Chapter XVI: Book III: Letter III (7)

He is, however, not easy to "sample," there being, as has
been said, no authorised collection to draw upon and other
difficulties in the way. What follows may serve for fault
of a better: and the _Spectator_ letter-pastiche referred to
above under Walpole, will complete it perhaps more
appropriately than may at first appear. For while the latter
is quite Addisonian, not merely in dress but in body, its
soul is blended of two natures--the model's and the
artist's--in the rather uncanny fashion which makes _Esmond_
as a whole so marvellous, except to those stalwarts who hold
that, as nobody before the twentieth century knew anything
about anything, Thackeray could not know about the
eighteenth.

47. TO MISS LUCY BAXTER

WASHINGTON, Saturday Feb. 19. 1853.

My dear little kind Lucy:

I began to write you a letter in the railroad yesterday, but it bumped with more than ordinary violence, and I was forced to give up the endeavour. I did not know how ill Lucy was at that time, only remembered that I owed her a letter for that pretty one you wrote me at Philadelphia, when Sarah was sick and you acted as her Secretary. Is there going to be always Somebody sick at the brown house? If I were to come there now, I wonder should I be allowed to come and see you in your night-cap--I wonder even do you wear a night-cap? I should step up, take your little hand, which I daresay is lying outside the coverlet, give it a little shake; and then sit down and talk all sorts of stuff and nonsense to you for half an hour; but very kind and gentle, not so as to make you laugh too much or your little back ache any more. Did I not tell you to leave off that beecely jimnayshum? I am always giving fine advice to girls in brown houses, and they always keep on never minding. It is not difficult to write lying in bed--this is written not in bed, but on a sofa. If you write the upright hand it's quite easy; slanting-dicular is not so pleasant, though. I have just come back from Baltimore and find your mother's and sister's melancholy letters. I thought to myself, perhaps I might see them on this very sofa and pictured to myself their 2 kind faces. Mr. Crampton was going to ask them to dinner, I had made arrangements to get Sarah nice partners at the ball--Why did dear little Lucy tumble down at the Gymnasium? Many a pretty plan in life tumbles down so, Miss Lucy, and falls on its back. But the good of being ill is to find how kind one's friends are; of being at a pinch (I do not know whether I may use the expression--whether "pinch" is an indelicate word in this country; it is used by our old writers to signify poverty, narrow circumstances, res angusta)--the good of being poor, I say, is to find friends to help you, I have been both ill and poor, and found, thank God, such consolation in those evils; and I daresay at this moment, now you are laid up, you are the person of the most importance in the whole house--Sarah is sliding about the room with cordials in her hands and eyes; Libby is sitting quite disconsolate by the bed (poor Libby! when one little bird fell off the perch, I wonder the other did not go up and fall off, too!) the expression of sympathy in Ben's eyes is perfectly heart-rending; even George is quiet; and your Father, Mother and Uncle (all 3 so notorious for their violence of temper and language) have actually forgotten to scold. "Ach, du lieber Himmel," says Herr Strumpf--isn't his name Herr Strumpf?--the German master, "die schoene Fraeulein ist krank!" and bursts into tears on the Pianofortyfier's shoulder when they hear the news (through his sobs) from black John. We have an Ebony femme de chambre here; when I came from Baltimore just now I found her in the following costume and attitude standing for her picture to Mr. Crowe. She makes the beds with that pipe in her mouf and leaves it about in the rooms. Wouldn't she have been a nice lady's-maid for your mother and Miss Bally Saxter?

But even if Miss Lucy had not had her fall, I daresay there would have been no party. Here is a great snow-storm falling, though yesterday was as bland and bright as May (English May, I mean) and how could we have lionized Baltimore, and gone to Mount Vernon, and taken our diversion in the snow? There would have been nothing for it but to stay in this little closet of a room, where there is scarce room for 6 people, and where it is not near so comfortable as the brown house. Dear old b.h., shall I see it again soon? I shall not go farther than Charleston, and Savannah probably, and then I hope I shall get another look at you all again before I commence farther wanderings--O, stop! I didn't tell you why I was going to write you--well, I went on Thursday to dine with Governor and Mrs. Fish, a dinner in honor of me--and before I went I arrayed myself in a certain white garment of which the collar-button-holes had been altered, and I thought of the kind, friendly little hand that had done that deed for me; and when the Fisheses told me how they lived in the Second Avenue (I had forgotten all about 'em)--their house and the house opposite came back to my mind, and I liked them 50 times better for living near some friends of mine. She is a nice woman, Madam Fish, besides; and didn't I abuse you all to her? Good bye, dear little Lucy--I wish the paper wasn't full. But I have been sitting half an hour by the poor young lady's sofa, and talking stuff and nonsense, haven't I? And now I get up, and shake your hand with a God bless you! and walk down stairs, and please to give everybody my kindest regards, and remember that I am truly your friend.

W. M. T.

48.

THE "TRUMPET" COFFEE-HOUSE, WHITEHALL.

'Mr Spectator--

'I am a gentleman but little acquainted with the town, though I have had a university education, and passed some years serving my country abroad, where my name is better known than in the coffee-houses and St. James's.

'Two years since my uncle died, leaving me a pretty estate in the county of Kent; and being at Tunbridge Wells last summer, after my mourning was over, and on the look-out, if truth must be told, for some young lady who would share with me the solitude of my great Kentish house, and be kind to my tenantry (for whom a woman can do a great deal more good than the best-intentioned man can), I was greatly fascinated by a young lady of London, who was the toast of all the company at the Wells. Everyone knows Saccharissa's beauty; and I think, Mr. Spectator, no one better than herself.

'My table-book informs me that I danced no less than seven-and-twenty sets with her at the assembly. I treated her to the fiddles twice. I was admitted on several days to her lodging, and received by her with a great deal of distinction, and, for a time, was entirely her slave. It was only when I found, from common talk of the company at the Wells, and from narrowly watching one, who I once thought of asking the most sacred question a man can put to a woman, that I became aware how unfit she was to be a country gentleman's wife; and that this fair creature was but a heartless worldly jilt, playing with affections that she never meant to return, and, indeed, incapable of returning them. 'Tis admiration such women want, not love that touches them; and I can conceive, in her old age, no more wretched creature than this lady will be, when her beauty hath deserted her, when her admirers have left her, and she hath neither friendship nor religion to console her.

'Business calling me to London, I went to St. James's Church last Sunday, and there opposite me sat my beauty of the Wells. Her behaviour during the whole service was so pert, languishing and absurd; she flirted her fan, and ogled and eyed me in a manner so indecent, that I was obliged to shut my eyes, so as actually not to see her, and whenever I opened them beheld hers (and very bright they are) still staring at me. I fell in with her afterwards at Court, and at the playhouse; and here nothing would satisfy her but she must elbow through the crowd and speak to me, and invite me to the assembly, which she holds at her house, nor very far from Ch--r--ng Cr--ss.

'Having made her a promise to attend, of course I kept my promise; and found the young widow in the midst of a half-dozen of card-tables, and a crowd of wits and admirers. I made the best bow I could, and advanced towards her; and saw by a peculiar puzzled look in her face, though she tried to hide her perplexity, that she had forgotten even my name.

'Her talk, artful as it was, convinced me that I had guessed aright. She turned the conversation most ridiculously upon the spelling of names and words; and I replied with as ridiculous, fulsome compliments as I could pay her; indeed, one in which I compared her to an angel visiting the sick-wells, went a little too far; nor should I have employed it, but that the allusion came from the Second Lesson last Sunday, which we both had heard, and I was pressed to answer her.

'Then she came to the question, which I knew was awaiting me, and asked how I _spelt_ my name? "Madam," says I, turning on my heel, "I spell it with the y." And so I left her, wondering at the light-heartedness of the town-people, who forget and make friends so easily, and resolved to look elsewhere for a partner for your constant reader.

'CYMON WYLDOATS.

'You know my real name, Mr. Spectator, in which there is no such a letter as _hupsilon_. But if the lady, whom I have called Saccharissa, wonders that I appear no more at the tea-tables, she is hereby respectfully informed the reason y.'

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870)

There are few better examples by converse of the saying
(familiar in various forms and sometimes specially applied
to writing and answering letters) that it is only idle
people who have no time to do anything, than Dickens. He was
by no means long-lived: and for the last
three-fifths--practically the whole busy time--of his life,
he was one of the busiest of men. He wrote many universally
known books, and not a few, in some cases not so well known,
articles. He travelled a great deal; edited periodicals for
many years, taking that duty by no means in the spirit of
Olympian aloofness which some popular opinion connects with
editorship; only sometimes shirked society; and had all
sorts of miscellaneous occupations and avocations. His very
fancy for long walks might seem one of the least compatible
with letter-writing; yet a very large bulk of his letters
(by no means mainly composed of editorial ones) has been
published, and there are no doubt many unpublished. There
have been different opinions as to their comparative rank as
letters, but there can be no difference as to the curious
full-bloodedness and plenitude of life which, in this as in
all other divisions of his writing, characterises Dickens's
expression of his thoughts and feelings. Perhaps, as might
be generally though not universally expected, the comic ones
are the more delightful: at any rate they seem best worth
giving here. The first--to a schoolboy who had written to
him about _Nicholas Nickleby_--is quite charming; the
second, to the famous actor-manager who after being a
Londoner by birth and residence for half a century had just
retired, is almost Charles Lamb-like; and the third
deserved to have been put in the original mouth of Mrs.
Gamp![127]

49. TO MASTER HASTINGS HUGHES

DOUGHTY STREET, LONDON. Dec. 12th. 1838.

Respected Sir,

I have given Squeers one cut on the neck and two on the head, at which he appeared much surprised and began to cry, which, being a cowardly thing, is just what I should have expected from him--wouldn't you?

I have carefully done what you told me in your letter about the lamb and the two "sheeps" for the little boys. They have also had some good ale and porter, and some wine. I am sorry you didn't say _what_ wine you would like them to have. I gave them some sherry, which they liked very much, except one boy, who was a little sick and choked a good deal. He was rather greedy, and that's the truth, and I believe it went the wrong way, which I say served him right, and I hope you will say so too.

Nicholas had his roast lamb, as you said he was to, but he could not eat it all, and says if you do not mind his doing so he should like to have the rest hashed to-morrow with some greens, which he is very fond of, and so am I. He said he did not like to have his porter hot, for he thought it spoilt the flavour, so I let him have it cold. You should have seen him drink it. I thought he never would have left off. I also gave him three pounds of money, all in sixpences, to make it seem more, and he said directly that he should give more than half to his mamma and sister, and divide the rest with poor Smike. And I say he is a good fellow for saying so; and if anybody says he isn't I am ready to fight him whenever they like--there!

Fanny Squeers shall be attended to, depend upon it. Your drawing of her is very like, except that I don't think the hair is quite curly enough. The nose is particularly like hers, and so are the legs. She is a nasty disagreeable thing, and I know it will make her very cross when she sees it; and what I say is that I hope it may. You will say the same I know--at least I think you will.

I meant to have written you a long letter, but I cannot write very fast when I like the person I am writing to, because that makes me think about them, and I like you, and so I tell you. Besides, it is just eight o'clock at night, and I always go to bed at eight o'clock, except when it is my birthday, and then I sit up to supper. So I will not say anything more besides this--and that is my love to you and Neptune; and if you will drink my health every Christmas Day I will drink yours--come.

I am,

Respected Sir,

Your affectionate Friend.

P.S. I don't write my name very plain,[128] but you know what it is you know, so never mind.

50. TO MR. W. C. MACREADY

Saturday, May 24th, 1851.

My dear Macready,

We are getting in a good heap of money for the Guild. The comedy has been very much improved, in many respects, since you read it. The scene to which you refer is certainly one of the most telling in the play. And there _is_ a farce to be produced on Tuesday next, wherein a distinguished amateur will sustain a variety of assumption-parts, and in particular, Samuel Weller and Mrs. Gamp, of which I say no more. I am pining for Broadstairs, where the children are at present. I lurk from the sun, during the best part of the day, in a villainous compound of darkness, canvas, sawdust, general dust, stale gas (involving a vague smell of pepper), and disenchanted properties. But I hope to get down on Wednesday or Thursday.

Ah! you country gentlemen, who live at home at ease, how little do you think of us among the London fleas! But they tell me you are coming in for Dorsetshire. You must be very careful, when you come to town to attend to your parliamentary duties, never to ask your way of people in the streets. They will misdirect you for what the vulgar call "a lark," meaning, in this connection, a jest at your expense. Always go into some respectable shop or apply to a policeman. You will know him by his being dressed in blue, with very dull silver buttons, and by the top of his hat being made of sticking-plaster. You may perhaps see in some odd place an intelligent-looking man, with a curious little wooden table before him and three thimbles on it. He will want you to bet, but don't do it. He really desires to cheat you. And don't buy at auctions where the best plated goods are being knocked down for next to nothing. These, too, are delusions. If you wish to go to the play to see real good acting (though a little more subdued than perfect tragedy should be), I would recommend you to see ---- at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Anybody will show it to you. It is near the Strand, and you may know it by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab fares are eightpence a mile. A mile London measure is half a Dorsetshire mile, recollect. Porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is fourpence. The Zoological Gardens are in the Regent's Park, and the price of admission is one shilling. Of the streets, I would recommend you to see Regent Street and the Quadrant, Bond Street, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, and Cheapside. I think these will please you after a time, though the tumult and bustle will at first bewilder you. If I can serve you in any way, pray command me. And with my best regards to your happy family, so remote from this Babel.

Believe me, my dear Friend,

Ever affectionately yours.

[CHARLES DICKENS]

P.S. I forgot to mention just now that the black equestrian figure you will see at Charing Cross, as you go down to the House, is a statue of _King Charles the First_.[129]

51. TO MR. EDMUND YATES

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, Tuesday, Feb. 2nd. 1858.

My dear Yates,

Your quotation is, as I supposed, all wrong. The text _is not_ "Which his 'owls was organs." When Mr. Harris went into an empty dog-kennel, to spare his sensitive nature the anguish of overhearing Mrs. Harris's exclamations on the occasion of the birth of her first child (the Princess Royal of the Harris family), "he never took his hands away from his ears, or came out once, till he was showed the baby." On encountering that spectacle, he was (being of a weakly constitution) "took with fits." For this distressing complaint he was medically treated; the doctor "collared him, and laid him on his back upon the airy stones"--please to observe what follows--"and she was told, to ease her mind, his 'owls was organs."

That is to say, Mrs. Harris, lying exhausted on her bed, in the first sweet relief of freedom from pain, merely covered with the counterpane, and not yet "put comfortable," hears a noise apparently proceeding from the backyard, and says, in a flushed and hysterical manner: "What 'owls are those? Who is a-'owling? Not my ugebond?" Upon which the doctor, looking round one of the bottom posts of the bed, and taking Mrs. Harris's pulse in a reassuring manner, says, with much admirable presence of mind: "Howls, my dear madam?--no, no, no! What are we thinking of? Howls, my dear Mrs. Harris? Ha, ha, ha! Organs, ma'am, organs. Organs in the streets, Mrs. Harris; no howls."

Yours faithfully, [C. D.]

FOOTNOTES:

[127] One of the pleasantest, _to me_, of Dickens's letters is that in which, extravagant anti-Tory as he was, he refuses to let a contributor echo the too common grudges at Lockhart (see _inf._ under Stevenson). But it is very short, and perhaps of no general interest.

[128] Referring, I suppose, to the well-known and "inimitable" (but by no means indispensable) flourish of his signature.

[129] "The comedy" is Bulwer-Lytton's _Not so Bad as we Seem_, acted by Dickens and other amateurs for charity at Devonshire House seventy years ago, and about to be reproduced _in loco_ as these proofs are being revised.

CHARLES KINGSLEY (1819-1875)

There are some people who, while thinking that the author of
_Westward Ho!_ has not, at least recently, been given his
due rank in critical estimation, admit certain explanations
of this. As a historian and in almost all his writings
Kingsley was inaccurate,--almost (as his friend and
brother-in-law Froude was once said to be) "congenitally
inaccurate"; in his novels and elsewhere he went out of his
way to tread on the corns of all sorts of people; he
constantly ventured out of his depth in such subjects as
philosophy and theology; and he suffered a terrible defeat
by rashly engaging, and by tactical ineptitude, in his
contest with Newman. His politics, in which matter at one
time he engaged hotly, were those of a busier and more
educated Colonel Newcome. His poems, which were his least
unequal work, seem never to have attracted due notice.

But none of his foibles--not even corn-treading--is a fatal
defect in familiar letter-writing: consequently he has good
chance here, and his _Letters and Memoirs_ have been
deservedly often reprinted. It is true that letters cannot
show in full the really exceptional versatility which
enabled the same man to write _Yeast_ and _Westward Ho!_,
_Andromeda_ and _The Water Babies_, the best of the Essays
and the best of the Sermons, _Alton Locke_ and _At Last_.
But they can and they do show it in part: and it gives them
the interest which has been noticed in other cases. Indeed
in one respect--as a writer--Kingsley is perhaps better in
his letters than in his _Essays_, where he too often affects
a Macaulayesque positiveness on rather inadequate grounds.
The following specimen should show him in pleasantly varied
character--as a thoroughly human person, a good sportsman,
and what Matthew Arnold (by no means himself very liberal of
praise to his literary contemporaries) thought him--"the
most generous man [he had] ever known; the most forward to
praise, the most willing to admire, the most free from all
thought of himself in praising and admiring and the most
incapable of being made ill-natured by having to support
ill-natured attacks upon himself." It is to be feared that
Mr. Arnold did not go far wrong when he declared, "Among men
of letters I know nothing so rare as this."

It is true that the author of _Tom Brown's Schooldays_ was
an intimate personal friend, and in politics and other
things a close comrade of Kingsley's; but he was as generous
to others, and while the scars of the battle with Newman
were almost fresh, he writes that he has read _The Dream of
Gerontius_ "with admiration and awe." [Greek: thymos], in
this sense = "spirit." "Jaques" = "Jack" = "Pike," while on
the other side we get, through him of _As You Like It_, an
explanation of "melancholies." And in fact the pike is not a
cheerful-looking fish. Even two whom the present writer once
saw tugging at the two ends of one dead trout in a shallow,
did it sulkily.

52. TO TOM HUGHES, ESQ.

Jan. 12. 1857.

I have often been minded to write to you about 'Tom Brown.' I have puffed it everywhere I went, but I soon found how true the adage is that good wine needs no bush, for every one had read it already, and from every one, from the fine lady on her throne to the red-coat on his cock-horse and the school-boy on his forrum (as our Irish brethren call it), I have heard but one word, and that is, that it is the jolliest book they ever read. Among a knot of red-coats at the cover-side, some very fast fellow said, 'If I had had such a book in my boyhood, I should have been a better man now!' and more than one capped his sentiment frankly. Now isn't it a comfort to your old bones to have written such a book, and a comfort to see that fellows are in a humour to take it in? So far from finding men of our rank in a bad vein, or sighing over the times and prospects of the rising generation, I can't help thinking they are very teachable, humble, honest fellows, who want to know what's right, and if they don't go and do it, still think the worst of themselves therefor. I remark now, that with hounds and in fast company, I never hear an oath, and that, too, is a sign of self-restraint. Moreover, drinking is gone out, and, good God, what a blessing! I have good hopes, of our class, and better than of the class below. They are effeminate, and that makes them sensual. Pietists of all ages (George Fox, my dear friend, among the worst) never made a greater mistake than in fancying that by keeping down manly [Greek: thymos], which Plato saith is the root of all virtue, they could keep down sensuality. They were dear good old fools. However, the day of 'Pietism' is gone, and 'Tom Brown' is a heavy stone on its grave. 'Him no get up again after that,' as the niggers say of a buried obi-man. I am trying to polish the poems: but Maurice's holidays make me idle; he has come home healthier and jollier than ever he was in all his life, and is truly a noble boy. Sell your last coat and buy a spoon. I have a spoon of huge size (Farlow his make). I killed forty pounds weight of pike, &c., on it the other day, at Strathfieldsaye, to the astonishment and delight of ----, who cut small jokes on 'a spoon at each end,' &c., but altered his tone when he saw the melancholies coming ashore, one every ten minutes, and would try his own hand. I have killed heaps of big pike round with it. I tried it in Lord Eversley's lakes on Monday, when the fish wouldn't have even his fly. Capricious party is Jaques. Next day killed a seven pounder at Hurst.... We had a pretty thing on Friday with Garth's, the first run I've seen this year. Out of the Clay Vale below Tilney Hall, pace as good as could be, fields three acres each, fences awful, then over Hazeley Heath to Bramshill, shoved him through a false cast, and a streamer over Hartford Bridge flat, into an unlucky earth. Time fifty-five minutes, falls plentiful, started thirty, and came in eight, and didn't the old mare go? Oh, Tom, she is a comfort; even when a bank broke into a lane, and we tumbled down, she hops up again before I'd time to fall off, and away like a four-year old. And if you can get a horse through that clay vale, why then you can get him 'mostwards'; leastwise so I find, for a black region it is, and if you ain't in the same field with the hounds, you don't know whether you are in the same parish, what with hedges, and trees, and woods, and all supernumerary vegetations. Actually I was pounded in a 'taty-garden,' so awful is the amount of green stuff in these parts. Come and see me, and take the old mare out, and if you don't break her neck, she won't break yours.

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)

The peculiar wilfulness--the unkind called it
wrong-headedness--which flecked and veined Mr. Ruskin's
genius, had, owing to his wealth and to his entire
indifference to any but his own opinion, opportunities of
displaying itself in all his work, public as well as
private, which are not common. Naturally, it showed itself
nowhere more than in letters, and perhaps not unnaturally he
often adopted the epistolary form in books which, had he
chosen, might as well have taken another--while he might
have chosen this in some which do not actually _call_
themselves "letters." There is, however, little difference,
except "fuller dress" of expression, between any of the
classes of his work, whether it range from the first volume
of _Modern Painters_ to _Verona_ in time, or from _The Seven
Lamps of Architecture_ to _Unto This Last_ in subject. If
anybody ever could "write beautifully about a broomstick" he
could: though perhaps it is a pity that he so often did. But
this faculty, and the entire absence of bashfulness which
accompanied it, are no doubt grand accommodations for
letter-writing; and the reader of Mr. Ruskin's letters gets
the benefit of both very often--of a curious study of high
character and great powers uncontrolled by logical
self-criticism almost always. The following--part of a still
longer letter which he addressed to the _Daily Telegraph_,
Sep. 11, 1865, on the eternal Servant Question--was of
course written for publication, but so, practically, was
everything that ever came from its author. It so happens too
that, putting aside his usual King Charles's Head of Demand
and Supply, there is little in it of his more mischievous
crotchets, nothing of the petulance (amounting occasionally
to rudeness) of language in which he sometimes indulged, but
much of his nobler idealism, while it is a capital example
of his less florid style. "Launce," "Grumio" and "Old Adam"
are of course Shakespeare's: "Fairservice" (of whom,
tormenting and selfish as he was, Mr. Ruskin perhaps thought
a little too harshly) and "Mattie," Scott's. "Latinity
enough"--the unfortunate man had written, and the newspaper
had printed, _hoc_ instead of _hac_. "A book of Scripture,"
Colenso's work had just been finished. "Charlotte Winsor" a
baby-farmer of the day.

53. From "THE DAILY TELEGRAPH"

September 18, 1865.

DOMESTIC SERVANTS: SONSHIP AND SLAVERY.

To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."

Sir,

I have been watching the domestic correspondence in your columns with much interest, and thought of offering you a short analysis of it when you saw good to bring it to a close, and perhaps a note or two of my own experience, being somewhat conceited on the subject just now, because I have a gardener who lets me keep old-fashioned plants in the greenhouse, understands that my cherries are grown for the blackbirds, and sees me gather a bunch of my own grapes without making a wry face. But your admirable article of yesterday causes me to abandon my purpose; the more willingly, because among all the letters you have hitherto published there is not one from any head of a household which contains a complaint worth notice. All the masters or mistresses whose letters are thoughtful or well written say they get on well enough with their servants; no part has yet been taken in the discussion by the heads of old families. The servants' letters, hitherto, furnish the best data; but the better class of servants are also silent, and must remain so. Launce, Grumio, or Fairservice may have something to say for themselves; but you will hear nothing from Old Adam nor from Carefu' Mattie. One proverb from Sancho, if we could get it, would settle the whole business for us; but his master and he are indeed "no more." I would have walked down to Dulwich to hear what Sam Weller had to say; but the high-level railway went through Mr. Pickwick's parlour two months ago, and it is of no use writing to Sam, for, as you are well aware, he is no penman. And, indeed, Sir, little good will come of any writing on the matter. "The cat will mew, the dog will have its day." You yourself, excellent as is the greater part of what you have said, and to the point, speak but vainly when you talk of "probing the evil to the bottom." This is no sore that can be probed, no sword nor bullet wound. This is a plague spot. Small or great, it is in the significance of it, not in the depth, that you have to measure it. It is essentially bottomless, cancerous; a putrescence through the constitution of the people is indicated by this galled place. Because I know this thoroughly, I say so little, and that little, as your correspondents think, who know nothing of me, and as you say, who might have known more of me, unpractically. Pardon me, I am no seller of plasters, nor of ounces of civet. The patient's sickness is his own fault, and only years of discipline will work it out of him. That is the only really "practical" saying that can be uttered to him.

The relation of master and servant involves every other--touches every condition of moral health through the State. Put that right, and you put all right; but you will find that it can only come ultimately, not primarily, right; you cannot begin with it. Some of the evidence you have got together is valuable, many pieces of partial advice very good. You need hardly, I think, unless you wanted a type of British logic, have printed a letter in which the writer accused (or would have accused, if he had possessed Latinity enough) all London servants of being thieves because he had known one robbery to have been committed by a nice-looking girl. But on the whole there is much common sense in the letters; the singular point in them all, to my mind, being the inapprehension of the breadth and connection of the question, and the general resistance to, and stubborn rejection of, the abstract ideas of sonship and slavery, which include whatever is possible in wise treatment of servants. It is very strange to see that, while everybody shrinks at abstract suggestions of there being possible error in a book of Scripture, your sensible English housewife fearlessly rejects Solomon's opinion when it runs slightly counter to her own, and that not one of your many correspondents seems ever to have read the Epistle to Philemon. It is no less strange that while most English boys of ordinary position hammer through their Horace at one time or other time of their school life, no word of his wit or his teaching seems to remain by them: for all the good they get out of them, the Satires need never have been written. The Roman gentleman's account of his childhood and of his domestic life possesses no charm for them; and even men of education would sometimes start to be reminded that his "_noctes coenaeque Deum!_" meant supping with his merry slaves on beans and bacon. Will you allow me, on this general question of liberty and slavery, to refer your correspondents to a paper of mine touching closely upon it, the leader in the _Art-Journal_ for July last? and to ask them also to meditate a little over the two beautiful epitaphs on Epictetus and Zosima, quoted in the last paper of the _Idler_?

"I, Epictetus, was a slave; and sick in body, and wretched
in poverty; and beloved by the gods."

"Zosima, who while she lived was a slave only in her body,
has now found deliverance for that also."

How might we, over many an "independent" Englishman, reverse this last legend, and write--

"This man, who while he lived was free only in his body, has
now found captivity for that also."

I will not pass without notice--for it bears also on wide interests--your correspondent's question, how my principles differ from the ordinary economist's view of supply and demand. Simply in that the economy I have taught, in opposition to the popular view, is the science which not merely ascertains the relations of existing demand and supply, but determines what _ought_ to be demanded and what _can_ be supplied. A child demands the moon, and, the supply not being in this case equal to the demand, is wisely accommodated with a rattle; a footpad demands your purse, and is supplied according to the less or more rational economy of the State, with that or a halter; a foolish nation, not able to get into its head that free trade does indeed mean the removal of taxation from its imports, but not of supervision from them, demands unlimited foreign beef, and is supplied with the cattle murrain and the like. There may be all manner of demands, all manner of supplies. The true political economist regulates these; the false political economist leaves them to be regulated by (not Divine) Providence. For, indeed, the largest final demand anywhere reported of, is that of hell; and the supply of it (by the broad gauge line) would be very nearly equal to the demand at this day, unless there were here and there a swineherd or two who could keep his pigs out of sight of the lake.

Thus in this business of servants everything depends on what sort of servant you at heart wish for or "demand." If for nurses you want Charlotte Winsors, they are to be had for money; but by no means for money, such as that German girl who, the other day, on her own scarce-floating fragment of wreck, saved the abandoned child of another woman, keeping it alive by the moisture from her lips. What kind of servant do you want? It is a momentous question for you yourself--for the nation itself. Are we to be a nation of shopkeepers, wanting only shop-boys: or of manufacturers, wanting only hands: or are there to be knights among us, who will need squires--captains among us, needing crews? Will you have clansmen for your candlesticks, or silver plate? Myrmidons at your tents, ant-born, or only a mob on the Gillies' Hill? Are you resolved that you will never have any but your inferiors to serve you, or shall Enid ever lay your trencher with tender little thumb, and Cinderella sweep your hearth, and be cherished there? It _might_ come to that in time, and plate and hearth be the brighter; but if your servants are to be held your inferiors, at least be sure they _are_ so, and that you are indeed wiser, and better-tempered, and more useful than they. Determine what their education ought to be, and organize proper servants' schools, and there give it them. So they will be fit for their position, and will do honour to it, and stay in it: let the masters be as sure they do honour to theirs, and are as willing to stay in that. Remember that every people which gives itself to the pursuit of riches, invariably, and of necessity, gets the scum uppermost in time, and is set by the genii, like the ugly bridegroom in the Arabian Nights, at its own door with its heels in the air, showing its shoe-soles instead of a Face. And the reversal is a serious matter, if reversal be even possible, and it comes right end uppermost again, instead of to conclusive Wrong-end.

ROBERT LOUIS BALFOUR STEVENSON (1850-1894)

The author of _Treasure Island_ (invariably known to his
friends simply as "Louis," the "Robert" being reserved in
the form of "Bob" for his less famous but very admirable
cousin the art-critic) will perhaps offer to some Matthew
Arnold of posterity the opportunity of a paradox like that
of our Matthew on Shelley. For a short time some of these
friends--not perhaps the wisest of them--were inclined to
regard him as, and to urge him to continue to be, a writer
of criticisms and miscellaneous articles--a sort of new
Hazlitt. Others no sooner saw the _New Arabian Nights_ than
they recognised a tale-teller such as had not been seen for
a long time--such as, in respect of anything imitable, had
never been seen before. And he fortunately fell in with
these views and hopes. But all his tales are pure Romance,
and Romance has her eclipses with the vulgar. On the other
hand his letters are almost as good as his fiction, and not
in the least open to the charges of a certain
non-naturalness of style--even of thought--which could,
justly or not, be brought against his other writings. And it
is perhaps worth noting here that letters have held their
popularity with all fit judges almost better than any other
division of literature. Whether this is the effect of their
"touches of nature" (using the famous phrase without the
blunder so common in regard to it but not without reference
to its context) need not be discussed.

As, by the kindness of Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, I am enabled to
give here an unpublished letter of Stevenson's to myself, it
may require some explanation, not only of the commentatory
and commendatory kind but of fact. Stevenson, coming to dine
with me, had brought with him, and showed with much pride, a
new umbrella (a seven-and-sixpenny one) which, to my
surprise, he had bought. But when he went away that night he
forgot it; and when I met him next day at the Savile and
suggested that I should send it to him, there or somewhere,
he said he was going abroad almost immediately and begged me
to keep it for him. By this or that accident, but chiefly
owing to his constant expatriations, no opportunity of
restitution ever occurred: though I used to remind him of it
as a standing joke, and treasured it religiously, stored and
unused. This letter is partly in answer to a last reminder
in which I said that I was going to present it to the
nation, that it might be kept with King Koffee Kalcalli's,
but as a memory of a "victor in romance" not of a vanquished
enemy.

I of course told Mr. Kipling of the contents which concerned
him: and he, equally of course, demanded delivery of the
goods at once. But, half in joke, I demurred, saying that I
was a bailee, and the gift was not formal enough, being
undated and only a "suggestion"; he should have it without
fail at my death, or Stevenson's.[130]

When alas! this latter came, I prepared to act up to my
promise; but, alas! again, the umbrella had vanished! Some
prated of mislaying in house-removal, of illicit use by
servants, etc.; but for my part I had and have no doubt that
the thing had been enskyed and constellated--like Ariadne's
Crown, Berenice's Locks, Cassiopeia's Chair, and a whole
galaxy of other now celestial objects--to afford a special
place to my dead friend then, and to my live one when (may
the time still be far distant) he is ready for it.

As for the more serious subject of the letter, I must refer
curious readers to an essay of mine on Lockhart, originally
published in 1884 and reprinted in _Essays in English
Literature_ some years later. To this reprint I subjoined,
_before_ I got this letter from R. L. S., a reasoned defence
of Lockhart from the charge of cowardice and "caddishness":
but it is evident that Stevenson had not yet seen it. When
he did see it, he wrote me another letter chiefly about my
book itself, and so of no interest to the public, but
touching again on this Lockhart question. He avowed himself
still dissatisfied: but said he was sorry for his original
remark which was "ungracious and unhandsome" if not untrue,
adding, "for to whom do I owe more pleasure than to
Lockhart?"

54.

My dear Saintsbury,

Thanks for yours. Why did I call Lockhart a cad? That calls for an answer, and I give it. "Scorpion"[131] literature seems at the best no very fit employment for a man of genius, which Lockhart was--and none at all for a gentleman. But if a man goes in for such a trade, he must be ready for the consequences; and I do not conceive a gentleman as a coward; the white feather is not his crest, it _almost_ excludes--and I put the "almost" with reluctance. Well, now about the duel? Even Bel-Ami[132] turned up on the _terrain_. But Lockhart? _Et responsum est ab omnibus, Non est inventus._[133] I have often wondered how Scott took that episode.[134] I do not know how this view will strike you;[135] it seems to me the "good old honest" fashion of our fathers, though I own it does not agree with the New Morality. "Cad" may be perhaps an expression too vivacious and not well chosen; it is, at least upon my view, substantially just.

Now if you mean to comb my wig, comb it from the right parting--I know you will comb it well.

An infinitely small jest occurs to me in connection with the historic umbrella: and perhaps its infinite smallness attracts me. Would you mind handing it to Rudyard Kipling with the enclosed note?[136] It seems to me fitly to consecrate and commemorate this most absurd episode.

Yours very sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

[_Enclosure_]

This Umbrella
purchased in the year 1878 by
Robert Louis Stevenson
(and faithfully stabled for more than twelve years in the
halls of George Saintsbury)
is now handed on at the suggestion of the first and
by the loyal hands of the second,
to
Rudyard Kipling.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW.

FOOTNOTES:

[130] Of this _moratorium_ I believe I duly advised R. L. S. and I don't think he objected. There was, if I remember rightly, a further reason for it--that I was living in two places at the time and the subject was not immediately at hand.

[131] Lockhart's (self-given) name in the "_Chaldee MS._" was "the Scorpion that delighteth to sting the faces of men."

[132] Maupassant's ineffable hero and title-giver.

[133] Hardly any school-boy of my or Stevenson's generation would have needed a reference to the _Essay on Murder_. But I am told that De Quincey has gone out of fashion, with school-boys and others.

[134] We know now: also what "The Duke" said when consulted. They did not agree with Stevenson, but then they knew all the facts and he did not.

[135] I should have held it myself, if the facts had been what R. L. S. thought them.

[136] Which of course is Mr. Kipling's property, not mine. But he has most kindly joined in, authorising its publication, and that of the rest of the letter as far as he is concerned.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Peace of the Augustans

A Survey of Eighteenth Century Literature as a Place of Rest and Refreshment

_Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net_

"No one living," according to the _Times_, "knows English
eighteenth century literature as well as Mr. Saintsbury
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In the opinion of the _Spectator_, "Mr. Saintsbury in his
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"No bush is necessary to proclaim where good wine may be
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Mr. Saintsbury is at home in them all.... A book it has been
very pleasant and very profitable to read."

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+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Notes |
| |
| Page 108: full stop inserted after "Duke of Burgundy" |
| Page 125: Second opening parenthesis from before "Cambridge |
| University Press" removed |
| Page 245: Removed closing parenthesis following "the Valley |
| of the Shadow of Frederick" |
| Page 260: "sunday" _sic_ |
| |
| Generally spelling, capitalization and punctuation in |
| letters has been retained as per the book, with the |
| following exceptions: |
| |
| Page 305: Removed closing quote marks following "terrain" |
| (Letter 54) |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+