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Файл:Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow II
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THE SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW
IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW • II
And to her, old hundred-breasted Artemis whispers, “Is he
not a bonny lad? See how he loves you, how devoted he is to
you! He will work for you and make you happy; he will build
your home for you. You will be the mother of his children.”
So we take each other by the hand, full of hope and love,
and from that hour Mother Nature has done with us. Let the
wrinkles come; let our voices grow harsh; let the fi re she lighted in our hearts die out; let the foolish selfi shness we both
thought we had put behind us for ever creep back to us, bringing unkindness and indifference, angry thoughts and cruel
words into our lives. What cares she? She has caught us, and
chained us to her work. She is our universal mother-in-law.
She has done the match-making; for the rest, she leaves It to
ourselves. We can love or we can fi ght; It is all one to her, confound her.
I wonder sometimes if good temper might not be taught.
In business we use no harsh language, say no unkind things
to one another. The shopkeeper, leaning across the counter, is
all smiles and affability, he might put up his shutters were he
otherwise. The commercial gent, no doubt, thinks the ponderous shopwalker an ass, but refrains from telling him so. Hasty
tempers are banished from the City. Can we not see that It is
just as much to our interest to banish them from Tooting and
Hampstead?
The young man who sat in the chair next to me, how carefully he wrapped the cloak round the shoulders of the little
milliner beside him. And when she said she was tired of sitting
still, how readily he sprang from his chair to walk with her,
though It was evident he was very comfortable where he was.
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JEROME K. JEROME
And she! She had laughed at his jokes; they were not very clever jokes, they were not very new. She had probably read them
herself months before in her own particular weekly journal.
Yet the harmless humbug made him happy. I wonder if ten
years hence she will laugh at such old humour, if ten years
hence he will take such clumsy pains to put her cape about
her. Experience shakes her head, and is amused at my question.
I would have evening classes for the teaching of temper to
married couples, only I fear the institution would languish for
lack of pupils. The husbands would recommend their wives to
attend, generously offering to pay the fee as a birthday present.
The wife would be indignant at the suggestion of good money
being thus wasted. “No, John, dear,” she would unselfi shly reply, “you need the lessons more than I do. It would be a shame
for me to take them away from you,” and they would wrangle
upon the subject for the rest of the day.
Oh! the folly of it. We pack our hamper for life’s picnic with
such pains. We spend so much, we work so hard. We make
choice pies, we cook prime joints, we prepare so carefully the
mayonnaise, we mix with loving hands the salad, we cram the
basket to the lid with every delicacy we can think of. Everything to make the picnic a success is there except the salt. Ah!
woe is me, we forget the salt. We slave at our desks, in our
workshops, to make a home for those we love; we give up our
pleasures, we give up our rest. We toil in our kitchen from
morning till night, and we render the whole feast tasteless for
want of a ha’porth of salt – for want of a soupcon of amiability, for want of a handful of kindly words, a touch of caress,
a pinch of courtesy.
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THE SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW
IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW • II
Who does not know that estimable housewife, working
from eight till twelve to keep the house in what she calls order? She is so good a woman, so untiring, so unselfi sh, so conscientious, so irritating. Her rooms are so clean, her servants
so well managed, her children so well dressed, her dinners so
well cooked; the whole house so uninviting. Everything about
her is in apple-pie order, and everybody wretched.
My good Madam, you polish your tables, you scour your
kettles, but the most valuable piece of furniture in the whole
house you are letting to rack and ruin for want of a little pains.
You will fi nd It in your own room, my dear Lady, in front of
your own mirror. It is getting shabby and dingy, old-looking
before its time; the polish is rubbed off it, Madam, It is losing its brightness and charm. Do you remember when he fi rst
brought It home, how proud he was of it? Do you think you
have used It well, knowing how he valued it? A little less care of
your pots and your pans, Madam, a little more of yourself were
wiser. Polish yourself up, Madam; you had a pretty wIt once,
a pleasant laugh, a conversation that was not confi ned exclusively to the short-comings of servants, the wrong-doings of
tradesmen. My dear Madam, we do not live on spotless linen,
and crumbless carpets. Hunt out that bundle of old letters you
keep tied up in faded ribbon at the back of your bureau drawer – a pity you don’t read them oftener. He did not enthuse
about your cuffs and collars, gush over the neatness of your
darning. It was your tangled hair he raved about, your sunny
smile (we have not seen It for some years, Madam – the fault
of the Cook and the Butcher, I presume), your little hands,
your rosebud mouth – It has lost its shape, Madam, of late. Try
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JEROME K. JEROME
JEROME K. JEROME
a little less scolding of Mary Ann, and practise a laugh once
a day: you might get back the dainty curves. It would be worth
trying. It was a pretty mouth once.
Who invented that mischievous falsehood that the way
to a man’s heart was through his stomach? How many a silly
woman, taking It for truth, has let love slip out of the parlour,
while she was busy in the kitchen. Of course, if you were foolish enough to marry a pig, I suppose you must be content to
devote your life to the preparation of hog’s-wash. But are you
sure that he is a pig? If by any chance he be not? – then, Madam, you are making a grievous mistake. My dear Lady, you are
too modest. If I may say so without making you unduly conceited, even at the dinner-table itself, you are of much more
importance than the mutton. Courage, Madam, be not afraid
to tilt a lance even with your own cook. You can be more piquant than the sauce à la Tartare, more soothing surely than
the melted butter. There was a time when he would not have
known whether he was eating beef or pork with you the other
side of the table. Whose fault is it? Don’t think so poorly of us.
We are not ascetics, neither are we all gourmets: most of us
plain men, fond of our dinner, as a healthy man should be, but
fonder still of our sweethearts and wives, let us hope. Try us.
A moderately-cooked dinner – let us even say a not-too-wellcooked dinner, with you looking your best, laughing and talking gaily and cleverly – as you can, you know – makes a pleasanter meal for us, after the day’s work is done, than that same
dinner, cooked to perfection, with you silent, jaded, and anxious, your pretty hair untidy, your pretty face wrinkled with
care concerning the sole, with anxiety regarding the omelette.
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THE SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW
IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW • II
My poor Martha, be not troubled about so many things.
You are the one thing needful – if the bricks and mortar are
to be a home. See to It that you are well served up, that you
are done to perfection, that you are tender and satisfying, that
you are worth sitting down to. We wanted a wife, a comrade,
a friend; not a cook and a nurse on the cheap.
But of what use is It to talk? the world will ever follow
its own folly. When I think of all the good advice that I have
given it, and of the small result achieved, I confess I grow discouraged. I was giving good advice to a lady only the other day.
I was instructing her as to the proper treatment of aunts. She
was sucking a lead-pencil, a thing I am always telling her not
to do. She took It out of her mouth to speak.
“I suppose you know how everybody ought to do everything,” she said.
There are times when It is necessary to sacrifi ce one’s modesty to one’s duty.
“Of course I do,” I replied.
“And does Mama know how everybody ought to do everything?” was the second question.
My conviction on this point was by no means so strong, but
for domestic reasons I again sacrifi ced myself to expediency.
“Certainly,” I answered; “and take that pencil out of your
mouth. I’ve told you of that before. You’ll swallow It one day,
and then you’ll get perichondritis and die.”
She appeared to be solving a problem.
“All grown-up people seem to know everything,” she summarized.
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JEROME K. JEROME
JEROME K. JEROME
There are times when I doubt if children are as simple as
they look. If It be sheer stupidity that prompts them to make
remarks of this character, one should pity them, and seek to
improve them. But if It be not stupidity? well then, one should
still seek to improve them, but by a different method.
The other morning I overheard the nurse talking to this
particular specimen. The woman is a most worthy creature,
and she was imparting to the child some really sound advice.
She was in the middle of an unexceptional exhortation concerning the virtue of silence, when Dorothea interrupted her
with –
“Oh, do be quiet, Nurse. I never get a moment’s peace from
your chatter.”
Such an interruption discourages a woman who is trying
to do her duty.
Last Tuesday evening she was unhappy. Myself, I think that
rhubarb should never be eaten before April, and then never
with lemonade. Her mother read her a homily upon the subject of pain. It was impressed upon her that we must be patient,
that we must put up with the trouble that God sends us. Dorothea would descend to details, as children will.
“Must we put up with the cod-liver oil that God sends us?”
“Yes, decidedly.”
“And with the nurses that God sends us?”
“Certainly; and be thankful that you’ve got them, some
little girls haven’t any nurse. And don’t talk so much.”
On Friday I found the mother in tears.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
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THE SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW
IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW • II
“Oh, nothing,” was the answer; “only Baby. She’s such
a strange child. I can’t make her out at all.”
“What has she been up to now?”
“Oh, she will argue, you know.”
She has that failing. I don’t know where she gets It from,
but she’s got it.
“Well?”
“Well, she made me cross; and, to punish her, I told her she
shouldn’t take her doll’s perambulator out with her.”
“Yes?”
“Well, she didn’t say anything then, but so soon as I was
outside the door, I heard her talking to herself – you know
her way?”
“Yes?”
“She said – ”
“Yes, she said?”
“She said, ‘I must be patient. I must put up with the mother
God has sent me.’”
She lunches down-stairs on Sundays. We have her with
us once a week to give her the opportunity of studying manners and behaviour. Milson had dropped in, and we were discussing politics. I was interested, and, pushing my plate aside,
leant forward with my elbows on the table. Dorothea has
a habIt of talking to herself in a high-pitched whisper capable of being heard above an AdelphI love scene. I heard
her say –
“I must sIt up straight. I mustn’t sprawl with my elbows
on the table. It is only common, vulgar people behave that
way.”
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JEROME K. JEROME
JEROME K. JEROME
I looked across at her; she was sitting most correctly, and
appeared to be contemplating something a thousand miles
away. We had all of us been lounging! We sat up stiffl y, and
conversation fl agged.
Of course we made a joke of It after the child was gone. But
somehow It didn’t seem to be our joke.
I wish I could recollect my childhood. I should so like to
know if children are as simple as they can look.
ON THE DELIGHTS
AND BENEFITS OF SLAVERY
My study window looks down upon Hyde Park, and often,
to quote the familiar promise of each new magazine, It amuses
and instructs me to watch from my tower the epitome of human life that passes to and fro beneath. At the opening of the
gates, creeps in the woman of the streets. Her pitiful work for
the time being is over. Shivering in the chill dawn, she passes
to her brief rest. Poor Slave! Lured to the galley’s lowest deck,
then chained there. Civilization, tricked fool, they say has need
of such. You serve as the dogs of Eastern towns. But at least,
It seems to me, we need not spIt on you. Home to your kennel!
Perchance, if the Gods be kind, they may send you dreams of
a cleanly hearth, where you lie with a silver collar round your
neck.
Next comes the labourer – the hewer of wood, the drawer
of water – slouching wearily to his toil; sleep clinging still
about his leaden eyes, his pittance of food carried tied up in
a dish-clout. The fi rst stroke of the hour clangs from Big Ben.
Haste thee, fellow-slave, lest the overseer’s whip, “Out, we will
have no lie-a-beds here,” descend upon thy patient back.
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JEROME K. JEROME
JEROME K. JEROME
Later, the artisan, with his bag of tools across his shoulder.
He, too, listens fearfully to the chiming of the bells. For him
also there hangs ready the whip.
After him, the shop boy and the shop girl, making love as
they walk, not to waste time. And after these the slaves of the
desk and of the warehouse, employers and employed, clerks
and tradesmen, offi ce boys and merchants. To your places,
slaves of all ranks. Get you unto your burdens.
Now, laughing and shouting as they run, the children, the
sons and daughters of the slaves. Be industrious, little children,
and learn your lessons, that when the time comes you may be
ready to take from our hands the creaking oar, to slip into our
seat at the roaring loom. For we shall not be slaves for ever,
little children. It is the good law of the land. So many years in
the galleys, so many years in the fi elds; then we can claim our
freedom. Then we shall go, little children, back to the land of
our birth. And you we must leave behind us to take up the tale
of our work. So, off to your schools, little children, and learn to
be good little slaves.
Next, pompous and sleek, come the educated slaves –
journalists, doctors, judges, and poets; the attorney, the artist,
the player, the priest. They likewise scurry across the Park,
looking anxiously from time to time at their watches, lest
they be late for their appointments; thinking of the rates and
taxes to be earned, of the bonnets to be paid for, the bills to
be met. The best scourged, perhaps, of all, these slaves. The
cat reserved for them has fi fty tails in place of merely two or
three. Work, you higher middle-class slave, or you shall come
down to the smoking of twopenny cigars; harder yet, or you
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