ADVENTURES AND ENTHUSIASMS

E. V. LUCAS

Other Books of E. V. LUCAS

ENTERTAINMENTS

VERENA IN THE MIDST
THE VERMILION BOX
LANDMARKS
KISTENER'S LURE
MR. INGLESIDE
OVER BEMERTON'S
LONDON LAVENDER

ESSAYS

CLOUD AND SILVER
A BOSWELL OF BAGHDAD
TWIXT EAGLE AND DOVE
THE PHANTOM JOURNAL
LOITERER'S HARVEST
ONE DAY AND ANOTHER
FIRESIDE AND SUNSHINE
CHARACTER AND COMEDY
OLD LAMPS FOR NEW

TRAVEL

A WANDERER IN VENICE
A WANDERER IN PARIS
A WANDERER IN LONDON
A WANDERER IN HOLLAND
A WANDERER IN FLORENCE
MORE WANDERINGS IN LONDON
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN SUSSEX

ANTHOLOGIES

THE OPEN ROAD
THE FRIENDLY TOWN
HER INFINITE VARIETY
GOOD COMPANY
THE GENTLEST ART
THE SECOND POST
THE BEST OF LAMB
REMEMBER LOUVAIN

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

THE SLOWCOACH
ANNE'S TERRIBLE GOOD NATURE
A BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN
ANOTHER BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN
RUNAWAYS AND CASTAWAYS
FORGOTTEN STORIES OF LONG AGO
MORE FORGOTTEN STORIES
THE "ORIGINAL VERSES" OF ANN AND JANE TAYLOR

SELECTED WRITINGS

A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING
HARVEST HOME
VARIETY LANE
MIXED VINTAGE

LAURA'S EARLY MORNING LESSONS.
See "The Innocent's Progress"—Plate 2

ADVENTURES
AND
ENTHUSIASMS

BY

E. V. LUCAS

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

PAGE
The Perfect Guest [13]
The Sparrows' Friend [17]
The Golden Eagle [20]
A Morning Call [26]
The True Wizard of the North [30]
Innocence and Impulse [42]
Possessions [45]
Drake and His Game [49]
Admirals All—To be [56]
A Study in Symmetry [61]
Davy Jones [66]
The Man of Ross [71]
The Innocent's Progress [85]
Thoughts at the Ferry [92]
A Little Child [97]
A Devonshire Inn [103]
On Shops and Stalls [107]
Third Thoughts [113]
The Italian Question [118]
On Disguise [122]
Broken English [126]
Enthusiasts [136]
Telephonics [141]
The World Remedial [147]
What the Sun Did Not See [152]
Two of Martha's Sons [158]
Freaks of Memory [164]
The Moral Dressing-Table [169]
Thackeray's School Fellow [173]
In re Physiognomy
I Identification [184]
II Dr. Sullivan [187]
The World's Desire [191]
A Conqueror [197]
The Newness of the Old [202]
Aunts [206]
On Recitations [210]
Clicquot Well Won [218]
The Sufferer [223]
A South Sea Bubble [227]
On Finding Things [231]
Punctuality [236]
The Other Two [240]
On Secret Passages [244]
Little Miss Banks [248]
Gentlemen Both [251]
On Epitaphs [255]
IN AND ABOUT LONDON
I A London Thrill [263]
II A Door Plate [268]
III Angel Advocacy [273]
IV The Soane Hogarths [277]
V Greenwich Hospital [281]
VI Kew in April [285]
VII Royal Windsor [288]
VIII Three Little Backwaters [292]
IX A Self-Made Statue [297]
X Crowds and a Bad Samaritan [302]
XI Before and After [306]
XII The Green Among the Grey [311]
XIII The Fatherly Force [318]
XIV My Friend Flora [325]

ILLUSTRATIONS

Laura's Early Morning Lessons [Frontispiece]
PAGE
Laura Rises for the Day [44]
Laura Combines Breakfast and Philanthropy [84]
Laura's Music Lesson [96]
Laura Visits the Sick [140]
Laura Dances to Her Mother's Music [222]

ADVENTURES AND ENTHUSIASMS

THE PERFECT GUEST

There are certain qualities that we all claim. We are probably wrong, of course, but we deceive ourselves into believing that, short as we may fall in other ways, we really can do this or that superlatively well. "I'll say this for myself," we remark, with an approving glance in the mirror, "at any rate I'm a good listener"; or, "Whatever I may not be, I'm a good host." These are things that may be asserted of oneself, by oneself, without undue conceit. "I pride myself on being a wit," a man may not say; or "I am not ashamed of being the handsomest man in London;" but no one resents the tone of those other arrogations, even if their truth is denied.

It is less common, although also unobjectionable, to hear people felicitate with themselves on being good guests. Indeed, I have lately met two or three who quite impenitently asserted the reverse; and I believe that I am of their company. Trying very hard to be good I can never lose sight of the fact that my host's house is not mine. Fixed customs must be surrendered, lateness must become punctuality, cigarette ends must not burn the mantelpiece, one misses one's own China tea. The bathroom is too far and other people use it. There is no hook for the strop. In short, to be a really good guest and at ease under alien roofs it is necessary, I suspect, to have no home ties of one's own; certainly to have no very tyrannical habits.

I cut recently from the Spectator this rhymed analysis of the perfect guest:

She answered, by return of post,
The invitation of her host;
She caught the train she said she would,
And changed at junctions as she should;
She brought a small and lightish box,
And keys belonging to the locks.
Food, rare and rich, she did not beg,
But ate the boiled or scrambled egg;
When offered lukewarm tea she drank it,
And did not crave an extra blanket,
Nor extra pillows for her head;
She seemed to like the spare-room bed.
She brought her own self-filling pen,
And always went to bed at ten.
She left no little things behind,
But stories new and gossip kind.

Those verses seem to me to cover the ground, although one might want a change here and there. For example, would a little spice of malice in her anecdotage be so undesirable? And a little less meekness in the lady, who comes out rather as a poor relation, might do no harm. They also might emphasize the point that she was never indisposed, for it is an unpardonable offence in a guest to be ill; that she spent a great deal of time in writing letters (which all hostesses like their guests to do); and that on returning home she sat down and composed a "roofer" in the warmest possible terms. They might touch lightly but feelingly on her readiness not only to eat what was offered, and not to desire luxuries, but to refuse the rarities, such as, in recent times, bacon and butter and sugar. ("Oh, no, I never take butter!"—what grateful words to fall on a hostess's ear!) One would not, however, have one's guest a vegetarian, because that way distraction lies. If vegetarians ate vegetables all might be well, but they don't; they want made dishes of an exotic nature, or hostesses think they do, and then the cook gives notice. The verses might also refer to the perfect guest's easy flow of conversation when neighbouring bores call; and last—but how far from least!—they might note the genuine ring in her voice when she volunteers to do a little weeding.

But the lines, as far as they go, are comprehensive; their defect is that they deal with but one type—a woman visiting in the country. There is also to be considered the woman from the country visiting in town, who, to be perfect, must not insist too strongly on her own choice of play, must not pine inordinately for dances, and must not bring more frocks than her hostess can keep pace with. Mention of the hostess reminds me that it is by a hostess that the verses obviously were written, and that, as such, they leave apertures which the arrows of censure might penetrate if we were considering the perfect hostess too. For how could the poet, for all her epigrammatic conciseness, ever have given her exemplary friend the opportunity of drinking lukewarm tea? In any catalogue of the perfect hostess's virtues a very high place must be reserved for that watchfulness over the teapot and the bell that prevents such a possibility. And the perfect hostess is careful, by providing extra blankets, to make craving for more unnecessary. She also places by the bed biscuits, matches, and a volume either of O. Henry or "Saki," or both.

THE SPARROWS' FRIEND

If you entered the Tuileries any fine morning (and surely the sun always shines in Paris, does it not?) by the gate opposite Frémiet's golden arrogant Joan of Arc, and turned into the gardens opposite the white Gambetta memorial, you were certain to see a little knot of people gathered around an old gentleman in a black slouch hat, with a deeply furrowed melancholy face, a heavy moustache, and the big comfortable slippers of one who (like so many a wise Frenchman) prefers comfort to conventionality or the outraged opinion of others. All about him, pecking among the grass of the little enclosed lawns, or in the gravel path at his feet, or fluttering up to his hands and down again, were sparrows—les moineaux: for this was M. Pol, the famous "Charmeur d'oiseaux."

There is a certain attraction about Nôtre Dame, its gloom, its purple glass and its history; Sainte Chapelle is not without a polished beauty; the Louvre contains a picture or two and a statue or two that demand to be seen and seen again; but this old retired civil servant with the magic power over the gamins of the Parisian roadways and chimney-stacks was far more magnetic to many a tourist. Those other of Baedeker's lions were permanent and would endure, but a frowsy furrowed old man in scandalous footwear who not only charmed the sparrows but quite clearly had confidential understandings with each was a marvel indeed and not to be missed. Nôtre Dame's twin towers on each side of that miracle of a rose window would be there next time; but would M. Pol? That is how we reasoned.

We did well to see him as often as we could, for he is now no more; he died in 1918.

For some time the old man had been missing from his accustomed haunts, through blindness, and Death found him at his home at Chandon-Lagache, in the midst of the composition of rhymes about his little friends, which had long been his hobby, and took him quite peacefully.

I have stood by M. Pol for hours, hoping to acquire something of his mystery; but these things come from within. He knew many of the birds by name, and he used to level terrible charges against them, as facetious uncles do with little nephews and nieces; but more French in character, that is all. One very innocent mite—or as innocent as a Paris sparrow can be—was branded as L'Alcoolique. Never was a bird less of an inebriate, but no crumb or grain could it get except upon the invitation, "Viens, prendre ton Pernod!" Another was Marguerite, saucy baggage; another, La Comtesse; another, L'Anglais, who was addressed in an approximation to our own tongue. Now and then among the pigmies a giant pigeon would greedily stalk: welcome too. But it was with his sparrows that M. Pol was at his best—remonstrative, minatory, caustic; but always humorous, always tender beneath.

Latterly he sold a postcard now and then, with himself photographed on it amid verses and birds; but that was a mere side issue. Often strangers would engage him in conversation, and he would reply with the ready irony of France; but he displayed little interest. His heart was with those others. One felt that the more he saw of men the more he liked sparrows.

The French have a genius for gay commemorative sculpture. If a statue of M. Pol were set up on the scene of his triumphs (and many things are less likely), with little bronze moineaux all about him, I for one should often make it an object of pilgrimage.

THE GOLDEN EAGLE

Mr. George Robey, C.B.E., our soi-disant Prime Minister of Mirth, is, in his songs, as a rule, more of a destructive than a reassuring philosopher. Indeed, the cheerful cynicism of one whose prosperity is invulnerable may be said to be his prevailing characteristic on the stage. But he once sang, in the person of a landlady, a song which had the refrain, calculated to comfort those in less happy circumstances, "It's a blessing that you never miss the things you've never had." Upon the respective merits of this sentiment and of Tennyson's famous dictum "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" much might be said in discussion, although the two statements are not antagonistic; but at the moment, thinking of my poor friend the Golden Eagle, I vote wholly for Mr. Robey's optimism. It is a blessing that we never miss the things we've never had, and, conversely, it is a real calamity to lose something and be unable to forget it or to cease to regret it. In other words, it is better not to have had a treasure than, being parted from it, to be eternally wistful. Better, that is, for unwilling auditors of the tragedy.

So much for prelude.

It is a hard thing to be credited with power that one does not possess and have to disappoint a simple soul who is relying on one's help. That is a general proposition, but I was reminded of the Golden Eagle and a particular application of it by the remark which some one dropped the other day about Baedeker. "Shall those of us who have kept our Baedekers have the courage to carry them?" she asked; and instantly my mind flew to a certain Italian city and the host of the Aquila d'Oro.

Never can any guest in a hotel have received so much attention from the host as I did in the few days of my sojourn with him before I could bring myself to change to another. And not only from the host, but from every one on the staff, who bent earnest glances on me from morning till night. The Golden Eagle himself, however, did more than that: he buttonholed me. He was always somewhere near the door when I went out and again when I came in: a large, flabby Italian, usually in his shirt sleeves and wearing the loose slippers that strike such dismay into British travellers. "No foreigner," said an acute young observer to me recently, "ever has a good dog"; not less true is it that no Latin is ever soundly shod. But the Golden Eagle was not exactly slovenly; he owed it to his hotel not to be that; he was merely a vigilant padrone eternally concerned with his business.

Although there were other people staying under his roof, and they had better rooms than I and drank a better wine, it was I at whom he made this set. It was I for whom he waited and upon whom his great melancholy eyes rested so wistfully. For he was a Golden Eagle with a grievance, and I, in whose bedroom he had been asked to place a writing-table, I, who never went out without a note-book and who bought so many photographs, I, who so obviously was engaged in studying the city, no doubt for the purposes of a book, I it was who beyond question was in a position, by removing that grievance, to restore him to prosperity and placidity again.

And his grievance? The melancholy stamped upon that vast white countenance, although much of it was temperamental, and you might say national (for the Italian features in repose suggest disillusionment and fatalism far oftener than light-heartedness), and the dejection in the great shoulders, were due to the same cause. Baedeker, after years of honourable mention of the Aquila d'Oro among the hotels of the city, had suddenly, in the last edition, removed the asterisk against the name. The Golden Eagle had lost his star. Now you see the connection between this pathetic innkeeper (the last man in the world to call Boniface), our triumphant lion comique and the late Lord Tennyson. But in his case it was not better, either for him or me, that he had lost what he had loved. It would have been better, both for him and for me, if he had never had a star.

Why it had been taken from him he had no notion. He had always done his best; his wife had done her best; people were satisfied and came again; but the star had gone. Was not his hotel clean? The linen was soft, the attendance was good. He himself—as I could perceive, could I not?—never rested, nor did his wife. They personally superintended all. They spared nothing for the comfort of the house. Foolish innkeepers no doubt existed who were cheese-parers, but not he. He knew that wherever else economy was wise, it was not in the dining-room. Were not the meals generous and diversified? Could I name a more abundant collazione at 4 lire or a better pranzo at 5? Or served with more despatch? Was not his wine sound and far from dear?

And yet, four years ago, and all inexplicably, the star had gone from his hotel. It was monstrous, an outrage. Four years ago—without warning and for no cause.

When he had looked at the new edition of Baedeker which a visitor had left about and saw it, he could not believe his eyes. He had called his wife—every one: they were also incredulous. It was like a thunderbolt, and earthquake. After all their hard work too, their desire to please, their regular customers, so contented, who came again and again. Was not that the test—that they came again and again? Obviously then the guide-book was wrong, guilty of a wicked injustice.

What did he think could have happened? All he could suppose was that one of Herr Baedeker's agents, staying there incognito, had had some piece of bad fortune; some accident of the kitchen impossible to prevent, but isolated, had occurred and he had taken offence. But how unfair! No one should judge by a single lapse. So many rivals still with stars and he without!

Thus would the Golden Eagle complain, day after day, during my sojourn, always ending with the assurance that I would help him to get the star back, would I not?—I who had such influence.

And now there is to be, I suppose, a new system of guide-book astronomy. If the Golden Eagle has survived the War he may, in the eclipse of Baedeker, be more resigned to his lot: the substitute for that travelling companion may confer a star of his own. But I do not propose to stay with him in order to make sure.

A MORNING CALL

The card of invitation—for which I have to confess that, like a true social climber, I had to some extent angled—came at last, stating that my visit would be expected on the following day at noon precisely, and that evening dress was to be worn. As I did not receive it until late at night, and as some medals had to be bought and a carriage and pair hired, I was busy enough after breakfast. The medals were for distribution afterwards among certain intimates, and the carriage and pair was to convey my friend and me to the reception, because we wished to enter at the gate of honour, and if you would do this you must have two horses. A single horse, and you are deposited at the inferior door and have a long walk.

It was to one of the most famous buildings in the world that we are going—possibly the most famous—and the horses' hoofs had a brave resonance (not wholly to be dissociated from thoughts of Dumas) as they clattered swiftly over the stones, beneath archways, past sentries, and through spacious and venerable courtyards, to the foot of the famous stairway. After ascending to an ante-room, where colossal guards scrutinised us and splendid lackeys took our hat, we were shown into the reception-room, in the doorway of which an elderly gentleman in black with a black bag was talking with such animation to a major-domo that we had to interrupt them in order to pass.

In this reception-room, an apartment of some splendour, in which we were to meet our host, sufficient guests had already assembled to occupy most of the wall space—for that is how we were placed, in four lines with our backs to the walls. There were about ninety in all, I calculated, of whom many were priests and nuns and many were women, the rest youths, a few girls, and a very few civilian men. It needed only the swiftest glance to discern that my friend and I were the only ones who had complied with the regulation about evening dress. This, naturally, greatly increased our comfort, since we became at once the cynosure (as the learned would say) of every eye. In the centre of the room was a little knot of officials, including four or five soldiers, all chatting in low tones and occasionally glancing through the door opposite that by which we had entered, which gave upon a long corridor. So for some twenty minutes we waited, nervous and whispering, when suddenly the officials stiffened, the soldiers hurriedly fetched their rifles from the far corner (a proceeding not without humour when one considers all things), and the whole ninety of us sank on our knees as a little quick, dark man, dressed in white, entered the room.

To be on one's knees, in evening dress, at twenty past twelve in the day, facing a row of people, across a vast expanse of carpet, similarly kneeling, and being also a little self-conscious and hungry, is not conducive to minute observation; but I was able to notice that our host was alert and bird-like in his movements and had a searching, shrewd, and very rapid and embracive glance. Beneath his cassock one caught sight of elaborate slippers, and he wore a large and magnificent emerald ring.

As he was late he got briskly to work. Each person had to be noticed individually, but some had brought a little problem on which advice was needed; others required solace for the absent and afflicted; most, like myself, had medals of the saints which were to be made more efficacious; and three or four of the priests were accompanied by far from negligible or indigent old lady parishioners, to whom such an event as this would be the more memorable and valuable if a little conversation could be added. Hence, there was work before our host; but he performed his task with noticeable discretion. To me, whom at last he reached, he said nothing; but my friend, who is of the old persuasion, put to him the case of a dying youth and obtained sufficient assurance to be comforted. And all the while I could see the elderly gentleman in black with the black bag glancing round the walls from the doorway—his function, as I afterwards learned, being that of a doctor intent upon restoring to consciousness those (and they are numerous) who swoon under the immensity of this ceremony.

Having come to the last of his visitors, our host retired to the middle of the room and delivered a short address on the meaning of his blessing and the importance of rectitude. He then blessed us once again, collectively, and was gone, and we struggled to a vertical position, the elderly ladies finding the assistance of their attendant priests more than useful in this process.

My knees, too, were very sore; but what did I care? I had seen Pope Benedict XV.

THE TRUE WIZARD OF THE NORTH

It is no disrespect to the author of the Waverley Novels to say that the true Wizard of the North was born on a Sunday in 1805, in a cobbler's cottage at Odense, in Denmark, when Scott was thirty-four.

Hans Christian Andersen's father, a cobbler, was a thoughtful, original, and eccentric man—as cobblers have the chance to be. On the day that his little Hans was born, he sat by the bed-side and read to the child Holberg's "Comedies." It made no difference that the audience only cried. Later the father became his son's devoted slave and companion, reading to him the "Arabian Nights," constructing puppet theatres and other entertaining devices, and entrusting him with his peculiar views of the world and religion. The mother was, in the words of Mary Howitt, Hans Andersen's first English translator, "all heart"; from her perhaps came his instant readiness to feel with others, his overmastering sense of pity, his smiling tears, while from his father much of his odd humour and irony. But there was still another influence. Like a child of genius of our own race with whom Hans Andersen has not a little in common, Charles Lamb (who in 1805 was thirty), the boy was much with his grandmother, his father's mother, a distressful gentlewoman who, having come upon evil days, lived in great poverty with an insane husband, a toy-maker, and kept the home together by acting as gardener to a lunatic asylum. To little Hans, who was often with her, she would tell stories of her own youth and that of her mother, who had done an extremely Andersenian thing—had run away from a rich home to marry a comedian.

Now and then Hans would accompany her to the asylum itself. "All such patients," he has written, in "The True Story of My Life," "as were harmless were permitted to go freely about the Court; they often came to us in the garden, and with curiosity and terror I listened to them and followed them about; nay, I even ventured so far as to go with the attendants to those who were raving mad.... Close beside the place where the leaves were burned the poor old women had their spinning room. I often went in there and was very soon a favourite.... I passed for a remarkably wise child who would not live long; and they rewarded my eloquence by telling me tales in return; and thus a world as rich as that of the 'Thousand and One Nights' was revealed to me. The stories told by these old ladies, and the insane figures which I saw around me in the asylum, operated in the meantime so powerfully upon me that when it grew dark I scarcely dared to go out of the house."

Here, given a sensitive, imaginative nature, we have material enough to build up much of the genius of Hans Christian Andersen. How could he have been very different from what he was, one asks, with such companions and surroundings in the most impressionable years—an embittered whimsical father, full of the "Arabian Nights," a mother "all heart," a grandmother all romantic memory, a mad, toy-making grandfather, and these wool-gathering old ladies inventing strange histories to amuse him? And, added to all this, circumstances of poverty to drive his thoughts inwards? Poets, it would almost seem, can be both made as well as born.

But the boy had still more luck; for he struck up an acquaintance, ripening into friendship, with a man who carried out play-bills, "and he gave me one every day. With this, I seated myself in a corner and imagined an entire play, according to the name of the piece and the characters in it. This was my first, unconscious poetizing." A little later a clergyman's widow gave the boy the freedom of her library (as Samuel Salt gave his to the little Charles Lamb), and there he first read Shakespeare: "I saw Hamlet's ghost, and lived upon the hearth with Lear. The more persons died in a play, the more interesting I thought it. At this time I wrote my first piece; it was nothing less than a tragedy, wherein, as a matter of course, everybody died. The subject of it I borrowed from an old song about Pyramus and Thisbe; but I had increased the incidents through a hermit and his son, who both loved Thisbe, and who both killed themselves when she died. Many speeches of the hermit were passages from the Bible, taken out of the Little catechism, especially from our duty to our neighbours." Later the boy wrote a drama with a king and queen in it, and, feeling himself at fault as to the language of courts, produced a German-French-English-and-Danish lexicon, and took a word out of each language to lend the royal speeches an air.

Hans Andersen's father dying when the boy was still young, the mother married again, and Hans was left even more to himself. He read and wrote and recited all day, so that it became generally understood that he was to be a poet; and as nothing is so absurd to the eyes of healthy normal boys as a poet, he was the victim of not a little ridicule. His mother's wish to apprentice him to a tailor precipitated his fate. Rather than that he would go, he declared, to Copenhagen and join the theatre. To deny her son anything was beyond her power; but she was happier about it after consulting a witch and receiving from the coffee-grounds and the cards the assurance (afterwards realised) that he would become a great man, and that in honour of him Odense would one day be illuminated. And so at the age of fourteen, with thirty shillings and a bundle of clothes, Hans Christian Andersen arrived in Copenhagen to seek his fortune.

On that day his childhood was over. Some one has said that nothing that really counts ever happens to us after the teens are reached, and it is more true than not. At Copenhagen, Hans Andersen, young as he was, forsook the world of fantasy and entered the world of fact. The dancer to whom he had an introduction laughed at him; he was repulsed from the theatre. For four or five years he starved and suffered. His singing and his passion for reciting, however, gained him a few friends to set against poverty and the ridicule which his earnest enthusiasm, uncouth lanky figure, and long nose brought him almost everywhere that he went. Among them were Weyse, the composer, Sibonia, the singer, and Guldborg, the poet, through whose interests the boy was able to take lessons in singing and dancing, and even to make his theatrical début in the chorus. It was the composition of a tragedy that decided his fate and made his fortune, for it came into the hands of Jonas Collin, director of the Royal Theatre, brought him the interest of that influential man, and led to the Royal Grant which sent the young author to the Latin School at Skagelse for a period of three years.

In 1829 he published his first characteristic work, the "Journey on Foot from Holm Canal to the East Point of Armager," a very youthful tissue of grotesque humour and impudence. A desultory year or two followed, when he wrote much and came in for a quite undue share of attack, which his sensitive nature began to construe as a death-warrant; and then, in 1833, again through Collin, a travelling grant of £70 a year for two years was obtained for him from Frederick VI, and he set off for Paris. With that journey his true career began, the success of which was never to be chequered save by occasional fits of depression following upon hostile criticism. From Paris he went to Rome, where he met Thorwaldsen and wrote his first and best known novel, "The Improvisatore," an intense and fanciful story of Rome and the stage, marked by much tender charm, and, like the writer's mother, "all heart," in which an autobiographical thread is woven. The novel had an immediate success, and Hans Andersen suddenly found himself one of the leading Danish authors.

But not yet was his real work begun. His real work was the telling of fairy tales—or "Eventyr og Historier," as he called them—the first of which were published in a slender volume in 1835, a little after "The Improvisatore," under the title "Fairy Tales as Told to Children." Since in this book were "The Tinder Box," "Little Claus and Big Claus," "The Princess and the Pea," and "Little Ida's Flowers," it will be seen that Hans Andersen entered the arena fully armed. Next year came the second part, containing "Thumbelina," "The Travelling Companion," and "The Naughty Boy," and in 1837 a third part, with "The Little Mermaid" and "The Emperor's New Clothes." Hans Andersen himself, whose constant ambition (again like Lamb) was to write successfully for the stage, thought but little of these stories, which presented no difficulties to his pen. He preferred (authors often being their own worst judges) his novels, his poems, his travels; above all, he preferred his dramatic efforts; and yet it is by these tales that he lives and will ever live.

Hans Andersen now began to travel regularly every year and to write little personal memoirs of his adventures in a manner which in England to-day we associate with "Eöthen" and "An Inland Voyage." Wherever he went he made friends, and he was always willing—more, eager—to read his stories aloud: even in Germany, where, owing to his defective knowledge of the language, his audiences had difficulty in maintaining the cast of feature demanded by this most exacting of literary lions. In 1847 he was in London, much fêted, the way having been paved by Mary Howitt's translation of his autobiography and of "The Improvisatore," and in 1857 he was here again, spending five weeks at Gad's Hill with Dickens (by seven years his junior), whom he revered and almost worshipped. Hans Andersen's Anglo-Saxon readers have always been very numerous and very appreciative, and in return he praised England and wrote "The Two Baronesses" in our tongue. Only a few months before his death he was gratified to receive a gift of books from the children of America.

His latter years were full of honour and comfort. He had many wealthy friends, including the Danish Royal Family, a substantial pension, and a considerable revenue from his work. In the summer he lived with the Melchiors at Rolighet; in winter in rooms in Copenhagen, dining with a different friend regularly each night of the week. His health was better than he liked to think it, and he was able almost to the end to indulge his passion for travel. He went often to the theatre, or, if unable to do so, had the play bill brought to his rooms, where, knowing every classic play by heart, he would follow its course in imagination, assisted by occasional visits from the performers. He never married, and, when once an early and not very serious attachment was forgotten, never seemed to wish it; but he liked to be liked by women. Indeed, he was normal enough to like to be liked by every one, and most of the unhappiness of which he was capable—even to a kind of self-torture—proceeded from the suspicion that he was unwelcome here and there. For in spite of his hard experience of the world, he continued a child to the end; a spoilt child, indeed, more than not, as men of genius often can be.

He lived to be seventy, and died peacefully on August 4, 1875. "Take care, above all things," he had once said when humorously discussing his funeral, "that you drill a little hole in my coffin, so that I may have a peep at all the pomp and ceremony, and see which of my good friends follow me to the grave and which do not." They were there, every one. He was followed to the grave by all Denmark.

It is, as I have said, by his fairy tales that Hans Andersen lives and will ever live. There he stands alone, supreme. As a whole, there is nothing like them. One man of genius or another has now and then done something a little in this or that Hans Andersen manner. Heine here and there in the "Reisebilder"; Lamb in "The Child Angel" and perhaps "Dream Children"; and one sees affinities to him occasionally in Sir James Barrie's work (the swallows in "The Little White Bird," for example, build under the eaves to hear the stories which are told to the children in the house, while in Hans Andersen's "Thumbelina" the swallows live under the poet's eaves in order to tell stories to him); but Hans Andersen remains one of the most unique and fascinating minds in all literature. Nominally just entertainment for children, these "Eventyr og Historier" are a profound study of the human heart and a "criticism of life" beyond most poetry. And all the while they are stories for children too; for though Hans Andersen addresses both audiences, he never, save in a very few of the slighter satirical apologues, such as "The Collar" and "Soup from a Sausage Skewer," loses the younger. He had this double appeal in mind when, on a statue being raised in his honour at Copenhagen just before his death, showing him in the act of telling a tale to a cluster of children, he protested that it was not representative enough.

I would apply to Hans Andersen rather than to Scott the term "The Wizard of the North"; because whereas Scott took men and women as he found them, the other, with a touch of his wand, rendered inhuman things—furniture, toys, flowers, poultry—instinct with humanity. He knew actually how everything would behave; he knew how a piece of coal talked, and how a nightingale. He did not merely give speech to a pair of scissors, he gave character too. This was one of his greatest triumphs. He discerned instantly the relative social positions of moles and mice, bulls and cocks, tin soldiers and china shepherdesses. He peopled a new world, and, having done so, he made every incident in it dramatic and unforgettable. He brought to his task of amusing and awakening children gifts of humour and irony, fancy and charm, the delicacy of which will probably never be surpassed. He brought also an April blend of tears and smiles, and a very tender sympathy with all that is beautiful and all that is oppressed. He did not preach, or, if he did, he so quickly rectified the lapse with a laugh or a quip that one forgets the indiscretion; but he believed that only the good are happy, and he wanted happiness to be universal. Hence to read his tales is an education in optimism and benevolence.

INNOCENCE AND IMPULSE

Looking the other day into Grimm, I came upon the story called "Hans in Luck," in which a foolish fellow, having his life's savings in a bag, gives them away for an old horse, and the old horse for a cow, and the cow for a pig, and so on, until at last he has only a heavy stone to his name, and, getting rid of that burden, thinks himself the most fortunate of men—Hans in luck. It was the very ordinary metal of this folk-tale which Hans Andersen transmuted to fine gold in the famous story entitled, in the translation on which I was brought up, "What the old man does is always right," which is a veritable epic in little of simplicity and enthusiasm. No one who has read it can forget it, for its exquisite author is there at his kindliest and sunniest, all his sardonic melancholy forgotten.

The old man, in bitter financial straits, setting out in the morning to sell his cow at market, makes, in his incorrigible optimism, a series of exchanges, all for the worse, so that when he reaches home in the evening, instead of a pocketful of money to show for his day's dealings, he has only a sack of rotten apples. Nothing, however, has dimmed his radiant faith in himself as a good trafficker, and nothing can undermine his wife's belief in him as the best and financially most sagacious of husbands: a belief which, expressed in the presence of two gentlemen who, having had a wager on her unshakeable loyalty, had come to the house to settle it, led to the old couple's enrichment and assured prosperity.

It was this charming story which came to my mind in the train the other day as I looked at the young sandy-haired and freckled soldier opposite me on the journey to Portsmouth, for here was another example of impulsive simplicity. On the back of his right hand was tattooed a very red heart, emitting effulgence, across which two hands were clasped, and beneath were the words "True Love"; and on the back of his left hand was tattooed the head of a girl. He was perhaps twenty. Should there be no more wars to trouble the world, I thought, as from time to time I glanced at him, he will probably live to be seventy. Since tattoo marks never come out and the backs of one's hands are usually visible to oneself, he is likely to have some curious thoughts as he passes down the years. What kind of emotions, I wondered, will be his as he views them at thirty-one, forty-one, fifty-one? And supposing that this first love fails, what will be the attitude of subsequent ladies to these embellishments? For it would probably be in vain, even if he were sophisticated enough to think of it, for him to maintain that the decoration was purely symbolic, the right-hand device standing for devotion and the left for woman in the abstract. That would hardly wash. Subsequent ladies—and judging from his appearance and his early start there are sure to be some—may give him rather a difficult time.

It all goes to prove what a dangerous thing impulse can be. And yet as I looked at his simple face, and reflected on what safe areas of normally-hidden epidermis he possessed for such pictorial ebullition, I found myself envying such a lack of self-protectiveness; and I asked myself if, after all, those who will have nothing to do with self-protectiveness are not the salt of the earth. The gamblers, the careless, the sippers of all the honey the moment contains: are not these the best?

Most young ardencies are not as reckless as his—and, of course, it may all end happily: what the young man did may turn out also to be right. With all my heart I hope so.

LAURA RISES FOR THE DAY.
See "The Innocent's Progress"—Plate 1

POSSESSIONS

Some one has offered me a very remarkable and beautiful and valuable gift—and I don't know what to do. A few years ago I should have accepted it with rapture. To-day I hesitate, because the older one grows the less does one wish to accumulate possessions.

It is said that the reason why Jews so often become fishmongers and fruiterers and dealers in precious stones is because in every child of Israel there is a subconscious conviction that at any moment he may be called upon to return to his country, and naturally wishing to lose as little as possible by a sudden departure he chooses to traffic either in a stock which he can carry on his person, such as diamonds, or in one which, being perishable and renewable day by day, such as fruit and fish, can be abandoned at any moment with almost no loss at all. Similarly the Jews are said to favour such household things as can be easily removed: rugs, for example, rather than carpets. I have not, so far as I know, any Jewish blood, but in the few years that are left me I too want to be ready to obey the impulse towards whatever Jerusalem I hear calling me, even should it be the platonically-loved city itself, although that is unlikely. Without possessions one would be the readier also for the longer last journey. Naked we come into this world and naked we should go. Nor should we wilfully add to the difficulties of leaving it.

I was lately led by its owner, rebuilder, and renovator through the rooms and gardens of a Tudor house which, with infinite thought and discretion, has been reclaimed from decay and made modernly debonair. At every step, indoors and out, was something charming or adequate, whether furniture or porcelain, whether flower or shrub. Within were long cool passages where through the diamond panes sunlight splashed on the white walls, and bedrooms of the gayest daintiness; without were lawns, and vistas, and arrangements of the loveliest colours. "Well," my hostess asked me, "what do you think of it all?" I thought many things, but the one which was uppermost was this: "You are making it very hard to die."

I had a grandfather who, after he had reached a certain age, used birthdays as occasions on which to give away rather than receive presents; and I am sure he was right. But I would go beyond that. The presents which he distributed were bought for the purpose. I would fix a period in life when the wise man should begin to unload his acquisitions—accumulating only up to that point and then dispersing among the young. Ah! but you say, why be so illogical? If possessions are undesirable, are they not undesirable also for the young? Well, there are answers to that. For one thing, who said anything about being logical? And then, are we not all different? Because I choose to cease accumulating, that is no reason why others, who like to increase their possessions, should cease also. And again, even I, with all my talk of renunciation, have not suggested that it should begin till a middling period has been reached; and I am all for circulating objets d'art, too. I should like a continual progression of pictures and other beautiful things throughout the kingdom, so that the great towns could have the chance of seeing the best as well as London.

So far am I from withholding possessions from others, that as I walked down Bond Street the other day and paused at this window and that, filled with exquisite jewels and enamelled boxes and other voluptuous trifles, I thought how delightful it would be to be rich enough to buy them all—not to own them, but to give them away. To women for choice; to one woman for choice. And a letter which I remember receiving from France during the War had some bearing upon this aspect of the case, for it mentioned a variety of possessions which carried with them, in the trenches, extraordinary and constant pleasure and consolation. The writer was a lady who worked at a canteen in the big Paris terminus for the front, and she said that the soldiers returning from their leave often displayed to her the mascots and other treasures which comforted them in their vigils, and with which they were always well supplied. Sometimes these possessions were living creatures. One soldier had produced from a basket a small fox which he had found and brought up, and which this lady fed with bread and milk while its owner ate his soup. Another had a starling. A third took out of his pocket a venerable handkerchief, which, on being unrolled, revealed the person of Marguerite—a magpie whom he adored, and who apparently adored him. They were inseparable. Marguerite had accompanied him into action and while he was on permission, and she was now cheering him on his return to the danger zone. She was placed on the table, where she immediately fell asleep; at the end of the meal the poor fellow rolled her again in the handkerchief, popped her in his pocket, and ran for his tragic train. But for the companionship of Marguerite his heart would have been far heavier; and she was thus a possession worth having.

DRAKE AND HIS GAME

The British Navy did not begin with Drake. On consulting the authorities I find that the Navy proper, as an organization, may be said to have begun in the reign of King John, and to have been put on its modern basis by Henry VII. But Drake's is the first name to conjure with.

Any one wishing to lay a tangible tribute at the feet of Britain's earliest naval hero of world-wide fame would have to visit either the monument which was erected to him—not certainly in any indecent haste—at Tavistock, in 1883, when he had been dead for nearly two hundred and ninety years, or the replica of it, which was set up on Plymouth Hoe in the year following. To go to the Hoe is, I think, better; for at the Hoe you can look out on Drake's own sea.

London has no Drake monuments. But had a certain imaginative enthusiast had his way in the year 1581 a memorial of the great seaman, more interesting and stimulating than any statue, would have added excitement to Ludgate Hill and to every Londoner passing that way, for it was seriously proposed that the Golden Hind, the vessel in which Drake sailed round the world, and the first English ship to make such a voyage, should be bodily lifted to the top of St. Paul's (which had a spire in those days) and permanently fixed there. Even had the project been carried out we personally should be none the richer, for the Fire of London was to intervene; but it was a fine idea. I wish something of the kind might still be done; for if such a fascinating little model galleon as the weathercock on Lord Astor's beautiful Embankment house by the Essex Street steps can rejoice the eyes as it does, how would not a real one, high over Ludgate Hill, quicken the mind and the pulse?

And we ought in London to think far more of ships than we do. By ships we live, whether merchant ships bringing us food, or ironclads preserving those ships; and not only should the docks be known to Londoners, instead of being, as now, foreign parts infinitely more remote than, say, Brighton, but the Navy should visit us too. The old Britannia ought to have been brought to the Thames when she was superannuated. "There," the guides should have been able to say, "was the training college of our admirals. There, in that hulk, Beatty learned to navigate, Sturdee to tie knots, and Jellicoe to signal!" The Victory should be brought to London, as a constant and glorious reminder of what Nelson did, before steam came in. She is wasted at Portsmouth, which is all shipping. In London, either in the Thames or on the top of St. Paul's, she would have noble results, and every errand-boy would become a stowaway, as every errand-boy should.

A second proposal, to preserve the Golden Hind as a ship for ever, also fell through, and she was either allowed to decay or was broken up (as the Britannia has been); but whereas the relics from the Britannia are many, the only authentic memorial of the Golden Hind is an arm-chair fashioned from her wood which is a valued possession of the Bodleian. Why the Bodleian, I cannot explain, for Drake was neither an Oxford graduate nor a scholar. His University was the sea.

That he was a Devonian, we know, but not much else is known. The years 1539, 1540, 1541, and 1545 all claim his birth, and the historians are at conflict as to whether his father was a parson or not. Some say that, having, owing to religious persecution, to flee to Kent, the elder Drake inhabited a hulk (like Rudder Grange), and, in the intervals of reading prayers to the sailors in the Medway, brought up his twelve sons to the sea. But that matters little; what matters is that one of his sons became a master mariner, a buccaneer, a circumnavigator, a knight, an admiral, and in 1588 destroyed (under God) the Spanish Armada. This successful and intrepid commander was a man "of small size, with reddish beard," who treated his companions with affection, as they him with respect, and got the last drop of energy and devotion out of all. He had "every possible luxury, even to perfume," but remained hard as nails. His death came to pass off Porto Rico, whither he had been sent by Queen Elizabeth to bring back another haul of treasure from the West Indies. Hitherto he had succeeded, returning always with more spoil, but this time he succumbed to various disorders.

The waves became his winding sheet, the waters were his tomb;
But for his fame the ocean sea is not sufficient room.

Even in the six-and-thirty years that Drake has stood, in bronze, on the Hoe, he has seen wonderful changes; but had his statue been there ever since his death—as it should have been—what amazing naval developments would have passed beneath his eyes: wood to iron, canvas to paddle-wheel, paddle-wheel to screw, coal to oil, and then the submarine!

Turning from the Hoe with the intention of descending to the town by one of the paths through the lawns at the back of the great sailor's statue, what should confront me but the most perfect bowling-green I have ever seen, with little sets of phlegmatic Devonians absorbed in their contests. Here, thought I, is, beyond praise, devotion to tradition. Of national games we have all heard, but there is something, in a way, even finer in a municipal game—and such a municipal game, the most famous of all. For years I have never heard Plymouth Hoe mentioned without thinking of Drake and the game of bowls in which he was playing, and which he refused to interrupt, when, that July afternoon, in 1588, news came that the Spaniards were off the Lizard. ("Plenty of time," he said, "to finish the game and beat the Spaniards too.") But it had never occurred to me that bowls and the Hoe were still associated. England has commonly a shorter memory than that. And, indeed, why should they be associated? There is, for example, no archery at Tell's Chapel on the shore of the Lake of Lucerne, no wood-chopping at Mount Vernon. But Devon, with excellent piety, remembers and honours its own prophet; and I now understand how it is that the Plymouth Museum should be destitute of relics of Drake. Why trouble about his personal trappings when this pleasant sward is in existence, to connect the eye instantly with the mighty admiral at one of the most engaging moments of his life?

I stood by the railings of the green for two hours watching the latter-day Plymouth champions at their play. Only the descent of the sun and the encroaching gloom drove me away, and even then a few enthusiasts remained bowling and bowling; for every one who is devoted to bowls knows that the twilight favours form, although it does not favour the spectators. The players seemed to me to be chiefly of the mercantile class, and I wondered if among them were any of the bearers of the odd names which I had noticed above the Plymouth shops as I was drifting about its streets that morning. Were any of the great Devon tribe of Yeo there? Was Mr. Condy U'Ren winning or losing? What kind of a "wood" did Mr. Odam project towards the "jack"? Could the admirable elderly player who always lifted his right foot and held it poised in the air while delivering the bowl be Mr. Jethro Ham? I judged the players to be, in many cases, old antagonists, and these games on this sunny October afternoon merely items in a series of battles spread over years past, and to continue, I hope, for years to come; for the pastime of bowls, unlike cricket and baseball and lawn tennis, has a kindly, welcoming smile for old age. The late Sir William Osler's rule as to forty being the culmination of man's power becomes an absurdity on the green. There, seventy is nothing. At eighty you are not necessarily to be sneezed at. Even nonagenarians, I believe, have earned the thrill contained in the phrase "Good wood!" So then I confidently expect, if I am alive, and am on Plymouth Hoe in twenty years' time, when prosperity will again be established, with amity among the nations, to find many of the same players at this at once the gentlest, but not the least exciting, of games—to me, at any rate, more exciting than horse-racing with all its speed.

They played exceedingly well, these men of Plymouth, one veteran in particular exacting a deadly amount of work out of the last four feet of the bowls' stealthy journey. And how serious they were—with their india-rubber over-shoes, and a mat to start from! I doubt if Sir Francis had it all so spick-and-span—for in his day we were very nearly as far from lawn mowers as from turbines. And how intent they were on the progress not only of their own bowls but of their opponents' too—but of course with a more personal, more intimate, interest in their own, even to following its curve with their back-bones, and to some extent spinally reproducing it, as conscientious players involuntarily do.

ADMIRALS ALL—TO BE

It is fitting that the naval training college from which the English midshipmen go straight to sea should be situated in Drake's county. This means that they breathe the right air, and, through the gap made by the rocky mouth of the Dart, look out from their commanding eminence upon a triangle of the right blue water. Drake also gives his noble name to one of the Terms (or companies of cadets).

I have seen Dartmouth both at work and at play, and am still not sure which was which. Whether the boys were at football on those high table-lands where, at the first glimpse—so many players are there—all the games seem one; or cleaning boilers; or solving the problems of knots; or winding accumulators; or learning to steer; or drawing machinery sections; or poring over charts; or assembling an engine; or sailing their cutters in the Dart; or listening to signal instructors in the gun-rooms; or acquiring the principles of navigation; or collecting the constituents of a variegated tea in the canteen; or singing "God Save the King" in chapel (all three verses); or grappling with logarithms; or swimming vociferously in the bath—whatever they are doing, there seems to be at the back of it the same spirit and zeal. Even the four or five offenders whom I saw expiating in punishment drill their most recent misdeeds appeared to have a zest.

Literature and the Navy have always had their liaison; and after studying two or three typical numbers of The Britannia Magazine, the organ of the cadets, I see every chance of a new crop of Captain Marryats and Basil Hoods; while there is promise of an excellent caricaturist or so, too. Compared with the ordinary run of school periodicals, this is rather striking. I fancy that I discern a fresher and more independent outlook and a rather wider range of interest. The natural history articles, for example, are unusually good, and some of the experiences of war, by midshipmen, are vivid and well done; and amid the fun and nonsense, of which there is a plentiful infusion, there is often a sagacious irony. Among this fun I find, in prose, an account of the Battle of St. Vincent, by a young disciple of George Ade, which would not disgrace a seriously comic periodical and must be quoted. Nelson, I should premise, has just defeated the Spaniards. Then—

"Say, stranger," asked H. N., as the dons mushed around with their surrenders, "is this a business proposition or a sad-faced competition at a dime show?"

"Gee-whizz!" said the Spanish Ad., "we reckon we're bored some. My name is Muckheap, and I don't seem to get gay any old way."

"Bully for you, old Corpse-face," Nels replied; "hand out your ham-carvers and then run around and fix yourself an eye-wizzler!"

And so they passed in real swift.

And did the British Fleet push in the glad cry right away when Nels put in his entrance? Why, sure!

As for the verse, which is both grave and humorous, nothing gives me more pleasure and satisfaction than the rapid but exhaustive summary of England's blockading efforts at sea in the Great War, which begins thus:

Observe how doth the British Navy
Baulk the Bavarian of his gravy;
While the fat Boche from Köln to Munich
Cannot expand to fill his tunic....

The British Navy, we know, "does not advertise"; but there is no harm in its nestlings saying a good word for it now and then.

Of all the things that I saw at Dartmouth, I shall retain, I think, longest—against that comely smiling background of gay towers and brickwork on the hill—the memory of the gymnasium and the swimming bath. Compared with Dartmouth's physical training, with its originality, ingenuity, thoroughness, and keenness, all other varieties become unintelligent and savourless. This is fitness with fun—and is there a better mixture? As for the swimming bath, it is always the abode of high spirits, but to see it at its best you must go there directly after morning service on Sunday. It is then that the boys really become porpoises—or, rather, it is then that you really understand why porpoises are always referred to as moving in "schools." I know nothing of the doctrine that is preached normally at the College, for I heard only a sermon by a visiting dignitary of notable earnestness and eloquence, but I assume it to be beyond question. If, however, a heresy should ever be propounded no harm would be done; for the waters of the swimming bath would instantly wash it away. As one of the officers remarked to me (of course in confidence), he always looked upon this after-service riot of splashing and plunging as an instinctive corrective of theological excess. On these occasions the bath becomes a very cauldron, bubbling with boy.

It was cheering indeed, as I roamed about this great competent establishment, to be conscious of such an undercurrent of content and joie de vivre. At Dartmouth in particular is this a matter for satisfaction, since the College is likely to be, for the boys, a last link with the land—with solid England, the England of fields and trees and games and friends—for many years. Of all boys who deserve a jolly boyhood, these naval cadets, I think, come first; for the sea is a hard mistress and they are plighted to her. Once they embark as midshipmen responsibility is upon them; none of our sons need to grow up more quickly. As to the glamour of the sea, one of the cadet poets becomes lyrical about it—"I hear," he sings:

I hear the sea a-calling,
Calling me;
Calling of its charms,
Of its tempests and its calms;
I've lived upon the mainland,
But I'll die upon the sea!

May the fulfilment of his wish be long deferred! But, beneath the glamour, the fact remains that, for all her pearls, the sea demands everything that her sailors can give, often in every kind of danger, discomfort, and dismay; and the division between herself and the mainland is immense and profound. Let us rejoice then that the mainland life of these boys dedicated to her service should be so blithe.

A STUDY IN SYMMETRY

Apropos of admirals, let me tell you the following story which, however improbable it may seem to you, is true.

Once upon a time there was an artist with historical leanings not unassociated with the desire for pelf—pelf being, even to idealists, what gasoline is to a car. The blend brought him one day to Portsmouth, where the Victory lies, with the honourable purpose of painting a picture of that famous ship with Nelson on board. The Admiral was of course dying, and the meritorious intention of the artist, whose wife wanted some new curtains, was to make the work as attractive as might be and thus extract a little profit from the wave of naval enthusiasm which was then passing over the country; for not only was the picture itself to be saleable, but reproductions were to be made of it.

Permission having been obtained from the authorities, the artist boarded the Victory, set up his easel on her deck, and settled down to his task, the monotony of which was pleasantly alleviated by the chatter of the old salts who guard the ship and act as guides to the tourists visiting her. Since all these estimable men not only possessed views on art, but had come by now to the firm belief that they had personally fought with Nelson and witnessed his end, their criticisms were not too easily combated: so that the artist had not a tedious moment. Thus, painting, conversing, and learning (as one can learn only from a trained imparter of information), three or four days passed quickly away and the picture was done.

So far there has been nothing to strain credulity. But a time will come—is, in fact, upon us.

On the evening of the last day, as the artist was sitting at early dinner with a friend before catching the London train, his remarks turned (as an artist's sometimes will) upon the work upon which he had just been engaged. He expressed satisfaction with it in the main, but could not, he said, help feeling that its chances of becoming a real success would be sensibly increased if he could find as a model for the central figure some one whose resemblance to Nelson was noticeable.

"It seems to be a law of nature," he went on, "that there cannot exist at the same time—that is to say, among contemporaries—two faces exactly alike. That is an axiom. Strange as it may sound, among all the millions of countenances with two eyes, a nose in the middle and a mouth below it, no two precisely resemble each other. There are differences, however slight." (He was now beginning really to enjoy the sound of his own voice.) "That is, as I say, among contemporaries: in the world at the moment in which I am speaking. But," he continued, "I see no reason why after the lapse of years Nature should not begin precisely to reproduce physiognomies and so save herself the trouble of for ever varying them. That being so, and surely the hypothesis is not too far-fetched"—Here his friend said, "No, not at all—oh no!"—"that being so, why," the artist continued, "should there not be at this moment, more than a century later, some one whose resemblance to Nelson is exact? He would not be necessarily a naval man—probably, indeed, not, for Nelson's face was not characteristic of the sea—but whoever he was, even if he were an archbishop, I," said the painter firmly, "should not hesitate to go up to him and ask him to sit to me."

The friend agreed that this was a very proper attitude and that it betokened true sincerity of purpose.

"Nelson's face," the painter continued, "was an uncommon one. So large and so mobile a mouth is rare. But it is by no means impossible that a duplicate exists, and no matter who was the owner of it, even were he an archbishop, I should not hesitate to go up and ask him to sit to me."

(For the benefit of any feminine reader of this veracious history, I should say that the repetition which she has just noticed is not a slip on my part but has been carefully set down. It is an attempt to give verisimilitude to the conversation—because men have a habit of saying things like that twice.)

The friend again remarked that the painter's resolve did him infinite credit, and the two started for the station, still conversing on this theme.

On entering their carriage the first thing to take their attention was a quiet little man in black, who was the absolute double of the hero of Trafalgar.

"Good gracious!" whispered the painter excitedly, "do you see that? There's the very man. The likeness to Nelson is astonishing. I never saw anything like it. I don't care who he is, I must tackle him. It's the most extraordinary chance that ever occurred."

Assuming his most silky and deferential manner—for, though clearly not an archbishop, unless in mufti, this might yet be a person of importance—the painter approached the stranger and tendered a card.

"I trust, sir, that you will excuse me," he began, "for the liberty I am taking, but I am an artist and I happen to be engaged on a picture of Nelson on the Victory. I have all the accessories and so forth, but what I very seriously need is a brief sitting from some gentleman with a likeness to the great Admiral. Such, sir, as yourself. It may be news to you—it probably is—but you, sir, if I may say so, are so like the famous and immortal warrior as almost to take one's breath away. It is astonishing, wonderful! Might I—would it be—could you—would you, sir, be so very kind as to allow me to paint you? I would, of course, make every effort not to inconvenience you—I would arrange so that your time should be mine."

"Of course I will, guvnor," said the man. "Being a professional model, I've been sitting for Nelson for years. Why, I've been doing it for an artist this very afternoon."

DAVY JONES

A naval gentleman of importance having asked me who the original Davy Jones was, I was rendered mute and ashamed. The shame ought properly to have been his, since he is in the Admiralty, where the secrets of the sea should be known, and is covered with buttons and gold braid; but there is caprice in these matters, and it is I (as a defaulting literary person) who felt it.

I left with bent head, determined, directly I reached London and books were again accessible, to find the answer. But have I found it? You shall decide.

I began with a "Glossary of Sea Terms," which is glib enough about the meaning of Davy Jones's locker but silent as to derivation. I passed on to "The Oxford Dictionary," there to find the meaning more precisely stated, after directions how to pronounce Davy's name. You or I would assume that he should be pronounced as he is spelt: just Davy; but the late Dr. Murray knew better. You don't say Davy; you say Dē.vi. Having invented and solved these difficulties, the Dictionary proceeds: "Nautical slang. The spirit of the sea, the sailor's devil. Davy Jones's locker: the ocean, the deep, especially as the grave of those who perish at sea." Among the authors cited is Smollett in "Peregrine Pickle," and also one J. Willock, to whom I shall return later.

Still on the search for an origin of Davy Jones I went next to "The Dictionary of National Biography" (which, if only you could get it ashore, is, no matter what the pundits say as to the Bible and Boswell and Plato and "The Golden Treasury," and so forth, the best book for a desert island), and there I found no fewer than eight David Joneses, all of course Welsh, not one of whom, however, could possibly claim any connexion with our hero; three being hymn-writers and antiquaries, one a revivalist, one a soldier and translator, one a barrister, one a missionary to Madagascar (the only one who knew anything of the sea), and one a mad preacher whose troubles caused his "coal-black hair to turn milk-white in a night"—as mine seemed likely soon to do. However, I then bethought me of what I should have done first, and seeking the shelves where "Notes and Queries" reside was at once rewarded. For "Notes and Queries" had tackled the problem and done with it as long ago as 1851. On June 14 of that year Mr. Henry Campkin requested the little paper (which, since Captain Cuttle provided it with its excellent motto, should have a certain friendliness towards nautical questions) to help him. Mr. Campkin, however, did not, as my Admiralty friend did, say, "By the way, who the devil was Davy Jones?" He asked, as a gentleman should, in gentlemanly, if precise, terms: "Who was the important individual whose name has become so powerful a myth? And what occasioned the identification of the ocean itself with the locker of this mysterious person?"

Mr. Campkin, who obviously should have occupied a seat in the House of Commons, was answered in record time, much quicker than would be his fortune to-day; for on June 21 Mr. Pemberton, the only reader of "Notes and Queries" ever to take up the challenge, made his reply, and with that reply our knowledge begins and ends. Mr. Pemberton said that being himself a seafarer and having given much consideration to the question, he had come at length to the conclusion that the name of Davy Jones was derived from the prophet Jonah (who, of course, was not Welsh at all but an Israelite). Jonah, if not exactly a sailor, had had his marine adventures, and in his prayer thus refers to them: "The waters compassed me about ... the depth closed me round about; the weeds were wrapped about my head," and so forth. The sea, then, Mr. Pemberton continued, "might not be misappropriately termed by a rude mariner Jonah's locker"; while Jonah would naturally soon be familiarised into Jones, and since all Joneses hail from the country from whose valleys and mountains Mr. Lloyd George derives his moving perorations, and since most Welshmen (Mr. Lloyd George being no exception) are named Davy, how natural that "Davy Jones" should emerge! That was Mr. Pemberton's theory, and the only one which I have discovered; but I am sure that Mrs. Gamp would support him—although she might prefer to substitute for the word "locker" the word which comic military poets always rhyme to "réveillé."

But, indeed, the more one thinks of it, the more reasonable does the story seem; for, as Mr. Pemberton might have gone on to say, there is further evidence for linking up Jonah and Jones in the genus of fish which swallowed the prophet but failed to retain him. To a dialectician of any parts the fatal association of whales and Wales would be child's play. Later I found that Dr. Brewer of "The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" supports the Jonah theory whole-heartedly; but he goes on—to my mind very unnecessarily—to derive "Davy" from "duffy," a West Indian spirit. Thus, says he, Davy Jones's locker is really Duffy Jonah's locker—that is, the bottom of the sea, or the place where the sailors intended to consign Jonah. The confusion is rather comic. First, a man of God whom the crew throws overboard. Secondly a fish, divinely sent to save the man of God. Thirdly, the use of the man of God's name to signify the sailor's devil, with himself as sinister ruler of an element which he had the best reasons for hating. Thus do myths grow.

So much for Davy Jones. J. Willock, however, another of the authorities whom "The Oxford Dictionary" cites, plunges us into a further mystery. In one of his Voyages he says: "The great bugbear of the ocean is Davie Jones. At the crossing of the line they call out that Davie Jones and his wife are coming on board...."

"And his wife"!

But with the identity of Mrs. Davy Jones I refuse to concern myself—not even though the whole Board of Admiralty command it.

THE MAN OF ROSS

I have several reasons for remembering Ross, but the first is that a visit to that grey hillside town sent me to the authorities for more particulars concerning John Kyrle. Others are the intensity and density of the rain that can fall in Herefordshire; the sundial on Wilton Bridge; and the most elementary Roman Catholic chapel I ever saw—nothing but a bare room—made, however, when I pushed open the door on that chill and aqueous afternoon, cheerful and smiling by its full complement of votive candles all alight at once. In the honour of what Saint they burned so gaily, like a little mass meeting of flames, I cannot say, but probably the Gentle Spirit of Padua, who not only befriends all tender young things but, it is notorious, if properly approached, can find again whatever you have lost; and most people have lost something. I remember Ross also because I had Dickens's Letters (that generous feast) with me, and behold! on the wall of the hotel, whose name I forget but which overlooks the sinuous Wye, was his autograph and an intimation that under that very roof the novelist had arranged with John Forster the details of his last American tour.

But these are digressions. The prime boast of Ross is that it had a Man; and this Man is immanent. You cannot raise your eyes in Ross without encountering a reminder of its Manhood, its Manliness; and the uninstructed, as they wander hither and thither, naturally become more and more curious as to his identity: how he obtained the definite article and the capital M so definitely—The Man—and what was his association with the place.

I cannot lay claim personally to total uninstruction. I remembered faintly Pope's lines which made the fame of the Man, but I retained only a general impression of them as praising a public benefactor who did astonishing things on a very small income and thus was to put to shame certain men of wealth in Pope's day who did for their fellow creatures nothing at all. But nowhere could I find the lines. The guide-books refer to them lightly as though they were in every consciousness, and pass on. No shop had a copy of Pope; none of the picture post-cards quoted them; they were not on the monument in the church; they were nowhere in the hotel. And this is odd, because it was probably not until the illustrious London poet had set the seal of his approval on their late townsman and benefactor that the people of Ross realised not only how very remarkable had he been, but also that to be associated with such a personage might mean both distinction and profit. For the phrase "The Man of Ross" is now everywhere: he who once fathered orphans and the unfortunate now spreads his cloak over tea-shops, inns, and countless commercial ventures.

Here, however, is the passage, from the third Moral Epistle. P. the poet, it will be recalled, is moralising on riches, in metrical conversation with B.—Lord Bathurst:—

P. Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross:
Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns tost,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost,
But clear and artless, pouring through the plain
Health to the sick and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
"The Man of Ross," each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread;
He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state,
Where Age and Want sit smiling at the gate;
Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans, blessed
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
Is any sick? The Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the med'cine makes and gives.
Is there a variance? enter but his door,
Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.
Despairing Quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now an useless race.

B. Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!
Oh say, what sums that generous hand supply?
What mines, to swell that boundless charity?

P. Of Debts and Taxes, Wife and Children clear,
This man possest—five hundred pounds a year.
Blush, Grandeur, blush! proud Courts, withdraw your blaze!
Ye, little Stars! hide your diminished rays.

B. And what? no monument, inscription, stone?
His race, his form, his name almost unknown?

P. Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name:
Go, search it there,[1] where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor makes all the history;
Enough, that Virtue filled the space between;
Prov'd, by the ends of being, to have been.

If the impression conveyed by those lines is that the Man of Ross was more of a saint than a Herefordshire squire, the fault is the poet's and in part his medium's. The Augustan couplet tended to a heightening, dehumanising effect. As a matter of fact, John Kyrle would seem to have soared not at all: the plainest and most direct of men, he took to altruism and municipal improvements very much as his neighbours took to agriculture or cock-fighting. It was his amusement or hobby to make Ross a more livable-in place.

But before the poem is examined more closely, let me give the outline of John Kyrle's life. His father was Walter Kyrle of Ross, a barrister and J.P., and M.P. for Leominster in the Long Parliament. John was born on May 22nd, 1637, and educated at Ross Grammar School and Balliol College. He then passed on to the Middle Temple, but on succeeding to his father's property, worth about £600 a year, he settled down at Ross and commenced philanthropy, and never relaxed his efforts until his death many years later. He lived in the house opposite the very charming Market-hall, unmarried, and cared for by a relation named Miss Judith Bubb. He sat commonly in a huge and very solid chair, established on its stout legs like a rock, which I saw not long since in the window of Mr. Simmonds' old curiosity shop in Monmouth, where it serves as a show and a lure. According to a portrait of the Man of Ross which exists, made surreptitiously (for he would have none of your limners) as he sat at worship, he was tall, broad-shouldered, of sanguine complexion, with a big nose. He wore a brown suit and a short bushy wig, and he had a loud voice. He visited a dame's school once a week, and on hearing of any delinquency would reprimand the infant in these words: "Od's bud, Od's bud, but I will mend you!" A burly man with a red face, big nose, and loud voice speaking thus might, to the young, be a too terrifying object, but we must guess that John Kyrle tempered the wind. "The Dictionary of National Biography" says that although tradition gives Kyrle credit for releasing poor debtors and starting them on new careers, and that although for so long, as Pope tells us, he stood between attorney and litigant, the law was ultimately too much for him, and he too became involved in a suit. He lived to be eighty-seven, dying of sheer old age on November 7th, 1724. His body lay in state in the church of Ross for nine days and was then buried without a head-stone.

For the prose of Kyrle's life and achievements, as distinguished from Pope's poetry, we have to go first to the diary of Thomas Hearn the antiquary. Under the date April 9th, 1732-33, Hearn writes: "He (John Kirle or Kyrle) was a very humble, good-natured man. He was a man of little or no literature. He always studied to do what good charitable offices he could, and was always pleased when an object offered. He was reverenced and respected by all people. He used to drink and entertain with cider, and was a sober discreet man. He would tell people when they dined or supped with him that he could (if they pleased) let them have wine to drink, but that his own drink was cider, and that he found it most agreeable to him, and he did not care to be extravagant with his small fortune. His estate was five hundred pounds per annum, and no more, with which he did wonders. He built and endowed a hospital, and built the spire of Ross. When any litigious suits fell out, he would always stop them and prevent people's going to law. They would, when differences happened, say, go to 'the great man of Ross,' or, which they did more often, go to 'the man of Ross,' and he will decide the matter. He left a nephew, a man good for little or nothing. He would have given all from him, but a good deal being entailed he could not. He smoked tobacco, and would generally smoke two pipes if in company, either at home or elsewhere."

A year later Hearn corrected certain of these statements. Thus: "1734. April 16. Mr. Pope had the main of his information about Mr. Kirle, commonly called the Man of Ross (whom he characterizeth in his poem of the 'Use of Riches') from Jacob Tonson the book-seller, who hath purchased an estate of about a thousand a year, and lives in Herefordshire, a man that is a great, snivelling, poor-spirited whigg, and good for nothing that I know of. Mr. Brome tells me in his letter from Ewithington on November 23rd, 1733, that he does not think the truth is strained in any particulars of the character, except it be in his being founder of the church and spire of Ross ... but he was a great benefactor; and at the re-casting of the bells gave a tenor, a large bell. Neither does Mr. Brome find he was founder of any hospital, and he thinks his knowledge in medicine extended no further than kitchen physick, of which he was very liberal, and might thereby preserve many lives.

"April 18. Yesterday Mr. Matthew Gibson, minister of Abbey Dore in Herefordshire, just called upon me. I asked him whether he knew Mr. Kirle, commonly called the Man of Ross. He said he did very well, and that his (Mr. Matthew Gibson's) wife is his near relation; I think he said he was her uncle. I told him the said Man of Ross was an extraordinary charitable, generous man, and did much good. He said he did do a great deal of good, but that was all out of vanity and ostentation, being the vainest man living, and that he always hated his relations and would never look upon, or do anything for them, though many of them were very poor. I know not what credit to give to Mr. Gibson in that account, especially since this same Gibson hath more than once, in my presence, spoke inveterately against that good honest man Dr. Adam Ottley, late Bishop of St. David's. Besides, this Gibson is a crazed man, and withall stingy, though he be rich, and hath no child by his wife."

Another authority, more or less a contemporary, on the Man of Ross was Thomas Hutcheson, barrister, a descendant who became the owner of Kyrle's property. According to him Pope's questioning line:—

Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?

rather too sumptuously covers the planting of a "long shady walk, of nearly a mile and a half ... called Kyrle's Walks, on the summit of the eminence commanding a beautiful prospect of the Wye." The poet's next query:—

From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?

is answered thus: "The Man of Ross promoted, and partly assisted by his own pecuniary aid, the erection of a small water work near the river Wye, which supplied the town of Ross with water, in which article it was very deficient before," A further commentary was drawn from Mr. Hutcheson by the couplet:—

Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread.

"He kept open house every market-day; any person without distinction might meet on that day at his hospitable board, which, according to the stories related to me by some old tenants, consisted of a joint of meat of each sort. The poor, who were always in waiting on that day, and every other, had distributed to them, by his own superintendence, the whole of the remains of each day, besides continual distributions of bread, etc."

As to Pope's question:—

Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?

it seems that the poet was desperately out. The causeway connecting the town with the river dated from before the fourteenth century, but Kyrle probably saw to its proper maintenance.

Finally, let us see what the Sage of Fleet Street has to say to the statement:—

The Man possest—five hundred pounds a year,

and its implication that everything was done on that sum. In the critical notice of Pope in "The Lives of the Poets," Dr. Johnson remarks: "Wonders are willingly told and willingly heard. The truth is, that Kyrle was a man of known integrity and active benevolence, by whose solicitation the wealthy were persuaded to pay contributions to his charitable schemes; this influence he obtained by an example of liberality exerted to the utmost extent of his power, and was thus enabled to give more than he had. This account Mr. Victor received from the Minister of the place, and I have preserved it, that the praise of a good man being made more credible, may be more solid. Narrations of romantic and impracticable virtue will be read with wonder, but that which is unattainable is recommended in vain; that good may be endeavoured, it must be shown to be practicable."

So much for all the advocates—angeli and diaboli! But I think we need pay little attention to Mr. Gibson's testimony. Even though he were in part right, and a tinge of self-esteem or love of applause crept into the Man's benefactions, they remain benefactions no less, costing him as much money, and reaching the same goals. But away with such belittlings! Let us rather remember that the Rev. Matthew Gibson was crazed, stingy withal, and had no child by his wife. Personally I agree with my friend Mr. A. L. Humphreys, who has put it on record that, in his belief, it would be a good thing if every parish had a Man of Ross in preference to a parson. No harm necessarily in a parson as well, but the Man is more important.

At least one more poetical tribute from genius did John Kyrle win. Among the Juvenile Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is this:—

Lines written at the King's Arms, Ross, formerly the house of the "Man of Ross."

Richer than Miser o'er his countless hoards,
Nobler than Kings, or king-polluted Lords,
Here dwelt the Man of Ross! O, Traveller, hear!
Departed Merit claims a reverent tear.
Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health,
With generous joy he viewed his modest wealth;
He heard the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise,
He marked the sheltered orphan's tearful gaze,
Or where the sorrow-shrivelled captive lay,
Poured the bright blaze of Freedom's noon-tide ray.
Beneath this roof if thy cheered moments pass,
Fill to the good man's name one grateful glass:
To higher zest shall Memory wake thy soul,
And Virtue mingle in the ennobled bowl.
But if, like me, through life's distressful scene
Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been;
And if thy breast with heart-sick anguish fraught,
Thou journeyest onward tempest-tossed in thought;
Here cheat thy cares! in generous visions melt,
And dream of goodness thou hast never felt!

The sad and lonely poet, tempest-tossed in thought, who wrote those lines, was then twenty-one, on a walking tour with his friend Hucks, trying to construct Pantisocracy and forget Mary Evans.

For one "of little or no literature" the Man of Ross did not do so badly.

But there was even more honour to come. When, in 1876, the late Miranda Hill addressed a public letter to "Those who love Beautiful Things," and called upon her readers to help in getting more sweetness and light into the homes of the poor, and particularly the poor of London, the response took the form of a Society to which the name of John Kyrle was (at the suggestion of Mr. Benjamin Nattalie) given: the Kyrle Society. During its many years of activity, the Kyrle Society has done much to realise the idealism of its founders—for with Miranda Hill was associated her sister, the late Octavia Hill, that indomitable fighter for all that is good and ameliorative in life, whom, in her serene old age, a symphony in grey and silver, I used often to see walking on that height above Crockham Hill which her energies acquired for the nation as an open space for ever. In a speech which she made at one of the meetings of the Kyrle Society not long before her death, Octavia Hill thus summed up certain of the needs which that excellent organisation strove to supply. "Men, women, and children," she said, "want more than food, shelter, and warmth. They want, if their lives are to be full and good, space near their homes for exercise, quiet, good air, and sight of grass, trees, and flowers; they want colour, which shall cheer them in the midst of smoke and fog; they want music, which shall contrast with the rattle of the motors and lift their hearts to praise and joy; they want suggestion of nobler and better things than those that surround them day by day.... I assure you that I believe these things have more influence on the spirit than we are at all accustomed to remember. They cultivate a sense of dignity and self-respect, as well as breaking the monotony of life."

These things has the Kyrle Society dispensed and will continue to dispense, among its countless and noble activities; and it is pleasant to think that that stolid old Man of Ross, in this new incarnation, has become so imaginatively sympathetic. How little can he ever have thought of this transmutation of his kindly busy-bodydom into something so fine and rare! But it was a true instinct which set his ancient name on the modern banner; and if ever a new motto is called for, the merits of "Od's bud, Od's bud, but I will mend you!" should be considered.

LAURA COMBINES BREAKFAST AND PHILANTHROPY.
See "The Innocent's Progress"—Plate 3

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the Parish Register.

THE INNOCENT'S PROGRESS

One thing leads to another, and had I not entered Mr. Simmonds' old curiosity shop in Monmouth to make inquiries about the Man of Ross's arm-chair, which nearly fills the window, I might never have met with "The Elegant Girl," and "The Elegant Girl" is one of the comeliest books I ever coveted.

Having asked all my questions about the chair, which has much of the stern solidity of a fortress, I went upstairs and immediately was rejoiced by the sight of one of the engravings (Plate 2) which are reproduced in this volume. It was one, said Mr. Simmonds, of a series, and he showed me eight others—nine in all—each with its moral verses underneath—and I was enchanted, so delicate is the colouring and so distinguished the design, so naïve the educational method and so easy the triumph. The reproductions here are absurdly small—the size of the originals is 9-1/2 inches wide by 6 high—but though they give nothing of the tinting they retain something of the spirit, and the very striking composition is unimpaired by reduction.

Mr. Simmonds thought nine a complete set, but I felt that an even number was more probable, and, in time, was proved to be right; but it was long before I could obtain sight of the other three and discover that they belonged to a book and had been taken from their binding to decorate a nursery's walls. There are excitements in this form of hunt—la chasse au bouquin—commensurate with those that accelerate the pulses of wearers of pink coats, and some were mine as the scent grew hot and hotter. My first coverts were the print shops, but they were blank; then I drew the famous Bloomsbury spinneys, both the Reading Room and the Print Room, but they were blank too; and then, tally ho! away to the South Kensington gorse. It was here I had the luck to ascertain—through a reference to Tuer's "Pages and Pictures"—that "The Elegant Girl" was a book; and forthwith I turned to my friends the booksellers, and in High Street, Marylebone, got directly on the trail, which took me to Hampstead, where a copy of the work (the only one of which I have yet heard) was run to earth. It is this copy that now lies before me—the property of Mr. C. T. Owen, a famous collector of what the trade calls "juveniles," who has very kindly permitted the plates to be photographed for the present volume.

Mr. Simmonds thought the drawings the work of Adam Buck, an artist of child life, who has lately been the mode; but London experts differ. No doubt (they say) Buck's influence is apparent, but no more. The only name is that of Alais, the engraver, on the title-page, and I do not find that Alais ever worked for Buck, but there are at South Kensington child scenes by Singleton engraved by him. "The Elegant Girl" may be Singleton's. Equally may the designs be by a foreigner, for there is a distinctly foreign suggestion here and there, notably in the furniture. The plates are not aquatints but were coloured by hand: the extreme scarcity of the volume probably being due to this circumstance, only a small edition having been prepared and that, I should imagine, at a high figure. To-day, of course, the value of the book is vastly higher.

All, or very nearly all, the old-fashioned writers for children had but one purpose animating their breasts; and that purpose was to make children better. I don't say that to-day we try to make them worse; but their naughtiness can amuse us, as apparently it never could our ancestors, and wild flowers can be preferred to the products of the formal parterre. Even Miss Edgeworth came out nominally as "The Parents' Assistant," although her native kindliness and sense of narrative were too much for her; and even she thought of the child too much as plastic material. Children as children excited little interest; but a child as a progressive moral animal, susceptible of moulding, a potential adult and citizen, was worth making books for, if in return it was responsive and mended its ways. There were of course a few books for the young which told an honest story—Charles and Mary Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare" and "Mrs. Leicester's School" are early and shining examples—but the idea of amusement for amusement's sake was rare. And nonsense for the young, which later was to become a cult, did not exist before Edward Lear. Nothing can, of course, happen out of its time, and therefore the speculation is idle; but none the less it would be entertaining to visualise the effect of "Alice in Wonderland" on the little Fairchilds. What would Mr. Fairchild say to it? The work of a clergyman, too! Would not he return with renewed relish to the congenial task of repeating to his brood Biblical verses illustrating the wickedness of man's heart?

(Incidentally—but this is not the place, for "The Elegant Girl" is waiting—there are some interesting reflections to be recorded on the circumstance that the entertainment of the young has never been in such willing and safe hands as those of the celibates. All the writers I have just glanced at (save Mrs. Sherwood) were unmarried. This need not be taken as any aspersion upon matrimony—there must be marriage and giving in marriage in order that little readers may exist—but it ought to be remembered whenever the single state is under criticism. Think of the injustice of the foreshadowed Bachelor Tax falling upon Lewis Carroll!)

"The Elegant Girl," the date of which is 1813, sets out to improve too, for this is the title: "The Elegant Girl, or Virtuous Principles the True Source of Elegant Manners"; but its lessons are so unprejudiced and persuasive that no one can object. Moreover, a very exceptional artistic talent was employed: the best available rather than the cheapest. With such attractive jam, who could resent the pill? Alone, the pictures do very little in the didactic way, but to the detached artist came an ally in the shape of a gentle—and probably, I think, female—bard. Each of the twelve drawings has a six-lined stanza to drive home the picture and inculcate a maxim of sound and refined behaviour.

In the first plate Laura (the elegant girl is, of course, named Laura) is seen in her little bedroom at her morning prayers, and, thus fortified, she then goes through the day in eleven episodes, all tending, as the Americans say, to uplift. Washed and dressed, she joins, in Plate No. 2, her mother at early lessons in a charming library such as neither Vermeer nor Whistler would have disdained. According to the verses, Laura is careless of "what becomes her best," but to the casual male eye she seems to have chosen her trousers with no little discretion. Having sufficiently "explored the arts and sciences," she is, in Plate No. 3, ready for breakfast, again with her mother. Her father was—where? Possibly he was dead; possibly (the date is 1813) at the wars; probably still in bed. At any rate his daughter passes her day of edification entirely without his assistance.

Breakfast affords the opportunity of a lesson in practical philanthropy, for chance sends a beggar to the window, and Laura craves, and is granted, permission to give him food and drink. In Plate No. 4 she has a music lesson—a lesson that "is not thrown away," for

By Science taught with taste to play,
She'll charm erewhile the listening throng
And sing with modest grace her song.

In Plate No. 5, having slipped a red smock over her dress, but still retaining the captivating trousers, Laura practises painting. In No. 6, substituting a purple smock for the red one, she teaches the little villagers their A.B.C.—a form of altruistic employment which those

can best approve
Who virtue and religion love.

In Plate No. 7, Laura, in yellow, acquires the rudiments of obedience and refrains from eating forbidden fruit. In Plate No. 8, in green, she carries food to an aged dame. In Plate No. 9, in blue, she brings a cup of broth to her mother, who, "languid and pale," reclines, like Madame Récamier, on an exceedingly uncomfortable couch. It is thus that Laura,

in early days,
Maternal tenderness repays.

The chief difficulty of any series of this kind is, artists tell me, to preserve the likenesses throughout. In the case of "The Elegant Girl" it has been fairly successfully overcome, but Laura, who at her orisons looks years older than when becomingly trousered, is never again so charming a child as in the library before breakfast; while, in the Plate which we have now reached, her mother's severe Greek profile, so noticeable at that frugal meal, has completely vanished. But, take it all round, the series is maintained with credibility and a sprightly realism.

In Plate No. 10 the mother is sufficiently recovered to play the harp while Laura bounds light on agile feet. In No. 11 Laura visits the impoverished sick, and, by reading the "sacred page,"

Dries up the widow's scalding tears,
Exalts her hopes and calms her fears.

And finally, in crimson, she is presented by her mother with the guerdon of her day's good conduct, which consists of several boxes of odds and ends labelled "Gifts for the Poor," including a large number of top hats—

Gifts for the Poor her own Reward,
For Laura felt and understood
The Luxury of doing Good.

Such is the pretty, unobtrusive didactic scheme of "The Elegant Girl." That it is now all out of date I am only too well aware; but it would do no great harm if a reprint of the book found its way into a few modern homes.

THOUGHTS AT THE FERRY

My acquaintance among ferrymen is not extensive, but I cannot remember any that were cheerful. Perhaps there are none. The one over there at this moment, on the other side, for whom we are waiting and who is being so deliberate—he certainly has no air of gaiety.

There is a wealth of reasons for this lack of mirth. To begin with, a boat on a river is normally a vehicle of pleasure; but the ferryman's boat is a drudge. Then, the ordinary course of a boat on a river is up or down, between banks that can provide excitement, and around bends, each one of which may reveal adventure; but the ferryman's boat must constantly cross from side to side, always from the same spot to the same spot and back again, which is subversive of joy. All that the ferryman knows of the true purposes of a river he gains from observation of others, who gaily pass him, pulling with the stream or against it, and singing, perhaps, as they row. Did a ferryman ever sing? There was, when I was a boy, a pretty song about Twickenham Ferry, but my recollections of it are that it was the passenger who sang: not, I fancy, in the boat, but before he entered it. If my memory is right, the fact is significant. In the company of such taciturnity and gloom who could carol?

The ferryman, again, must never leave his post. All the world may go wayfaring, but not he. To cross a river is in itself nothing; but to come, from somewhere unknown, to the bank of the river, cross it, and pass on to unknown bournes on the other side—that is an enterprise, and that is what every one but the ferryman is doing. I have written elsewhere—it is a recurring theme of sympathy—of the servants of the traveller who live by helping him on his eventful way but never participate in any wanderings—railway porters, for example—and the ferryman is perhaps chief, because so much of the very matter of romance—a running stream—comes into his daily routine. There he is, in the open air, with the breeze to fan and lure him, and the racing clouds to lift his thoughts, and the exciting sound of water in his ears: all the enticements to rove, but he must not be a rover. For the rest of us (as it must seem to him), exploration; for himself, the narrow confines of the known!

And it is a peculiarity of ferrymen that when you want them they are (like this reluctant fellow) always on the other side. Not from any natural desire to annoy, but through a whim of the gods; yet to have to come over empty, how it must add fuel to their misanthropic fire! If every journey were with a fare the ferryman might be a shade more cheerful, even though the payment is so trifling. Was there ever a rich ferryman? Has a whimsical millionaire ever played at being a ferryman? Has a Carnegie ever left a ferryman a legacy?

And then the brevity of their companionships! Not that most ferrymen seem to desire human intercourse; but perhaps they did once, before the monotony of their task soured them. Down to the boat come the strangers from the great world—young or old, forbidding or beautiful, ardent or pensive—and howsoever the ferryman would like to hold them and talk with them, no sooner does the boat touch the farther bank than they are off again! Does not that make for a certain moroseness?

And what was the ferryman before he was a ferryman? For seldom, I should guess, is his an hereditary post. Some kind of failure normally precedes; and there again is cause for reticence.

Such friends as ferrymen possess are usually dumb animals. I have known more than one who carried his dog with him; and once, on the Wye, I met one whose companion was a goose. No matter how often the crossing had to be made, the goose made it too. I used the ferry several times, and we were never without this escort; and the ferryman (who, I am bound to remark, humiliating though it be, propelled his boat from side to side, not with honest oars, but by means of a rope) emerged sufficiently from his apathy to praise the bird's fidelity. "Here," thought I, "is surely the material for a pertinent apologue. 'The Ferryman and the Goose': the very title is Æsopian. Or—to be more satirical—the title might be 'The Ferryman and the Swan,' the point being that he thought it was a swan, but in reality it was only a goose." But I had no further inspiration. And yet, by a practised homilist, a good deal could be done with it with which to score off poor human nature. "Ah! my friends"—surely it is fittest for the pulpit, after all—"ah! my friends may not each of us be as much in error as that poor deluded ferryman? Let us search our hearts and answer truthfully the questions: Do we know our friends as we ought? Does not their flattery perhaps blind us to their mediocrity? In short, are they swans or geese?"

Ferrymen——

But here is our man at last! On close inspection how dismal he looks!

LAURA'S MUSIC LESSON.
See "The Innocent's Progress"—Plate 4

A LITTLE CHILD

The decision that the governess-cart must be given up meant that a new owner for Polly must be found.

Polly is a roan pony; very round in the barrel, and particularly so of late, when there has been no food but meadow-grass. She had been with us (this is my neighbour's story, as told to me during the War: a very charming neighbour who keeps her temper at croquet)—Polly had been with us so long as to become, as ponies peculiarly can, a member of the family, so that to part with her savoured of treachery. Necessity, however, knows no law and sanctifies no memory, and the distasteful preparations were therefore begun. The first was the framing of the advertisement; which is not the simple matter that it might appear to be, because so much depends upon the choice of adjective: the selected word must both allure and (in our case) keep within the bounds of truth. What are the qualities most valued in a pony, we had to ask ourselves. Celerity? Polly was fixed in her determination not to exceed the speed limit, at any rate on outward journeys. Willingness? Polly could be desperately stubborn. Strength? Yes, she was strong. Youth? Well, she came to us ten years ago and she was no foal then. After much serious deliberation, compared with which Versailles Conferences are mere exchanges of persiflage, it was decided to describe Polly either as "strong useful pony" or "useful strong pony." Further deliberations fixed the phrase as "Pony, strong, useful," and the advertisement was despatched to the local rag, as our very worthy county chronicle is too often called.

Next came the question of what price was to be asked. Here expert opinion was resorted to, in the shape of Mr. Edmead, the butcher. No one knows more about ponies than butchers do, and Mr. Edmead is exceptionally wise.

"Taking everything into consideration," he said, "I think that twenty-five pounds would be a fair price."

We clung to each other for support. Twenty-five pounds! And we had given only nine pounds all those years ago. Why had we not made pony-breeding a hobby? The War, Mr. Edmead went on to explain, had rendered ponies more valuable. Yes, taking everything into consideration, twenty-five pounds was a fair price. We ought to get that. In fact, if he had been in need of a pony he would have given that himself; but just then he was well supplied, and Polly was, he feared, not quite fast enough for him. Good morning.

Men who want to buy a pony have a strong resemblance to each other. They are clean-shaven and wear hard round hats, and the collars of their overcoats are carelessly treated so that they are half up and half down. They carry sticks. Also, although they want a pony, they don't want one at quite such a figure. All the men who came to see Polly were furthermore alike in agreeing that she was no doubt a useful strong pony, even a strong useful pony, but she was not for them. Day after day Polly was examined. They opened her mouth and shook their heads, they felt her knees and her hocks, they looked at her with narrow eyes from near by and from far, they rattled their sticks in their hard hats, they gave her sudden cuts and prods. But they didn't buy.

We began to get desperate. Much as we esteemed Polly, now that she was to be sold we wanted to be rid of her. Things should be done quickly. And then came a market gardener, a large, rubicund, genial man named Fox. And Polly was again led forth and again subjected to every test known to pony-buyers. All was going well, and would have gone well, but for Vivian.

Who, you ask, is Vivian? We should be better prepared for the irruption of new characters. True, but this is not my story, but my nice neighbour's.

Vivian is a small boy who had known Polly all his life, and who by some mischance wandered out from his lessons in the morning-room at the precise moment when Mr. Fox, who obviously was attracted by Polly, was making up his mind to pay the full money. Vivian, I should explain, is one of those ingratiating little boys who look upon the world as a sphere existing solely to provide them with friends, and who attach themselves with the strongest bands to open-air manual labourers. No sooner did Vivian see Mr. Fox's benevolent features than he added him to his collection.

"Run away, Vivian," I said. "It's not play-time yet, and we're busy."

"Are you going to buy Polly?" Vivian asked Mr. Fox by way of a suitable rejoinder to my command.

"I was thinking about it," said Mr. Fox, adding to me, "How old do you call her, ma'am? She looks to me about twelve."

The figure was so low that I nodded assent, but Vivian spoilt it by exclaiming, "Oh, mother, and Mr. Brooks says she's seventeen if she's a day, and I'm sure she's a day."

Mr. Fox became thoughtful. "Mr. Brooks said that, did he?" he remarked.

I felt that I couldn't tell Vivian again to go in, because it would look as though I feared his frankness; which, to be candid, I did. All I could do was to hope for the best.

"She's quiet enough; used to traffic and all that?" Mr. Fox asked.

Then Vivian began to laugh. This trick of laughter over retrospection—chewing the cud of old jokes—we have always rather admired in him; his chuckles are very engaging; but now I trembled, and not without reason.

"Don't you remember, mother," he began, "that day when she was frightened by the traction engine and ran into the grocer's shop?"

Mr. Fox, in whose large hand my son's minute one was now reposing, looked grave.

"That's against her in my business," he said.

"Oh, but," I explained, "that was a very long time ago. She's quite steady now. Don't you remember, Vivian, it was on your fifth birthday?"

"No," said Vivian, "that was on my seventh birthday—something funny always happens on my birthdays," he explained to Mr. Fox—"it was on my fifth birthday that Polly fell down."

"She's been down, has she?" said Mr. Fox ominously.

The rest of it is too tragic. I had no intention of concealing anything; Mr. Edmead knew the pony's whole history when he valued her; but Vivian's presence made me nervous, painfully self-conscious; I felt my face burning and knew that I must suggest duplicity.

Mr. Fox, I will admit, played the game. He asked Vivian no questions; indeed he talked of other things than defective ponies; but I could see his mind working; I could see pound after pound dropping away from the grand total.

Well, that's the story. Mr. Fox led Polly away some ten minutes later, leaving in her stead a cheque. But it was not for twenty-five pounds—Vivian saw to that.

The moral? The moral is: when your husband is in Mesopotamia and the time comes to sell the pony, lock your cherubic son in the nursery.

A DEVONSHIRE INN

To enter a strange town on foot and unencumbered—leaving one's bag at the station or sending it on in advance—is a prudent course, for it liberates the traveller to select his inn at his ease. A man carrying luggage is not free; the bag in a way pledges him, at any rate proclaims the fact that he is a traveller and will probably need a bed, and makes it the more difficult for him to extricate himself from the hostel that within doors has failed to come up to the promise of the exterior—as too often is the hostel's habit.

All unburdened, then, I entered Kingsbridge at lunch-time at the top of its steep main street, and as I walked down it I cast my glances this side and that to see which inn seemed most promising. The woman who, at Yealmpton, had given me some bread and cheese, had named the "Anchor" as the best. A man who had beaten me at billiards at Devonport had mentioned another; and, left to myself, I found myself more taken by the façade of a third.

I did, however, nothing rash; I looked carefully at all, and then I entered the one with the agreeable façade and asked for lunch.

Never have I done a wiser thing.

It is odd how trifling are the determining factors in some of the most momentous decisions that face us in life. Here was I alone, and tired, and in a strange part of the country, with the necessity before me of finding "a home from home" for three or four days, and yet, even without entering any of the other inns, I agreed to stay in this one. And why? Well, a little because the landlord (a big, strong, leisurely man with a white beard and a massive head), who himself did the waiting, was pleasant and attentive, and a little because his daughter, who had charge of the bar, was attentive and pleasant. But the real reason was pickled onions. Such was the excellence of these divine roots that I let everything else go. Nights might be bad, but lunches and dinners would be good: for were there not these onions, pickled according to a recipe of the host's mother, now with God, in her day famous for the best ways of preserving and curing and, indeed, of doing everything that a good housewife should? The enthusiasm displayed by this patriarchal Boniface for his mother was perfectly charming, its novelty being part of its charm. Very big landlords with white beards and footfalls that shake the house do not, as a rule, talk about their mothers at all. Should they, through strange martial vicissitudes, come, as this one had done, to wait at table, they wait and go. But this one hovered, and talked reverently of his mother's household genius, giving me the while such delicious proofs of it that I could not have torn myself away.

To those exquisite esculents I shall be eternally grateful, for they brought me into knowledge of one of the most interesting of inns. It is a survival; indeed, to my great satisfaction, the word "posting" occurred in my bill, for a journey by wagonette to a distant village was thus ennobled. The stables are immense, and contained one horse. The coach-house is immense, and contained seventeen carriages of various kinds, from omnibus to dogcart, but chiefly broughams, all in a state of mouldiness. Coming by degrees to be recognised as a member of the little family which, by ceaseless activity, ran this unwieldy place—father, daughter, a superb cook, a maid-servant, and an ostler—I was free to wander as I would, and exploring the various floors and passages I came upon a billiard table whose cushions belonged to the Stone Age, and an assembly-room with a musicians' gallery. In the kitchen I watched at her mysteries the admirable lady who cooked and carried on the noble traditions of the landlord's mother as set forth in a manuscript book in her own hand. In the bar parlour I watched the landlord, according to the new regulations, water down his spirits, and heard instalments of his long life, spent wholly, in this "house" and that, in ministering to the wants of his fellow-creatures—tired, or hungry, or thirsty, but chiefly thirsty. Then later in the evening the little cosy room would fill, and I would quietly take my place as one of the best listeners that its habitués had ever talked to. Listening is an old accomplishment of mine, and here, amid the friendliest of strangers, I gave it full play; and you would be surprised to know how much I know of Kingsbridge life. Probably their surprise would be even greater.

And still I have not really begun to describe this most alluring inn. In the cellar, for example, there was some '47 port....

ON SHOPS AND STALLS

Most people who do not keep shops have, I suppose, at one time or other thought that to keep a shop might be fun; of course, keeping it their own way, selling only what they liked, to whom they liked. No vulgar trade notions at all! The fact that there is no nursery game so popular as keeping shop probably proves this. And none is more popular, except, perhaps, among French country children, who prefer the game of market—each one presiding over a different stall, stocked with the most ingenious miniature counterfeits of vegetables and fruit fashioned chiefly from wild flowers and leaves, and all shouting against each other with terrific French volubility and not a little French wit.

We seldom go so far as actually to open an establishment, but we play with the idea. One of my friends has for years projected a London centre for all the most interesting and vivid European pottery, and if only she could assemble it and maintain the supply, I have little doubt of her success. But the chances are that it will never materialize, the people who do things being so rare. Another is at this moment excitedly planning a restaurant in a neighbourhood where one seems peculiarly to be needed, as it is chiefly populated by dwellers in flats, the slogan of which is to be "Where to dine when cook goes out"; but that, too, will probably end in talk.

One would say, on the face of it, that a shop opened in a locality where that kind of shop did not previously exist would have a better chance than a shop opened next door to another shop of the same kind—apart from any unpleasantness that such contiguity might produce. But the methods of business are inscrutable, and there seem to be countless ways, often in direct opposition to each other, of conducting it successfully. One would, at the first blush, have called this principle of scientific selection and segregation the soundest; and yet that of congregation seems to be just as sensible; so that while one man succeeds because he is the only tailor in the street, another man can be even more successful because he is in a street where every other establishment is a tailor's too. There are also the antagonistic principles of ostentation and self-effacement, each again apparently satisfactory: so that one hatter, for example, succeeds because he inhabits a palace of light, and another because you can hardly see through the grimy panes of his old-fashioned and obsolete windows. There are, furthermore, the antipodal theories of singularity and plurality: so that one draper makes as good a thing as he wants out of a single shop, and another rises to wealth by dint of opening twenty shops at once.