Part 6

Here is a great social problem that I should not care to undertake to solve. However, from the few observations that I have made, it seems to me that many English farmers have not to seek very far to find the cause of their want of success.

The farmer's wife of other days was a worthy unpretentious woman, who looked to everything connected with the farm, rose at five in the morning, superintended the servants, did her own dairy work, and did not even disdain to feed the pigs. The farmer's wife of the present day is often a lady who, under pretext of not being able to pay frequent visits to her friends, keeps open house and does the honours of the farm with a grace and liberality worthy of the princely hospitality of an English country-seat. She rises at nine, or has her breakfast taken to her bedside; she has horses and carriages, ponies for the children, wagonettes for pleasure parties, all the accoutrements of an English nobleman's house. Her time is passed in picnics, drives, visits, and receptions. She aims at keeping pace with the squire's wife, but has this difficulty to contend with, that whereas the squire takes up his rents whether farming be paying or not, the farmer must pay them, let the year be a good or a bad one.

The tradesmen's wives outshine the women of the upper classes in the luxury of their toilette. They are caricatures loaded with chains, necklets, lockets, long earrings and feathers, as many as they can carry. These ladies must be impatiently awaiting the day when liberty or fashion will allow them to wear two hats at once, and rings in their noses. These walking feather-brooms form a curious contrast with the pretty little Princesse bonnets and simple attire of the English ladies of good society.

My conscience almost reproaches me for having found fault with the kind of existence led by many farmers' wives, for I think I may safely affirm that to their hospitality I owe the most delightful hours of _jucunda oblivia vitæ_ that I have ever passed in my life. O conscience!

* * * * *

Just as extensive and varied as are the possessions of John Bull, Esquire, just so restricted is the domain of his wife.

When she has given her husband her heart and its few little dependencies, her assets are reduced to the incontestable qualities with which nature, as a generous mother, has gifted her. It is true that since the passing of the Married Women's Property Act, she has a right to possess property; but if she sets the least store by her peace of mind and the tranquillity of the household, she quickly gives up to her husband the rights which he considers as already his own in his quality of husband. You see, he takes a wife _for better, for worse_, and if he is no fool, he manages that it shall be for better. It is very simple.

The Englishman is an astute diplomatist; he knows how to rob the enemy of the sinew of war, and consequently of all liberty of action. He knows, too, how to make his wife understand in order that she may take great care of him, that his will is only to be made in her favour, if she has served him well.

A well-known American lady said not long ago, that of all the ways of earning a living, marriage was the hardest, most thankless, and least lucrative for a woman. In justice, I should add, however, that for one reason or another this lady had never tried it.

I know of an Englishman who, about fifty years ago succeeded in winning the hand of a rich girl, and supplanting a lover to whom she had previously plighted her troth. After having passed his life in reproaching his wife for her infidelity ... to the man she had jilted for him, this domestic tyrant vouchsafed to depart this life last year, and a few years of widowhood and peace seemed in store for his wife. But alas! when the will of this love of a husband was examined, it turned out that though there was no mistake about the widowhood, the peace was not so clear. He left everything to his son, that is to say, his own fortune and that of his wife which he had taken possession of, and was not even polite enough to restore to her. At the same time he charged his son to pay that lady £100 per annum, as long as she remained a widow: liberal treatment, was it not? ... for a faithful old servant. As for the supposition that it could enter into the head of the good woman to marry again, it was a joke in very doubtful taste on the part of the worthy defunct. She is at present in her seventy-third year. Her son is fast ruining himself on the Stock Exchange and the turf, so that her pittance of £100 a year is not so safe as it might be. But, whatever may happen, there is no danger that the poor lady, urged by despair, will go and drown herself; she would be too much afraid of rejoining her husband.

If you would study John Bull as a will maker, open the _Illustrated London News_, which gives testamentary news every Friday. The dearly beloved wife--this is the formula--will often be the object of your lively compassion.

If one may trust epitaphs, there are widows who seem, however, far from having cause of complaint against their poor defuncts.

I read on a handsome monument in Kensal Green Cemetery:

"Here lies John Davies, The friend of the friendless, The most tender of husbands."

And lower down, on the same stone:

"Here lies Thomas Millard, The friend of the friendless, and the Tender husband of the Widow of John Davies above mentioned."

I religiously pay a visit to Kensal Green Cemetery every year. I am still young, and I live in hopes of seeing the complete list of the tender husbands of this exemplary widow.

* * * * *

A French widow remains the head of the family: her authority is unquestioned.

On the death of her husband, the English widow becomes a dowager: she abdicates the little power she ever possessed in favour of her eldest son. She has rarely been initiated into the affairs of her husband, therefore it seems quite natural to her that her son, a man, should take the reins of government into his own hands.

The head master of a French _lycée_ will tell you that the sons of widows are generally the most docile and hard-working pupils; the head master of an English public school will tell you that widows' sons are generally lazy and wilful. An English banker will also tell you that there are two classes of clients with whom he does not care to have dealings: widows and clergymen. "They know nothing about business," said the manager of one of the large London banks to me one day.

"I fancy you calumniate the clergymen," said I.

I know a French widow who, a year before sending her son to school, set herself to work to learn Latin and Greek, that she might help him in his studies.

Having thus gained a year's start of her son, she went with him till he reached the highest class. Every French reader will recognise this French Cornelia, when I say that, on the occasion of her son's carrying off the first prize at the _Grand Concours de la Sorbonne_, she would not let him receive a wreath of laurels at the hands of the Prince Imperial who was presiding over the distribution of prizes.

I know an English widow who, upon my remarking to her that mothers in England seemed to have scarcely any authority over their sons, replied that it was quite natural it should be so; each sex had its _rôle_ in this world; men were made to command, and women to obey. _Look here, upon this picture, and on this._

* * * * *

It is needless to say that when we affectionately caress our mothers, we appear highly ridiculous in the eyes of Englishmen. But so long as we love our mothers, tenderly as we do; so long as we make them our guides, confidants and consolers, we shall have no need to be jealous of the English.

The mother's influence, so great in France, so insignificant in England, explains the difference in the men of the two countries. In the Frenchman, you find, mixed with his manly qualities, qualities and defects which are essentially feminine: quickness of perception, amiability, the love of the graceful rather than of the beautiful, a taste for _causerie_,[6] or even a little gossip occasionally; in the Englishman, the qualities and defects are not tempered by the art or the desire of pleasing; they have free play; whence inundations, avalanches of virtue or vice.

[6] This pastime cannot be English, since the English language has no word for it.

The Englishman is the worshipper of practical common sense, and if I had to give him a title, I should call him His Solidity Master John Bull.

The Englishman is modelled on his father; the Frenchman is modelled rather on his mother.

* * * * *

If I had to name the most eminently English quality, without hesitation I would name--hospitality.

And as it is difficult, when making observations on a foreign country, not to be led into comparisons, I will add, at the risk of being taxed with want of patriotism by those good French jingos who believe the English to be semi-barbarians living in a kind of eternal darkness--I will add, I say, that English hospitality is much more thoughtful and generous than French hospitality. The Frenchwoman is a human ant; she is no lender: she only half opens her door. The Englishwoman is like the grasshopper: she flings wide the doors of her hospitality.

Go and pay a call in a French provincial house ... if you should faint, your hostess will offer you a glass of _eau sucrée_; if she invites you to a dance, she will offer you a cake and a cup of chocolate. To be allowed a seat at her table, you must be one of her own: her hospitality does not extend beyond the family circle. She calls regularly on her friends, who religiously return her visits; but they are dry, state calls; and arrived home, each one shuts herself in, and double locks her door.

No one, who has lived long in the French provinces, can wonder at the home life being a closed letter for foreigners. The absurdities, retailed about us in books which pretend to describe our manners, prove it abundantly.

English provincial life is much more intellectual and gay; people are more sociable, and intercourse is freer. The young people of the well-to-do classes belong to lawn-tennis and other athletic clubs, and are constantly meeting together for recreation in the environs of the town. These daily meetings are the occasion of frequent pleasure parties and picnics. People dine, take tea or supper, at each others' houses. The inhabitants of a little English town always seemed to me like but one family. And the impromptu dances, the musical evenings, the pleasant meetings of all kinds! Not a week passes without some pretext arising for a sociable gathering. I know many a little town in which, all through the winter, the inhabitants meet together in the church schoolroom every Saturday. Some sing, others make music, good readers read extracts of some amusing book. The price of admission is one penny: the sum thus gathered pays for lighting and warming the room; if there is any surplus, it is given to the poor. These penny-readings are always well patronised.

This is a critical study which takes very much the form of a panegyric, will perhaps exclaim some of my compatriots, on reading these lines which have but one ambition, that of being faithful.

But I would remark to these compatriots, who, I must say, are not numerous, that there are two kinds of patriotism, blind patriotism and intelligent patriotism: that which will learn nothing from, nor praise anything in, others, and that which seeks edification and enlightenment, and knows how to recognise qualities of which no nation is wholly destitute.

It is to the latter patriotism that my remarks are addressed.

XII.

Mrs. John Bull at Home, on the .... R.S.V.P.--An Intelligent Landlord--Meaning of the word "Concert"--The Conversazione--The Royal Academy.

When you hear the postman's loud rat-tat at your door, do not rush with joy to your letter-box, for instead of a reply which you have been impatiently awaiting, you may find a little snare, conceived in the following terms:

+-----------------------------------------------+ | | | _Mrs. John Bull | | requests the pleasure | | of Mr. X's. company._ | | | | _Music at 9 o'clock._ | | _R.S.V.P._ | | | +-----------------------------------------------+

R.S.V.P.! The hint is good, act upon it: _Résistez Si Vous Pouvez._

Use a little diplomacy, of course: "Mr. X. presents his compliments to Mrs. John Bull, and regrets exceedingly that an engagement already made by Mrs. X. will prevent him from availing himself of her kind invitation for the ....." That's it. Do not forget to name Mrs. X., and to make her responsible for your deep disappointment; by so doing, you will allow Mrs. John Bull to suppose that if you had made the engagement yourself, you would have done everything in your power to get out of it, in order to be able to go to her _soirée musicale_.

In these matters, you must imitate the English, who are unequalled in diplomacy: when they have something disagreeable to say to you, they will invariably say it through their wives. For instance, ask your landlord to do some repairs for you; tell him it rains in his house; that you are subject to rheumatism, and that his cardboard barrack will be your sepulchre, if he does not forthwith send you the mason and the carpenter. Perhaps you think he will take pity upon you and come to the rescue. Not he: not so silly. He sends his wife instead. That lady makes her appearance, looking anything but agreeable, and not over polite. She tells you that tenants are always full of complaints and there is no satisfying them, that she wishes the house were at Jericho, that the draughts are necessaries of existence, and if there were none, you would soon be poisoned by the exhalations from the bricks, and that it is evident you do not know when you are well off. She wishes you a more contented mind in the future, and takes her departure. Furious, you write to your landlord to complain of the unsatisfactory result of the interview, and receive a reply somewhat in this style: "Sir, if it only rested with me, you should not have to complain long, but this is how the matter stands: the rent of the house you occupy is my wife's pin-money (there is a good kind fellow for you now!), and these matters concern her alone. I have done my best to try and persuade her to do the repairs in question, but I regret to have to tell you, without success." So, as the law in England favours the landlord, and if your house should collapse while you held an unexpired lease on it, your landlord would not be bound to rebuild it, rather than be frozen or drowned within doors, you have the repairs done at your own expense, and there is an end of it.

But let us come back to our _soirée musicale_, or rather let us go to it, since, not suspecting what was in store for us, we have accepted the invitation.

At nine o'clock you present yourself. Your hostess comes forward, shakes hands with you, and makes you welcome.

"How good of you to come, Mr. X--."

----"It's very kind of you to say so."

----"Do you sing?"

----"No, I'm afraid I do not."

----"I congratulate you then," Mrs. Bull has more than once whispered to me in reply.

----"Excuse me, but it is I who congratulate you. I should be sorry to spoil your charming evening...."

----"I must leave you, the music is going to begin."

The executants follow one another with a rapidity that is bewildering. I have sometimes witnessed prodigious feats at these private concerts. I have heard as many as twenty-five songs in less than two hours, and when I thought of the number of little black dots on all those pages that had been turned over, and of the seeming inability of the performers to hit one of them right, I have said to myself: "It is really too unlucky; never was there anything so perverse. It is wonderful when one comes to take into consideration the theory of chances."

"_Concert_," says Littré, "is _action d'agir ensemble_." Not so in England at musical parties: rather _the act of running after one another without being able to catch one another_. These good folks in their duets always seem to me to be singing vigorously at each other: "You can't catch me, you can't catch me!"

The piano is generally good, I mean the instrument; although the French piano has more sonority, and certainly more limpidity.

"_Nos pianos sont un peu sourds_," said an amiable hostess to me one day in French.

"They are lucky," thought I.

The best thing to be done, when you find yourself in for an evening's music of this kind, is to put a good face upon it, and keep quiet. After all it is but an affair of ear scratches. One survives it.

I was ill-inspired enough one evening to move out of my corner. I had been in torture for about two hours. "Come, old fellow," I said to myself, "this will never do: you must rouse yourself and move about a little, you are getting tipsy listening to this noise."

A young man, with a coppery, metallic voice, had just completed the massacre of that beautiful song of Tito Mattel's "_Non è ver_." The execution over, I rose, thinking the moment favourable, and advancing to where the singer stood, I said to him,

"What a lovely song that is, to be sure! and how exquisitely you sing it."

----"It is my favourite," he said to me, with a triumphant glance.

----"You sing it with such taste too. Do you know it in Italian?"

----"Sir! But I have just sung it in Italian."

----"Really? I beg your pardon, I was so much under the influence of the melody that I was not listening to the words."

"I am not in luck to-night decidedly," I said to myself as I returned to my seat, feeling rather silly. "But, after all, I brought it on myself."

A quarter of an hour later, my Briton seated himself at the piano, and played a nocturne rejoicing in the title of "Evening Breeze," or something equally original. I was told in confidence that it was a piece of his own composition. He played it correctly enough to satisfy a mathematician, without putting more expression into it than a musical-box would have done. For that matter, if you would please a drawing-room audience here, you must sing or play like a machine; no refractory muscle must compromise the British dignity.

The Englishman who shows his feelings loses his self-control, and becomes an object for the contemptuous pity of his compatriots. It is bad form.

The sympathetic voice is unknown: people sing more or less loudly, more or less out of tune. When the hostess comes and tells you: "This gentleman is going to sing; he has a magnificent voice," that means that he has the voice of a Stentor.

If I had to describe the nearest approach to the effect produced on one by Mrs. John Bull's _soirées musicales_, I should say, intense pains which I can only compare to toothache in the intestines. Imagine yourself to be having a molar tooth extracted from the depths of your stomach.

* * * * *

The musical evenings, _passe encore_: people make a good deal of noise, and you have the satisfaction of feeling that you are alive. Besides, when the row is over, you sup; and, as I have told you, Mrs. John Bull's suppers are very good.

But there is something worse than the musical party; it is the _conversazione_, so called, because at this entertainment, you walk about a great deal and converse very little.

On your arrival, you go and shake hands with your host and hostess, then off you go: your card of invitation is as good as a _feuille de route_. You walk at a funeral pace, with slow and solemn steps, until your knees give way, or your head swims. Then you steer for the buffet, and if you know how to use your elbows, you get a cup of tea or coffee, an ice, or a few biscuits. The buffet, being generally the great attraction of the evening, sustains a formidable siege, and you will not get at it without a struggle or even a few bruises. But after your first stage, you feel you must halt and take some refreshment, even though it cost you two or three blows: it is a case of necessity.

As soon as the inner man is refreshed, you must put your best foot foremost and be off once more. England expects every man to do his duty. As to passing the evening at the buffet, it is not to be thought of. You cast a sad glance at the ices _à la vanille_ and other nice things that you turn your back on regretfully, and you start on your second round, hoping on the way to be introduced to some lady and to have an occasion to return to the buffet with her. No whist tables at the _conversazione_, few chairs, some albums to turn over. These meetings, called conversazioni, but which might as appropriately be called walking parties (or _ambulazioni_?), are very favourite forms of amusement. If they were not so crowded, you might perhaps feel inclined to give your calves a good rubbing, and start ahead to do in an hour the three or four miles that are expected of you. When you feel your legs becoming a prey to thousands of needles and pins, you seek out the master of the house, and say to him, "Thank you so much for a very charming evening." He invariably answers, "I am so glad you have enjoyed yourself." It is good form to make these remarks without bursting out laughing in each other's faces.

John Bull, consummate master of the _art de s'ennuyer_, never invented anything duller than the conversazione; it is the _ne plus ultra_ of the art.

* * * * *

The Royal Academy of Paintings, the London _Salon_, opens on the 1st of May. If you call on Mrs. John Bull during the months of May or June, the first thing she will ask you is: "Have you been to the Academy? What pictures did you like best?" Now, the English are very good judges of painting, and I am ashamed to say that, for my part, I do not know a Van Dyck from a Van Daub. As I might venture to reply: "I noticed such and such a picture," and create a poor impression, I have found a way out of the difficulty by the following very simple means. I get some artist friend to point out to me a score of the best pictures in the collection; I have a good look at them, carefully commit their names to memory, and set off to pay my calls.

"Have you been to...?" says Mrs. Bull.

----"Oh! yes.... By-the-bye, did you notice such and such a picture...?"

Thus I spare myself a great deal of trouble and many blunders: first, two whole days looking at the pictures, a stiff neck ... and, last but not least, the annoyance of passing for an ignoramus, which is always unpleasant ... especially when it is the case.

I suspect many a worthy Englishwoman of going to the Academy to see the new summer fashions. As to the sons of Old Merry England, I have often seen them take up their position at the buffet, and devote their attention to the whisky and brandy until the return of the ladies they brought with them. By this means they are enabled to see at the Academy twice as many pictures as the hanging Committee have admitted.

XIII.

Ladies of the Royal Family--Mrs. Christian--Minnie and Alec--The Noble Lord the Poet-Laureate--Wanted an English Academy.

Say to an English Conservative that Gladstone is an old rascal, and Chamberlain a dangerous demagogue, and he will exclaim: "You are right."

Say to a Liberal that Salisbury is a humbug, Stafford Northcote an old woman, and Randolph Churchill a political _gamin_, and he will reply: "You have the measure of them."