Chapter 2

I knew a man once who set out walking from Oxford to Stow-in-the-Wold, from Stow-in-the-Wold to Cheltenham, from Cheltenham to Ledbury, from Ledbury to Hereford, from Hereford to New Rhayader (where the Cobbler lives), and from New Rhayader to the end of the world which lies a little west and north of that place, and all the way he slept rough under hedges and in stacks, or by day in open fields, so terrified was he at the thought of the contempt that awaited him should he pay for a bed. And I knew another man who walked from York to Thirsk, and from Thirsk to Darlington, and from Darlington to Durham, and so on up to the border and over it, and all the way he pretended to be extremely poor so that he might be certain the contempt he received was due to nothing of his own, but to his clothes only: but this was an indifferent way of escaping, for it got him into many fights with miners, and he was arrested by the police in Lanchester; and at Jedburgh, where his money did really fail him, he had to walk all through the night, finding that no one would take in such a tatterdemalion. The thing could be done much more cheaply than that, and much more respectably, and you can acquire with but little practice one of many ways of achieving the full respect of the whole house, even of that proud woman who sits behind glass in front of an enormous ledger; and the first way is this:--

As you come into the place go straight for the smoking-room, and begin talking of the local sport: and do not talk humbly and tentatively as so many do, but in a loud authoritative tone. You shall insist and lay down the law and fly into a passion if you are contradicted. There is here an objection which will arise in the mind of every niggler and boggler who has in the past very properly been covered with ridicule and become the butt of the waiters and stable-yard, which is, that if one is ignorant of the local sport, there is an end to the business. The objection is ridiculous. Do you suppose that the people whom you hear talking around you are more learned than yourself in the matter? And if they are do you suppose that they are acquainted with your ignorance? Remember that most of them have read far less than you, and that you can draw upon an experience of travel of which they can know nothing; do but make the plunge, practising first in the villages of the Midlands, I will warrant you that in a very little while bold assertion of this kind will carry you through any tap-room or bar-parlour in Britain.

I remember once in the holy and secluded village of Washington under the Downs, there came in upon us as we sat in the inn there a man whom I recognised though he did not know me--for a journalist--incapable of understanding the driving of a cow, let alone horses: a prophet, a socialist, a man who knew the trend of things and so forth: a man who had never been outside a town except upon a motor bicycle, upon which snorting beast indeed had he come to this inn. But if he was less than us in so many things he was greater than us in this art of gaining respect in Inns and Hotels. For he sat down, and when they had barely had time to say good day to him he gave us in minutest detail a great run after a fox, a run that never took place. We were fifteen men in the room; none of us were anything like rich enough to hunt, and the lie went through them like an express. This fellow "found" (whatever that may mean) at Gumber Corner, ran right through the combe (which, by the way, is one of those bits of land which have been stolen bodily from the English people), cut down the Sutton Road, across the railway at Coates (and there he showed the cloven hoof, for your liar always takes his hounds across the railway), then all over Egdean, and killed in a field near Wisborough. All this he told, and there was not even a man there to ask him whether all those little dogs and horses swam the Rother or jumped it. He was treated like a god; they tried to make him stop but he would not. He was off to Worthing, where I have no doubt he told some further lies upon the growing of tomatoes under glass, which is the main sport of that district. Similarly, I have no doubt, such a man would talk about boats at King's Lynn, murder with violence at Croydon, duck shooting at Ely, and racing anywhere.

Then also if you are in any doubt as to what they want of you, you can always change the scene. Thus fishing is dangerous for even the poor can fish, and the chances are you do not know the names of the animals, and you may be putting salt-water fish into the stream of Lambourne, or talking of salmon upon the Upper Thames. But what is to prevent you putting on a look of distance and marvel, and conjuring up the North Atlantic for them? Hold them with the cold and the fog of the Newfoundland seas, and terrify their simple minds with whales.

A second way to attain respect, if you are by nature a silent man, and one which I think is always successful, is to write before you go to bed and leave upon the table a great number of envelopes which you should address to members of the Cabinet, and Jewish money-lenders, dukes, and in general any of the great. It is but slight labour, and for the contents you cannot do better than put into each envelope one of those advertisements which you will find lying about. Then next morning you should gather them up and ask where the post is: but you need not post them, and you need not fear for your bill. Your bill will stand much the same, and your reputation will swell like a sponge.

And a third way is to go to the telephone, since there are telephones nowadays, and ring up whoever in the neighbourhood is of the greatest importance. There is no law against it, and when you have the number you have but to ask the servant at the other end whether it is not somebody else's house. But in the meanwhile your night in the place is secure.

And a fourth way is to tell them to call you extremely early, and then to get up extremely late. Now why this should have the effect it has I confess I cannot tell. I lay down the rule empirically and from long observation, but I may suggest that perhaps it is the combination of the energy you show in early rising, and of the luxury you show in late rising: for energy and luxury are the two qualities which menials most admire in that governing class to which you flatter yourself you belong. Moreover the strength of will with which you sweep aside their inconvenience, ordering one thing and doing another, is not without its effect, and the stir you have created is of use to you.

And the fifth way is to be Strong, to Dominate and to Lead. To be one of the Makers of this world, one of the Builders. To have the more Powerful Will. To arouse in all around you by mere Force of Personality a feeling that they must Obey. But I do not know how this is done.

ON IGNORANCE

There is not anything that can so suddenly flood the mind with shame as the conviction of ignorance, yet we are all ignorant of nearly everything there is to be known. Is it not wonderful, then, that we should be so sensitive upon the discovery of a fault which must of necessity be common to all, and that in its highest degree? The conviction of ignorance would not shame us thus if it were not for the public appreciation of our failure.

If a man proves us ignorant of German or the complicated order of English titles, or the rules of Bridge, or any other matter, we do not care for his proofs, so that we are alone with him: first because we can easily deny them all, and continue to wallow in our ignorance without fear, and secondly, because we can always counter with something we know, and that he knows nothing of, such as the Creed, or the history of Little Bukleton, or some favourite book. Then, again, if one is alone with one's opponent, it is quite easy to pretend that the subject on which one has shown ignorance is unimportant, peculiar, pedantic, hole in the corner, and this can be brazened out even about Greek or Latin. Or, again, one can turn the laugh against him, saying that he has just been cramming up the matter, and that he is airing his knowledge; or one can begin making jokes about him till he grows angry, and so forth. There is no necessity to be ashamed.

But if there be others present? Ah! _Hoc est aliud rem_, that is another matter, for then the biting shame of ignorance suddenly displayed conquers and bewilders us. We have no defence left. We are at the mercy of the discoverer, we own and confess, and become insignificant: we slink away.

Note that all this depends upon what the audience conceive ignorance to be. It is very certain that if a man should betray in some cheap club that he did not know how to ride a horse, he would be broken down and lost, and similarly, if you are in a country house among the rich you are shipwrecked unless you can show acquaintance with the Press, and among the poor you must be very careful, not only to wear good cloth and to talk gently as though you owned them, but also to know all about the rich. Among very young men to seem ignorant of vice is the ruin of you, and you had better not have been born than appear doubtful of the effects of strong drink when you are in the company of Patriots. There was a man who died of shame this very year in a village of Savoy because he did not know the name of the King reigning over France to-day, and it is a common thing to see men utterly cast down in the bar-rooms off the Strand because they cannot correctly recite the opening words of "Boys of the Empire." There are schoolgirls who fall ill and pine away because they are shown to have misplaced the name of Dagobert III in the list of Merovingian Monarchs, and quite fearless men will blush if they are found ignoring the family name of some peer. Indeed, there is nothing so contemptible or insignificant but that in some society or other it is required to be known, and that the ignorance of it may not at any moment cover one with confusion. Nevertheless we should not on that account attempt to learn everything there is to know (for that is manifestly impossible), nor even to learn everything that is known, for that would soon prove a tedious and heart-breaking task; we should rather study the means to be employed for warding off those sudden and public convictions of Ignorance which are the ruin of so many.

These methods of defence are very numerous and are for the most part easy of acquirement. The most powerful of them by far (but the most dangerous) is to fly into a passion and marvel how anyone can be such a fool as to pay attention to wretched trifles. "Powerful," because it appeals to that strongest of all passions in men by which they are predisposed to cringe before what they think to be a superior station in society. "Dangerous," because if it fail in its objects this method does not save you from pain, and secures you in addition a bad quarrel, and perhaps a heavy beating. Still it has many votaries, and is more often carried off than any other. Thus, if in Bedfordshire, someone catches you erring on a matter of crops, you profess that in London such things are thought mere rubbish and despised; or again, in the society of professors at the Universities, an ignorance of letters can easily be turned by an allusion to that vapid life of the rich, where letters grow insignificant; so at sea, if you slip on common terms, speak a little of your luxurious occupations on land and you will usually be safe.

There are other and better defences. One of these is to turn the attack by showing great knowledge on a cognate point, or by remembering that the knowledge your opponent boasts has been somewhere contradicted by an authority. Thus, if some day a friend should say, as continually happens in a London club:

"Come, let us hear you decline [Greek: tetummenos on]," you can answer carelessly:

"You know as well as I do that the form is purely Paradigmatic: it is never found."

Or again, if you put the Wrekin by an error into Staffordshire, you can say, "I was thinking of the Jurassic formation which is the basis of the formation of----" etc. Or, "Well, Shrewsbury ... Staffordshire?... Oh! I had got my mind mixed up with the graves of the Staffords." Very few people will dispute this, none will follow it. There is indeed this difficulty attached to such a method, that it needs the knowledge of a good many things, and a ready imagination and a stiff face: but it is a good way.

Yet another way is to cover your retreat with buffoonery, pretending to be ignorant of the most ordinary things, so as to seem to have been playing the fool only when you made your first error. There is a special form of this method which has always seemed to me the most excellent by far of all known ways of escape. It is to show a steady and crass ignorance of very nearly everything that can be mentioned, and with all this to keep a steady mouth, a determined eye, and (this is essential) to show by a hundred allusions that you have on your own ground an excellent store of knowledge.

This is the true offensive-defensive in this kind of assault, and therefore the perfection of tactics.

Thus if one should say:

"Well, it was the old story. [Greek: Anankae]."

It might happen to anyone to answer: "I never read the play."

This you will think perhaps an irremediable fall, but it is not, as will appear from this dialogue, in which the method is developed:

SAPIENS. But, Good Heavens, it isn't a play!

IGNORAMUS. Of course not. I know that as well as you, but the character of [Greek: Anankae] dominates the play. You won't deny that?

SAPIENS. You don't seem to have much acquaintance with Liddell and Scott.

IGNORAMUS. I didn't know there was anyone called Liddell in it, but I knew Scott intimately, both before and after he succeeded to the estate.

SAPIENS. But I mean the dictionary.

IGNORAMUS. I'm quite certain that his father wouldn't let him write a dictionary. Why, the library at Bynton hasn't been opened for years.

If, after five minutes of that, Ignoramus cannot get Sapiens floundering about in a world he knows nothing of, it is his own fault.

But if Sapiens is over-tenacious there is a final method which may not be the most perfect, but which I have often tried myself, and usually with very considerable success:

SAPIENS. Nonsense, man. The Dictionary. The _Greek_ dictionary.

IGNORAMUS. What has _Ananti_ to do with Greek?

SAPIENS. I said [Greek: Anankae].

IGNORAMUS. Oh! h----h! you said [Greek: anankae], did you? I thought you said Ananti. Of course, Scott didn't call the play Ananti, but Ananti was the principal character, and one always calls it that in the family. It is very well written. If he hadn't that shyness about publishing ... and so forth.

Lastly, or rather Penultimately, there is the method of upsetting the plates and dishes, breaking your chair, setting fire to the house, shooting yourself, or otherwise swallowing all the memory of your shame in a great catastrophe.

But that is a method for cowards; the brave man goes out into the hall, comes back with a stick, and says firmly, "You have just deliberately and cruelly exposed my ignorance before this company; I shall, therefore, beat you soundly with this stick in the presence of them all."

This you then do to him or he to you, _mutatis mutandis, ceteris paribus_; and that is all I have to say on Ignorance.

ON ADVERTISEMENT

Harmonides of Ephesus says in one of his treatises upon method (I forget which, but I think the fifth) that a matter is very often more clearly presented by way of example than in the form of a direct statement and analysis. I have determined to follow the advice of this great though pagan authority in what you will now read or not read, according to your inclination.

As I was sitting one of these sunny mornings in my little Park, reading an article upon vivisection in the _Tablet_ newspaper, a Domestic [Be seated, be seated, I pray you!] brought me a letter upon a Silver Salver [Be covered!]

Which reminds me, why do people say that silver is the only perfect spondee in the English language? Salver is a perfectly good spondee; so is North-Cape; so is great-coat; so is High-Mass; so is Wenchthorpe; so is forewarp, which is the rope you throw out from the stem to the little man in the boat who comes to moor you along the west gully in the Ramsgate Harbour; so is Longnose, the name of a buoy, and of a reef of rocks just north of the North Foreland; so are a great many other words. But I digress. I only put in these words to show you in case you had any dissolving doubts remaining upon the matter, that the kind of stuff you read is very often all nonsense, and that you must not take things for granted merely because they are printed. I have watched you doing it from time to time, and have been torn between pity and anger. But all that is neither here nor there. This habit of parenthesis is the ruin of good prose. As I was saying, example clearly put down without comment is very often more powerful than analysis for the purpose of conviction.

The Domestic brought me a letter upon a Silver Salver. I took it and carefully examined the outside.

They err who will maintain through thick and thin upon a mere theory and without any true experience of the world, that it matters not what the outside of a letter may be so long as the contents provoke terror or amusement. The outside of a letter should appeal to one. When one gets a letter with a halfpenny stamp and with the flap of the letter stuck inside, and with the address on the outside typewritten, one is very apt to throw it away. I believe that there is no recorded case of such a letter containing a cheque, a summons, or an invitation to eat good food, and as for demand notes, what are they? Then again those long envelopes which come with the notice, "Paid in bulk," outside instead of a stamp--no man can be moved by them. They are very nearly always advertisements of cheap wine.

Do not misunderstand me: cheap wine is by no means to be despised. There are some sorts of wine the less you pay for them the better they are--within reason; and if a Gentleman has bought up a bankrupt stock of wine from a fellow to whom he has been lending money, why on earth should he not sell it again at a reasonable profit, yet quite cheap? It seems to be pure benefit to the world. But I perceive that all this is leading me from my subject.

I took up the letter, I say, and carefully examined the outside. It was written in the hand of an educated man. It was almost illegible, and had all the appearance of what an honest citizen of some culture might write to one hurriedly about some personal matter. I noticed that it had come from the eastern central district, but when you consider what an enormous number of people live there during the day, that did not prejudice me against it.

Now, when I opened this letter, I found it written a little more carefully, but still, written, not printed, or typewritten, or manifolded, or lithographed, or anything else of that kind. It was written.

The art of writing ... but Patience! Patience!...

It was written. It was very cordial, and it appealed directly, only the style was otiose, but in matters of the first importance style is a hindrance.

_Telephone No. 666.

The Mercury,

15th Nishan 5567.

Dear Sir,--Many people wonder, especially in your profession,_ [what is It?] _why a certain Taedium Vitae seizes them towards five o'clock in the afternoon. The stress and hurry of modern life have forced so many of Us to draw upon Our nervous energy that We imagine that_ [Look at that 'that'! The whole Elizabethan tradition chucked away!] _We are exceeding our powers, and when this depression comes over Us, we think it necessary to take a rest, and Let up from working. This is an erroneous supposition. What it means is that Our body has received insufficient nutriment during the last twenty-four hours, and that Nature is craving for more sustenance.

We shall be very happy to offer you, through the medium of this paper, a special offer of our Essence of The Ox. This offer will only remain open until Derby Day, during which period a box of our Essence of The Ox will be sent to you Free, if you will enclose the following form, and send it to Us in the stamped envelope, which accompanies this letter.

Very faithfully yours,_

HENRY DE LA MERE ULLMO.

It seemed to me a most extraordinary thing. I had never written for Ullmo and his _Mercury_, and I could do them no good in the world, either here or in Johannesburg. I was never likely to write for him at all. He is not very pleasant; He is by no means rich; He is ill-informed. He has no character at all, apart from rather unsuccessful money-grubbing, and from a habit of defending with some virulence, but with no capacity, his fellow money-grubbers throughout the world. However, I thought no more about it, and went on reading about "Vivisection."

Two days later I got a letter upon thick paper, so grained as to imitate oak, and having at the top a coat-of-arms of the most complicated kind. This coat-of-arms had a little lamb on it, suspended by a girdle, as though it were being slung on board ship; there were also three little sheaves of wheat, a sword, three panthers, some gules, and a mullet. Above it was a helmet, and there were two supporters: one was a man with a club, and the other was another man without a club, both naked. Underneath was the motto, "Tout à Toi." This second letter was very short.

_Dear Sir,--Can you tell me why you have not answered Our letter re the Essence of the Ox? Derby Day is approaching, and the remaining time is very short. We made the offer specially to you, and we had at least expected the courtesy of an acknowledgment. You will understand that the business of a great newspaper leaves but little time for private charity, but we are willing to let the offer remain open for three days longer, after which date--_

How easy it would be to criticise this English! To continue:

_--after which date the price will inevitably be raised to One Shilling.--We remain, etc._

I had this letter framed with the other, and I waited to see what would happen, keeping back from the bank for fear of frightening the fish, and hardly breathing.

What happened was, after four or five days, a very sad letter which said that Ullmo expected better things from me, but that He knew what the stress of modern life was, and how often correspondence fell into arrears. He sent me a smaller specimen box of the Essence of The Ox. I have it still.

And there it is. There is no moral; there is no conclusion or application. The world is not quite infinite--but it is astonishingly full. All sorts of things happen in it. There are all sorts of different men and different ways of action, and different goals to which life may be directed. Why, in a little wood near home, not a hundred yards long, there will soon burst, in the spring (I wish I were there!), hundreds of thousands of leaves, and no one leaf exactly like another. At least, so the parish priest used to say, and though I have never had the leisure to put the thing to the proof, I am willing to believe that he was right, for he spoke with authority.

ON A HOUSE

I appeal loudly to the Muse of History (whose name I forget and you never knew) to help me in the description of this house, for--

The Muse of Tragedy would overstrain herself on it;

The Muse of Comedy would be impertinent upon it;

The Muse of Music never heard of it;

The Muse of Fine Arts disapproved of it;

The Muse of Public Instruction ... (Tut, tut! There I was nearly making a tenth Muse! I was thinking of the French Ministry.)

The Muse of Epic Poetry did not understand it;

The Muse of Lyric Poetry still less so;

The Muse of Astronomy is thinking of other things;