Chapter 10

I suppose that we all of us have our own little secret "dream-sanctuary"--our way-of-escape which nobody knows anything about, and by which we go when we are weary of the trivialities of the domestic hearth and sick unto death of the "cackle-cackle" of the crowds. When we are very young we long to share this secret little dream-sanctuary with someone else. When we are older and wiser, we realise that if we don't keep it to ourselves we are spiritually lost; for, with the best intentions in the world, the best-beloved, to whom in rapture we give the key, either, metaphorically speaking, leaves the front gate open or goes therein and turns on a gramophone. We come into this world alone, and we leave it by ourselves; and the older we grow the more we realise that, in spite of our own heart's longing to share, we are most really at peace when we are quite alone in our own company. When we are young we hope and expect our "dreams" to become one day a glorious reality. When we are older we realise that our "dreams" will always remain "dreams", and, strange as it may sound, they become more real to us, even as "dreams," than do any realities--except bores and toothache. For the "dreams" of youth become the "let's pretend" of age. And the person who has forgotten the game of "let's pretend" is in soul-colour of the dulness of ditch-water. And "let's pretend" is a game which we can best play by ourselves. Even the proximity of a living being, content to do and say nothing, robs it of its keenest enjoyment. No, we must be by ourselves for the world around us to seem really inhabited by people we love the most amid surroundings nearest our ideal. There are no bores in our dream-world. Nothing disagreeable happens there. And, thank Heaven, we can enter it almost anywhere--sometimes if we merely close our eyes! And we can be our real selves in this dream-world of ours too, there is nobody to say us nay; there are no laws and no false morals; we are fairy kings and queens in a fairy kingdom. I always pity the man or woman who is no monarch in this very real kingdom of shadows which lies all around us, and which we can enter to reign therein whenever the human "jar" is safely out of the way. There we can be our true selves and live our true life, in what seems a very real world--a world, moreover, which we hope one day will be the reality of Heaven.

_My Escape and Some Others_

Everybody, as I said before, has his or her own receipt for "getting away." Some find it in long "chats" over the fireside with old friends; some in reading and music and art; some in travel, some in "good works" and just a few in "bad" ones. A new hat will often lift a woman several floors nearer to the seventh heaven. A good dinner in prospect will sometimes elevate the spirit of man out of the dreary "rut" and give that _soupçon_ of something-to-live-for which can take the ordinary everyday and turn it into a day which belongs to the _extraordinary_. For myself, I like to get out into the country alone; or, if I can't do that, or the weather sees to it that I shan't, I like to get by myself--anywhere to dream, or, preferably, to explore some unknown district or street or place in my own company. Sometimes I find that to open a new book or a favourite old one, soon takes the edge off "edgyness," and makes me see that the pin-pricks of life are merely pin-pricks, from which, unless there are too many of them, I shan't die, however much I may suffer. But even when reading--I like best to read alone--I am never really at ease when at any moment a companion may suddenly break the silence and bring me back to reality by asking the unseen listening gods "if they've locked the cat out?" You condemn me? Well, perhaps I am wrong. And if you can find happiness perpetually surrounded by people, then I envy you. It is so much easier to go through life requiring nothing but food, friends, and a bank balance, than always to hide misanthropic tendencies behind a social smile. I envy you, because I realise that the fight to be alone, the fight to be yourself, is the longest fight of all--and it lays you open to suspicion, unfriendliness, even dislike, everywhere you go. But, if I must be honest, I will confess that I _hate_ social pastimes. To work and to dream, to travel, to listen to music, to be in England in the springtime, to read, to give of myself to those who most specially need me--if any there be?--that is what I now call happiness, the rest is merely boredom in varying degree. My only regret is that one has generally to live so long to discover what the constituents of happiness are, or what is worth while and what worthless; what makes you feel that the everyday is a day well spent, and not a day merely got through somehow or other. You lose so much of your youth, and the best years of your life, trying to find happiness along those paths where other people informed you that it lay. It takes so many years of experience to realise that most of the things which men call "pleasure" are but, as it were, tough dulness covered with piquant sauce--a tough mess of which, when you tire of the piquant sauce the toughness remains just so long as you go on trying to eat it.

_Over the Fireside_

Most especially do I feel sorry for those people who cannot find a certain illusion of happiness in reading. I thank whatever gods there be that I can generally find the means of "getting-away" between the covers of a book. A book has to be very puerile indeed if I cannot enjoy it to a certain extent--even though that extent be merely a mild ridicule and amusement. I can even enjoy books about books--if they are very well done, which is rare. I am not particularly interested in authors--especially the photographs of authors, which usually come upon their admirers with something approaching shock--because I always think that the most interesting part of an author is what he writes, not what he looks like. What he writes is generally what he _is_. You can't keep everything of yourself out of anything you may write--and thank Heaven for it! Apart from the story--often indeed, before the story itself--the most delightful parts of any book are the little gleams of the writer's point of view, of his philosophy, of his own life-experiences, which glint through the matter in hand, and sometimes raise a commonplace narrative into a volume of sheer entrancing joy. And perhaps one of the most difficult things to write is to write about books--I don't mean "reviews." (Almost anybody can give their opinion on books they have read, and tell you something about them--which is nine hundred and ninety per cent. of literary reviews.) But to write about books in a way which amuses you, or interests you, and makes you want immediately to read the book in question--that is a more difficult feat. And sometimes what the writer about books says about books is more entertaining than the books themselves. But then that is because of those little gleams of the personal which are always so delightful to find anywhere.

_Faith Reached Through Bitterness and Loss_

Looking back on one's life, I always think it is so strange that just those blows of fate which logic would consider as certain to destroy such things as Faith and Belief, optimism and steadfastness of soul-vision, so many times provide their very foundations. How often those whose Belief in a Life Hereafter is the firmest have little reason to encourage that belief. We often find through sorrow, a happiness--no, not happiness, but a peace--which is enduring. When the waves of agnosticism and atheism have broken over our souls, the ebb tide is so often Faith and Hope. And, as we approach nearer and nearer to the time when, in the ordinary course of events, we so soon _shall know_, there creeps into our hearts a certainty that all is not ended with life, a belief which defies reason, and logic, and common sense, and which, to outsiders, often appears to be merely a clutching at straws. But these straws save us, and, through their means, we eventually reach the shore where doubts cannot flourish and agnosticism gives way to a Faith which we _feel_ more than we can actually define.

_Aristocracy and Democracy_

I believe in the _heart_ of democracy, but I am extremely suspicious of its _head_. Popular education among the masses is the most derelict thing in all our much-vaunted civilisation. To talk to the masses concerning anything outside the radius of their own homes and stomachs is, for the most part, like talking to children. It is not their fault. They have never had a real chance to be otherwise. When I contemplate the kind of education which the average child of the slums and country villages is given--and the type of man and woman who is popularly supposed to be competent to give it--I do not wonder that they are the victims of any firebrand, crank, or plutocrat who comes to them and sails into the Mother-of-All-Parliaments upon their votes. For the last six years I have been placed in circumstances which have enabled me to observe the results of what education has done for the average poor man. The result has made me angry and appalled. The figure is low when I declare that ninety per cent. of the poor not only cannot write the King's English, but can neither read it nor understand it--beyond the everyday common words which a child of twelve uses in his daily vocabulary. Of history, of geography, of the art and literature of his country, of politics or law, of domestic economy--he knows absolutely nothing. Nothing of any real value is taught him. Even what he knows he knows so imperfectly that absolute ignorance were perhaps a healthier mental state. Until education is regarded with the same seriousness as the law, it is hopeless to expect a new and better world. For education is the very foundation of this finer existence. You can't expect an A1 nation among B3 intellects. Ornamental education is not wanted--it is worse than useless until a _useful education_ has been inculcated. And what is a useful education? It is an education which teaches a man and woman to be of some immediate use in the world; to know something of the world in which they live, and how best to fulfil their duty as useful members of a community and in the world at large. At present the average boy and girl are, as it were, educationally dragged up anyhow and launched upon the world at the first possible moment to earn the few shillings which two hands and an undeveloped intelligence are worth in the labour market. No wonder there is Bolshevism and class war and anarchy and revolution. Where the ruled are ignorant and the ruling selfish--you can never expect to found a new and happier world.

_Duty_

As for a sense of duty, to talk to the average man and woman, no matter what may be their class in life, of a sense of duty, is rather like reading Shakespeare to a man who is stone deaf. And yet, an education which does not at the same time seek to teach duty--duty to oneself, to the state, to humanity at large--is no real education at all. But in the world in which we live at present, a sense of duty is regarded as nonsense. Labour does not realise its duties, neither does wealth; neither does the Church, except to churchmen; nor Parliament, except to the party which provides its funds. And yet, as I said before, a sense of duty is the very foundation of all real education.

Even if the children of the poor were taught the rudiments of some trade while they were at school, the years they spend there would not be so utterly and entirely wasted. Even though they did not follow up that trade as their occupation in life, it would at any rate give them some useful interest in their hours of recreation. As it is they know nothing, so they are interested in nothing. And this, of course, applies to the so-called educated people as well. It always amuses me to listen to the well-to-do discussing the working classes. To hear them one would think that the working classes were the only people who wasted their time, their money, and their store of health. It never seems to strike them that the working classes for the most part live in surroundings which contain no interest whatsoever--apart from their work. They are given education--and _such_ education! They are given homes--and _such_ homes! They are plentifully supplied with public houses--and ye gods, such public houses! The Government hardly realises yet that it is there, not to listen to its own voice and keep its own little tin-pot throne intact, but as a means by which the masses may arrive at a healthier, better, more worthy state of existence. The working-classes are not Bolshevik, nor do I think they ever will be; but deep down in their hearts there is a determination that they and their children shall receive the same educational advantages, the same right to air and light and decent amusement, as the children of the wealthy. Because I am poor, they say to themselves, why should I therefore have to inhabit a home unfit for decent habitation, receive education utterly useless from every practical point of view--be forced to live in surroundings which absolutely invite degradation of both mind and body? There will always be poverty, but there ought never to be indecent poverty. Better education; better housing; better chances for healthy recreation--these are the things for which the masses are clamouring. Why is it wrong for a workman who has made money during the war to buy a piano--and to hear people talk that seems to be one of their most dastardly crimes--when it is quite all right for his employer, who has made more money out of the war, to pay five pounds for one good dinner, or a night's "jazzing"?

_Sweeping Assertions from Particular Instances_

And this mention of the piano-crime among the munition-makers brings me to another fact--how utterly impossible it is for the majority of people to judge any big scheme without having regard to the particular instances which threaten its success. Because some working people are so utterly bestial that they are unfit to live in decent homes--so the majority of poor people are unworthy of better surroundings. You might just as well judge the ruling classes by the few units who advertise their own extravagant tom-fooleries! In all questions of reform you have to work, as it were, up to the vision of an ideal. The real, however disappointing at the outset, will eventually reach the higher plane--of that I am certain. And in no question am I more certain of this than in the question of the working classes. The heart of democracy, as I said before, is absolutely in the right place; only its "head" is as yet undeveloped. Its mental "view" is restricted--and no wonder! Everything that has so far been done has helped to restrict that view. This war has let more "light" into the "soul" of democracy than all the national so-called education which has ever been devised and made compulsory. Confiscation of property and all those other tom-fool cries are but the screams of a handful of silly Bolsheviks. There is no echo in the heart of the real labouring men and women. If they applaud it, it is only that these cranks, at least, seem to be fighting for that human right to an equal share of the common good things of this life which ought to be the possession of all labour, however lowly. Take the education of the masses out of the hands of the for the most part ignorant men and women who nowadays make it their profession to teach it; raise the standard of payment so that this all-important branch of citizenship will encourage educated and refined men and women to take up that duty--and give the working classes decent homes, plenty of air, and the chance of healthful recreation close at hand, and you have solved the most vital labour problems of this old world of ours and laid the foundation stones of the new.

_How I came to make "History"!_

Only those who have worked in the offices of an important newspaper, know that the Power Behind the Throne--which is the Editorial Chair--is rarely the Church, scarcely ever the State, infrequently the Capitalist, and _never_ Labour,--but simply the Advertisement Department.

I was sitting the other afternoon--dreaming, as is my wont; and smoking cigarettes, which is one of my bad habits,--when the head-representative of this unseen Power rushed into my sanctum.

"Will you do something for me?" he demanded, with that beneficent smile on his face which, through experience, I have discovered to be the prelude of most disagreeable demands.

"Certainly," I answered, inwardly collecting my scattered brains preparatory to a brilliant defence. "What is it?"

Without more ado he, as it were, threw his bomb.

"Will you write me an Essay on Corsets?"

"On _what_?" I asked incredulously--knowing that he had been a distinguished soldier, and suspecting that he had suddenly developed what the soldiers describe as "a touch of the doolally."

"On _Corsets_!"

"But I don't know anything about them," I protested, "except that I should not like to wear them!"

"That doesn't matter," he answered reassuringly. "All we want is a page of 'matter.'"

Then he proceeded to explain that he had secured several highly-paid advertisements from the leading corsetières, and that his "bright idea" was to connect them together by an essay illustrated by their wares, in order that those who read might be attracted to buy.

Then he left me.

"Just write a history of corsets," he cried out laughing. Then, by way of decorating the "bitter pill" with jam, he added: "I'm _sure_ you'll do it _splendidly_!"

"Splendidly" I know I could not do it, but to do it--rather amused me.

After all, there is one benefit in writing of something you know nothing about (and you are certain that ninety-nine per cent. of your readers will not be able to enlighten you) the necessity for accuracy does not arise. And so, I settled myself down to invent "history," and, if my historical narrative is all invention, I can defend myself by saying that if it isn't _true_--it _might be_. And many historical romances cannot boast even that defence.

Most people who write about the early history of the world have to guess a good deal; so I don't see why I shouldn't state emphatically that, after years and years and years of profound research, the first corset "happened" when Eve suddenly discovered that she was showing signs of middle-age in the middle. So she plaited some reeds together, tied them tightly round her waist-line, and, sure enough, Adam had to put off making that joke about "Once round Eve's waist, twice round the Garden of Eden" for many moons. But Eve, I suppose, discovered later on, as many a woman has also discovered since her day, that, though a tight belt maketh the waistline small, the body bulgeth above and below eventually. So Eve began making a still wider plait--chasing, as it were, the "bulge" all over her body. In this manner she at last became encased in a belt wide enough to imprison her torso quite _un_comfortably, but "she kept her figure"--or thought she did--and thus easily passed for one hundred and fifty years old when, in reality, she was over six hundred.

And every woman who is an "Eve" at heart has followed in her time the example of the mother of all of 'em. As they begin to fatten, so they begin to tighten, and the inevitable and consequential "bulge" is imprisoned as it "bulgeth" until no _corsetière_ can do more for them than hint that men like their divinities a trifle plump in places. But to arrive at this--the last and only consolation--a woman has to become rigidly encased from her thighs almost to her neck. She can scarcely walk and she can hardly breathe, and the fat which must go somewhere has usually gone to her neck, but--thank Heaven!--"she has kept her figure" (or she likes to think she has), and many a woman would sooner lose her character than lose her "line."

You may think that this only applies to frivolous and silly women, but you are wrong. It applied even to goddesses! Historians inform us that the haughty Juno, discovering that her husband, Jupiter, was going the way of all flesh and nearly every husband, borrowed her girdle from Venus, with the result that when Jupiter returned home that evening from business, he stayed with his wife--the club calling him in vain. Thus was Juno justified of her "tightness."

But then, many a wife has cause to look upon a well-cut corset as her best friend. And many a husband, too, has every reason to be grateful to that article of his wife's apparel which the vulgar _will_ call "stays." In earlier days a husband used to lock his wife in a pair of iron-bound corsets when he went away from home, keeping the key in his pocket, and thus not caring a tinker's cuss if his home were simply overflowing with handsome gentleman lodgers! The poor wife couldn't retaliate by locking her husband in such a virtuous prison, because men never wore such things--which, perhaps, was one or the reasons why they didn't, who knows?

Also, the corset--or rather, the "bulge" of middle-age, which was the real cause of their ever being worn--has always strongly influenced the fashions. I don't know it as a positive fact, though I suspect it to be true nevertheless, that the woman of fashion who first discovered that no amount of iron bars could keep her from bulging in the right place, but to the wrong extent, suddenly, thought of the pannier and the crinoline and--well, that's where _she_ found that she was laughing. For almost any woman can make her waist-line small: her trouble only really comes when she has to tackle other parts of her anatomy which begin to show the thickening of Anno Domini. Panniers and the crinoline save her an enormous amount of mental agony. On the principle of "What the eye doesn't see, to the imagination looks beautiful"--the early Victorian lady was wise in her generation, and her modern sister, who shows the world most things without considering whether what she exhibits is worth looking at, is an extremely foolish person. One thing, however, which women have never been able to fix definitely, is _exactly where_ her waist should be. Men know where it is, and they put their arms round it instinctively whenever they get the chance. But women change their mind about it every few years. Sometimes it is down-down-down, and sometimes it is under their armpits. A few years ago a woman who had what is known as a "short waist" was referred to by other women as a "Poor Thing." Then the short-waisted woman came into fashion--or rather, fashions fashioned themselves for her benefit--and her long-waisted sister had to struggle to make her waist look to be where really her ribs were. Only a few weeks back a woman's waist and bust and hips had all to be definitely defined. Nowadays they bundle them all, as it were, into clothes cut in a sack-line, and are the very last letter of the very latest word in fashion. I can well imagine that a few years hence women will be as severely corseted as they were a short time ago.

I can well remember the time when a woman who held "views" and discarded her stays sent a shudder through the man who was forced to dance with her--though whether they were pleasurable shudders or merely shuddery shudders I do not know. Nowadays, the woman who wears an out-and-out corset, tightly laced, is either a publican's wife or is just bursting with middle age. The corset of to-day is little more than the original plaited grass originated by Mother Eve--in width, that is; in texture it is of a luxury unimaginable in the Garden of Eden.