Butter (or oil) is the
usual substitute ; cocoa-nut butter can be obtained for fruitarians,
as the advertisements in vegetarian papers will show.

Finally, a few words about the savoury. The writer suggests
that, in this instance only, the hostess might allow her one
guest’s principles to modify her bill-of-fare for the rest, and that
the savoury for all should be a vegetarian dish. In the first
place, the cook who cannot make a decent savoury with cheese,
eggs, mushrooms and every herb as possible ingredients does not
know his business ; in the second a special dish would here be
very conspicuous, which, I repeat, is to be avoided ; and in the
third a pungent spatch-cock, or nicely done marrow on toast,

680 THE VEGETARIAN GUEST

may transform the dinner-table for the neophyte to a moral
battle-ground between principle and inclination, which no kind
hostess would desire, whatever the result. The ordinary vege-
tarian has no craving for beefsteaks (popular delusion notwith-
standing) but the savoury is the cook’s last word, and subtler.
One of Mr. Bernard Shaw’s characters explained that she drank
champagne after signing the pledge because she was “only a
beer-teetotaler” ; most vegetarians are of sterner stuff, but to
avoid needless temptation is a sound canon.

A very slight experience of vegetarian cookery will dispel
another myth,—its fabled monotony. New dishes can be
invented by any good cook at any time, and a don vivant who
was left a large income so long as he was a vegetarian might wake
up to find his existence not only tolerable but positively pleasant.
If this ever comes to pass, and some wealthy and cynical testator
thus diverts himself at the expense of his heir, the above hints
may be acceptable to the mothers of eligible daughters and all
other hostesses,—including those from whom at least one vege-
tarian has received sympathy and consideration to which a fanatic,
and therefore a nuisance, has but the scantiest title.

A.FreD FE.tows.

a ee ee ee ee |

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SOME OF MY FELLOW-WORKERS

He is a small man, curiously lean, with a white face and rather
nervous eyes. His somewhat ragged hair is iron-grey, and
his chin peers out through a straggling wiry beard of the same
colour. He is a relic of the old days, is almost entirely self-
educated, and writes a strikingly good hand. Such is the man
whom I will call Henry,—because it is not his name.

He possesses a curious and most striking dignity, or reserve,
which never falters or is slackened. During all the years in which it
has been my privilege to know him, I never remember hearing him
indulge in chaff even with the few veterans who were his peers.
Sometimes, very rarely, he will crack a joke, so mild and restrained
that it would pass unnoticed were it not for the little thin nervous
laugh of amusement with which he greets it. But as a rule he is
very silent, content to do his own work with exactness, and still,
after long years of disappointment, expecting as much from all
beneath him. Very quiet and silent, with something of nervous-
ness in his eyes, as I have said, he is yet capable of being aroused
to an anger rather terrible by reason of its rarity. I have seen
him cow and silence Thomas, of whom more anon, a noisy veteran
whom I had deemed unquenchable. But a curious light came into
the grey nervous eyes, and a certain rather shrill note into the
quiet voice, and,—the rest was silence.

It is his habit to qualify all statements with an almost annoying
prudence, but I can say with truth that in the space of ten years
he never ran down a fellow-worker in my hearing or strove to
injure high or low by word or deed. Oh grim recesses of London’s
countless busy hives, how many do you harbour within your grimy
walls of whom that might with truth be said ?

He dwells in my memory very pleasantly, the best of the many
worthy folk with whom it was my lot to work awhile. I can see
him very clearly now,—the long day ended, the last of all to leave.

F F*

682

SOME OF MY FELLOW-WORKERS

He passes homewards in his well brushed threadbare overcoat
and his shabby but self-respecting hat, carrying in his hand his aged
umbrella neatly folded. He seems to stand for brave work bravely be
done, for a good fighter still struggling against the foe. The

clamour of battle will be ever within his ears, for wife and family i
may only be supported by bitter unceasing toil ; but with all my lo
heart I wish him rest at last. w

A very different type is the worthy whom I have called p
Thomas. His is a tongue that never tires, a familiarity that is cl
ever swift to develope into impudence ; an ill man, perhaps, with p
whom to jest if you have dignity that you would sustain, for he be
clutches his ell of familiarity with greediness and,—his voice p
carries far. He is a little bald man, with a white pointed beard, (1
still active and of cheery humour, although he has passed through -

many vicissitudes. He is a packer now, and likely to remain one
while his strength endures and while he can restrain his unruly h
speech ; but once he drove his own van about the northern sub-
urbs, retailing oils and sundries. He speaks yet with sudden,

short-lived sadness of those brief halcyon days. I can imagine ,
that the business prospered for awhile, for he wags a persuasive c
cheery tongue, and admits frankly that in his day he possessed l
strange attractions for women. He has married twice and has I
brought up some nineteen children, to which fact may no doubt f
be attributed the eclipse of his brief prosperity. Such luxuries t
must ever be expensive. How he has done it, how he has fed ;
and clothed that gigantic family upon his four and twenty weekly :
shillings, only himself and his wife could tell; and I suspect that ‘

their minds are something of a blank upon the subject. But they
have wrestled along, and he is always cheery, although such conflicts
must leave scars, and although the unequal struggle still endures
and must endure until hisdeath. He told me once, with a momen-
tary sobriety, that he was sixty-five and hoped to die at work.
There are no pensions in the average London warehouse, and
there are many workless men who clamour round the doors as a
man’s hands begin to shake with age.

But | think that the wind is tempered to him in a measure,
that like most of London’s workers he does not care to look
beyond the daily round. He is a ferocious smoker in his scanty
leisure, and, with his paper and an occasional twopennyworth of
gin before him, I do not think that he gives much thought to
the shadows looming ever nearer. He gave me a description of

tt il ge ie ee a ee. ee

SOME OF MY FELLOW-WORKERS 683

his Christmas dinner one year that left a definite impression of
almost careless jollity in my mind. Such families seldom taste
beef, but it was tasted then. It seems to have been a reunion,
a sinking of long-drawn feuds, a determined snatch at happiness
under difficulties, that would have charmed the heart of that
lover of his kind, Charles Dickens. It was a common feast to
which each guest contributed his portion. Thomas, the host,
provided “the bit of beef,” the brother-in-law (a truculent but
cheery soul as I gathered) was responsible for the bread and
potatoes, and yet other relations paid for the pudding .and the
bake-house cooking. And crowning triumph of all, a timely
present had enabled Thomas to purchase a bottle of whiskey
(unspeakable in quality as I should guess), and with this they
made high revel. He told me that he rose at the head of the
table when the meal was ended, and said a few words of his
hopes for the coming year,—before they settled down to the
whiskey and a game of chance in which the veteran’s skill and
experience almost produced ill-feeling. But I needed no telling
to know that Thomas would never let slip such a crowning
chance of “saying a few words.” He is a voluble politician
leaning to Socialism, and an ardent listener to the speakers in the
Park,—but I have written enough of the cheery brave old
fellow. I will add only that he is a splendid worker for all
his years and, perhaps, his own worst enemy. Good luck to
you, Thomas, and may the gods be good to your giant family,
if your prayer is answered and you die in harness with your
sword aloft.

He is a far younger man and unmarried, the typical Cockney
whom I will christen David. A feather-weight, thin and slight,
but able to lift great weights by his wonderful dash and energy.
He will throw himself, as it were, upon a great case or package
and compel it by his pluck to move. A typical Cockney one
likes to think him, in his sturdy unbending independence ; a
man who will refuse a gift with rudeness, rather than be beholden
to any human being. It sounds absurd, I will admit, but there
are still such men abroad.

He isa man not over easy to deal with, for reproof is abhorrent
to his nature and to his eyes he is never in the wrong ; but he is
one who, even in these days of Trade Unions, seems to find a cer-
tain harsh joy in savage work for its own sake, and who will hold
to it with no thought of whistles or stated hours. Yet although

684 SOME OF MY FELLOW-WORKERS

he will work on with no thought of extra wage when others have
departed to their homes, the short interval for tea is very sacred
in his eyes, and it is well that this should be respected. He isa
man of few weaknesses, slightly cruel at times, and little given
to confidences; but he told me once that he had always wished
and intended to go to sea. “Then my father died,” he added,
“and somehow I and the sisters clung together and got on,—
somehow” ; few words and bald, but possibly a stern struggle
lies hid behind them. I think that struggle entailed steady
absences from school, for his writing is villainous and his spelling
worse. This will always hold him down for all his natural
sharpness, and he knows it but takes no steps to remedy his
deficiencies.

It is curious the things that make appeal to these strange folk.
There is a certain song of the crudest pathos, sung to rapturous
applause by a veteran comedian of the East-End music-halls. I
have heard that song many times, and ever has it been encored
even to the weariness of the singer. I strove once to glean
from David the secret of its undoubted fascination for himself
and all his fellows, but he could tell me little. “He didn’t
know, but somehow it was fine,” was all that he could say. He
is something of an anachronism, perhaps, in these highly-
educated days, but I part from David with regret, as a man
possessing in some degree the ancient English virtues for all
his faults.

Wiry, black-bearded and bald, with a pleasant, half-humorous,
half-weary face, Michael is a veteran upon whom long years of
exacting work and many private troubles have left few traces.
He is one who in his toil has burnt the candle at both ends with
regularity, and I have often wondered at the man’s industry and
endurance. For twenty years and more he was a scene-shifter
and general handy-man at the old Britannia Theatre, departing
thither when his long day at the warehouse was ended. Starting
from home at half-past seven in the morning, and returning by
midnight, this would mean, as a regular thing, a sixteen-hour
day with but brief intervals for food and rest. Think of it, and
gasp your horror and indignation, ye heroes of the Unions and of
countless strikes! Of course, by these heroic measures he was
freed from the weary struggle with poverty which presses so
harshly upon all his fellows, but it is a strain which only the
toughest could endure. In addition, his home life was for many

ee ae ee ee ee el elle,

SOME OF MY FELLOW-WORKERS 685

years wretched beyond all words. Imagine the joy of returning,
utterly weary, after your sixteen-hour day, to find your home
stripped of everything that could be pawned, and your wife a
snoring heap of drunkenness. It is a picture that scarcely bears
contemplation, yet such was Michael’s constant and by no means
unique experience. He is a man naturally of somewhat violent
temper, but I believe that he bore all things with a sort of sullen,
uncomplaining patience, and with no thought of abandoning the
woman who made his grey life greyer. It is possible that in time
she would have dragged him down to her own level, for he was
gradually turning to beer for consolation and taxing the limits of
a naturally iron head ; but ere that time came the liquor broke
his wife’s constitution even as water stifles flame. Michael was
dour and silent for a while, but soon it was as though an actual
burden had been lifted from his shoulders, and once again he
might be heard erupting snatches of old songs, with a contempt
for tune that in its way was almost splendid.

Although a stern and somewhat violent parent his affection
and ambition for his sons are real and very strong. One of
them is now a smart army sergeant and he talks of working the
other into a clerkship. “Charley has all the wits of the pair of
‘em,” he said to me once, utterly oblivious of Alf’s sheepishly
grinning presence ; “and I’ll make something of him yet.” If
the sons have but inherited a portion of their sire’s courage and
industry, they should go far.

He has all a sailor’s aptitude for odd jobs of every descrip-
tion, and there is nothing of the sort to which he cannot turn
his hand. 1 think that he is never so entirely happy as when
called from his regular work to repair the fruits of careless
clumsiness with his tool-box and his clever fingers. From
glazing to plumbing there is no trade of which he has not a
most useful and sufficient smattering. Thirty years’ good service
have relaxed stern rules for him, and some fraction of his time
and skill is devoted to the cooking of savoury and odorous
dishes. As I see him now, it is in the dinner-hour during
which he is privileged to stay within the warehouse, and his face
is peering through the mist that rises from a dish of Irish stew,
whose onions seem almost to find voice and cry aloud.

I will call him Peter, the last of the five whom I have chosen
for this sketch, the only one of them who has turned to the first
true rest that the majority of London’s toilers may ever know. A

686

SOME OF MY FELLOW-WORKERS

tall stout rubicund man, with perhaps the cheeriest, ugliest, most
human face that it has ever been my lot to see. For five and forty
long years had he worked, man and boy, in the warehouse; a man
should sleep soundly after such a spell. Although never really
well in his later years, and in addition intensely nervous about
himself, he yet contrived to maintain a willing courteous cheeriness
that never failed. His was the pawkiest humour that I have ever
known, lit by the quaintest flashes of genial cynicism. He pro-
fessed to believe in the good faith of few, and yet he liked all men
and was liked by all. It was to him that all came for prudent
counsel from the garnered stores of his long experience, and it was
ever given willingly and with a certain curious worldly wisdom
that was entirely his. He was a hardened gambler in a small way,

as are many of London’s workers, and it was seldom that an Fy
important race was run without the risk of one or more of his
hard earned shillings. He was without doubt a poorer man in fg
consequence, but it is to be feared that the spirit of gambling is ye
ingrained in the English race. Also, it is little surprising that Ce
men who lead grey fighting lives should turn with eagerness to rl
the gleam of excitement that occasional betting offers, even

although they are well aware that the game must be a losing one. th
Perhaps the joy that is felt, when such a people’s hero as brave a
old Victor Wild rolls home with countless humble shillings staked =
upon his chance, almost compensates for many a past disappoint- “2
ment and small luxury foregone. At the least, they know how to

lose, these Londoners, and I shall always think of Peter as a great- .
hearted sportsman and true gentleman, for all his apron and _ his ¥
roughened hands. May the earth lie light above him !

They are a people worth knowing, these men who wring their be
bread from London’s grudging hands, of whose countless thousands at
| have striven to sketch but five. They marry young with but little g)
thought, as a rule, and from that day their lives are a grim h

relentless struggle, in which joy and pleasure find but little place.
And yet, with but few exceptions, they are strangely brave and
cheerful through it all. Now that I look back upon the men
whom I have known, it is their courage and their uncomplaining
cheeriness that are clearest in my mind, that are most wonderful
to those who know the hardships of their lives.

J. B.

ss -— 4 Fe Dw WM

A BOOKSELLER OF THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY

In that famous panel of the Academy at Florence on which
Fra Lippo Lippi has depicted the Heavenly City, there appears,
“ out of a corner when you least expect,” the humbly mundane
figure of the painter himself, justifying with the proud modesty
of authorship (iste perfecit opus) his intrusion on the celestial
citizens. Just so, during those very years when Fra Lippo too
often roused the midnight echoes between the tall houses of the
Florentine streets, just so, in that dramatic piece which we call
the Italian Renaissance, there emerges upon the crowd of princes
and scholars who are its brilliant protagonists, the homely figure
of a bookseller,—Vespasiano da Bisticci, the first bookseller in
Florence, no more and no less—carrying in his hand his volume
Vite v1 Uomini Ixtusrrt, the offering of his regard (and perhaps
a little also of his vanity) to the memory of the famous scholars
who were his customers and his friends.

Seeing [he says] how often the reputation of great men has perished
because no one placed their deeds on record in letters, (for had not Livy
and Sallust lived in the days of Scipio Africanus, the fame even of that
great man must have died with him) I, although writing is foreign to my
vocation, having seen much of the many notable men with which this age
has blossomed, have written memorials of them in the form of a brief
record,

The shrewd and genial bookseller has left us some very vivid
sketches of his famous clients as well as an incidental brief
abstract of the contemporary history in which many of them
bore so prominent a part. He is no profound critic of the
characters and motives of his subjects. He is not concerned to
find fault with any one, and prefers to avoid matters of offence,
although a significant hint sometimes betrays that he sees more

688 A BOOKSELLER OF

than he will say. Perhaps his portraits are a little flattering ;
but then men are apt to show the best of themselves to genial,
candid natures like his. There are no bounds to his admiration
for saints and scholars, the poor in this world’s goods but rich in
spirit; and to serve God and letters, “ to give alms for the love
of God and buy books,” sums up in his gospel the whole duty
of man.

An insatiable and consuming curiosity about all things in
heaven and earth, including your neighbour’s business, was the
mark of a true Florentine, and the worthy Vespasiano was an
inveterate gossip and had a gossip’s retentive memory for trifles.
He knew the extent to a guest of Messer Piero de Pazzi’s
famous dinners ; noted how Messer Velasco of Portugal wasted
his time at Bologna reading Petrarch’s sonnets instead of his
lessons ; and did not forget the exact figure of Ser Filipo di
Ser Ugolino’s salary, which he ingenuously confesses might be
read, for the trouble of looking, in the treasury accounts. But
the gossip of to-day is history to-morrow, and we are much
obliged to his inquisitiveness. What would we not give to have
had such a retentive gossip at the elbow of Shakespeare, or
to overhear through such a medium Jonson or Raleigh’s first-
night criticism of Love’s Lasour’s Lost! Artless and garrulous
writers like Vespasiano do us the inestimable service of portray-
ing not so much what their contemporaries really were, but what
they thought themselves and their neighbours thought them,
which is so much more interesting and significant. Just because
he has but little sense of proportion and does not stay to sift his
matter critically he often gives us the one necessary and sufficient
detail, the apparently trivial touch which galvanises the picture
into life.

Not the least life-like of his portraits is that which, while
portraying others, he involuntarily draws by the way of his own
attractive self as the strenuous apostle of humanism, owing
his small Latin and less Greek entirely to “ frequenting and
assiduously conversing with several learned men.” His
pleasant humour and tolerant temper, his love of fine sights,
“things worthy to be seen,” his urgent piety and the “ peculiar
insight into divine things,” which so commended his letters to
Gianozzo Manetti, betray themselves on every page.

The serviceable bookseller lived on a footing of considerable
intimacy with his customers ; corresponding, dining, and walking

,am wet tA ef «

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 689

with them, staying with them at their country villas and often
acting as intermediary between them and Cosimo de’ Medici’s
accessible and well-furnished purse. This intimacy was the
greater because the worthy man knew his place, combining
a desire to be all things to all men and to give offence to none
with that fervent regard for rank and position which Florentines
so easily reconciled to their democracy. The cordial tone of
their letters to him marks their affection for his person. ‘ Your
letters,” writes Donato Acciaijuoli, using and acknowledging
a silver pen just sent him by Vespasiano, “ were most welcome
and entertaining to us, but still more so will be your visit which
we all anticipate with great pleasure.” With the exception
of his brothers and certain companions of his boyhood, writes
Donato’s brother Jacopo, “there is no one to whom I would
so willingly do a service as to you.” And Gianozzo
Manetti, however pressed for time during his frequent diplo-
matic embassies, always contrived to maintain a regular
correspondence with his “excellent and particular friend,”
diversifying intimate reports of the business he was engaged
in with lengthy discourses on such subjects as the salvation of
unbaptised infants, and the chronological precedence of Moses
and Homer. To us insufferably tedious, to Vespasiano, who
like most of his contemporaries seems to have been inaccessible
to boredom, nothing was more acceptable than the receipt of such
letters, except the inditing of similar epistles on his own account ;
witness a homily on free will which he addressed, in the ordinary
way of correspondence, to Filipo Pandolfini and commended
to the careful attention of its recipient as being “full of
most weighty maxims.” In fact his patrons recognised in
Vespasiano something more than a merely assiduous tradesman.
‘* A most careful reader and judge of books’ Zembino of
Pistoia calls him, in a Latin compliment which must have vastly
gratified the honest bookseller, and pays a tribute to his know-
ledge of all notable Greek, Latin, and Hebrew works and their
authors. Nor was it a small thing to be the first bookseller
in Florence when Florence was the source and centre of European
culture, and the retailing of ready-made books over a counter
was not the sum of bookselling skill.

The classical revival lent a new importance to the book-trade,
by making book-collecting not only a fashionable caprice, but a
literary passion. To the scholars of the fifteenth century classical

690 A BOOKSELLER OF

culture appealed as the most valuable asset in life, and its most
intimate legacy was the literature of which the mouldy parch-
ments lay hidden in damp convent libraries and forgotten church
chests, almost inviolate as yet and to be had for the seeking. At
any moment a lucky chance might reveal to the searcher’s hand
some lost masterpiece of classical letters, some gloss or com-
mentary of the early Christian fathers, known till then only
by report or in still more tantalising fragments. Pope Nicholas
the Fifth employed a small army of experts to hunt up manu-
scripts for the Vatican library, and even sent one Enoch of Ascoli
to Denmark on a fruitless search for a complete Livy, of which
recurrent and delusive rumours had tantalised scholars since
Petrarch’s time. The agents of the great commercial houses,
especially of the Medici, ecclesiastics travelling in the service of
the Pope, distinguished humanists sent on diplomatic errands by
their various Governments, vied with each other in an eager
search through every accessible library in Europe. Messer Poggio
Bracciolini of Florence for instance, travelling as a papal secretary
to the Council of Constance, was infinitely more concerned with
the ransacking of German convent libraries by the way, than
with doctrinal disputes or the limits of papal supremacy. Six of
Cicero's orations, the complete works of Quintilian, the Arcon-
auticon of Valerius Flaccus, Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura,
Cornelius Celsus’s De Mepicrna, and the De Temporisus of
Eusebius with additions by Jerome and Prosper, not to mention
less noteworthy discoveries, amply repaid his zeal, and attest the
thoroughness of his methods. True his gall rose at the heedless
ignorance which left such treasures to rot among heaps of
waste paper, or as at Sanct Gallen “ina hole not fit for a con-
demned criminal,” but, after all, this neglect was his opportunity,
and to despoil “these barbarians’’ seemed less than venial.
Messer Poggio at least did not hesitate. We are induced
to wonder whether a certain volume on Roman antiquities by the
anonymous author of ErnstepeLn was the only one that left
its transalpine home hidden in Messer Poggio’s ample sleeves.
What about the Sy.v# of Statius, and the mouldy manuscript
containing two of Cicero’s speeches which he found—but did
not leave—at Cluny? How did Messer Nicolao Nicoli come b

that manuscript of Tacitus, which Boccaccio had copied some half-
century ago in the Monte Cassino library, and which the usually
liberal Nicolao was so chary of lending? But we, at any rate,

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 691

rebuke them with a bad grace, for who but we profit by their
piracies ? Messer Nicolao’s Tacitus is now one of the treasures
of the Laurenziana, and the Sytv# and those speeches of Cicero
the search for which preoccupied Petrarch, have been preserved
for us in Messer Poggio’s questionably appropriated manuscripts.
And it must be conceded to their credit that if they were
unscrupulous they were also untiring. When a manuscript could
neither be borrowed nor obtained—in Poggio’s own delightful
phrase, “ vel vi vel gratia (by force or favour) ’—it had perforce
to be copied on the spot. Poggio sat gallantly down for thirty-two
days before the Sanct Gallen Quintilian and copied it with his own
hand in the fine antique character which in his youth had often
earned his daily meed of “ books and other things.” Aurispa in
Constantinople sold his clothes to pay for his treasure-trove of
books, and Poggio himself having for three years vainly bullied
and cajoled the tenacious owners of a coveted Tacitus, embarked
all undiscouraged on a fresh campaign of importunities.

Copies of these works, so lately retrieved to the uses of
scholarship, and Latin translations of Greek manuscripts,—for
a knowledge of Greek was still not common even among
scholars—though indispensable of course to libraries of any
pretensions, did not exhaust the current demand for books.
Most of the great libraries, as Vespasiano records, were based on
a scheme or plan drawn up for the use and at the request of
Cosimo de’ Medici by Thomas of Sarzana, the future Nicholas
the Fifth, and one of the first bibliographical authorities of the
day. The main categories represented in this are as follows:
the works of classical writers, poets, historians and philosophers
in the originals and in translations ; Hebrew works; the Scrip-
tures in Greek and Hebrew and in various translations, with
commentaries and glosses ; the works of the Christian fathers,
besides those of modern theologians ; modern histories and
chronicles, and prose and poetical works in Latin and the vulgar
tongue. Of such works accurate and well-written copies were
but rarely to be found in the market and had therefore to be
made to order; and this was Master Vespasiano’s province in
the art and craft of bookmaking. Even efficient copyists could
not be had for the asking, especially the more highly esteemed
Italians, whose services stood in a request which had gone far
to turn their heads. More competent, it is true, than their pre-
decessors, whose inefficiency so vexed the soul of Petrarch, their

692 A BOOKSELLER OF
pretensions had risen quite disproportionately to their merits.
But Vespasiano, having many rich clients, able and willing to pay
even exorbitantly for adequate work, was at a considerable advan-
tage in dealing with them. The worthy bookseller was ill to
please, not only in the matter of a correct and fine script, but
also with illustrations and bindings and the quality of his
parchments. We have a letter in which he excuses himself to
Piero de’ Medici for some delay in completing a Livy to his
order (the book still bears witness in the Laurenziana to Ves-
pasiano’s skill and taste), because certain leathers which have
been dyed for him have not turned out to his liking. Thanks to
his painstaking and upright dealings the contents of his shop
attained quite a European celebrity. Popes, kings, princes, and
learned men from all countries turned their steps to him.
Eugenius the Fourth, Alfonso King of Naples, Matthew
Corvinus of Hungary, the Sforzas of Pesaro, the German
Cardinal of Cusa, Cardinal Bessarion, the humanist bishop
Graham of Ely (whose British patronymic defied the resources
of Vespasiano’s orthography), and the young Cardinal Jacopo of
Portugal (whose brief and brilliant memory is enshrined in the
Portuguese chapel at San Miniato) all at one time or another
had dealings with him. And the best and most regular of his
customers were Cosimo de’ Medici, Nicholas the Fifth, and
Federigo, the scholarly duke of Urbino.

For Cosimo, “the shrewd reader of men’s faces, chary of
speech, but prodigal of deeds, by nature inclined to ponder
great things,” Vespasiano entertained a sincere regard, as well as
much appreciation of the enigmatic rejoinders, ‘“ well spiced with
salt,” with which Cosimo was wont to bewilder his interlocutors.
Cosimo shared to the full the desire to make books “ a common
good to all,” which was not the least pleasant feature of book-
collecting in the fifteenth-century. When the private library of
the Medici came into the hands of the Signory, after Piero’s
flight from Florence, so large a number of books were out on
loan that they had to be reclaimed by public proclamation.
And to endow public libraries was very much in the fashion.
Cardinal Bessarion founded a library of Greek manuscripts at
Venice, as the meeting-place of East and West; Palla Strozzi
planned, but was prevented by his exile from accomplishing, a
library in Santa Trinita. Nicolao Nicoli not only built and
furnished an accessible library for Boccaccio’s books, which had

a. a ner Oo ee ee UelCUcfeeee oslo a PP

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 693

remained useless in their packing-cases since their bequest to
San Spirito, but also bequeathed his private collection (which,
Vespasiano says, in his lifetime seemed to be kept more for
others’ than for his own use) to found a public library in Florence.
At his death they were rescued from his creditors and given in
charge to the Dominicans at San Marco, thanks to the active
intervention of Cosimo, who continued to take a benevolent
interest in this memorial to his old friend, presenting many
additions to the collection, and making Vespasiano hunt up
volumes for it among his own books. Vespasiano, too, made
presentations of several volumes to the San Marco library,
and we find his name among the borrowers in one of its books.
Cosimo could devise no better return for the hospitality of his
Venetian exile than to present a library to the monastery of
San Giorgio in Alga, and he also provided libraries for the
abbeys which he built at Mugello and Fiesole. Commissioned
by him Vespasiano had the necessary books specially made by
some thirty or forty scribes, whose pens could not run fast
enough for Cosimo’s masterful impatience.

The accession to the papal throne of Nicholas the Fifth
brought Vespasiano an even better customer than Cosimo.
Thomas of Sarzana, the “ poor priest with never a bell-ringer to
his service,” whose elevation to the papacy astonished no one so
much as himself, had known Vespasiano well, as a frequent and
popular visitor in the learned circles of Florence. The genial
Pope, who had a good word at everybody’s service, made his old
acquaintance heartily welcome when that worthy made a not
quite uncommercial appearance at the papal court. He dis-
missed his court in order to chat at his ease with his visitor,
appointed him his bookseller and no doubt discussed with him
his plans for the revival of the library. The papal library had
existed almost as long as the papacy itself, and in very early days
was noted for the liberality of its gifts and loans. The first of
English scholars, the Venerable Bede, borrowed manuscripts
from the Lateran ; and gifts from Rome formed the nucleus of
Saint Augustine’s library at Canterbury as well as of Benedict
Biscop’s at Wearmouth. But the vicissitudes of Roman dis-
affection and the removal of the papal residence to France dealt
hardly with the library ; if little went to Avignon, still less came
back, nor did Eugenius the Fourth on his return to Rome do
much to remedy its impoverishment. At this opportune

694 A BOOKSELLER OF

moment, when enormous sums were poured into the treasury at
the Jubilee, a lucky chance placed, in the person of Nicholas the
Fifth, an expert book-collector on the papal throne. Thomas of
Sarzana’s lack of pence had continually thwarted the gratification
of his ruling passion, and Nicholas was only too eager to
indemnify himself for the long tale of straitened years. Were
he ever rich, the poor priest was wont to say, he would spend
his money on books and buildings, and the Pope was as good as
his word. During his reign hammers clinked and pens scraped
in every corner of Rome, and his unrestrained generosity to men
of letters made the papal court a veritable humanist land of
cockayne. Whilst his agents hunted for manuscripts, and
Vespasiano’s scribes were busy in his service, distinguished
scholars wrote for him original works, and Latin versions of
important Greek texts, to the inspiring tune of the Pope’s lavish
remuneration. Manetti received from him a pension of six
hundred ducats over and above his salary as papal secretary,
Guerino was paid fifteen hundred florins for his translation of
Polybius, and Perotto five hundred for a Strabo.

If we may believe Vespasiano, and we must at least concede to
the Pope’s bookseller every opportunity to form a correct esti-
mate, the library reached a total of five thousand volumes, an
enormous figure for the time, when the Visconti library at Pavia
and the Louvre each contained about a thousand volumes,
and Nicolao Nicoli left eight hundred. “Never since the
days of Ptolemy,” cries the bookseller with enthusiasm,
“have half so many books been brought together.” Under
Nicholas’s immediate successors the library remained much as he
left it. Calixtus the Third had little sympathy with and less
approval for his predecessor’s classical tastes, though there may
be small foundation for Vespasiano’s malicious story of his reck-
less dispersal by gift and loan of hundreds of priceless manu-
scripts. For Vespasiano shared the disgust with which his clients
beheld in their patron’s seat a jurist “ who had no knowledge of
letters and was only accustomed to handle pamphlets of common
paper.” Pius the Second, though as good a humanist as Nicholas
himself, had no money to spare for superfluities, and Paul the
Second’s thoughts and means were entirely absorbed by the
Turkish war and his many nephews. Not until the reign of
Sixtus the Fourth did the library enter on a fresh lease of pros-
perity, and was at last installed in a manner worthy of its quality,

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 695

a task which Nicholas had postponed for the conversion of the
Vatican into a huge fortress, the better to protect his somewhat
timorous person from the Roman mob.

If he lost an excellent customer in Nicholas the Fifth,
Vespasiano gained one almost as profitable in the Duke of Urbino.
Vittorino da Feltre’s brilliant pupil is not the least interesting
figure in Vespasiano’s portrait-gallery. Soldier, scholar, and states-
man, Federigo shared the versatility of an age when men played,
and played well, so many simultaneous parts. He plied his
inglorious trade of condottiere with as much skill and far more
honesty than his contemporaries ; he was a humane and capable
ruler of his tiny hill-set principality, and a scholar and art-critic
of no mean parts. Vespasiano pays a glowing tribute to the
consideration and patronage which he bestowed on artists and men
of letters. Perforce a less lavish, he was also a more discrimi-
nating patron than Nicholas, whose taste for fine books and fine
buildings he shared. His palace at Urbino, one of the glories of
renaissance architecture, was the talk of the day ; and its fine
library cost him, at Vespasiano’s estimate, over thirty thousand
ducats, and was the favourite hobby of his not very frequent
leisure for fourteen years. He drew up with his own hand
directions for the librarian, a functionary whom he desired good-
looking, good-natured, good-mannered, and ready of speech. He
was to keep the books in such order that any volume might
be found on the instant, to air the rooms and the books and pre-
serve the latter from damp, insects, and “ the hands of the inept,
ignorant, and unlearned,” and to show them assiduously, pointing
out their beauties to the learned and to people of position,
allowing the merely curious visitor no more than a casual
glance. He was also to make and carefully keep a list of loans :
* All as done,” Federigo concludes with his usual gracious
courtesy, “ by the present skilful and assiduous librarian, Messer
Agabito.”

Alas for Messer Agabito’s pleasant days! The studies and
library with the north light and wide view are empty now, for
the books are in the Vatican, and even the decorations by
Melozzo of Forli and Justus of Ghent are for the most part
scattered or lost. Two of Melozzo’s panels, representing
music and rhetoric, have even found their way to our National
Gallery. A contemporary tourist, whose admiration for the
palace and “its jewel the fine library” inspires him with

696 A BOOKSELLER OF

some very prosaic verse, was at the pains to count the tallies
attached to the presses, and gives the number of volumes as some
seven hundred, “ twice as many as there are days in the year.”
“In this library,” comments our good bookseller, “all the books
are of most excellent quality, all written by hand, not one printed,
of which he would have been ashamed, all elegantly illuminated,
and not one but is written on kid parchment.” And he goes on
to relate how, shortly before Federigo’s last campaign, he carried
to him at Urbino the catalogues of all the chief Italian libraries
and even of the library of the University of Oxford ; and how
a careful comparison of them all revealed the superior complete-
ness of the Urbino library, “all the others sinning in this, that
they possess many copies of the same work, but do not have,
as is the case at Urbino, complete and perfect sets of the works
of each author.”

Most distinguished travellers who wished to see something of
Florentine literary life and carry home some of the treasures of
Florentine bookshelves found their way to Vespasiano’s shop ;
and while his scribes carried out their orders Vespasiano waited
on them as a delightfully talkative guide about Florence, in-
troduced them to his learned clients and took them to hear some
famous lecturer at the University or Santa Trinita, or carried
them off on a visit to the great Cosimo at Carreggi. The human-
ist Earl of Worcester, John Tiptoft himself, was not too proud
to see the sights of Florence hand in hand with his bookseller.
The Florentine booksellers plied their trade in a conveniently
central situation near the Badia and the Bargello—the palace
of the Podesti—and here Vespasiano’s shop was the daily
resort of a learned and book-loving coterie. Lawyers and
officials on their way from the palace, scholars coming from the
disputations at Santa Trinita, from Filelfo’s Dante readings in
the Cathedral or from visiting Frate Ambrogio, the famous
humanist scholar and friar at Santa Maria degli Angioli, were
accustomed to step in to hear the latest literary gossip, handle
the newest books, and continue, with much noise and strife
of learned tongues, the discussions of the cloister, to the no
small edification of the attentive bookseller. Thither came
merry, argumentative Messer Gianozzo Manetti, whose great
head defied the stock sizes of the Florentine cap-makers, and
whose unruffed temper and courtly manners betokened an
enviable immunity from such trifling ailments as try the nerves

a, ee. a 7 i en oe. - em ee ee Leo on oe ee. oe

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 697

of ordinary men. Messer Gianozzo took credit to himself for
knowing by heart the Epistles of Saint Paul, St. Augustine’s Dez
CrvitaTe Dei, and Aristotle’s Eruics, of which his translation
was in every library of note. The conversion of the Jews was
his special hobby, and he had learned Hebrew to the sole end of
“ reproving their perfidy in their own tongue.” His humanistic
studies, which would have absorbed less versatile and sedulous
minds, left him leisure to serve his city in many capacities by
his ‘eloquent tongue and upright and dispassionate judgment,”
Nicolao Nicoli’s scrupulously dainty presence in his fine crim-
son gown was also frequent in Vespasiano’s shop, bringing the
latest accounts of Messer Poggio’s book-hunting expeditions, or
the great news of the discovery of Cicero’s Ruetoric in a long-
unopened church-chest at Lodi. For Nicolao, whose sedenta
habits and love of old china, crystal, and Greek marbles did
not comport with arbitrary displacements, let his more mobile
friends dispose freely of his fortune and his learning, and was
always spurring them on to fresh activities. He, as well as
Manetti, had deserted a remunerative business for a literary
career, and he had spent an ample patrimony on books and in
aid of needy scholars, When in this way his land was gone and
money spent, Cosimo, that complete Maecenas, simply invited
him to draw at will on the Medici bank; and Nicolao, in the
spirit of noble acceptance which Dante counts among the civic
virtues, as simply and perhaps no less admirably accepted. The
most erudite member of the circle, and the most quarrelsome,
was Leonardo Bruni, the great Latinist and the historian of
Florence, whose European reputation attracted visitors from far
countries solely to see and speak with him. Hardly less formid-
able was Messer Poggio Bracciolini, pungent of tongue and
pen, delighting the good bookseller with his many jests, and
frightening everyone with the remarkable resources of his invec-
tive, which spared neither those who offended his susceptible
person, nor unprincipled borrowers who neglected to return his
books. Even San Bernardino, inspiring one of those religious
revivals, which like everything new and exciting could always
arouse the unstable ardour of the Florentines, found time to
drop in at Vespasiano’s and linger to discuss with Manetti the
sin of usury, against which he had preached that morning in the
Duomo, “damning us all,” as Gianozzo said, rallying him
merrily.

698 A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY BOOKSELLER

From the palace came Ser Filipo di Ser Ugolino, the incor-
ruptible lawyer of the Republic, a dignified figure in his long
purple gown, with his humorous smile and terse speech, “ short
and quick and full of high sentence.” More rarely Palla
Strozzi, rich, handsome and learned, would come from the home
which wife and children made the happiest in Florence, until
death and exile fell so heavily on its prosperity. Both men
served the —— “with head and fortune,” and both met
with the too frequent reward of Florentine patriotism from
the city whose extremity of ingratitude could never disarm the
love of her sons. Vespasiano’s picture of Palla Strozzi, in his
uncomplaining exile, “turning to his books as to a desired
haven,” and of Ser Filipo at the Abbey of Settimo, patiently
teaching the novices Latin, “in separate lessons, because one
was more advanced than the other,” is typical of that dis-
interested love of learning which was the best inspiration of the
humanists. When we recall their shameless rapacity, their
overweening pretensions and unscrupulous polemics, it ma
seem almost absurd to call them disinterested; but in the
exercise of their profession of letters they were not venial.
They never tampered with their literary ideals, and they had a
passionate love of learning for its own sake. Like the inhabi-
tants of Utopia they “supposed the felicity of this life to
consist in the free liberty of the mind and garnishing of the
same.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE HOME

Ong likes to believe that the cave-dweller of the Stone Age
sitting outside his cave in the cool of the evening after a satis-
factory (if indigestible) supper of underdone meat, may have had
in his mind’s eye a possible future in which caves would be less
dark and damp, more roomy, and less liable to the unwelcome
intrusion of wild beasts. Of a truth, he was not comfortable.
A haunting picture once exhibited in a London gallery showed
him turning the corner to his cave and coming suddenly, with a
hideous expression of fear, on a lion who, on his very doorstep
so to say, had already half devoured his wife. Such things called
loudly for reform.

The solidity of the cave, its immovable nature, has never been
surpassed. Neither the winds of heaven nor the earthquakes of
the soil had any effect on it ; and the first artificial cave raised
above ground, no doubt a marvel of ingenuity in its way,
must have been considered a very flimsy affair in comparison,
the second storey a daring flight not to be thought of as yet
without a shudder. Minor improvements, say a hole in the roof
for the escape of smoke, can only have been practicable in few
cases ; but the first man who managed to knock out such a hole
was the creator of the domestic hearth and all its attending
blessings. He rejoiced in that feeling of comparative ease and
comfort which ages after him would culminate in the song of
Home, Sweet Home, though in his days it would still have been
singularly premature. He did not overcome the nuisance of the
smoky chimney ; but he led the way, and some day we may settle it.

Without in the least discrediting the immense importance of
the theory of evolution, it may be admitted that the conclusion
was more or less unavoidably indicated by what we see around
us everywhere. There does not appear much in common
between such a hole rudely knocked out, and a chimney with

700 THE EVOLUTION OF THE HOME

monumental marble, brass fittings, and ormolu glass, not to speak
of the central gilt clock and flanking bronzes, or vases, that now
form an indispensable part of it ; yet the one is no more than a
gradual evolution of the other, and little as we may understand
it, the direction taken by such an evolution has probably never
been within our choice or discretion. In examining the minute
cell of a budding leaf before it has grown to an individual shape,
the highest power of the microscope cannot detect the slightest
indication of the coming form. The cell of an oak-leaf is indis-
tinguishable from that of the chestnut-leaf ; there is only the
same cell-wall, circulating protoplasm, and nucleus to be seen in
both ; the division and multiplication of cells proceed equally
and uniformly in both, and yet there is a mysterious power,
unseen, inscrutable, which at a certain given point forces the one
cell to multiply in the shape of the oak-leaf while the other must
become the elongated fan-like leaf of the chestnut. It is matter
for congratulation that this latent, unknown power, equally strong
and inscrutable in us, has not driven us in the direction of the
snail and made us carry our homes with us; the Arab who folds
his tent and silently vanishes away is but the exception that
proves the rule. Fortunately Nature has intended us to build
stationary dwellings like the coral insect, though in too many
cases less solid. What precise place or function the jerry-builder
holds in this evolutionary process or scheme it would be in-
vidious to investigate ; it should be enough for us to remember
that in Nature nothing is unnecessary.

Before we proceed to examine the different evolutions in
architecture and comfort which have resulted from this building
instinct, mention should be made of another useful individual
who assists us in our choice, the house-agent to wit. He cannot
have existed, even in a rudimentary stage, in the Stone Age.
They did not probably, in that dim past, change their cave every
three years or oftener, and we know nothing of the tenure on
which such property was held. Given the comparative scarcity
of caves, when the family increased and a roomier dwelling
became imperative, it may have been necessary to massacre the
holders of a larger tenement, “ possession on completion of
massacre”’ being then the recognised condition of transfer.
With the softening of manners and morals, a_ persuasive
go-between was urgently needed, and the house-agent was
evolved, his duties in the earliest days being more in the

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THE EVOLUTION OF THE HOME 701

nature of a reinforcement, his powers of reasonable persuasion
not unconnected with a club.

Useful and remunerative as the calling seems to be, not every-
one is fit for it. Unlimited optimism is required in its pursuit ;
the faintest shadow of pessimism must not fall on the three years’
agreement or it will not be signed. The successful agent should
wear rose-coloured spectacles and should advertise the vacant
pillar of St. Simeon Stylites as a compact little residence in a
quiet neighbourhood. Did not a celebrated auctioneer once
reluctantly admit that the only drawback he knew to a country-
house he had to let was the noise made at night by the night-
ingales? When a house is old he developes unexpected anti-
quarian tastes and predilections ; when it is new the same man
scorns the discomforts of antiquity. In his enthusiasm he
sometimes forgets the meaning of the English language, as
when the other day he advertised a house as “replete with
hot and cold water.”

House-hunting, with or without his aid, is a troublesome
business, the choice being so abundant in general and so restricted
in particular, for we are more difficult to please than the hermit-
crab who makes himself at home in the first shell he finds un-
tenanted. An Irish cabin of one room would suit very few ; on
the other hand very few want a palace of a hundred or a thousand
rooms. However splendidly it may be furnished and upholstered,
the smallest palace is a barrack compared to a snug little home in
town or country. Who would like to live in the Winter Palace
at St. Petersburg, on the roof of which, when some structural
alterations were contemplated, the architect found a small village
encamped in wooden sheds, the proud Imperial family living in
state inside having not the slightest knowledge of the teeming
life overhead ? Who would quite enjoy the home offered by the
Vatican at Rome, which contains about sixteen thousand rooms?
It must be obviously easy to lose count in such a mighty maze.
It suggests the bewildering thought whether somebody once felt
cramped in a home with only fifteen thousand rooms, and added
another thousand for more breathing-space. Unpopular rulers
have often slept night after night in different bedrooms for fear
of assassination ; a nervous pope could thus sleep in a new room
night after — and only return to the first after forty weary
years. This fanciful calculation gives a better idea of the in-
sensate vastness of such palaces than any figures of dimensions

702 THE EVOLUTION OF THE HOME

could convey. How thankful we must be that, even after the
most unlimited dinner, we have no difficulty in finding the
drawing-room, no risk of wandering helplessly in such a gigantic
labyrinth perhaps for years after losing our known bearings. The
proud possessors of such astounding edifices generally make for
themselves a hearth and home in some outlying corner of the
brick or marble wilderness, a corner they know by heart and
can find without the aid of the mariner’s compass, much after
the manner in which meaner mortals in a too large or draughty
room make themselves a comfortable corner by means of
screens.

History records many instances of the makeshifts forced upon
royal personages in olden times by the inconveniences of their
homes or palaces. When they travelled from one to the other
it was customary to send in advance horses and sumpter-mules
laden with the necessary hangings and carpets. Often the living
rooms, if many, were very small; the supper-room of Mary
Stuart at Holyrood Palace, from which Riccio was dragged to
his death, was hardly large enough to hold a table, and was
found inconveniently small on the night of the murder. The
table and the candles were at once upset, and if Lady Argyll had
not snatched one up as it fell and held it up to see foul play,
they would have had to murder the poor Italian in the dark.
The house of Kirk o’Fields (which, to be sure, was not intended
for a royal residence) was so inconvenient that the sanitary
arrangements were shocking even for that time; and a door had
to be taken off its hinges and put on the top of a bath to provide
more accommodation for Queen Mary and King Darnley. As
the gunpowder was already stored in the lower storey, and it was
Mary’s intention to blow up hearth and home, house and husband
in the night, the inconvenience was only temporary. The furni-
ture went up with the husband, and the only thing saved was a
much prized silken bedquilt which the Queen took the precaution
to remove a few hours before the explosion. This cruel fact would
be absolutely incredible if the Casket Letters left any doubt of
the ghastly truth.

The contradictions of human nature are amazing and inex-
plicable ; this wonderful and fascinating woman, who made such
short and fell work of hearth and home, was yet in other ways so
truly feminine that in presiding over her Privy Council she
always worked at some small womanly embroidery to keep her-

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THE EVOLUTION OF THE HOME 703

self in countenance. In this she was followed by the last Mary
of her unfortunate race, the wife of William the Third, whose
fancy-work, in what we should now call crochet or Berlin wool,
was, oddly enough, after her death praised by Bishop Burnet in
his funeral sermon as one of her most distinguished virtues.
This absurd bathos or anti-climax should not however blind us
to the truth that domestic virtues such as these can make a home
of the most inconvenient dwelling,—let our antimacassars, chim-
ney-valances, chair-covers, doyleys, and so forth, testify to the
fact, for which we are not always sufficiently thankful. Our
homes, such as they may be, large or small, are little better than
caves if no woman presides over them and brightens them with
little feminine touches and fancies. We men are apt to sneer at
these adornments, but in the way of making a home every little
helps, as the condemned man said when he asked the bishop for
his prayers.

Domesticated in the proper sense the Queen of Scots could
not be called. Her views on separation or divorce were too
thorough to please the average husband ; but she was a veritable
factory for fancy-work. She even embroidered petticoats for her
implacable enemy Elizabeth ; indeed, she worked so many that
at last the English queen took the ungracious course of not
thanking her royal cousin for them any more in order to stop
the supply.

With a sense of relief we may leave the consideration of
palaces, more or less inconvenient, bloodstained, or ghost-
haunted, as being after all abnormal homes of remote interest to
the average citizen. The family ghost does not often haunt the
semi-detached villa; no White Lady walks on their narrow
stairs or landings, and with some few exceptions the suburban
villa is now the recognised average type of human dwellings,
being easily constructed. No architectural knowledge is
required : anyone can build one, that is, if he starts with a bow-
window ; without this indispensable preliminary, success would
be problematic and confusion might ensue. Shoulder to
shoulder, in rows like well-drilled soldiers, they gradually
encroach upon the space once occupied by the mansion with
park-like grounds or the lordly castle of yore. No doubt what
we gain in comfort we lose in romance ; jwe have, as Mr.
Meredith says, exchanged the sky for a ceiling, No one knows
where Joyeuse Garde once stood, but rows of semi-detached

704 THE EVOLUTION OF THE HOME

villas may now occupy eligible building-sites in the trackless
realms of Lyonnesse, the enchantment long forgotten. It is
well if Merlin Avenue or Launcelot Street faintly recalls the
paths where Vivien meditated, not altogether fancy free. If we
knew the spot we might well fancy that knights and ladies ride
at night through the silent street, for these prosaic homes stand
on enchanted ground.

Lo, I must tell a tale of chivalry,
For large white plumes are dancing in mine eye !

Anyone still blessed with imagination, in this matter-of-fact age,
might indeed well think that before cock-crow, before the early
milkman’s call, before the first glimmer of dawn when the daily
paper is thrown down the area, he might see riding through
Merlin Avenue milk-white palfreys with silken trappings trailing
to the ground, champing and fretting under lovely burdens,
hooded falcons perched on delicate wrists, coal-black chargers
flecked with flakes of foam, shimmer of satin and lightning of
steel, all passing without a sound, ghost-like, a glittering cavalcade
disappearing noiselessly in moonbeams or in clouds of dust,
—going, going—gone !

Oh for the snows of yester-year! Instead of peacock-pie in
glory of brilliant plumage, or maybe of gigantic venison-pasty
with a dwarf inside, we have cold mutton for supper. No
matter ; we now live in a cold mutton age, and Beauty and the
Beast (he is on the Sewage Commitee), when they came to see
us last night, expected nothing else. Beauty liked pickles with
it—shrine of the mighty !

What has become of Astolat and of Camelot? Ay, and what
will become of Buckingham Palace? The improved steam-
laundry, the sweetshop and the young ladies’ school that will one
day occupy its site are almost as certain as to-morrow’s sun.
What would King Monmouth have said if a peep into the
future had shown him his beautiful home in Soho Square, still
standing and, awaiting the final demolition of all things, at
present used as offices of a well-known firm of sauce-
manufacturers? By a graceful recognition of the genius loci his
portrait still hangs on the walls of the fine old room with
painted ceiling and carved shutters ; but it hangs between framed
advertisments of mustard and sardines, and looks down with a
somewhat astonished air on rows of marmalade jars and bottles of

THE EVOLUTION OF THE HOME 705

vinegar. Does the handsome son of Charles the Second and
brown Lucy Walters still walk at night in the home of which he
was once so proud, and, in the ghostly silence peep curiously
into vats of pickles and jars of oil ?

It is a long cry from the bare stone cave to the much bedizened
room of yesterday ; we say yesterday because to-day the swing of
the pendulum is very noticeable in the already more refined
simplicity of decoration in our homes.

The Japanese, our rivals in the art of war and our masters,
some think, in the more gentle arts, have taught us the beauty of
simplicity. Their rooms never contain more than one good pic-
ture or painted scroll, not more than one spray of blossom or
flower in a beautiful vase, only one god, no more, in a dainty
shrine in the wall. Their conception of domestic life is the same
as ours, with a difference. Where we sit snugly around the
lamp, a Japanese family sit through a long dark evening round a
dim paper lantern on the floor : of hearth in our sense they have
none, merely a brazier with hot ashes to warm frozen fingers at ;
but the home-circle is for all that a more positive fact with them
than it is, for instance, with the Neapolitans, who only sleep in
the garret of what was once a palace and live on the doorstep,
dining off macaroni in the street.

Climate is, and has always been, the greatest factor in the
domestic life of a nation. It has moulded us, made us what we
are. Inthe days of the cave-dweller the English climate was
very hot, and the cave made a cool retreat. When the Glacial
Period returns once more, when the cap of ice and snow shall ex-
tend again over the whole of our islands from Lewis to Ilfracombe,
as science tells us to be unavoidable, though too far off to trouble
us to-day, our home-life will be changed to meet the altered con-
ditions inseparable from Arctic life. However fashionable it may
be now to dine or sup at the restaurant, a time will come when
the rigour of the climate will turn our thoughts another way,
and the renewed attraction of the hearth will be too powerful to
be resisted. The menu of reindeer flesh and blubber, even the
celebrated Blue Esquimaux Band, will not then seduce us from
our own fireside.

Marcus Reep.

MRS. BOEHM’S PARTY

Amonc the many functions with which, on Wednesday, June
21st, 1815, London society was seeking to mask the sinking at
heart that preluded the expected news trom the seat of war, there
was one party which stood out above all others. This was the
dinner and ball given by Mr. and Mrs. Edward Boehm at 16 St.
James’s Square. Mr. Boehm was a retired merchant of great
wealth ; his wife was a handsome woman of literary and musical
tastes. At their estate of Ottershaw, in Surrey, they had ac-
quired a great reputation for benevolence and hospitality, qualities
which gained them the favour of the Duke of York. His
Royal Highness made much of them and introduced them to his
own circle of friends at Oatlands, and they were thus made
free of the best society.

On the night of the 21st, no pains nor expense had been
spared to bring about the most brilliant party of the season.
The moment was not propitious. Many of society’s favourites
were absent in Flanders ; news of triumph was hourly hoped for,
news of disaster as constantly feared; nearly every family of
distinction had given toll of its men to the barrier drawn across
the path of Napoleon; the air was thick with rumours, the
suspense must have been torturing. Nevertheless, Mrs. Boehm’s
party promised to satisfy the most ambitious of hostessss. She
was honoured by the presence of three Princes of the Blood—
the Prince Regent and the Dukes of York and Sussex. The
advent of the last produced an “ incident.” The groom of the
chambers proclaimed “‘ Their Royal Highnesses the Duke of
Sussex and Prince Augustus of Sussex.” When the Regent
heard this his cheeks flushed, and tu rning his back he said to his
brother of York: “ Tell Adolphus from me that if ever he allows
that young man to assume that title again, he and I do not speak

MRS. BOEHM’S PARTY 707

to each other.” All who heard understood the reason of the
words, but to-day they require explanation.

The Duke of Sussex had, in defiance of the Royal Marriage
Act, married Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of
Dunmore,—a marriage “which was declared null and void in the
following year. Prince Augustus of Sussex was the son of this
union. After the death of his father he sought to succeed him
in the title ; the case went against him, and he was known as Sir
Augustus d’Este, as in his father’s lifetime. The trial produced
a little romance. His chief counsel was Thomas Wilde, after-
wards the first Lord Truro, who in the course of the business
won the hand of Emma Augusta, Mademoiselle d’Este, sister of
Sir Augustus, a marriage which was the occasion of a clever
epigram :

Happy the pair who fondly sigh,
By fancy and by love beguiled ;
He views as Heaven his D’Este nigh,
She vows her fate will make her Wilde.

After the incident the dinner proceeded equably. The ladies
went upstairs, and after the customary interval the gentlemen
followed. The guests for the ball were already arriving, and,
royal permission being graciously accorded, the first quadrille
was formed. This dance was of recent introduction, and
probably some of the guests had spent the morning practising it.
His Royal Highness was in the act of walking to the dais, when,
suddenly, a terrific hubbub was heard in the square. As has
been said, everybody was in the throes of expectation ; all were
awaiting news, hopeful, yet dreading evil tidings of husbands,
sons, brothers, lovers. Rumour had been busy all day. A
messenger had arrived at the house of Rothschild with news of
a great victory. Watching the house at Ghent where Louis the
Eighteenth lodged, he had noticed a military dispatch arrive,
had seen its joyful reception by the royal family, had hastened
to Ostend, and got away one tide before Wellington’s messenger.
On the strength of this the Rothschilds indulged in some
extensive dealings on the Stock Exchange, and then imparted the
news to Lord Liverpool. The latter, after consulting with
Vansittart (afterwards Lord Bexley), decided to wait for con-
firmation ; but the best kept secrets are apt to leak out and to
assume extraordinary variations. Sir Robert Wilson (“the bird
of ill omen’), dining at Lord Willoughby d’Eresby’s that night,

GG2

708 MRS. BOEHM’S PARTY

told the gentlemen over their wine that the Allies had been
totally defeated, that Napoleon was in Brussels, and had supped
with Prince d’Aremberg at the palace. A Cabinet dinner at
Lord Harrowby’s passed without any divulgence of the
Rothschilds’ message, but as Lord Liverpool was returning to
his residence (Fife House in Whitehall Place), his carriage was
stopped by a gentleman who had seen, in Downing Street, a
post-chaise dressed in laurel, with French eagles showing through
the windows, driven off to Lord Harrowby’s. In the chaise
was Major the Hon. Henry Percy, son of the first Earl of
Beverley. He found Lord Sidmouth in his office, and they went
together in pursuit of Lord Liverpool. Major Percy’s dispatches
were to Lord Bathurst, who was not at Lord Harrowby’s, and he
demurred to giving them to anyone else ; but Lord Liverpool,
who had returned, said, “ You must come immediately to the
Prince Regent.” So the three, Major Percy, Lord Liverpool,
and Lord Sidmouth, re-entered the chaise, and accompanied by
a vast, shouting, exulting crowd, hurried off to St. James’s
Square, the eagles protruding from the windows as before.

It was the din of this mob that broke in upon the strains of
the band just as Mrs. Boehm’s guests were preparing for the
dance. Everybody was on the tiptoe of expectation, and at the
noise in the square all restraints of dignity and etiquette were
forgotten. A rush was made for the windows, from which the
post-chaise was seen picking its way through a seething mob.
Poor Mrs. Boehm! The exultation of patriotism could not
drown her grief for the failure of her magnificent party, and the
“nasty French eagles” were to her but the symbols of her social
disaster: she thought Major Percy might have waited till the
next day. From the windows her guests saw a battle-stained
soldier leap from the carriage, fight his way through the crowd
and rush up-stairs. Dashing through the ball-room, he knelt to
the Prince, and laying the eagles at his feet, gasped, “ Victory,
Sir, victory!” Lord Liverpool said: “I have brought Major
Percy, who comes with the news of a great victory for your
Royal Highness.” ‘ Not Major Percy, but Lieutenant-Colonel
Percy,” said the Prince, whereupon the ex-Major knelt again
and kissed the royal hand. The Regent, the Ministers, and
some of the gentlemen retired to read the dispatches. “We
have not suffered much loss, I hope?” inquired the Prince.
“ The loss has been very great indeed,” replied Percy, whereupon

? AD we OD we we Oe Oe

MRS. BOEHM’S PARTY 709

says Mrs. Trench: “ Ministers and all wept in triumph. The
Regent fell into a sort of womanish hysteric. Water was flung
into his face. No! that would never do! Wine was tried
with better success, and he drowned his feelings in an ocean of
claret.” One by one as the Prince inquired for his friends he
received as answers, “ killed,” “‘ wounded,” “ missing,”’ until he
broke out in the voice of despair,— Good Heavens! I seem to
have lost all my friends.”” The glorious victory had indeed been
purchased dearly ; the gay, reckless dandies of that time, as of
every time, were no carpet-knights. Could one have looked into
the streets of Brussels one would have seen every other house
with its doors chalked, 2-d/essés 3-dlessés, officier blessé, and so
on, and the churches with lines of wounded stretched on the
floor.

Lord Alvanley gave the guests the first account of the losses ;
he was followed by the Regent, who said with emotion :—“ It is a
glorious victory and we must rejoice at it, but the loss of life has
been fearful, and J have lost many friends.” The victory was
then announced from the balcony, and we can easily picture to
ourselves how first one and then another of Mrs. Boehm’s guests
hurried off to hide their grief in the bitterness of solitude, with
an anguish that could ill brook the triumphant pzan that was
beginning to fill the land. The Princes soon retired, and “ In less
than twenty minutes,” said Mrs. Boehm, “ there was not a soul
left in the ball-room, but poor dear Mr. Boehm and myself. . . .
Even the band had gone.... Ladies of the highest rank rushed
away like maniacs, in their muslins and satin shoes, some accom-
panied by gentlemen, others without escort of any kind, all
impatient to learn the fate of those dear to them, many jumping
into the first stray hackney coaches they fell in with, and hurrying
on to the Foreign Office, or Horse Guards.” The disappointed
lady evidently thought it somewhat improper to place even such
a victory above the glamour of her party, and to set the welfare
of the heroes above the éc/at of St. James’s Square.

The sensation spread rapidly, and parties, balls, assemblies,
broke up in the like disorder and wild flight for news. Lord
Sidmouth hurried round to Lord Ellenborough, who was in
bed, but on hearing the intelligence, rang for his servants :
“ Bring me my clothes,” he cried, “I will not rob myself of one
moment's enjoyment of this glorious night.” When Tom Raikes
reached Sir George Talbot’s he found the Ladies Paget in the

710 MRS. BOEHM’S PARTY

utmost distress as Lady Castlereagh told them of their father’s
wound. Lord Uxbridge himself had taken it much more coolly.
“It was not a bad leg as legs go,” he had said as the surgeon cut
it away.

Major Percy had hurried to battle in the uniform he had worn
at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball ; he had had no time to
change, and was now sinking with fatigue and excitement. The
Prince graciously accorded him leave to retire, and he hurried
off to his father’s house in Portman Square. All night long
throngs of anxious enquirers besieged the house, and deprived
him of the rest he so longed for, and the impressions of that
night so wrought upon him that his mind became deadened to
the glory of the brief campaign. His pleading enquirers might
have noticed a great dark stain on his breast ; it was the blood
of a brother-officer killed at his side. When at length he got to
bed, he shook out from the folds of his sash fragments of the
poor fellow’s brains. Colonel Percy never recovered from the
fatigues of the campaign and journey, and when, only a few years
later, a little girl, afterwards Mrs. Charles Bagot, was lifted up to
his bed, it was to kiss a dying man.

About five years after the abandoned ball, the Boehms fell on
evil times, and had to give up their fine houses and think no
more of costly entertainments. To his credit be it said, the
Prince did not forget them. ‘Since their misfortunes he has
redoubled his kindness to them. They have visited Windsor
and received such protection that they have taken a house at
Brighton for the winter months.” So wrote Joseph Jekyll ; and
again after another five years,—“I hear the King has given
Mrs. Boehm a pension, and promise of apartments at Hampton
Court.” The promise was kept, and on a table in her drawing-
room there a column twelve inches high, of solid gold, generally
attracted the attention of visitors. An inscription stated that
it was given by the Prince Regent to Mr. and Mrs. Boehm
in commemoration of the fact that the news of the glorious
victory of Waterloo had been brought to him under their roof.
This object was frequently the introduction of Mrs. Boehm’s
story of “that dreadtul night,” when “the most brilliant party
of the season’’ was wrecked by the “indecent haste of Hen
Percy,” and the “unseasonable declaration of the Waterloo
victory.”

ALFreD Beaver.

we we Wa Wee eee er OS OR OOO TOO Lele

weer tm Oo YS

THE DAILY LIFE OF AN INDIAN PRINCE

Some interest must attach, I think, to a narrative of the daily
life of the ruling chief of one of the most populous, most
prosperous, and most beautiful of the Native States of India,
practically written by one of his own confidential secretaries
(since deceased) whose very words are to a great extent
preserved. It is he who writes this paper, though I have pruned,
altered, and added, by permission sought and readily accorded.
| was myself British Resident in the States of Travancore and
Cochin, and holding at the same time the office of additional
member of the Governor General of India’s Council,
occupied a position which gave me an excellent opportunity of
becoming acquainted with the life and conversation of the ruler
of a State like Travancore, and of comparing them with those of
other ruling chiefs in India. His Highness the Maharajah is one
of those rare individuals who want nothing in this world below.
He long since received from Queen Victoria the extra guns
which made his salute up to the highest possible number. He
has therefore no ulterior motive in permitting his secretary to
prepare, and myself to edit, a paper which I assured him would
be of value and of interest to those in Britain (the vast majority)
who have not the remotest conception of what a Hindoo prince
is, or what his life is like.

To the student of sociology, no less than to the practical
statesman, India presents an interesting and instructive field of
study. The impact of the virile, realistic, and progressive West
on the quiescent, massive, and slow-moving East has created a
ferment which is gradually transforming the national life, ideas,
habits, and sentiments. The new spirit, however, has leavened
only the upper strata of society. The great masses that form the
basis of the social edifice remain passive and inert, clinging to the
old ways, ideas, and beliefs, and permeated to the core with

712 THE DAILY LIFE OF AN INDIAN PRINCE

prejudice against all that has not received the sanction of time and
religion. They have little sympathy with the party of progress,
and its precious cargo of Dead Sea apples. It may be that they
are not articulate, but they deeply deplore the tendency of the
advanced classes to cut themselves off from the old moorings, to
cast away all the trammels of tradition, to obliterate all ancient
landmarks, and to transplant at once into India institutions which
took root in Europe only in the course of centuries. We thus
see in India a struggle between the genius of the East and the
spirit of the West, a want of harmony between the wine of
modern Europe and the bottles of the ancient Hindoo civilisation.
The conflict is inevitable, and under proper conditions an onward
movement is predicable ; but the zealous reformer should not, as
he too often does, forget how profoundly the genius and spirit of
things is affected by the material, social, and spiritual conditions
that surround them, and that no general advance is possible
unless his ideas run more or less in line with those of the great
body of the people.

The feudatory princes and chiefs constitute the apex of Indian
society ; and it is a gratifying feature that, while more or less
imbued with the modern spirit, they, with a few exceptions, have
no sympathy with inconoclastic zeal. The Maharajah of
Travancore offers an example of the best type of an Indian
prince, who remains an orthodox Hindoo, true to the traditions
of his race, but rules his State in a manner in no way conflicting
with the broad lines of Western policy.

His Highness Rama Varma, Maharajah of Travancore,
Vice-regent upon earth of Vishnu in the Hindoo Heaven, Knight
Grand Cross of the Star of India and of the Indian Empire,
member of various learned European societies, and possessor
of a dozen other titles and dignities, ancient and modern,
lay and sacred, and of the maximum salute of twenty-one
guns, is the ruler of one of the most picturesque Native States
in India, wherein the sun fails not by day, the. rain falls in
due season, and drought is practically unknown. His family
is one of the most ancient in India, reaching back indeed
for its origin into mythical and Puranic regions. He is a
Kshetrya, or warrior, by caste, and the Marumakkathayam
law governs the succession in his family, as it also regulates
the inheritance of the bulk of his subjects. Under this system
succession follows the line of sisters and children of sisters,

— er es 1

co” —s

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— LT ll ell tie le et ll eet ae oe OUmlC lle ae ea

THE DAILY LIFE OF AN INDIAN PRINCE 713

Thus the Maharajah’s predecessor was his maternal uncle,
whom he succeeded in 1885, and since all the sons of
his sisters have predeceased him, the male offspring of two
ladies, recently adopted, will eventually succeed to the princi-
pality.

The Maharajah is now forty-seven years old. He is somewhat
below the middle height and rather slightly made, with handsome,
regular features. He does not take part in violent equestrian
exercises, and would never witch the Western world with noble
horsemanship as Sir Pertab Singh has done in Rotten Row ; but
he plays tennis, golf, billiards, croquet, and badminton, and in all
he does he excels, though falling short in these respects of a past-
master of games like the Maharajah of Cuch Behar. He received
a sound English education and speaks and writes our language
perfectly. Indeed Sir Arthur Havelock (ex-governor of more
Colonies and British possessions than can be recalled without the
aid of books of reference) said the Maharajah reminded him of
nothing so much as of a Permanent Under-Secretary of State.
He knows several Indian languages other than his own vernacular
Malayali. He dresses plainly, wearing no jewels or ornaments,
except a little aigrette which is always worn by the head of his
House. His manner is singularly suave, simple, and courteous.
He possesses an equable temperament and those, if any. who have
seen him lose his temper have never related the experience. In
his habits he is regular and methodical ; he eats moderately,
never touches animal food, and scrupulously abstains from all
alcoholic drinks. In fact he fulfils all those caste laws and
regulations of which London heard so much on the arrival at the
coronation of the Maharajah of Jeypore. Local public opinion
in Travancore would not yet accept a prince who visited England
for one who kept his caste. In this mirror of ancient India a
man of high caste has prodigious place, power, and precedence ;
but he interferes not at all with the customs of other castes, to
respect which is one of the chief ends of his own. And
of course custom, and not the Vedas, is the life, law, and religion
of the thrones, dominations, princedoms, and powers of India.
Upon the coast of Malabar, secluded by sea and mountain from
the rest of India and the rest of the world, unaffected by the Ma-
hommedan invasions of the north, its sacred soil only now for the
first time in history gashed and scarred by that great leveller, the
railroad, you have the nearest possible approach to the conditions

714 THE DAILY LIFE OF AN INDIAN PRINCE

of ancient India,—and you will not have it much longer. Hence
it is that the Maharajah of Travancore, in his sacrosanct position,
was unable to obey the royal summons to London for the
coronation. His Highness does not like leaving his people, nor
would they willingly spare him, while he journeyed over the
black water to distant, and to them casteless and almost godless,
Britain. The Travancore folk, if they heard that Mr. Justice
Chandarvarker had said at the Society of Arts, that “ caste was
alien from the spiritual basis of Hindooism,”’ would merely
remark that not the lecturer, but the reporter must have been at
fault. No born Hindoo, whatever his own record or present
belief, ever made a more monumentally misleading statement.

The Maharajah is fond of European society, is a member
of the local European club, and is believed to admire the
character of the ruling race. He certainly inspires those
members of it with whom he comes in contact with sentiments
of friendship and respect. He is, however, like the late Maha-
rajah of Mysore (an altogether admirable prince), a man of two
worlds, the friend and companion of the best Englishmen about
him, but none the less determined to maintain cherished customs
and associations, and to preserve venerable institutions.

He is intensely and innately religious, while perfectly tolerant
of other creeds. One of the striking characteristics of the rulers
of this ancient principality is their toleration. According to
tradition, Christianity was introduced into Travancore by St.
Thomas, the apostle, in the first century of the Christian era.
There is no doubt that the Gospel of Christ was preached
without let or hindrance from the early centuries, and as the
result of this religious freedom Travancore contains to-day a
larger proportion of Christians than any other Native State,
or Province, in British India. A quarter of the population
is Christian, as against an average of about one per cent. through-
out the rest of India. The State is at once the most Christian
and the most Hindoo part of India. Above the cocoa-nut
groves tower tall temples and fantastic fanes ; in shady groves
are images of demons; beneath the sacred fig-tree the coils
of the cobra are reproduced in stone ; upon the tamarind trunk
a streak of red proclaims the presence of a spirit, whose shadowy
answers are waved to worshippers by the graceful boughs of the
tree ; before the shrine here are rose leaves, there the blood of a
cock. The ground is holy, the soil is sacred, and at the same

THE DAILY LIFE OF AN INDIAN PRINCE 715

time there are twelve hundred Christian places of worship, nor
are Jews, Parsees, and Mahommedans wanting.

The ruling chiet ot this community has a most retentive
memory, and most industrious habits. He takes deep personal
interest in all matters affecting the well-being of his people of all
religions, and controls every wheel of the machinery of govern-
ment, of which he is, in fact, the main-spring. He is generally
at work before many of his people have left their beds, cots,
floors, hammocks, verandahs and lofts, all of which, and, in the
forests, trees and platforms, serve them as resting-places for the
night. Simplicity reigns within the palace, and there is a singular
absence of the pomp of many menials and much service, which
is usual in kings’ houses. But see him on a festal day, sur-
rounded by priests, walking slowly to the blare of trumpets upon
strewn silver sand, to bathe in the seashore with the image of
the god whose agent upon earth he is, and afterwards, clothed in
cloth of gold, sparkling with jewels, aloft in his state-coach
returning to his palace, and you would say pomp and glory were
his attributes, simplicity his foible.

His Highness’s family motto is Charity our Household Divinity,
and his individual text is this from the Arn-1-Akparl, the record
of the greatest of Indian Kings: “The success of the Govern-
ment, and the fulfilment of the wishes of the subject, depend
upon the manner in which a King spends his time.” How then
does his Highness spend his time ?

He rises between four and five, and is at the audience-hall by
half-past five. From that hour up to half-past seven he is
engaged either in receiving visitors, officials and private indi-
viduals, or in answering letters, for the most part with his
own hand. At half-past seven he takes his bath. Whatever
the season he plunges into cold water from a river running
through his capital city of Trevandrum. The bath over, he
says his prayers, and then goes to the family pagoda, which
is situated only a few hundred yards from his palace. After
worshipping at the shrine he takes his breakfast. This is his
first meal, for it is contrary to the custom of his House for any
member of the reigning family to indulge in even a cup of coffee
before bath, prayer, and worship are accomplished. He eats his
meal in the orthodox Hindoo fashion, the food being served in
gold and silver plates and bowls, all artistically arranged on a
large plantain-leaf, the delicate tracery of which exceeds in beauty

716 THE DAILY LIFE OF AN INDIAN PRINCE

the product of any human hands. He eats frugally, and his
breakfast, though a great number of dishes are placed before him,
is only an affair of a few minutes. While he is at his meal, the
Court musicians, who are all Brahmins, sing and play on
musical instruments in an adjoining room. Shortly before ten
his breakfast is over, and he again goes to business. His
private-secretary waits with bundles of papers, and lays before
him every letter received. He peruses all the papers himself
and passes orders, clearly indicating the tenor of the reply to be
sent, and in important cases he himself prepares draft replies.
An abstract of all letters received and replies despatched is placed
before him the next day, to enable him to see that his orders
have been correctly understood. This function occupies him for
about two hours, after which he sometimes, but rarely, takes a short
siesta. He then reads his newspapers and periodicals, English
and Indian, marking and sending to his minister observations
regarding any affairs of State. As a rule everything moves
slowly in the East, and it is said that there the practice is never
to do to-day what you can possibly postpone till to-morrow ; but
the Maharajah loves the prompt despatch of business, which he
practises himself and exacts from all his servants. He censures
every officer who is guilty of procrastination, and gives short
shrift to those in whom the propensity is deep-rooted. It must
not be supposed, however, that all public business races towards
a conclusion, for we are not in Utopia but in Travancore.

At two the Maharajah drinks tea, and then again transacts
business or reads until four, when he drives to one of his
neighbouring residences upon the seashore, or upon some breezy
hill. He returns from his drive at half-past five, performs his
ablutions, says his prayers, and at seven eats his dinner, which,
like the breakfast, is a simple meal selected from innumerable
vegetarian dishes. The Hindoos generally have far larger
appetites, and the Brahmins particularly are tremendous trencher-
men, if vegetarians, who consume snowy mountains of rice with
sauces and pickles, can be so described. After dinner light
reading occupies the time till nine, when a man who rises at four
is glad to go to bed.

The Maharajah is accessible to all, without distinction of class,
caste, or creed. He receives Indian visitors at prescribed hours ;
Europeans see him by appointment. They are received with
the utmost simplicity, and after passing the sentry at the palace

ee ee ee ee ae

_ -_ a ae oboe Get oe ee | CUelClUe OO

THE DAILY LIFE OF AN INDIAN PRINCE 717

gate not a human being as a rule is seen or heard except his
Highness. The contrast with the distracting noises of the
bazaars, and the bustle of most Hindoo houses is profound.

The chief minister waits upon the Prince twice a week, when
important matters of State are discussed. The etiquette of an
Eastern Court requires a profuse use of circumlocution and
flowers of hyperbole, but the Maharajah encourages his officers to
express their opinions freely and without reserve. Conversation
is generally held in the Malayali, and the modern graduate,
who has learnt to despise his own vernacular, is severely exercised
as to a choice of appropriate language in which to address his
Highness, whose perfect command of English has not inspired
him with any disposition to under-rate the value, dignity, and
beauty of his native tongue.

Occasionally he entertains the Europeans at his capital at a
dinner which he sits out. He is careful that it should be the
best procurable by trains and bearers who have brought ice and
other luxuries hundreds of miles ; but he would not touch it for
an additional gun to his salute, had he not, as he already has, the
highest number possible. When he entertains a Viceroy, which
he once did in the person of Lord Curzon, he takes his guest
into dinner and sits beside him ; and the Resident takes him in
to dinner, when on the occasion of the King’s birthday he attends
the celebration at the British Residency. The band then plays
God save the King, and also the Maharajah’s anthem, and the
Resident’s guard remains at attention throughout the mercifully
short, though stately, feast. His Highness also gives garden-
parties to the European society, when a few, indeed too few,
Indian gentlemen are also asked. It is the Europeans who like
the number kept down, and they are the losers by this foolish
and utterly unreasonable exclusiveness.

The Maharajah, it need hardly be said, is supremely loyal to
the throne and to the British Government. Since he cannot
himself visit England, he rejoiced the more that he was able to
entertain in his State the late Duke of Clarence, by whose early
death he was sincerely touched. Towards the King he
entertains that feeling of personal loyalty and affection with
which the late Queen happily inspired the Indian princes.

The palace is a modest mansion, furnished with simple taste
exempt from all extravagance. The floor of the audience-
chamber is paved with encaustic tiles, with a carpet in the centre,

718 THE DAILY LIFE OF AN INDIAN PRINCE

and its contents consist of a few chairs, a couch, a writing-table,
and two china jars from the Summer Palace at Peking. No
expenditure of public money is permitted without the
Maharajah’s general or special sanction, and this personal
attention to economy accounts in no small measure for the
satisfactory condition of the finances. A State which owes
nothing, and until recently generally had a balance of a year’s
revenue in hand, is not heard of every day.

It may be observed that an enlightened orthodox Hindoo is
neither an idolater, nor a polytheist as commonly understood.
He believes in and worships one God, the Supreme Being,—the
temples, the images therein, and all the ritual being mere aids to
enable him to realise more intensely the all-pervading divine
essence. Like every pious Hindoo, the Maharajah has deep
faith in the divine guidance of human affairs, and among his
numerous titles the first place is given to that of Sri Padmanabha
Dasa (servant of Sri Padmanabha), the Patron Deity of his
House. He goes through every one of his religious observances
without fail; and they are many, and by no means easy.
Besides the daily morning visit to the shrine of his Patron Deity,
during the festivals, which occur twice a year, he has to visit the
pagoda several times a day, take part in the religious procession
inside the temple every night, and escort it on foot to the sea-
beach, a distance of about two miles and a half from the palace.
Twice a year he has to go through a ceremony called Bhadra-
deepom, the lighting of the sacred lamp, which lasts about eight
days. Like the spiritual retreat this period is consecrated solely
to the service of the soul, and the Maharajah then leads the life
of an anchorite, occupying a separate building specially set apart
for the occasion. The Dussera, which occurs once a year and
lasts for ten days, is a less exacting festival, during which the
Maharajah need not fast nor live in seclusion, but he has to attend
daily the discussions of a College of Pundits. All the learned
men of the land, and many from distant parts of India, attend it,
some to display, some to impart, some to acquire knowledge,
others to obtain the rewards which are freely given for distinguished
learning. A prolonged and vociferous discussion ensues upon
questions of logic, metaphysics, grammar, rhetoric and other
humanities. Every man who takes part in it is given a small
present, and the more profound scholars are rewarded according
to their merit. It would interest the Platonic gatherings at

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THE DAILY LIFE OF AN INDIAN PRINCE 719

Claridge’s to know that the son of Ariston and disciple of
Socrates is not forgotten on these occasions, though in Travancore,
and perhaps at Claridge’s, there is no inscription over the door :
Let no one enter, who is unacquainted with geometry. The occasion
also brings to the capital distinguished native musicians, whose
performances form part of the programme, and who are also duly
rewarded. The festival closes with a procession to one of the
surburban palaces, when the Prince goes in state in his coach
drawn by six horses, escorted by his bodyguard and brigade, and
attended by all his officers. The state-car was specially made by
one of his predecessors in imitation of the vehicle said to be used
in heaven by Indra, the Indian Jupiter.

The two previous chiefs of Travancore also were enlightened
rulers, but they confined their interests to their own State.
Though strictly orthodox and anxious to develope his country
on national lines, the present chief keeps himself abreast of his
time, and is ready, whenever necessity is shown, to introduce
wholesome reforms. For the making of laws and regulations he
has established a Legislative Council, composed of officials and
non-officials ; he has also inaugurated a scheme of local govern-
ment by establishing municipalities. In these two cases he has
introduced the principle of representation,—one entirely foreign
to the Oriental mind. The Maharajah also takes deep interest
in female education, the proportion of girls under instruction in
the State being larger than anywhere else in British India. This
is partly due to the independent position occupied by women on
the Malabar coast, where they are able to choose their own
husbands and even to change them for good and sufficient
reasons. There are at Trevandrum a vernacular high-school,
two English high-schools, and a college for women. In the
vernacular school pretty girls, clothed in white robes and wearing
natural flowers in their hair, may be seen, like so many dusky
Hypatias, demonstrating for the benefit of their pupils on the
blackboard. Medical aid is provided throughout the State, and
in deference to the natural, and by no means blameworthy,
prejudices of Hindoo women against being treated by men, an
excellent women and children’s hospital has been established.
The Maharajah has availed himself of the philanthropic scheme
inaugurated by Lady Dufferin, and maintained by her successor at
Calcutta, by offering liberal scholarships, and in these respects, and
indeed in most others, few parts of India are better administered.

720 THE DAILY LIFE OF AN INDIAN PRINCE

Travancore is as rich in natural resources as it is famous for
its natural beauties. In Pliny’s day its pepper and sandalwood
were sold in the markets of Rome ; in the Middle Ages, when
the Eastern trade was in the hands of the Moors, Quilon, a
seaport forty miles from the capital of the State, was the entrepot
in India, wherein the Chinese traders from the East, and the
Arabs and Venetians from the West, bartered their wares.
Here Albuquerque built the first Portuguese factory, and here
the Dutch followed his lead. The first English factory was built
at Anjengo, about twenty miles from the capital, once the home
of Sterne’s Eliza. English enterprise has recently created and
developed the coffee and tea industries, and efforts are being
made to exploit the mineral wealth, now that the Government of
India has at last made its regulations in this behalf, such as
business-men may accept and work with profit. More than half
the country is covered with primeval forest yielding a large
variety of useful timber, fibre, and dye, and abounding in
elephants, tigers, leopards, bison, deer, and an immense variety
of smaller game. The Maharajah has constructed the first

railway in the State, giving all the land required free of cost, and
guaranteeing interest on the outlay.

A paper of this description is more or less authentic in
proportion as the subject tells his own tale, or, when personal
modesty or feelings of delicacy forbid that course, when the tale
is told by someone busied about his person. In one sense then,
this is a valuable paper, and I will try not to impair that value,
by adding personal opinions and reflections upon the State
of Travancore, its ruler, and its administration. For these I
have, indeed, in the pages of the English reviews, and elsewhere,
already expressed a sincere admiration while I occupied the happy
office of British Resident, in which work and sport can be
combined, in which pleasure and business can go hand in hand,
to an extent hardly conceivable in this hive of incessant industry
and exhausting amusement, whence it is an interlude of light,
peace, and refreshment to look back upon that pleasant land.

J. D. Ress.