Chapter VII: Part 7

So with the parochial registers, churchwardens’ books, the wills and other MSS. which are more or less concerned with the private and family life of our ancestors. We have a right to know what our fathers thought and believed, and how they got to break away from this or that superstition, arrived at this or that new truth, were delivered from this or that thraldom, rebelled against this or that wrong, suffered for their errors as if they were crimes, learnt to reverence even doubt when it dawned upon them that doubters could be earnest, noble, and loving, learnt to see that Christian charity could be tolerant even of mistakes; how their horizon widened as their vision became stronger; how as knowledge grew from more to more the old bonds and shackles that cramped the spirit of man became more and more strained even to bursting; how the old fetters bit into the flesh of some, the old chains wore out the hearts and brains of others; how they spoke to their children in their last hours; what messages they sent to friends and kindred when the end was drawing very near; what their hope and trust was as they _looked beyond_ the veil. Yes, we have a right to know these things if they are to be known. You may sneer at the follies of pedigree hunters if you will, and deride the harmless madness of genealogists; but I do not envy the man who would not give two straws to find out whether his grandfather’s grandfather was a hero or a blackleg, whether he lived the life of a successful pickpocket, or died the death of a martyr for his honest convictions. And if any one is so little acquainted with the curiosities of parish registers, or the contents of parish chests, or the strange secrets often revealed or alluded to in the wills of provincial probate courts, as to suppose that these “rags of time” are wholly wanting in any elements of pathos and romance, he certainly has a great deal to learn, and he knows very little indeed about the contents of documents which he so tranquilly assumes to be “barren all.”

From what has been said thus far I hope it will be clear that I am as little inclined to advocate the removal of the municipal records from their proper homes, the muniment rooms of the provincial boroughs, as I am to propose that the archives of London should be transferred from the Guildhall to any other repository. What is wanted is not centralization but classification. Already it has been found advisable to remove the natural history collections from the British Museum and to find a home for them in Kensington. The time may come, and may not be far distant, when a further step will have to be taken in the direction of relieving the congested storehouses at Bloomsbury of some other assemblage of precious objects. In London we find ourselves more and more driven to specialize our collections, if only to save ourselves from bewilderment.

But as to any great collections of historical documents, except only that at the Record Office, they do not exist; they have still to be made. Meanwhile one large class of records--the ecclesiastical, parochial, and testamentary records--may be said to be in great danger of gradually but certainly perishing, partly from mere disuse, partly from the want of any adequate provision for their safe keeping, partly from the actual uncertainty that attaches to their ownership. One and all they are national records, the preservation of which ought to be assured to the nation by very different precautions from any which now are provided. Whom do the parish registers belong to? What guarantee have we that X or Y or Z may not sell “his” registers to the highest bidder? In point of fact, parish registers have been bought and sold again and again. Who are the owners of such a splendid collection of historic MSS. as is to be found in the archives of St. Lawrence’s Church, Reading? What is to prevent the churchwardens from selling them to a “collector” and appropriating the proceeds towards the expense of a new organ? Where are the records of Barchester now that the Venerable Archdeacon Grantley has ceased to edify us with his eloquent charges? In how many instances is there to be found anything remotely resembling a catalogue of such archidiaconal records? How many living men have ever consulted such as there are or would know where to look for them?

Let me not be misunderstood. I have received so much kindness, hospitality, and cordial assistance at the hands of so many who have laid open their muniments to my inspection, I have found and made among these gentlemen such warm friends that I can only think of them and speak of them with gratitude and esteem. But who knows better than the most learned and most entirely loyal among the custodians of our ecclesiastical and parochial muniments that the state of things as they are is not the state of things that ought to be?

And yet there can surely be no insuperable difficulty in grouping together our ecclesiastical, testamentary, and parochial muniments, forming them into one homogeneous collection, and bringing them together into a single provincial record office, taking the geographical limits of the diocese as the area within which the several aggregates of ancient documents shall be deposited.

Few men can pay a visit to any of our cathedrals, especially those within whose precincts there are still to be found any considerable remains of the old conventual buildings, without being struck by what seems to be the _waste of room_ in the church itself and its outlying dependencies. Not to speak of the side chapels, which some would have a sentimental objection to utilizing--though I know instances where they are mere store places for workmen’s tools and lumber--consider the immense areas at our disposal in many a transept, triforium, or chapter house. Consider how comparatively small a chamber suffices, for the most part, to contain all the existing records of a cathedral chapter or of the bishop of a see. Consider how all the parochial registers even of a large diocese from 1538 to 1800 could easily stand upon a dozen shelves of ten feet long, and all the wills of two or three counties from the earliest times to the beginning of this century could be accommodated without difficulty in many a drawing-room. Consider all these things and more that I forbear from dwelling on, and it will be abundantly clear that the difficulty of providing accommodation for one group of historic MSS. at any rate will be found insignificant if we set ourselves seriously to deal with it. Within the precincts of our cathedrals there is ample space and verge enough for any such requirements as this group of records may be supposed to make upon us.

But assuming that such an assemblage, such a grouping, of historic MSS. were determined on, and that the housing of it were found to be easy and practicable, would it not be necessary that a duly qualified custodian should be appointed to take the oversight of the collection and to act as the provincial or diocesan keeper of the records? Of course it would; and this is exactly what is very urgently needed. I am told that a letter from Mr. Charles Mason, which appeared in _The Times_ not so very long ago, and which gave an account of his experience in trying to institute a search among the diocesan records of Llandaff, “produced quite a sensation in some quarters.” I think it must be among those who have had very little experience indeed of similar adventures. The truth is that it is the exception rather than the rule to find among the present responsible keepers of parochial testamentary or episcopal records a gentleman who even professes to be able to decipher the more ancient and precious MSS. which he has under his charge. The registrar of a diocese, of an archdeaconry, or of a prerogative court, the parson of a parish, or the churchwarden, each and all have something else to do than spend the precious hours upon poring over their muniments.

Such men as Dr. Bensley of Norwich are few and far between. Gentlemen whose duties involve many hours a day of arduous and exhausting labour can only devote their leisure moments to research, and when they do so they are in danger of getting something less than thanks as their reward. The chivalrous and splendid enthusiasm of the late Mr. Wickenden at Lincoln, of Dr. Sheppard at Canterbury, of Canon Raine at York, has laid us under profound obligation, but in each and all of these instances the labour of long years has been a labour of love, and the very permission to engage and continue in it has been conceded as a privilege conferred upon the toiler. Or again, when the fascination which “musty parchments” exercise over some minds has irresistibly impelled such generous students as Archdeacon Chapman of Ely, the late Canon Swainson of Chichester, or Mr. Symonds of Norwich, to make sacrifices of time and money in the preservation or deciphering or calendaring the precious documents to which their position as members of the chapter gave them free access, they have found some portion of their recompense in the wonder and astonishment of the Philistines that any human being could undertake and carry on so much _without being paid for it_.

A registrar is a functionary whose duty it is to keep a register of what _is_ going on from day to day. I suspect it is very seldom part of his duty to find out what people were doing or recording long before he was born. At any rate it is no part of his duty to find that out for you, or to teach you where and how to look for what you want to discover. So with the parson of a parish. For the most part he is possessed by a conviction that if he loses his registers something dreadful will happen to him; and accordingly when he goes away for a holiday he leaves his cook in charge, with a solemn warning that she is to let no one see “the books” except in her presence and under her eye; and a very awful eye it sometimes is. But who of us has not been kindly and frankly told by a genial brother that if we want such or such an entry copied we must come and copy it ourselves, for that our good-natured correspondent cannot make out the old writing?

As to the churchwardens, assuming that they are to be looked upon as responsible for the custody of the parochial evidences, to talk of them as keepers of ancient MSS. is a little too ridiculous. It is true that there are in my vestry two dilapidated parish chests, which once presumably were full of wills and deeds and conveyances and evidences, which if they were now forthcoming, might considerably disturb the equanimity of some personages here and there; but those old chests are used as coal-bins now, and have been so used from times to which the memory of man doth not extend. I could tell some odd stories of my experience as a dryasdust in days when I employed my leisure hours in peeping into the dens and caves of the earth.

Assuredly if we resolve upon collecting together any group of historic MSS. and making them available for students engaged in original research, it will be necessary to put them under the custody of a trained _archiviste_, as the French call such a functionary, and give him a recognized position as provincial keeper of the records. Such an official, with one or two subordinates under him, should be required to give their time exclusively to the work marked out for them. Let that work be organized in the same way and on the same lines as those laid down in the great London _tabularium_. Let there be the same system adopted of arranging, indexing, and calendaring. Let there be issued periodically reports addressed to the central authorities, let the archives be open to students and inquirers without fee or any payment. If any one wishes to have a document transcribed or a search made which, if he knew how to set about it, he might carry on himself, let him pay for his “office copy” or his search at a reasonable charge. As for the details of such an arrangement let them settle themselves, as they surely will; in the meantime let us trust to the golden principle “Solvitur ambulando.”

Can it be doubted that into such provincial depositories there would flow, in the natural course of things, a stream of contributions from the possessors of documents illustrative of county and provincial history, for which their owners have no room in their houses, which they know not how to make use of and are half inclined to burn? Nay, it will probably come to pass that collections of great historic importance will be committed for safe custody to such provincial archives on the understanding that they shall in due time be examined, arranged, and reported on, and thus the work now carried on by the Historic Manuscripts Commission will be continued in a much more exhaustive way than is now attempted by the Commissioners, who necessarily spend much of their time and much of the public money in itinerating, and whose work can only be by-work and subordinated to their daily duties and the regular business of their lives. I have known two instances of cartloads of MSS. of great antiquity, and comprehending almost certainly large numbers of charters, letters, rolls, and the like of estimable value and interest, deliberately destroyed, and in one of these instances destroyed with some difficulty and at some expense, only because they were “in the way.” What I know, others doubtless may find parallels for. Would such a catastrophe have happened if there had been any recognized depository for records of this kind, which, by the very fact of their being guarded with care and intelligence and treated with respect, men had learnt to look upon as having an intrinsic value?

* * * * *

It will be noticed that in the foregoing pages I have said very little about any objections that may be urged or difficulties that may be suggested in carrying out a measure of this character. No! I must leave that delightful duty to others. I offer a suggestion. The draughting of a _scheme_ must come by-and-by. As to difficulties, sentimental, professional, or financial, we are sure to hear of them. Was there ever a proposal for any sort of reform that had not to run the gauntlet of those clamorous people who love nothing better, and are good for nothing better, than bawling out, “There’s a lion in the way!”? There is no need to suggest difficulties to these people; to do so would be only to intrude into their domain. But this I am more and more convinced of, namely, that there are no difficulties in carrying out such a suggestion as is here brought forward which will not disappear if they are faced with a desire to overcome them, and I am even more convinced that a feeling is growing up in our midst against allowing the present condition of affairs to continue. It is quite sufficiently scandalous that we have submitted to it so long.

VI.

_SNOWED UP IN ARCADY._

No truer saying was ever uttered than that “one half the world does not know how the other half lives.” And yet I am continually contradicted by wiseacres of the streets and squares when I meekly but firmly maintain that it is actually possible to live a happy, intelligent, useful, and _progressive_ life in an out-of-the-way country parish--“far from the madding crowd”--and literally (as I happen to know at this moment) three miles from a lemon. “Don’t tell me!” says one of my agnostic friends who knows everything, as agnostics always do, and who is absolutely certain, as agnostics always are, that they know all about _you_--“don’t tell me! You may make the best of it as you do, and you put a good face upon it, which I dare say is all right; but to try and make me believe you _like_ being buried alive is more than you can do. Stuff, man! You might as well try and persuade me you like being snowed up!”

Now it so happened that, a few days after my bouncing and aggressive friend had delivered himself of this delicate little protest against any and every assertion I might venture to make in the conversation which had arisen between us, I was awaked at the usual hour of 7 a.m. by Jemima knocking at the door; and when Mr. Bob had growled his usual growl, and I had declared myself to be awake in a surly monosyllable, Jemima cried aloud, saying, “It’s awful snow, sir--drifts emendjous!” I drew the curtains open, pulled up the blinds, and lo! there was snow indeed. Not on the trees--that was well, at any rate--but all the air was full of snow. Not coming down from the clouds, but driving across the fields in billows of white dust--piling itself up against every obstacle--pollard, stump or gatepost, hedgerow, or wall, or farmstead--rolling, eddying, scudding along before the cruel north-easter, that was lashing the earth with his freezing scourge of bitterness. At about the distance of a pistol-shot from my window the high road runs straight as a ruler between low banks and thin hedges, and we can see it for half a mile or so till some rising ground blocks the view. This morning _there was no road_!--only a long broad stripe of snow that seemed a trifle higher than the ploughed lands that lay to the northward, and which were almost swept bare by the gale. To the southward there were huge drifts packed up against every little copse or plantation, and far as the eye could see not a human creature or sheep or head of cattle to lessen the impression of utter desolation.

By the time we got down to breakfast the wind had lulled, and fresh snow was falling. That was, at any rate, an improvement upon the accursed north-easter. But it was plain that there were to be no _ante-jentacular_ or _post-prandial peregrinations_, as Jeremy Bentham used to phrase it, for us this day. “My dear,” I said, “I’m afraid we are really snowed up!” Now, what do you suppose was the reply I received from her Royal Highness the Lady Shepherd? Neither more nor less than this--“What a jolly day we will have! We needn’t go out, need we?”

Nathan, the wise youth--agnostic, as he calls himself, which is only Greek for _ignoramus_--would have sneered at the Lady Shepherd’s chuckle, and she--she would have chuckled at his sneer. But as he was not there we only laughed, and somewhat gleefully set ourselves to map out the next fifteen hours with plans of operation that would have required at least fifty hours to execute.

“The only thing that can be said for your pitiful life,” said Nathan to us once, “is that you have no interruptions. But there is not much in that, where there’s nothing to interrupt.” Nathan, the wise youth, is a type of his class. He’s so delicate in his little _innuendos_, so sympathetically candid, so tender to “the things you call your feelings, you know.” Do these people always wear hob-nailed boots, prepared at any moment for a wrestling match, where kicking is part of the game? “No interruptions!” Oh, Lady Shepherd, think of that! “No interruptions!”

You observe that our day begins at eight. When we came first to Arcady we said we would breakfast at half-past eight. We tried the plan for a month. It was a dead failure. Jemima never kept true to the minutes. We found ourselves slipping into nine o’clock; that meant ruin. It must either be eight o’clock, or the financial bottom of the establishment would inevitably drop out. So eight o’clock it is and shall be.

At eight o’clock, accordingly, on this particular morning we went down as usual to the library--and, I am bound to say, we were just a little depressed, because we had made up our minds that no postman in England could bring us our bag this morning. To our immense surprise and joy, there were the letters and papers lying on the table as if it were Midsummer Day. The man had left the road, tramped along the fields which the howling wind had made passable. There were nine letters. When I see what these country postmen go through, the pluck and endurance they exhibit, the downright suffering (_i.e._, it would be to you and me) which they take all as a part of the day’s work, and how they go on at it, and retire at last, after years of stubborn jog-trotting, to enjoy a pension of ten shillings a week and the repose of acute rheumatism consequent upon sudden cessation from physical exertion, I find myself frequently exclaiming with the poet,--

πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κ’ οὐδὲν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.

Many the wonderful things that be, but the wonder of wonders is--Man!

Now it will be a surprise, perhaps a very great surprise, to some of my genuine town friends, to learn that even a country parson--who after all is a man and a brother--gets pretty much the same sort of letters that other people do. He gets offers to assign to him shares in gold mines; offers of three dozen and four, positively all that is left, of that transcendental sherry; offers to make him a life governor of the new college for criminals; invitations to be a steward at a public dinner of the Society for Diminishing Felony; above all, he gets some very elegant letters from gentlemen in very high positions in society offering to lend him money. I do verily believe these scoundrels, who invariably write a good hand on crested paper and express themselves in a style which is above all praise, are in league with one of my banker’s clerks. How else does it happen that, as sure as ever my account is very low and that I am in mortal terror lest my last cheque should be returned dishonoured, so sure am I to hear from one of these diabolical tempters? There’s one scarlet Mephistopheles who _must_ know all about my financial position. How else could he have thought of sending me two of his gilt-edged seductions in a single week just when my banking account was overdrawn? It is absurd to pretend that he keeps a _medium_.

Moreover, proof sheets come by post even in this wilderness, and they have to be corrected, too; and real letters that are not begging letters come, some kind and comforting, some stern and uncompromising, some with the oddest inquiries and criticisms. Sometimes, too, anonymous letters come. What a queer state of mind a man must have got himself into before he can sit down to write an anonymous letter! Does any man in his senses ever _read_ an anonymous letter of four pages? If he does, the _writer_ gets no fun out of it. I am inclined to think that the practice of writing anonymous letters is dying out now that the schoolmaster is abroad; and yet, they tell me, insanity is not decreasing. Then, too, there are the newspapers. I could live without butter--I shouldn’t like it, but I could submit to it; or without eggs, though I dislike snow pancakes; or without sugar--and there are some solids and some liquids that are insipid without that; but there is one thing I could not do without--I could not do without the _Times_. We have tried again and again to economize by having a penny paper, but it has always ended in the same way. As _entremets_ they are all delightful, but for a square meal give me the _Times_. Without it “the appetite is distracted by the variety of objects, and tantalized by the restlessness of perpetual solicitation,” till, when the day is done, the mind wearies under “a feeling of satiety without satisfaction, and of repletion without sustenance.”

On this particular morning we had adjourned from the library to the breakfast-room, and were opening our letters in high spirits, spite[6] of Nathan the wise, and notwithstanding the bitter wind and the snow, when a hideous sound startled us. There, under the window, the snow steadily falling, drawn up in single file, were four human creatures, two males and two females, arrayed in outlandish attire, and every one of them playing hideously out of tune. It was a German band!

A more lugubrious spectacle than is presented by a German band, droning forth “Herz, mein Herz” in front of your window in a snowstorm it would be difficult to imagine. We suffer much from German bands, but we have only ourselves to thank. I love music, and I am possessed by the delusion that it is my duty to encourage the practice of instrumental execution. Five or six years ago there was a band of eight or nine performers who perambulated Norfolk, and they came to me at least once a month. Whenever they appeared I went out to them and gave them a shilling, airing my small modicum of German periodically, and receiving flattering compliments upon my pronunciation, which gratified me exceedingly. These people disappeared at last, but they were succeeded by another band, and a very inferior one, and I took but little notice of them. There were seven of these performers, a cornet and two clarionets being prominent--very. However, they got their shilling, and vanished. Three days after their departure came another band: this time there were only four. I thought that rather shabby, but I was busy, did not take much notice of them, and again gave them a shilling. The cornet player was really quite respectable. Next day came four more, and there was no cornet, only the abominable clarionet. It was insufferable. I said I really must restrict myself to sixpence, and that was fourpence more than they were worth. Two days after their departure came a single solitary performer; he had a pan-pipe fastened under his chin, a peal of bells on his head, which he caused to tinkle by his nods, a pair of cymbals attached to his elbows, a big drum which he beat by the help of a crank that he worked with one of his feet, and a powerful concertina which he played with his hands. He led off with a dolorous chorale in a minor key. It was really more than flesh and blood could bear. “Send him away, Jemima. Send him away!--instantly! Tell him I am _sehr krank_. Send him away!” The fellow smiled with unctuous complacency. But when he got only twopence, his face fell. “Ach, nein! You plaize, ze professor, he geeve one sheeling to ze band--I am ze band. He geeve ze band only twopence. He do not understand I am ze band! You plaise tell him I am ze band!” “No! You’re to go away. Master’s sore and kranky!” Ze band loitered for half a minute; then it took itself to pieces and went its way. But the fellow’s hint about the shilling was significant, and led to an investigation. Then it turned out that the band of seven or eight which was going its rounds that year, split itself up when it came into my neighbourhood, and, in view of my shilling, presented itself in two detachments, each of which reckoned on my shilling, and several times carried it off. Now I give one penny for each performer, and only when there is a cornet do I send out coffee to the instrumentalists.

It was, however, not in flesh and blood to withhold the shilling from the players of that quartette on that bitter morning. It was heart-rending to think of their having at the peril of their lives staggered through three miles of snowdrifts. It was inhuman to send them away without coffee. And they had it accordingly. Poor things! poor things! Where were they going? They were going back to the “Red Lion,” a stone’s throw off, where they had slept the night before, and where they meant to spend this night in delighting the hearts of the rustics by waltzes and polkas, and gathering not such a bad harvest for the nonce. “Lor, sir!” said Mr. Style, “to hear that there trombone a _sole_ing ‘Rule Britannia’! That made you feel he was a real musician--that it did!”

So you see we began the day with a band of music. That does not sound so bad. But the band being dismissed, we finish our breakfast and retire to the library.

We do not go empty-handed. Each of us carries a plate piled up high with bread cut up for the birds that are waiting to be fed. A space under the window is swept clear from snow, and there the birds are, ready for their breakfast. Sparrows by the score, robins that will hardly wait till the window is opened, chaffinches and tomtits, dunnocks, blackbirds and thrushes, linnets and--jackdaws, yes! and, watching very warily for a chance, a dozen or so of rooks in the trees in yonder plantation, very much excited, very restless, very shy, but ready to come down and gobble up the morsels if we keep ourselves out of sight. As to the robins, there is no _mauvaise honte_ about them; they will almost fly on to the plate. Sometimes I send a shower of morsels quite over the robins, and they greatly enjoy the fun. One saucy little fellow last week laughed out loud at me. “Laughed?” Yes, laughed! I’ve known a robin laugh convulsively. But then it was not under a street lamp.

It is one of the laws of this palace that we do not begin real work before half-past nine. And before that time arrives there is usually a good half-hour for reading aloud by the Lady Shepherd. What is the Shepherd doing meanwhile? He is not going to tell you anything more than this, that he is devoting himself during that half-hour to preventing the ravages of moths and bookworms. You people who suppose we poor country folk must be horribly dull and depressed may as well understand that this library in which I am sitting is an apartment that for a country parsonage may be regarded as palatial. Pray haven’t I a right to have one good room in my house? One thing I know, and that is that I am rated as if I lived in a house of £430 a year, and if I must pay rates on that amount I may as well have something to show for it. Also I would have you to know that the walls of this library are lined with books from floor to ceiling. Then there are flowers all about--grown on the premises, mind you--none of your bought blossoms stuck on to a bit of stick with a bit of wire, but live flowers that turn and look at you--at any rate, they certainly do turn and look out at the window if you give them a chance. Moreover, they are not under the dominion of a morose stipendiary, for the sufficient reason that the head gardener is the Lady Shepherd, and the under gardener only comes three times a week, and Jabez has his hands full, and Ishmael is no servant of ours, but the servant of the maids in the kitchen; and when you’re snowed up Ishmael must give his life to the solemn duties of a stoker and filler of coal-scuttles, and to shovelling away the snow, and to running errands. There is no doubt about the seriousness of that boy. He is oppressed by the sense of his responsibility, and convinced that he occupies the position of the divine being in Plato’s _Theœtetus_. As long as τὸ ὄν kept his hand upon the world it went round all right; when he took it off, the world straightway spun round the wrong way. That being Ishmael’s view, he is naturally grave. When the maids shriek at him he exhibits a terror-stricken alacrity, but when I tell him to do this or that, he looks at me with a cunning expression as if he would say, “Do you really mean that? Well, you must take the consequences.” Then he glides off. From Ishmael not much is to be expected in the greenhouse. But when half-past nine strikes I roll my table into position and set to work, my head gardener puts on her apron and gathers up her skirts, and starts forth with her basket on her arm, equipped for _her_ day’s work.

Now, if a man has four good hours in the morning which he may call his own, it’s a great deal more than most men have, and there’s no saying what may be done in such hours as these. But if you allow morning callers to disturb you, then it’s--I was going to say a bad word!

I had just settled myself to work in earnest when Jemima’s head appeared. “Please, sir, Tinker George wants to see you.” “Tell your mistress.” And I thought no more about it, but went on with what I was doing. If Tinker George had been one of my parishioners I should have jumped up and heard him patiently, but Tinker George does not belong to me, but to the next parish, and as his usual object in coming to see me is to show me his poetry, I passed him on this time, knowing very certainly that he would not be the worse for my not seeing him. An hour later I got up to warm myself. “May I speak?” said the Lady Shepherd. “I let Tinker George go away, but I’m afraid you’ll be sorry I did. I think you would have liked to see him.” “What’s the matter?” “He’s been writing to the dear Queen” (the Lady Shepherd always speaks of “the _dear_ Queen”) “and he came to show you the letter, and to ask what address he should put on it.”

Tinker--George--writing to--the--Queen! What _did_ the man want? He wanted to be allowed to keep a dog without paying tax for it. George goes about with a wheel, and he calls for broken pots and pans. Sometimes he finds the boys extremely annoying, they will persist in turning his wheel when his back is turned and he has gone into a house for orders. Now, you see, if he had a dog of spirit and ferocity chained to his wheel, George might leave that wheel in charge of that dog; but then a dog is an expensive luxury when there is the initial outlay of seven shillings and sixpence for the tax. So he wrote to the Queen, and he put it into the post, and I never saw it. This was just one of those things which cause a man lifelong regret, all the more poignant because so vain. The Lady Shepherd is the most passionately loyal person in England, and she firmly believes that there will come a holograph reply from her Majesty in the course of a few days addressed to Tinker George, promptly and graciously granting him his very reasonable request. “I’ve promised Tinker George,” she added, “to give him a sovereign for the letter when it comes, and it shall have a box all to itself among my autographs.”

Be pleased to observe that it was only just noon, and two events of some interest had happened already, though we were snowed up. But at this point I must needs inform you who _we_ are. In the first place there are the Shepherd and the Lady Shepherd; in the second place there are the Shepherd’s dogs. No shepherd can live without dogs--it would not be safe. No _man_ ever pulled another man out of the snow: it is perfectly well known that men don’t know how to do it. Till lately we had three of these protectors. But--_eheu fugaces!_--we have only two now; one a blue Skye, silky, surly, and exceptionally stubborn; and a big colley, to whom his master is the Almighty and the All-wise. I do not wish to claim more for my friends than is due to them. Ours are only average dogs; but they _are_ average dogs. And if any one will have the hardihood to assert that he holds the average man to be equal to the average dog in morals, manners, and intelligence, I will not condescend to argue with that purblind personage. I will only say that he knows no more about dogs than I do about moles, and I never kept a tame mole.

Nothing perplexes some of my friends more than to hear that I do not belong to a single London club. Not belong to a club? One man was struck dumb at the intelligence; he looked at me gravely--suspicion in every wrinkle of his face, perplexity in the very buttons of his waistcoat. He was working out the problem mentally. I saw into his brain. I almost heard him say to himself, “Not belong to a club? Holloa! Ever been had up for larceny? Been a bankrupt? Wonder why they all blackballed him?--give it up!” He evidently wanted to ask what it meant--there must be something wrong which he did not like to pry into: a skeleton in the cupboard, in fact.

“I said a _London_ club!” I added, to relieve his embarrassment. “Of course I do belong to a club _here_--the Arcadian Club. It’s a very select club, too, and we can introduce strangers, which is an advantage, as you may perhaps yourself have felt if you have ever been kept for ten minutes stamping on the door-mat of the Athenæum with the porter watching you while that arch boy was sauntering about, pretending to carry your card to your friend upstairs. We are rational beings in our club, and I’ll introduce you at once--Colonel Culpepper, Toby! Colonel Culpepper, Mr. Bob.” Neither Toby nor Mr. Bob took the least notice of the gallant colonel, who seemed rather shy himself. “They’re dangerous dogs are colleys, so I’m told. In London it does not so much matter, because, you see, they must go about with a muzzle. And this is really all the club you belong to?”

Yes. This and no other; the peculiarities of our club being that false witness, lying, and slandering were never so much as known among the members. There is a house dinner every day, music every evening, no sneering, no spite, no gossip, no entrance fee, no annual subscription, no blackballing, no gambling, no betting, and no dry champagne or dry anything. Show me a club like that, my dear colonel, and I’ll join it to-morrow, whether in Pall Mall or in the planet Jupiter. At the present moment I know of only one such club, and it is here--the Arcadian Club! Enjoy its privileges while you may, and be grateful.

Seriously, I defy any club in England or anywhere else to produce me fifty per cent. of its members so entirely courteous, cordial, and clubbable--so graceful, intelligent, and generous--such thorough gentlemen, and so entirely guiltless of talking nonsense, as our friends Toby and Mr. Bob. Of course there are the infirmities which all flesh is heir to, and jealousy is one of these. But put the case that you should say to a little _man_, “You may sleep inside that door on a cushion by the fire,” and say to a big _man_, “You’re to sleep outside that same door on the mat!” and put the case that each of those _men_ knew he was a member of the same club to which the fire, the cushion, and the mat belonged:--and pray what _modus vivendi_ could be found between the big _man_ and the little _man_ on this side the grave?

But to return. The snow had ceased falling, but in the bleak distance as far as the eye could see, the road was blocked by ugly-looking drifts, in which a man on horseback might very easily be buried and flounder hopelessly till he sank exhausted never to rise again. There was nothing stirring except the birds, looking fluffy, cold, and starving. So I turned my chair to my table again and resumed my task.

Hark! Actually a ring at the front-door bell. The dogs growled and sniffed, but there was no fierce barking. Confound these tramps! That trombone has gone back to the “Red Lion,” and the rogues are oozing out to practise upon our weakness. “That’s not a tramp,” said the Lady Shepherd. “Toby didn’t bark.” She was right, as she always is. For Toby has quite an unerring discernment of the proximity of a tramp. His gift in this line is inexplicable. How the great Darwin would have delighted to observe that dog! If it was not a tramp, who could it be? “I believe it’s Polus!” said the Lady Shepherd. “Only Polus could have the ferocity to come here in defiance of the snowdrifts.” Right again. It _was_ Polus. She had given him the name because he was eager to get into the County Council.--Poor man! He only got three votes.--There was no reference to the young gentleman in the _Gorgias_ who bore that name--only a desire to indicate that he was the man who _went to the Poll_.

It was hardly more than noon; we were snowed up, and yet already we had had music; poetry as represented by Tinker George; a flood of literature; and now there was discussion imminent on the profoundest questions of politics, philosophy, and law.

Enter Polus! What in the world had brought him hither this dreadful day? What had he been doing? whither was he going? Should we put him to bed? To send for a doctor was out of the question. But we could soon get him a mustard poultice and a hot bath. Polus laughed the hearty laugh of rude health and youth. “You, dear old people, you forget I’m only thirty-five. I’ve had a pleasant walk from Tegea--greased my boots well--only rolled over twice. I’ve come for a talk. Dear me! dear me! Didn’t I see a moth there on the curtains? Curious that they should come out in such numbers when you’re snowed up! May I help you to get rid of the pests?”

The man had come to show his defiance of the laws of nature and ordinary prudence. In fact, he had come for mere _cussedness_! Also he had come for a conference. What was the subject to be this time? “Anything but the education question,” said I; “we must draw the line somewhere. Woman’s rights, Man’s wrongs. Agricultural depression. The People’s Palace. The Feudal System. The Bacon-Shakespeare--anything you please in reason--but Education! No! Not for worlds.” It was not long before the cat jumped out of the bag. Polus was bent on floating a most magnificent new International League. His ideas were a trifle mixed, but so are those of many men in our times. Polus makes the mistake of _bottling_ his grand schemes and laying them down, as it were, when they ought to be kept _on draught_. The result is that there’s always a superabundance of froth--or shall we call it foam?--that we have to plunge into before we can taste of that pleasant draught; and when you have drunk about half your fill, there’s a wholly unnecessary and somewhat disagreeable sediment at the bottom, which interferes with your enjoyment. Thus the new League was to be so comprehensive a League, for effecting so many desirable objects, that it was difficult to discover what the main object was--or, in fact, if the main object did not resolve itself into an assemblage of objects, each of which was struggling with the rest for prominence and supremacy.

On this occasion Polus had the effrontery to begin by assuring me that I was in honour and conscience bound to join the League, for the idea of it had been first suggested to him by a pregnant and suggestive saying of mine some months before. “What! when you were so hot for the abolition of the punishment by death?” Oh dear no. He’d changed his mind about that long ago. “Was it when you were advocating the desirability of the labourers having the cows and the landlords keeping the land?” “No, no! I’ve improved greatly upon that. Haven’t you heard? I’m for letting the landlord keep the cows, but giving the labourers the calves only; that appears to me the equitable adjustment of a complex question.” I thought a little, and Polus gave me time. What was it? What could it have been that we had been talking about? Enfantin’s hullucinations and the dual priesthood (_couple-prêtre_)? Fourrier’s Phalanstery? It must have been an _obiter dictum_ which dropped from me as he laid down the law about Proudhon. I shook my head. “Don’t you remember? Entails!”

Then it appeared that the great League was to be started for the abolition of everything in the shape of entails. In our last conference I had let fall the remark that for every acre of land tied up in strict entail there was a thousand pounds sterling tied up in much stricter entail. If you are going to deal with the one, why not with the other? Polus was putting on his hat when I gave him that parting dig, and I thought I had silenced him for ever. So far from it, I had but sown a new seed in his soul, and now he came to show me the baby.

Polus meanwhile had plunged into the heaving billows of statistics. He had discovered, to his own satisfaction, that 500 millions of the National Debt was strictly entailed; that 217 millions belonged prospectively to babes unborn; that the British people were paying “enormous taxes, sir!” not only for the sins and extravagances of their forefathers, but for enriching of their hypothetical progeny. That it was a state of things altogether outrageous, irrational, monstrous, and a great many other epithets. Would I join the League? Of course I’d join a league for the extinction of nasal catarrh or the annihilation of stupidity--gladly, but upon conditions. I must first know how the thing is to be effected. Your object may be heroic, but the means for carrying out this glorious reform? the machinery, my dear Polus? Let me hear more about _that_. A new _voyage en Icarie_ implies that you are going to embark upon some safe vessel. By the way, how did Cabet get to his enchanting island?

Hereupon ensued an elaborate monologue, admirably expressed, closely reasoned, carrying not so much conviction as demonstration along with it. Granting the premises, the conclusion was inevitable. It was as good as Bishop Blougram. The scheme was this: Property--even in the funds--is a fact. There is no denying that. Therefore face the facts first, and deal with them as such. Timid reformers go only halfway towards building up the ideal social fabric. They say meekly, nationalize the land. The true reformer says, abolish all permanent financial obligations. But hardships would ensue upon any sudden and violent extinction of _private_ debts. Prudence suggests that you should begin by a gradual extinction of _public_ debts--in other words, the National Debt. The living holders of stock shall be fairly dealt with, and during their lifetime they shall enjoy their abominable dividends wrenched from the pockets of the people. As they drop off--and the sooner they go the better--their several claims upon the tax-payer shall perish with them. None shall succeed to their privileges of robbing the teeming millions. All stock standing in the name of trustees shall be transferred to the names of the present beneficiaries, and shall be extinguished by the death of the several holders. All powers of bequest in regard of such stock shall be taken away. In the case of infants--and there are 147,623 of such cases--who are only prospective owners of stock--being _only_ prospective owners, and therefore having never actually tasted the joys of unrighteous possession--they shall continue to be prospective owners, and never be allowed to become anything else. They will have nothing to complain of; you take from them nothing that they ever had. All that will happen to them will be that they will be saved from cherishing delusive hopes, such as should never have been aroused in them. The scales will drop from their eyes; they will no longer be the victims of treacherous phantasms. The sooner they learn their glorious lesson the better. They will speedily rise to a true conception of the dignity of citizenship, and grow to the stature of a loftier humanity, whose destiny who shall foreshadow? “Now, my dear Doctor,” said Polus, pausing for a moment in his harangue, “I ask you as a Christian and a philosopher, is not ours a magnificent League, and is not the vision that opens before us sublime?”

“Place aux dames! Place aux dames!” I answered. “Ask the Lady Shepherd. Let her speak.”

* * * * *

It is a curious physiological fact that I have been puzzled by for several years past, and which I am only half able to explain or account for, that _flashing_ eyes have almost disappeared from off the face of the earth. You may see many sorts of eyes--eyes of various shades of colour and various shapes--eyes that glitter, that gleam, that sparkle, that shine, that stare, that blink; even eyes that are guilty of the vulgarity of winking; but eyes that flash with the fire and flame of wrath, and scorn, and scorching indignation--such as once or twice I have cowered and trembled under when I was young--such eyes have passed away; the passion in them has been absorbed in something, it may be better or it may be worse--absorbed in utter tenderness. The last time I saw eyes flash was when a certain college don came to pay his respects to a certain little lady--she _was_ a little lady then--a week after she was married. The old blunderer boasted that he had been on Lord Powis’s committee on a certain memorable occasion. “Ah, my dear madam, you are too young to know anything about that, and your husband of course was an undergraduate. But----” The man almost jumped from his chair; he turned pale as an oyster. The little lady sprang up a pillar of flame. “Do you mean, sir, that you voted against the Prince Consort? You will oblige me by not referring to the subject.” I rang the bell again and again; I called for buckets of water--the whole room seemed to be, the whole house seemed likely to be on fire.

Ah! there were real live Tories (spelt with a capital T) then. We were blue _or_ yellow, not a pale green made up by smudging the two together. We didn’t stand upon legs that were not a pair. None of your Conservative Liberals or Liberal Conservatives going about hat in hand and timidly asking, “What will you be good enough to wish to have conserved?” It was “Church and Queen, sir, or salt and water. No shilly-shallying.” Hesitate, and nothing remained for you but pistols for two in the back yard. Argument? Nay! We dealt with that as Uncle Sammy’s second wife did, and everyone knows that

She with the heel of assertion
Stampt all his arguments down!

If I could have looked forward in those days, what a monster would my future self have appeared!

_Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis._

* * * * *

Something in the look of the Lady Shepherd’s, eyes this snowy morning reminded me of the old terrible flash; but it all passed, and only merriment shone out. “Sublime, my good Polus? How can a vision be sublime? A visionary is at best a dreamer, and a vision is a sham. A sublime sham is a contradiction in terms. Why don’t you try and talk sense sometimes?” “You’re not a bit better than that chit of a girl with a mop on her head that came gabbling here last week. But it’s like you men--you’ve no more common sense than this trowel! Visions indeed!

I gladly live amid the real,
And I seek a worthier ideal.
Courage, brothers; God is overhead!

Ah! you may laugh. But it’s all on my side.”

Away she swept, basket and trowel and all. Stop to listen to that gibberish--not she!

When her Royal Highness came back to us [in these moods she is the Princess, in her gentler and more pastoral moods she is the Lady Shepherd] she found us deep in another part of the discussion. The business of the Great International League having extinguished the National Debt by a very simple process, the next stall in the Augean stable of existing abomination, as he expressed it, must be dealt with. “Suppose we change the metaphor, my dear Polus, and say the next plank in your platform must be pulled up.” “Pulled up? Quite the contrary. Fixed, firmly fixed, nailed down!” “Be it so! Let us look at the plank. A stall in the stable of abominations suggests dirty work, you know!”