Yet Again Part 5

After they had drunk some ale, they formed up for the second dance--a circular dance. And anon, above the notes of the flute and the jangling of the bells and the stamping of the boots, I seemed to hear the knell actually tolling, Hoot! Hoot! Hoot! A motor came fussing and fuming in its cloud of dust. Hoot! Hoot! The dysard ran to meet it, brandis.h.i.+ng his wand of office. He had to stand aside. Hoot! The dancers had just time to get out of the way. The scowling motorists vanished. Dancers and dysard, presently visible through the subsiding dust, looked rather foolish and crestfallen. And all the branches of the conservative old elm above them seemed to be quivering with indignation.

In a sense this elm was a mere parvenu as compared with its beloved dancers. True, it had been no mere sapling in the reign of the seventh Henry, and so could remember distinctly the first Morris danced here.

But the first Morris danced on English soil was not, by a long chalk, the first Morris. Scarves such as these were waved, and bells such as these were jangled, and some such measure as this was trodden, in the mists of a very remote antiquity. Spanish buccaneers, long before the dawn of the fifteenth century, had seen the Moors dancing somewhat thus to the glory of Allah. Home-coming, they had imitated that strange and savage dance, expressive, for them, of the joy of being on firm native land again. The 'Morisco' they called it; and it was much admired; and the fas.h.i.+on of it spread throughout Spain--scaled the very Pyrenees, and invaded France. To the 'Maurisce' succ.u.mbed 'tout Paris' as quickly as in recent years it succ.u.mbed to the cake-walk. A troupe of French dancers braved the terrors of the sea, and, with their scarves and their bells, danced for the delectation of the English court. 'The Kynge,' it seems, 'was pleased by the bels and sweet dauncing.' Certain of his courtiers 'did presentlie daunce so in open playces.' No one with any knowledge of the English nature will be surprised to hear that the cits soon copied the courtiers. But 'the Morrice was not for longe practysed in the cittie. It went to countrie playces.' London, apparently, even in those days, did not breed joy in life. The Morris sought and found its proper home in the fields and by the wayside.

Happy carles danced it to the glory of G.o.d, even as it had erst been danced to the glory of Allah.

It was no longer, of course, an explicitly religious dance. But neither can its origin have been explicitly religious. Every dance, however formal it become later, begins as a mere ebullition of high spirits.

The Dionysiac dances began in the same way as 'the Chesterton.' Some Thessalian vintner, say, suddenly danced for sheer joy that the earth was so bounteous; and his fellow vintners, sharing his joy, danced with him; and ere their breath was spent they remembered who it was that had given them such cause for merry-making, and they caught leaves from the vine and twined them in their hair, and from the fig-tree and the fir-tree they s.n.a.t.c.hed branches, and waved them this way and that, as they danced, in honour of him who was lord of these trees and of this wondrous vine. Thereafter this dance of joy became a custom, ever to be observed at certain periods of the year. It took on, beneath its joyousness, a formal solemnity. It was danced slowly around an altar of stone, whereon wood and salt were burning--burning with little flames that were pale in the sunlight. Formal hymns were chanted around this altar. And some youth, clad in leopard's skin and wreathed with ivy, masqueraded as the G.o.d himself, and spoke words appropriate to that august character. It was from these beginnings that sprang the art-form of drama. The Greeks never hid the origin of this their plaything.

Always in the centre of the theatre was the altar to Dionysus; and the chorus, circling around it, were true progeny of those old agrestic singers; and the mimes had never been but for that masquerading youth.

It is hard to realise, yet it is true, that we owe to the wors.h.i.+p of Dionysus so dreary a thing as the modern British drama. Strange that through him who gave us the juice of the grape, 'fiery, venerable, divine,' came this gift too! Yet I dare say the chorus of a musical comedy would not be awestruck--would, indeed, 'bridle'--if one unrolled to them their ill.u.s.trious pedigree.

The history of the Dionysiac dance has a fairly exact parallel in that of the 'Morisco.' Each dance has travelled far, and survives, shorn of its explicitly religious character, and in many other ways 'diablement change' en route.' The 'Morisco,' of course, has changed the less of the two. Besides the scarves and the bells, it seemed to me last May-day that the very steps danced and figures formed were very like to those of which I had read, and which I had seen ill.u.s.trated in old English and French engravings. Above all, the dancers seemed to retain, despite their seriousness, something of the joy in which the dance originated. They frowned as they footed it, but they were evidently happy. Their frowns did but betoken determination to do well and rightly a thing that they loved doing--were proud of doing. The smiles of the chorus in a musical comedy seem but to express depreciation of a rather tedious and ridiculous exercise. The coryphe'es are quite evidently bored and ashamed. But these eight be-ribanded sons of the soil were hardly less glad in dancing than was that antique Moor who, having slain beneath the stars some long-feared and long-hated enemy, danced wildly on the desert sand, and, to make music, tore strips of bells from his horse's saddle and waved them in either hand while he danced, and made so great a noise in the night air that other Moors came riding to see what had happened, and marvelled at the sight and sound of the dance, and, praising Allah, leapt down and tore strips of bells from their own saddles, and danced as nearly as they could in mimicry of that glad conqueror, to Allah's glory.

As this scene is mobled in the aforesaid mists of antiquity, I cannot vouch for the details. Nor can I say just when the Moors found that they could make a finer and more rhythmic jangle by attaching the bells to their legs than by swinging them in their hands. Nor can I fix the day when they tore strips from their turbans for their idle hands to wave. I cannot say how long the rite's mode had been set when first the adventurers from Spain beheld it with their keen wondering eyes and fixed it for ever in their memories.

In Spain, and then in France, and then in London, the dance was secular. But perhaps I ought not to have said that it was 'not explicitly religious' in the English countryside. The cult for Robin Hood was veritably a religion throughout the Midland Counties. Rites in his honour were performed on certain days of the year with a not less hearty reverence, a not less quaint elaboration, than was infused into the rustic Greek rites for Dionysus. The English carles danced, not indeed around an altar, but around a bunt pole crowned with such flowers as were in season; and one of them, like the youth who in the Dionysiac dance masqueraded as the G.o.d, was decked out duly as Robin Hood--'with a magpye's plume to hys capp,' we are told, and sometimes 'a russat bearde compos'd of horses hair.' The most famous of the dances for Robin Hood was the 'pageant.' Herein appeared, besides the hero himself and various tabours and pipers, a 'dysard' or fool, and Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian--'in a white kyrtele and her hair all unbrayded, but with blossoms thereyn.' This 'pageant' was performed at Whitsun, at Easter, on New-Year's day, and on May-day. The Morris, when it had become known in the villages, was very soon incorporated in the 'pageant.' The Morris scarves and bells, the Morris steps and figures, were all pressed into the wors.h.i.+p of Robin Hood. In most villages the properties for the 'pageant' had always rested in the custody of the church-wardens. The properties for the Morris were now kept with them.

In the Kingston accounts for 1537-8 are enumerated 'a fryers cote of russat, and a kyrtele weltyd with red cloth, a Mowrens cote of buckram, and four morres daunsars cotes of white fustian spangelid, and two gryne saten cotes, and disarddes cote of cotton, and six payre of garters with belles.' The 'pageant' itself fell, little by little, into disuse; the Morris, which had been affiliated to it, superseded it. Of the 'pageant' nothing remained but the minstrel and the dysard and an occasional Maid Marian. In the original Morris there had been no music save that of the bells. But now there was always a flute or tabor. The dysard, with his rod and leathern bladder, was promoted to a sort of leaders.h.i.+p. He did not dance, but gave the signal for the dance, and distributed praise or blame among the performers, and had power to degrade from the troupe any man who did not dance with enough skill or enough heartiness. Often there were in one village two rival troupes of dancers, and a prize was awarded to whichever acquitted itself the more admirably. But not only the 'ensemble' was considered. A sort of 'star system' seems to have crept in. Often a prize would be awarded to some one dancer who had excelled his fellows. There were, I suppose, 'born'

Morris-dancers. Now and again, one of them, flushed with triumph, would secern himself from his troupe, and would 'star' round the country for his livelihood.

Such a one was Mr. William Kemp, who, at the age of seventeen, and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, danced from his native village to London, where he educated himself and became an actor. Perhaps he was not a good actor, for he presently reverted to the Morris. He danced all the way from London to Norwich, and wrote a pamphlet about it--'Kemp's Nine Dajes' Wonder, performed in a daunce from London to Norwich. Containing the pleasures, paines, and kind entertainment of William Kemp betweene London and that Citty, in his late Morrice.' He seems to have encountered more pleasures than 'paines.' Gentle and simple, all the way, were very cordial. The gentle entertained him in their mansions by night. The simple danced with him by day. In Sudbury 'there came a l.u.s.ty tall fellow, a butcher by his profession, that would in a Morice keepe me company to Bury. I gave him thankes, and forward wee did set; but ere ever wee had measur'd halfe a mile of our way, he gave me over in the plain field, protesting he would not hold out with me; for, indeed, my pace in dauncing is not ordinary. As he and I were parting, a l.u.s.ty country la.s.se being among the people, cal'd him faint-hearted lout, saying, "If I had begun to daunce, I would have held out one myle, though it had cost my life." At which words many laughed. "Nay,"

saith she, "if the dauncer will lend me a leash of his belles, I'le venter to treade one myle with him myself." I lookt upon her, saw mirth in her eies, heard boldness in her words, and beheld her ready to tucke up her russat petticoate; and I fitted her with bels, which she merrily taking garnisht her thicke short legs, and with a smooth brow bad the tabur begin. The drum strucke; forward marcht I with my merry Mayde Marian, who shook her stout sides, and footed it merrily to Melford, being a long myle. There parting with her (besides her skinfull of drinke), and English crowne to buy more drinke; for, good wench, she was in a pittious heate; my kindness she requited with dropping a dozen good courtsies, and bidding G.o.d blesse the dauncer. I bade her adieu; and, to give her her due, she had a good eare, daunst truly, and wee parted friends.' Kemp, you perceive, wrote as well as he danced. I wish he had danced less and written more. It seems that he never wrote anything but this one delightful pamphlet. He died three years later, in the thirtieth year of his age--died dancing, with his bells on his legs, in the village of Ockley.

John Thorndrake, another professional Morris-dancer, was not so brilliant a personage as poor Kemp; but was of tougher fibre, it would seem. He died in his native town, Canterbury, at the age of seventy-eight; and had danced--never less than a mile, seldom less than five miles--every day, except Sunday, for sixty years. But even his record pales beside the account of a Morris that was danced by eight men, in Hereford, one May-day in the reign of James I. The united ages of these dancers, according to a contemporary pamphleteer, exceeded eight hundred years. The youngest of them was seventy-nine, and the ages of the rest ranged between ninety-five and a hundred and nine.

'And they daunced right well.' Of the hold that the Morris had on England, could there be stronger proof than in the feat of these indomitable dotards? The Morris ceased not even during the Civil Wars.

Some of King Charles's men (according to Groby, the Puritan) danced thus on the eve of Naseby. Not even the Protectorate could stamp the Morris out, though we are told that Groby and other preachers throughout the land inveighed against it as 'lewde' and 'unG.o.dlie.' The Restoration was in many places celebrated by special Morrises. The perihelion of this dance seems, indeed, to have been in the reign of Charles II. Georgian writers treated it somewhat as a survival, and were not always even tender to it. Says a writer in Bladud's Courier, describing a 'soire'e de beaute'' given by Lady Jersey, 'Mrs. ---- (la belle) looked as silly and gaudy, I do vow, as one of the old Morris Dancers.' And many other writers--from Horace Walpole to Captain Harver--have their sneer at the Morris. Its rusticity did not appeal to the polite Georgian mind; and its Moorishness, which would have appealed strongly, was overlooked. Still, the Morris managed to survive urban disdain--was still dear to the carles whose fathers had taught it them.

And long may it linger!

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS MANNER

A grave and beautiful place, the Palace of Westminster. I sometimes go to that little chamber of it wherein the Commons sit sprawling or stand spouting. I am a constant reader of the 'graphic reports' of what goes on in the House of Commons; and the writers of these things always strive to give one the impression that nowhere is the human comedy so fast and furious, nowhere played with such skill and brio, as at St.

Stephen's; and I am rather easily influenced by anything that appears in daily print, for I have a burning faith in the sagacity and uprightness of sub-editors; and so, when the memory of my last visit to the House has lost its edge, and when there is a crucial debate in prospect, to the House I go, full of hope that this time I really shall be edified or entertained. With an open mind I go, reeking naught of the pro's and con's of the subject of the debate. I go as to a gladiatorial show, eager to applaud any man who shall wield his sword brilliantly. If a 'stranger' indulge in applause, he is tapped on the shoulder by one of those courteous, magpie-like officials, and conducted beyond the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. I speak from hearsay. I do not think I have ever seen a 'stranger' applauding.

My own hands, certainly, never have offended.

Years ago, when to be a member of the House of Commons was to be (or to deem oneself) a personage of great importance, the debates were conducted with a keen eye to effect. Members who had a sense of beauty made their speeches beautiful, and even those to whom it was denied did their best. Grace of ample gesture was cultivated, and sonorous elocution, and lucid ordering of ideas, and n.o.ble language. In fact, there was a school of oratory. This is no mere superst.i.tion, bred of man's innate tendency to exalt the past above the present. It is a fact that can easily be verified through contemporary records. It is a fact which I myself have verified in the House with my own eyes and ears.

More than once, I heard there--and it was a pleasure and privilege to hear--a speech made by Sir William Harcourt. And from his speeches I was able to deduce the manner of his coevals and his forerunners. Long past his prime he was, and bearing up with very visible effort against his years. An almost extinct volcano! But sufficient to imagination these glimpses of the glow that had been, and the sight of these last poor rivulets of the old lava. An almost extinct volcano, but majestic among mole-hills! a.s.suredly, the old school was a fine one. It had its faults, of course--floridness, pomposity, too much histrionism. It was, indeed, very like the old school of acting, in its defects as in its qualities. With all his defects, what a relief it is to see one of the old actors among a cast of new ones! How he takes the stage, making himself felt--and heard! How surely he achieves his effects in the grand manner! Robustious? Yes. But it is better to exaggerate a style than to have no style at all. That is what is the matter with these others--these quiet, s.h.i.+fty, shamefaced others they have no style at all. And as is the difference between the old actor and them, so, precisely was the difference between Sir William Harcourt and the modern members.

I do not desire the new actors to model themselves on the old, whose manner is quite incongruous with the character of modern drama. All I would have them do is to achieve the manner for which they are darkly fumbling. Even so, I do not demand oratory of the modern senators.

Oratory I love, but I admit that the time for it is bygone. It belonged to the age of port. On plenty of port the orator spoke, and on plenty of port his audience listened to him. A diet-bound generation can hardly produce an orator; and if, by some mysterious throw-back, an orator actually is produced, he falls very flat. There was in my college at Oxford a little 'Essay Society,' to which I found myself belonging. We used to meet every Thursday evening in the room of this or that member; and, when coffee had been handed round, one of us read an essay--a calm little mild essay on one of those vast themes that no undergraduate can resist. After this, we had a calm little mild discussion 'It seems to me that the reader of the paper has hardly laid enough stress on...' One of these evenings I can recall most distinctly. A certain freshman had been elected. The man who was to have read an essay had fallen ill, and the freshman had been asked to step into the breach. This he did, with an essay on 'The Ideals of Mazzini,' and with strange and terrific effect. During the exordium we raised our eyebrows. Presently we were staring open-mouthed. Where were we? In what wild dream were we drifting? To this day I can recite the peroration. Mazzini is dead. But his spirit lives, and can never be crushed. And his motto--the motto that he planted on the gallant banner of the Italian Republic, and sealed with his life's blood, remains, and shall remain, till, through the eternal ages, the universal air re-echoes to the inspired shout--'G.o.d AND THE PEOPLE!'

The freshman had begun to read his essay in a loud, declamatory style; but gradually, knowing with an orator's instinct, I suppose, that his audience was not 'with' him, he had quieted down, and become rather nervous--too nervous to skip, as I am sure he wished to skip, the especially conflagrant pa.s.sages. But, as the end hove in sight, his confidence was renewed. A wave of emotion rose to sweep him ash.o.r.e upon its crest. He gave the peroration for all it was worth. Mazzini is dead. I can hear now the hushed tone in which he spoke those words; the pause that followed them; and the gradual rising of his voice to a culmination at the words 'inspired shout'; and then another pause before that husky whisper 'G.o.d AND THE PEOPLE.' There was no discussion. We were petrified. We sat like stones; and presently, like shadows, we drifted out into the evening air. The little society met once or twice again; but any activity it still had was but the faint convulsion of a murdered thing. Old wine had been poured into a new bottle, with the usual result. Broken even so, belike, would be the gla.s.s roof of the Commons if a member spouted up to it such words as we heard that evening in Oxford. At any rate, the member would be howled down. So strong is the modern distaste for oratory. The day for oratory, as for toping, is past beyond redemption. 'Debating' is the best that can be done and appreciated by so abstemious a generation as ours. You will find a very decent level of 'debating' in the Oxford Union, in the Balham Ethical Society, in the Pimlico Parliament, and elsewhere. But not, I regret to say, in the House of Commons.

No one supposes that in a congeries of--how many?--six hundred and seventy men, chosen by the British public, there will be a very high average of mental capacity. If any one were so sanguine, a glance at the faces of our Conscript Fathers along the benches would soon bleed him. (I have no doubt that the custom of wearing hats in the House originated in the members' unwillingness to let strangers spy down on the shapes of their heads.) But it is not unreasonable to expect that the more active of these gentlemen will, through constant practice, not only in the senate, but also at elections and public dinners and so forth, have acquired a rough-and-ready professionalism in the art of speaking. It is not unreasonable to expect that they will be fairly fluent--fairly capable of arranging in logical sequence such ideas as they may have formed, and of reeling out words more or less expressive of these ideas. Well! certain of the Irishmen, certain of the Welshmen, proceed easily enough. But oh! those Saxon others! Look at them, hark at them, poor dears! See them clutching at their coats, and shuffling from foot to foot in travail, while their ideas--ridiculous mice, for the most part--get jerked painfully out somehow and anyhow. 'It seems to me that the Right--the honourable member for--er--er (the speaker dives to be prompted)--yes, of course--South Clapham--er--(temporising) the Southern division of Clapham--(long pause; his lips form the words 'Where was I?')--oh yes, the honourable gentleman the member for South Clapham seems to me to me--to be--in the position of one who, whilst the facts on which his propo--supposition are based--er--may or may not be in themselves acc--correct (gasps)--yet inasmuch--because--nevertheless...I should say rather--er--what it comes to is this: the honourable member for North--South Clapham seems to be labouring under a total, an entire, a complete (emphatic gesture, which throws him off his tack)--a contire--a complete disill--misunderstanding of the things which he himself relies on as--as--as a backing-up of the things that he would have us take or--er--accept and receive as the right sort of reduction--deduction from the facts of...in fact, from the facts of the case.' Then the poor dear heaves a deep sigh of relief, which is drowned by other members in a hideous cachinnation meant to express mirth.

And the odd thing is that the mirth is quite sincere and quite friendly. The speaker has just scored a point, though you mightn't think it. He has just scored a point in the true House of Commons manner. Possibly you have never been to the House of Commons, and suspect that I have caricatured its manner. Not at all. Indeed, to save s.p.a.ce in these pages, I have rather improved it. If a phonograph were kept in the house, you would learn from it that the average sentence of the average speaker is an even more grotesque abortion than I have adumbrated. Happily for the prestige of the House, phonographs are excluded. Certain skilled writers--modestly dubbing themselves 'reporters'--are admitted, and by them cosmos is conjured out of chaos.

'The member for South Clapham appeared to be labouring under a misapprehension of the nature of the facts on which his argument was based (Laughter).' That is the finished article that your morning paper offers to you. And you, enjoying the delicious epigram over your tea and toast, are as unconscious of the toil that went to make it, and of the crises through which it pa.s.sed, as you are of those poor sowers and reapers, planters and sailors and colliers, but for whom there would be no fragrant tea and toast for you.

The English are a naturally silent race. The most popular type of national hero is the 'strong silent man.' And most of the members of the House of Commons are, at any rate, silent members. Mercifully silent. Seeing the level attained by such members as have an impulse to speak, I shudder to conceive an oration by one of those unimpelled members... Perhaps I am too nervous. Surely I am too nervous. Surely the House of Commons manner cannot be a natural growth. Such perfect virtuosity in dufferdom can be acquired only by constant practice. But how comes it to be practised? I can only repeat that the English are a naturally silent race. They are apt to mistrust fluency. 'Glibness'

they call it, and scent behind it the adventurer, the player of the confidence trick or the three-card trick, the robber of the widow and the orphan. Be smooth-tongued, and the Englishman will withdraw from you as quickly as may be, walking sideways like a crab, and looking askance at you with panic in his eyes. But stammer and blurt to him, and he will fall straight under the spell of your transparent honesty.

A silly superst.i.tion; but there it is, ineradicable; and through it, undoubtedly, has come the house of Commons manner. Sometimes, through sheer nervousness, a new member achieves something like that manner; insomuch that his maiden speech is adjudged rich in promise, and 'the ear of the House' is a.s.sured to him when next he rises. Then is the dangerous time for him. He has conquered his nervousness now, but has not yet acquired that complex and delicate technique whereby a man can produce the illusion that he is striving hopelessly to utter something which, really, he could say with perfect ease. Thus he forfeits the sympathy of the House. Members stroll listlessly out. There is a buzz of conversation along the benches--perhaps the horrific refrain ''Vide, 'Vide, 'Vide.' But the time will come when they shall hear him. Years hence--a beacon to show the heights that can be sealed by perseverance--he shall stand fumbling and floundering in a rapt senate.

Well! I take off my hat to virtuosity in any form. I admire Demosthenes, for whom pebbles in the mouth were a means to the end of oratory. I admire the Demosthenes de nos jours, for whom oratory is a means to the end of pebbles in the mouth. But I desire that the intelligent foreigner and the intelligent country cousin be not disappointed when they visit the House of Commons. Hitherto, strangers have expected to find there an exhibition of the art of speaking. That is the fault partly of those reporters to whom I have paid a well-deserved tribute. But it is more especially the fault of those other 'graphic' reporters, who write their lurid impressions of the debates. These gentlemen are most wildly misleading. I don't think they mislead you intentionally. If a man criticises one kind of ill-done thing exclusively, he cannot but, in course of time, lower his standard. Seeing nothing good, he will gradually forget what goodness is; and will accept as good that which is least bad. So it is with the graphic reporter in Parliament. He really does imagine that Hob 'raked the Treasury Bench with a merciless fire of raillery,' and that n.o.b 'went, as is his way, straight to the root of the subject,' and that Chittabob 'struck a deep note of pathos that will linger long in the memory of all who heard him.' If Hob, n.o.b, and Chittabob happen to be in opposition to the politics of the newspaper which he adorns, he will perhaps tell the truth about their respective performances. But he will tell it without believing it. All his geese are swans--bless him!--even when he won't admit it. The moral is that no man should be employed as graphic reporter for more than one session. Then the public would begin to learn the truth about St. Stephen's. Nor need the editors flinch from such a consummation. They used to entertain a theory that it was safest to have the productions at every theatre praised, in case any manager should withdraw his advertis.e.m.e.nts. But there need be no such fear in regard to St. Stephen's. That establishment does not advertise itself in the press as a place of amus.e.m.e.nt. Why should the press advertise it gratuitously?

For utility's sake, as well as for truth's, I would have the public enlightened. Exposed to ruthless criticism, our Commons might be shamed into an attempt at proficiency in the art of speaking. Then the sessions would be comparatively brief. After all, it is on the nation itself that falls the cost of lighting, warming, and ventilating St.

Stephen's during the session. All the aforesaid dufferdom, therefore, increases the burden of the taxpayer. All those hum's and ha's mean so many pence from the pockets of you, reader, and me.

THE NAMING OF STREETS

'The Rebuilding of London' proceeds ruthlessly apace. The humble old houses that dare not sc.r.a.pe the sky are being duly punished for their timidity. Down they come; and in their place are shot up new tenements, quick and high as rockets. And the little old streets, so narrow and exclusive, so shy and crooked--we are making an example of them, too.

We lose our way in them, do we?--we whose time is money. Our omnibuses can't trundle through them, can't they? Very well, then. Down with them! We have no use for them. This is the age of 'n.o.ble arteries.'

'The Rebuilding of London' is a source of much pride and pleasure to most of London's citizens, especially to them who are county councillors, builders, contractors, navvies, glaziers, decorators, and so forth. There is but a tiny residue of persons who do not swell and sparkle. And of these glum bystanders at the carnival I am one. Our aloofness is mainly irrational, I suppose. It is due mainly to temperamental Toryism. We say 'The old is better.' This we say to ourselves, every one of us feeling himself thereby justified in his att.i.tude. But we are quite aware that such a postulate would not be accepted by time majority. For the majority, then, let us make some show of ratiocination. Let us argue that, forasmuch as London is an historic city, with many phases and periods behind her, and forasmuch as many of these phases and periods are enshrined in the aspect of her buildings, the constant rasure of these buildings is a disservice to the historian not less than to the mere sentimentalist, and that it will moreover (this is a more telling argument) filch from Englishmen the pleasant power of crowing over Americans, and from Americans the unpleasant necessity of balancing their pity for our present with envy of our past. After all, our past is our point d'appui. Our present is merely a bad imitation of what the Americans can do much better.

Ignoring as mere scurrility this criticism of London's present, but touched by my appeal to his pride in its history, the average citizen will reply, reasonably enough, to this effect: 'By all means let us have architectural evidence of our epochs--Caroline, Georgian, Victorian, what you will. But why should the Edvardian be ruled out?

London is packed full of architecture already. Only by rasing much of its present architecture can we find room for commemorating duly the glorious epoch which we have just entered. To this reply there are two rejoinders: (1) let special suburbs be founded for Edvardian buildings; (2) there are no really Edvardian buildings, and there won't be any.

Long before the close of the Victorian Era our architects had ceased to be creative. They could not express in their work the spirit of their time. They could but evolve a medley of old styles, some foreign, some native, all inappropriate. Take the case of Mayfair. Mayfair has for some years been in a state of transition. The old Mayfair, grim and sombre, with its air of selfish privacy and hauteur and leisure, its plain bricked facades, so disdainful of show--was it not redolent of the century in which it came to being? Its wide pavements and narrow roads between--could not one see in them the time when by day gentlemen and ladies went out afoot, needing no vehicle to whisk them to a destination, and walked to and fro amply, needing elbow-room for their dignity and their finery, and by night were borne in chairs, singly?

And those queer little places of wors.h.i.+p, those stucco chapels, with their very secular little columns, their ample pews, and their negligible altars over which one saw the Lion and the Unicorn fighting, as who should say, for the Cross--did they not breathe all the inimitable Erastianism of their period? In qua te qaero proseucha, my Lady Powderbox? Alas! every one of your tabernacles is dust now--dust turned to mud by the tears of the ghost of the Rev. Charles Honeyman, and by my own tears.... I have strayed again into sentiment. Back to the point--which is that the new houses and streets in Mayfair mean nothing. Let me show you Mount Street. Let me show you that airy stretch of sham antiquity, and defy you to say that it symbolises, how remotely soever, the spirit of its time. Mount Street is typical of the new Mayfair. And the new Mayfair is typical of the new London. In the height of these new houses, in the width of these new roads, future students will find, doubtless, something characteristic of this pressing and bustling age. But from the style of the houses he will learn nothing at all. The style might mean anything; and means, therefore, nothing. Original architecture is a lost art in England; and an art that is once lost is never found again. The Edvardian Era cannot be commemorated in its architecture.

Erection of new buildings robs us of the past and gives us in exchange nothing of the present. Consequently, the excuse put by me into the gaping mouth of the average Londoner cannot be accepted. I had no idea that my case was such a good one. Having now vindicated on grounds of patriotic utility that which I took to be a mere sentimental prejudice, I may be pardoned for dragging 'beauty' into the question. The new buildings are not only uninteresting through lack of temporal and local significance: they are also hideous. With all his learned eclecticism, the new architect seems unable to evolve a fake that shall be pleasing to the eye. Not at all pleasing is a mad hotch-potch of early Victorian hospital, Jacobean manor-house, Venetian palace, and bride-cake in Gunter's best manner. Yet that, apparently, is the modern English architect's pet ideal. Even when he confines himself to one manner, the result (even if it be in itself decent) is made horrible by vicinity to the work of a rival who has been dabbling in some other manner. Every street in London is being converted into a battlefield of styles, all shrieking at one another, all murdering one another. The tumult may be exciting, especially to the architects, but it is not beautiful. It is not good to live in.

However, I am no propagandist. I am not sanguine enough to suppose that I could do anything to stop either the adulteration or the demolition of old streets. I do not wish to infect the public with my own misgivings. On the contrary, my motive for this essay is to inoculate the public with my own placid indifference in a certain matter which seems always to cause them painful anxiety. Whenever a new highway is about to be opened, the newspapers are filled with letters suggesting that it ought to be called by this or that beautiful name, or by the name of this or that national hero. Well, in point of fact, a name cannot (in the long-run) make any shadow of difference in our sentiment for the street that bears it, for our sentiment is solely according to the character of the street itself; and, further, a street does nothing at all to keep green the memory of one whose name is given to it.

For a street one name is as good as another. To prove this proposition, let us proceed by a.n.a.logy of the names borne by human beings. Surnames and Christian names may alike be divided into two cla.s.ses: (1) those which, being identical with words in the dictionary, connote some definite thing; (2) those which, connoting nothing, may or may not suggest something by their sound. Instances of Christian names in the first cla.s.s are Rose, Faith; of surnames, Lavender, Badger; of Christian names in the second cla.s.s, Celia, Mary; of surnames, Jones, Vavasour. Let us consider the surnames in the first cla.s.s. You will say, off-hand, that Lavender sounds pretty, and that Badger sounds ugly. Very well. Now, suppose that Christian names connoting unpleasant things were sometimes conferred at baptisms. Imagine two sisters named Nettle and Envy. Off-hand, you will say that these names sound ugly, whilst Rose and Faith sound pretty. Yet, believe me, there is not, in point of actual sound, one pin to choose either between Badger and Lavender, or between Rose and Nettle, or between Faith and Envy. There is no such thing as a singly euphonious or a singly cacophonous name.

There is no word which, by itself, sounds ill or well. In combination, names or words may be made to sound ill or well. A sentence can be musical or unmusical. But in detachment words are no more preferable one to another in their sound than are single notes of music. What you take to be beauty or ugliness of sound is indeed nothing but beauty or ugliness of meaning. You are pleased by the sound of such words as gondola, vestments, chancel, ermine, manor-house. They seem to be fraught with a subtle onomatopoeia, severally suggesting by their sounds the grace or sanct.i.ty or solid comfort of the things which they connote. You murmur them luxuriously, dreamily. Prepare for a slight shock. Scrofula, investments, cancer, vermin, warehouse. Horrible words, are they not? But say gondola--scrofula, vestments--investments, and so on; and then lay your hand on your heart, and declare that the words in the first list are in mere sound nicer than the words in the second. Of course they are not. If gondola were a disease, and if a scrofula were a beautiful boat peculiar to a beautiful city, the effect of each word would be exactly the reverse of what it is. This rule may be applied to all the other words in the two lists. And these lists might, of course, be extended to infinity. The appropriately beautiful or ugly sound of any word is an illusion wrought on us by what the word connotes. Beauty sounds as ugly as ugliness sounds beautiful. Neither of them has by itself any quality in sound.

It follows, then, that the Christian names and surnames in my first cla.s.s sound beautiful or ugly according to what they connote. The sound of those in the second cla.s.s depends on the extent to which it suggests any known word more than another. Of course, there might be a name hideous in itself. There might, for example, be a Mr. Griggsbiggmiggs.

But there is not. And the fact that I, after prolonged study of a Postal Directory, have been obliged to use my imagination as factory for a name that connotes nothing and is ugly in itself may be taken as proof that such names do not exist actually. You cannot stump me by citing Mr. Matthew Arnold's citation of the words 'Ragg is in custody,'

and his comment that 'there was no Ragg by the Ilyssus.' 'Ragg' has not an ugly sound in itself. Mr. Arnold was jarred merely by its suggestion of something ugly, a rag, and by the cold brutality of the police-court reporter in withholding the prefix 'Miss' from a poor girl who had got into trouble. If 'Ragg' had been brought to his notice as the name of some ill.u.s.trious old family, Mr. Arnold would never have dragged in the Ilyssus. The name would have had for him a savour of quaint distinction. The suggestion of a rag would never have struck him. For it is a fact that whatever thing may be connoted or suggested by a name is utterly overshadowed by the name's bearer (unless, as in the case of poor 'Ragg,' there is seen to be some connexion between the bearer and the thing implied by the name). Roughly, it may be said that all names connote their bearers, and them only.

To have a 'beautiful' name is no advantage. To have an 'ugly' name is no drawback. I am aware that this is a heresy. In a famous pa.s.sage, Bulwer Lytton propounded through one of his characters a theory that 'it is not only the effect that the sound of a name has on others which is to be thoughtfully considered; the effect that his name produces on the man himself is perhaps still more important. Some names stimulate and encourage the owner, others deject and paralyse him.'

Bulwer himself, I doubt not, believed that there was something in this theory. It is natural that a novelist should. He is always at great pains to select for his every puppet a name that suggests to himself the character which he has ordained for that puppet. In real life a baby gets its surname by blind heredity, its other names by the blind whim of its parents, who know not at all what sort of a person it will eventually become. And yet, when these babies grow up, their names seem every whit as appropriate as do the names of the romantic puppets.

'Obviously,' thinks the novelist, 'these human beings must "grow to"

their names; or else, we must be viewing them in the light of their names.' And the quiet ordinary people, who do not write novels, incline to his conjectures. How else can they explain the fact that every name seems to fit its bearer so exactly, to sum him or her up in a flash?

The true explanation, missed by them, is that a name derives its whole quality from its bearer, even as does a word from its meaning. The late Sir Redvers Buller, tauredon hupoblepsas [spelled in Greek, from Plato's Phaedo 117b], was thought to be peculiarly well fitted with his name. Yet had it belonged not to him, but to (say) some gentle and thoughtful ecclesiastic, it would have seemed quite as inevitable.

'Gore' is quite as taurine as 'Buller,' and yet does it not seem to us the right name for the author of Lux Mundi? In connection with him, who is struck by its taurinity? What hint of ovinity would there have been for us if Sir Redvers' surname had happened to be that of him who wrote the Essays of Elia? Conversely, 'Charles Buller' seems to us now an impossible nom de vie for Elia; yet it would have done just as well, really. Even 'Redvers Buller' would have done just as well. 'Walter Pater' means for us--how perfectly!--the author of Marius the Epicurean, whilst the author of All Sorts and Conditions of Men was summed up for us, not less absolutely, in 'Walter Besant.' And yet, if the surnames of these two opposite Walters had been changed at birth, what difference would have been made? 'Walter Besant' would have signified a prose style sensuous in its severity, an exquisitely patient scholars.h.i.+p, an exquisitely sympathetic way of criticism.

'Walter Pater' would have signified no style, but an unslakable thirst for information, and a bustling human sympathy, and power of carrying things through. Or take two names often found in conjunction--Johnson and Boswell. Had the dear great oracle been named Boswell, and had the sitter-at-his-feet been named Johnson, would the two names seem to us less appropriate than they do? Should we suffer any greater loss than if Salmon were Gluckstein, and Gluckstein Salmon? Finally, take a case in which the same name was borne by two very different characters. What name could seem more descriptive of a certain ill.u.s.trious Archbishop of Westminster than 'Manning'? It seems the very epitome of saintly astuteness. But for 'Cardinal' subst.i.tute 'Mrs.' as its prefix, and, presto! it is equally descriptive of that dreadful medio-Victorian murderess who in the dock of the Old Bailey wore a black satin gown, and thereby created against black satin a prejudice which has but lately died. In itself black satin is a beautiful thing. Yet for many years, by force of a.s.sociation, it was accounted loathsome. Conversely, one knows that many quite hideous fas.h.i.+ons in costume have been set by beautiful women. Such instances of the subtle power of a.s.sociation will make clear to you how very easily a name (being neither beautiful nor hideous in itself) can be made hideous or beautiful by its bearer--how inevitably it becomes for us a symbol of its bearer's most salient qualities or defects, be they physical, moral, or intellectual.

Streets are not less characteristic than human beings. 'Look!' cried a friend of mine, whom lately I found studying a map of London, 'isn't it appalling? All these streets--thousands of them--in this tiny compa.s.s!

Think of the miles and miles of drab monotony this map contains! I pointed out to him (it is a thinker's penalty to be always pointing things out to people) that his words were nonsense. I told him that the streets on this map were no more monotonous than the rivers on the map of England. Just as there were no two rivers alike, every one of them having its own speed, its own windings, depths, and shallows, its own way with the reeds and gra.s.ses, so had every street its own claim to an especial nymph, forasmuch as no two streets had exactly the same proportions, the same habitual traffic, the same type of shops or houses, the same inhabitants. In some cases, of course, the difference between the 'atmosphere' of two streets is a subtle difference. But it is always there, not less definite to any one who searches for it than the difference between (say) Hill Street and Pont Street, High Street Kensington and High Street Notting Hill, Fleet Street and the Strand. I have here purposely opposed to each other streets that have obvious points of likeness. But what a yawning gulf of difference is between each couple! Hill Street, with its staid distinction, and Pont Street, with its eager, pushful 'smartness,' its air de pet.i.t parvenu, its obvious delight in having been 'taken up'; High Street Notting Hill, down-at-heels and unashamed, with a placid smile on its broad ugly face, and High Street Kensington, with its traces of former beauty, and its air of neatness and self-respect, as befits one who in her day has been caressed by royalty; Fleet Street, that seething channel of business, and the Strand, that swollen river of business, on whose surface float so many aimless and unsightly objects. In every one of these thoroughfares my mood and my manner are differently affected. In Hill Street, instinctively, I walk very slowly--sometimes, even with a slight limp, as one recovering from an accident in the hunting-field. I feel very well-bred there, and, though not clever, very proud, and quick to resent any familiarity from those whom elsewhere I should regard as my equals. In Pont Street my demeanour is not so calm and measured. I feel less sure of myself, and adopt a slight swagger. In High Street, Kensington, I find myself dapper and respectable, with a timid leaning to the fine arts. In High Street, Notting Hill, I become frankly common. Fleet Street fills me with a conviction that if I don't make haste I shall be jeopardising the national welfare. The Strand utterly unmans me, leaving me with only two sensations: (1) a regret that I have made such a mess of my life; (2) a craving for alcohol.

These are but a few instances. If I had time, I could show you that every street known to me in London has a definite effect on me, and that no two streets have exactly the same effect. For the most part, these effects differ in kind according only to the different districts and their different modes of life; but they differ in detail according to such specific little differences as exist between such cognate streets as Bruton Street and Curzon Street, Doughty Street and Great Russell Street. Every one of my readers, doubtless, realises that he, too, is thus affected by the character of streets. And I doubt not that for him, as for me, the mere sound or sight of a street's name conjures up the sensation he feels when he pa.s.ses through that street. For him, probably, the name of every street has. .h.i.therto seemed to be also its exact, inevitable symbol, a perfect suggestion of its character. He has believed that the grand or beautiful streets have grand or beautiful names, the mean or ugly streets mean or ugly names. Let me a.s.sure him that this is a delusion. The name of a street, as of a human being, derives its whole quality from its bearer.

'Oxford Street' sounds harsh and ugly. 'Manchester Street' sounds rather charming. Yet 'Oxford' sounds beautiful, and 'Manchester' sounds odious. 'Oxford' turns our thoughts to that 'adorable dreamer, whispering from her spires the last enchantments of the Middle Age.' An uproarious monster, belching from its factory-chimneys the latest exhalations of h.e.l.l--that is the image evoked by 'Manchester.' But neither in 'Manchester Street' is there for us any hint of that monster, nor in 'Oxford Street' of that dreamer. The names have become part and parcel of the streets. You see, then, that it matters not whether the name given to a new street be one which in itself suggests beauty, or one which suggests ugliness. In point of fact, it is generally the most pitiable little holes and corners that bear the most ambitiously beautiful names. To any one who has studied London, such a t.i.tle as 'Paradise Court' conjures up a dark fetid alley, with untidy fat women gossiping in it, untidy thin women quarrelling across it, a host of haggard and shapeless children sprawling in its mud, and one or two drunken men propped against its walls. Thus, were there an official nomenclator of streets, he might be tempted to reject such names as in themselves signify anything beautiful. But his main principle would be to bestow whatever name first occurred to him, in order that he might save time for thinking about something that really mattered.

I have yet to fulfil the second part of my promise: show the futility of trying to commemorate a hero by making a street his namesake. By implication I have done this already. But, for the benefit of the less nimble among my readers, let me be explicit. Who, pa.s.sing through the Cromwell Road, ever thinks of Cromwell, except by accident? What journalist ever thinks of Wellington in Wellington Street? In Marlborough Street, what policeman remembers Marlborough? In St.

James's Street, has any one ever fancied he saw the ghost of a pilgrim wrapped in a cloak, leaning on a staff? Other ghosts are there in plenty. The phantom chariot of Lord Petersham dashes down the slope nightly. Nightly Mr. Ball Hughes appears in the bow-window of White's.