Part 6
There are dangers and pitfalls besetting the buyer of old furniture. Even in the garden of antiques a slimy serpent spoils the smiling landscape. Fraud is not unknown side by side with honest dealing. Not all furniture is old as it looks. That is where that predatory rascal called the faker creeps in and preys upon humanity in general and the innocent amateur in particular.
There are sly manufactories of old furniture busy to-day in shoddy workshops, building up immaculate high-grade chairs, tables, cabinets, out of oddments of oak and mahogany collected from the scrap-heap of broken and decayed furniture. New wood is added in parts where necessary to complete the transformation, and when these modern antiques are blended, stained to harmonize in colour, and a glowing patina rubbed on by the artful dodgers, it takes a keen eye to detect the villainy of the deed, as that arch-swindler Gaspero Bandini said to his fellow-conspirator: "We must make it as antique as possible: we must sell the old wine with the dust on the bottle."
There is no fixed market value to old furniture as there is to postage-stamps or War Loan stock. The dealer sets his own price on his goods, and the cupidity of the public guides him how best to do it. He is a keen observer of human nature, and plays up to its little weaknesses for his own advantage, and he does it smilingly.
It is wonderful how environment works on our feelings and baffles our judgment. In the twinkling of an eye it changes the value we place on things. Dress the same man in two different suits of clothes, and you have all the difference in our cursory opinion between a lord and a tinker. The same article exhibited in shop-windows East or West of London changes its value appreciably, and we are blindly content to buy in the dearest market if it is the most elegant, and fancy we get full value for money.
I know a man in Florence who wanted an old Tuscan table, and he padded round the city looking for one. In a small shop where much furniture was crowded into little space he saw the article that pleased him. The dealer asked twenty-four pounds for it. He tried to beat down the price, but the dealer would not humour him, so he left without buying. Presently a large dealer in antiques entered the shop, fancied the table, and paid twenty-four pounds for it straightway, and removed it to his own premises, which are spacious and commanding. The man in quest of a Tuscan table visited the spacious premises and saw the table in its grander home, fell in love with it again, and bought it for forty pounds. Afterward he told the dealer in the small shop that he had found the table he wanted at Mr. So-and-so's, and, quite elated, he described his purchase. "Yes, I know about it," replied the rejected dealer. "You have paid forty pounds for the table I offered to sell you for twenty-four." The buyer looked foolish, and said: "But it was so much better displayed at Mr. So-and-so's shop that I did not recognize it being the same table; it looked worth twenty pounds more in his place than it did in yours."
The auction-mart frequently governs the price of old furniture and gives it an upward lift. The psychology of the auction-room is an interesting study. The loaded atmosphere of the place has a compelling influence that gets the better of one's judgment. In a shop a man scoffs at the tall price of a piece of furniture and haggles doggedly with the dealer to reduce it thirty shillings; in the auction-room if the same piece were offered he would compete with the crowd to raise the price of it incontinently. It is the consistent conduct of inconsistent human nature. It is that bellicose little devil who hides himself at the bottom of every human being, impelling him down into the danger zone to fight, who is guilty of the rash and feckless deed. A man enters the auction-room in a happy, breezy frame of mind, not to buy, just to look on and see what things are fetching. The serpent of the place tempts him, and he is a lost soul. His good resolutions evaporate like water on a hot plate, leaving no trace behind. The fighting impulse in him leaps up, and he bids and bids again, and eventually he finds himself the possessor of a rare old mahogany bureau hatched in the reign of our King George, but inadvertently described in the catalogue as a masterpiece of the cabinet-maker's craft composed in the times of Queen Anne!
*IX*
*THE LURE OF PERSONALITY*
Personal influence is a subtle impalpable sovereign power that man possesses; sometimes it possesses the man, for influence often is an unconscious element in his life which exhales from him like the fragrance from a flower or miasma from a swamp. You cannot investigate it. It is moral force. Some men possess much of it, others less, the residue of mankind none. That is the mystery of influence. You cannot regulate it, calculate it, or tabulate it in standard quantities. Its operation is noiseless as a shadow, dangerous as lightning, profound as eternity, beautiful as the five wise virgins, or devilish as Mephistopheles.
We speak here of personal influence. There is an influence of a baser sort which is powerful in its way--the influence of money. Money is extraneous matter. Wealth magnifies a man in people's eyes, but the man himself may be small without the money inflation. Strip the rich man of his shekels, and you strip him of his significance. He counts no more than an empty egg-shell after the rats have eaten the meat out of it. Frequently the extraordinary man is only an ordinary man placed in extraordinary circumstances.
There is also the influence of position. That is not the genuine article. It is alien honour conferred like the odour of attar of roses clinging to an empty earthen jar. Position gives power. Some people who sit in the chair of authority use their power to the full, but it is the power of position, not of character or individuality. The only advantage of power is to be able to do more good than other people. All the world knows the difference, the ghastly difference, between Cardinal Wolsey in favour and Cardinal Wolsey in disgrace. Catastrophe lies between these extremes of fortune. The man remains the same in both states, but the world moves with the times, and gives no credit to an overrun banking account. He is a fallen star. He drops out of the seventh heaven of popularity into abysmal darkness. Banished the Royal presence, who cares for Cardinal Wolsey? He has no favours to transmit. No man is his friend, for he can befriend no man. Position makes and unmakes a man, like sunshine makes or unmakes a summer day.
Influence of truest and finest brand is personal. It emanates from the man, not from his circumstances. Some men handle their fellow-creatures with dexterity and ease, like an experienced whip controls the horse he sits behind. Quietness and firmness are in the human touch, and the animal bends submissively to every movement of the reins; so some men command their fellow-creatures, and they submit their wills to the master mind that rides them, and how the spell governs they cannot say. Other men are ciphers in society. "Only Mr. So-and-so" consigns a man to the outposts of social extinction, and mixes him up with the unclassified masses of limp, negligible, and insignificant people who welter and gambol with their kennel companions, but they cannot head the pack on hunting days.
Influential men are not common in the community. Only the elect few shine; many are reflectors of borrowed light. Influence is a gift. It is caught, not taught. It is all decided for us when nestlings in the cradle, and perhaps before we nestle. The schoolboy unconsciously wields a mystic power in the playground, and his chums hover round him as king of the revels. Animal magnetism exudes from every pore of his youthful skin. He leads in every escapade, and others fall in without question. He is not taught the trick; it comes natural for him to lead as for the rank and file to follow.
On what principle Nature bestows her favours it is difficult to hazard, more difficult than to discover what principle guides the British Government in distributing her coveted decorations to the British public. Nature is romantic. Exercising her sovereignty she gives her honours as she pleases. No money can buy them. Blue-blooded pedigrees have no preferential tariff. Nature mocks our conventionality, spurns our orders of merit, and winks at our social somebodies. Often she openly prefers a costermonger to a King--stamps aristocratic grace on a gipsy, and refuses it to a Duchess. There are insignificant great men who would be hustled in a crowd if they wore no badge, while to social nobodies Nature attaches a halo of distinction which the crowd delights to honour as subjects offer incense to a King.
Personality is an attribute that carries a man far on the road to success. Personality is an endowment which proclaims a man one of Nature's aristocrats. It is Nature's advertisement of her best, and she is proud of her handiwork. Personality is a fascinating asset; it lends dignity to common clay; it gives a man a standing outside the crowd, which he occupies with ineffable content and full advantage to himself. Some people have "an air" about them, and the atmosphere they move in is intoxicating to those dwelling under the spell of their presence. You cannot crush people who have personality. Over and over again it turns the scales in their favour in the competitions of life. Their virtues may not be of the celestial, their talent may lack glitter, but their personality grips you with its pomp and splendour, and they sit amongst the mighty, imposing themselves on gods and men. The envious man admits their success, and slurringly says: "They are commonplace: there is nothing astonishing in them except their success." He consoles himself with the banal reflection that, other things being equal, he is quite as good as they. But the strange mystery of presence steps in and prevents other things ever being equal.
Some men lack engaging personality, they have no physical charm or force, yet they exert strenuous influence. They possess great mental or moral qualities. There is a Divine spark in the clay that scintillates and collects attention. They are luminous bodies, and emit light. They are men with virtue in them, and virtue flows out of them. The extremely fascinating character of Jesus Christ moves in splendour adown the ages, giving out vital energy. It draws men to-day irresistibly, as it constrained men nearly two thousand years ago to follow Him homeless and penniless through the highways and by-ways of Palestine, without worldly honour or pay to recompense them. There is a strange, silent, penetrating, perplexing, yet mighty influence working round about us; it is the influence of the life of Christ holding us up. I do not mean His life as crudely reflected to us in the modern Church. Jesus Christ has a larger influence outside the Church than in it. Christ would be a stranger in the sanctuary to-day if He visited it as the peasant of Galilee.
Jesus Christ never commissioned His disciples to build up in the world such a colossal organization as the Church has swollen itself into with windy pride. In every country in Europe the Church is the biggest business concern and the wealthiest institution, the most aristocratic society and the most retrogressive force. The national Churches are slavishly worldly and chastely genteel concerns; they would boycott the kingdom of Christ if they thought it were trying to enter the world through their gilded gates.
The kingdom of Christ is democratic. It might interfere with tithes and endowments and vested interests. I fancy Christ will establish His kingdom without calling in the Church to help Him. I could not picture Christ making use of a Bishop in knee-breeches, lawn sleeves, and with a seat in the House of Lords, when engaging disciples to evangelize the world. But I can picture Christ falling speechless when brought face to face with a Bishop geared in full canonical uniform; and if in His ignorance of ecclesiastical functionaries Jesus politely inquired, "Who is the aristocratic old gentleman wearing knee-breeches and a broad-brimmed hat, and to what institution does he belong?" on being told he was speaking to one of the leading representatives of His own spiritual institution, I can picture Christ melting away in anguish of heart from the venerable presence of the great divine to solace Himself in the company of fishermen and mechanics--men whose hearts are warm and manners natural, even if their creed is a bit unorthodox from the ecclesiastical standpoint.
And there is the good St. Francesco, the stainless and blameless saint, born of the little Tuscan hill city, the perpetual flowering rose of Assisi, whose godly fragrance gives off for ever to sweeten the life of mankind--St. Francis of Assisi, the humble child of God, the dear brother of men, dead these five hundred years gone by; but he is now lying warm upon the lap of Christendom, nursed for one of the noblest, gentlest spirits, aglow with the fervour of an endless life. He is a living, controlling force to-day in the world's long battle for righteousness, and ever pouring into our ears the sweetness of Christ.
Men are governed more wisely by the dead than by the living. Interned within the calmness of their shades, the mighty dead speak to us, and no cross-currents of envy, prejudice, or malice ruffle the serenity of their counsel. Influence is not always beneficent; it is malignant sometimes, and contaminates like the plague. Evil qualities can be as attractive as wholesome virtues. The poets brand the Devil with a commanding personality. John Wilkes, the notorious demagogue in the reign of George III., was the ugliest man in England, yet he impressed himself marvellously on his generation. He was a popular hero; he possessed natural gaiety of disposition and an irrepressible fund of impudence and wit. He was the most brilliant controversialist of his day. He was a charming rake with an insinuating smile, and he wore the manners of a fine English gentleman, which captivated his enemies and conciliated the King. He had exceptional powers of fascination, and he boasted that--ugly as he was--with the start of a quarter of an hour he could get the better of any man, however good-looking, in the graces of any lady.
*X*
*THE LURE OF NICE PEOPLE*
Our friend Mrs. Alinson took me sharply in hand one day, and tendered me good advice gratuitously over the tea-table. Mrs. Alinson is a lady magnificent in bulk, energetic in action, torrential in tongue, and warm-hearted in disposition, second to none amongst the daughters of men.
When as a young man I first came to town she adopted me, mothered me socially, and manoeuvred for my success. She did not approve of my associates, and rated me soundly in her loud, pushful, stridulant voice, which commands attention: "Mr. Drake is not a desirable acquaintance for you to pursue, my dear. He don't belong to our set, and his reputation is tainted; unpleasant rumours cloud round his name. Take my advice and cut him. You only want to know nice people."
Shrewd, disinterested, motherly advice for Mrs. Alinson to bestow on a tenderfoot unfamiliar with the pitfalls of society. Surely only a lady of sweet discerning disposition could give it; a lady whom everybody loves and whom nobody gainsays; a lady the final arbiter of taste in "nice people" who opens the door to a new-comer and no man shuts, who shuts the door on a new-comer and no man opens. I accepted her dictum as good current coin of the elect world we moved in, to be honoured without reserve. Its metal rang genuine on the social counter. Mr. Drake henceforth is a stranger to me; it would imperil my position in society to know him.
After tea we parted, and I went to the cinema. I often go to a cinema because it amuses me when I want amusement. It is light and inexpensive diversion. Superior people sneer at the cinema, and call it low-grade amusement: a common glanty-show that pleases common people. However, as I have no shares in music-halls or wasting investments in theatre-land, I am impartial in my pleasures, and can take a shilling seat in a picture palace with clean conscience and merry heart. In the cinema we met our dear friend Lady ----, who was enjoying the moving pictures. She invited us to her reception on the following Saturday afternoon; at the conclusion of the show, when parting from her, she said: "It's very kind of you to promise for next Saturday. Please don't tell Mrs. Alinson you are coming, or she will be sure to come too, and I don't want her. The friends I am inviting don't care to meet her."
This was a staggering blow struck at the serene goddess to whom we bent the obedient knee. Was there another social kingdom where she had no sovereignty, where her passing shadow, like a malign influence, was a thing to be shunned? Was she a false goddess, or no goddess at all? She pictured herself the controlling hand which steered the current of gay life in our midst. Was she at the helm, or was it a mild illusion that muddled her amiable brain? Here are people actually who will not open their doors to receive her, nor permit her feet to tread their dusty carpet--and she thought omnipotence was in her nod.
These colliding facts perplexed us. They suggested the ridiculous, and offer food for reflection on the comedy of human manners. Here, on the one hand, is a portrait we draw of ourselves, and there opposite hangs on the wall a portrait other people draw of us. Place these two sketches side by side and consider, do they represent the same person? Is there resemblance between them enough to establish identity in a British court of law? How can there be? We do not see ourselves as others see us. We each observe the interesting object that engages our attention from different points of the compass. We see our good points of character and make the best of them; our neighbours detect our little sins and make the worst of them. So we clothe ourselves in sunlight and paint our neighbours drab. Mrs. Alinson, fortunate woman, had no glimmering idea what other people thought of her; it was not given her to see herself as others see her. She lives stolidly; eats, drinks, dresses, talks, surrounded by a shining halo of self-complacency through which her mentality cannot penetrate. She is good-natured, thinks excellently of herself, and believes other people's feelings towards her are equally well disposed. You and I, happily, are unconscious of the quaint esteem in which our neighbours hold us, and wisely there we ring the curtain down. If the truth were told, half our acquaintances are our enemies--behind our backs.
Soon after the split in the Liberal party on the first Home Rule Bill, which sundered so many political friendships, Frank Holl was painting the portrait of John Bright. He mentioned to his sitter that he was about to paint the portrait of Mr. Gladstone. "It must be a very painful thing to you, Mr. Bright," he hazarded, "that after all these years of comradeship you two should sever your connection?" "Indeed it is," replied Bright with a sigh; "to think that after we have so long worked together we should be forced apart in the evening of our lives! And by what? A bogy that has risen up within him, beckoning him away from duty and sense. Do you know, Mr. Holl, I seriously fear that my dear old friend's mind is giving way."
When the artist was at Hawarden painting Mr. Gladstone, the subject of Mr. Bright's portrait cropped up. "Ah!" said Mr. Gladstone, "and how did you find him?" "Fairly well; and he spoke very affectionately of you, Mr. Gladstone." "Did he indeed?" replied the sitter sorrowfully. "It was a cruel blow that parted us--and on so clear a question, too! Tell me, Mr. Holl"--and here his lips quivered, for he was evidently moved with strong emotion--"tell me, did you notice anything in the manner of my old friend which would lead you to suppose that his reason was becoming unhinged?"
We cannot see another man's personality in full rounded vision. We get peeps at him; broken lights and flickering shadows of his character dance before us. We chase the shadow, and think we can capture the man and rifle him of his every locked-up thought and uncover his soul's nakedness.
The popular writer analyzes, probes, dissects human character on paper, and we marvel at his subtlety in reading so far into people. He plucks the gay plumage off the poor bird he has trapped, and leaves the stripped and quivering body an unpleasant spectacle for the public to contemplate through the glass case of a six-shilling novel. The novelist is a crude, fumbling workman at his trade. His hand is too clumsy for his tools. He dissects his paper dolls as they pass before him in a paper world, but the tangled, unbalanced, erratic human being pulsing with mystic life, even his next-door neighbour, baffles him on the doorstep. The novelist is a cunning artist, but an unskilful philosopher. He works like Conan Doyle's great detective Sherlock Holmes, who can unravel any mystery he himself concocts in the pages of the _Strand Magazine_, but is no use to Scotland Yard in tracking a real murderer or laying bare an elusive crime.
If some famous men who in their day and generation lived in cheap houses and mixed with common people, and died unparagraphed in daily papers, could see themselves now, as we see them, promoted to illustrious companionship with the mighty dead, their heads would spin with amazement at themselves for having arrived in splendour; they would stagger at the worship paid them by reverent posterity.
During life they were great artists in mufti. They were regarded as unimportant persons by their own contemporaries, and to-day they are posted amongst the demi-gods of history. They knew themselves to be good workmen who did a good day's work for a fair day's pay, and then, like other honest day-labourers, at nightfall, with clean consciences, they laid down their tools, and their life-story ended there. They little knew that they had the bud of immortality swelling in their veins, soon to break and flower into endless renown.
Human nature is a conundrum to itself hard to crack, as it is to other people, even its friends and neighbours who eat and drink with it at table. We do not know that heaps of posthumous fame may presently cover our strange next-door neighbour. To us he is only a negligible quantity in the affairs of the day, with a little gift of the pen or some queer scientific hobby that absorbs him. In this swift age of ours Time and Space are being brought to heel in masterly control, but our neighbours remain mysterious to us as Adam was to Eve until the affair of the apple found the man out. Even Shakespeare to his contemporaries did not appear a towering genius, but only one of themselves--a common literary hack with an uncommon gift of turning a sentence and making it tell. It was a trick they all tried to catch from him, but he just went one better than they.
Shakespeare's fellow-craftsmen were unconscious that they were entertaining an archangel unawares. Nothing he said or did outside his scribbling for the playhouse is on record. He had no trusty Boswell at his elbow to note his pothouse wit and succulent wisdom, sparks from the fire of his genius, flung off impromptu in merry moments at the Mermaid Tavern over a flagon of malmsey. His pals thought him a jovial fellow well met, and when he died no crumbs of biography were swept up by loving hands to keep his memory green.