These little local studies are not without charm. Somebody, one day, may
be induced to tell us about the fauna of Trafalgar Square. He should
begin with a description of the horse standing on three legs and gazing
inanely out of those human eyes after the fashion of its classic
prototype; then pass on to the lions beloved of our good Richard
Jefferies which look like puppy-dogs modelled in cotton-wool (why did
the sculptor not take a few lessons in lions from the sand-artist on
Yarmouth beach?), and conclude by dwelling as charitably as possible on
the human fauna - that droll little man, barely discernible, perched on
the summit of his lead pencil....
There was a slight earthquake at sunrise. I felt nothing....
And, appropriately enough, I encountered this afternoon M. M., that most
charming of persons, who, like Shelley and others, has discovered Italy
to be a "paradise of exiles." His friends may guess whom I mean when I
say that M. M. is connoisseur of earthquakes social and financial; his
existence has been punctuated by them to such an extent that he no
longer counts events from dates in the ordinary calendar, from birthdays
or Christmas or Easter, but from such and such a disaster affecting
himself. Each has left him seemingly more mellow than the last. Just
then, however, he was in pensive mood, his face all puckered into
wrinkles as he glanced upon the tawny flood rolling beneath that old
bridge. There he stood, leaning over the parapet, all by himself. He
turned his countenance aside on seeing me, to escape detection, but I
drew nigh none the less.
"Go away," he said. "Don't disturb me just now. I am watching the little
fishes. Life is so complicated! Let us pray. I have begun a new novel
and a new love-affair."
"God prosper both!" I replied, and began to move off.
"Thanks. But supposing the publisher always objects to your choicest
paragraphs?"
"I am not altogether surprised, if they are anything like what you once
read to me out of your unexpurgated 'House of the Seven Harlots.' Why
not try another firm? They might be more accommodating. Try mine."
He shook his head dubiously.
"They are all alike. It is with publishers as with wives: one always
wants somebody else's. And when you have them, where's the difference?
Ah, let us pray. These little fishes have none of our troubles."
I inquired about the new romance. At first he refused to disclose
anything. Then he told me it was to be entitled "With Christ at
Harvard," and that it promised some rather novel situations. I shall
look forward to its appearance.
What good things one could relate of M. M., but for the risk of
incurring his wrath! It is a thousand pities, I often tell him, that he
is still alive; I am yearning to write his biography, and cannot afford
to wait for his dissolution.
"When I am dead," he always says.
"By that time, my dear M., I shall be in the same fix myself."
"Try to survive. You may find it worth your while, when you come to look
into my papers. You don't know half. And I may be taking that little
sleeping-draught of mine any one of these days...." [12]
Mused long that night, and not without a certain envy, on the lot of M.
M. and other earthquake-connoisseurs - or rather on the lot of that true
philosopher, if he exists, who, far from being damaged by such
convulsions, distils therefrom subtle matter of mirth, I have only known
one single man - it happened to be a woman, an Austrian - who approached
this ideal of splendid isolation. She lived her own life, serenely
happy, refusing to acquiesce in the delusions and conventionalities of
the crowd; she had ceased to trouble herself about neighbours, save as a
source of quiet amusement; a state of affairs which had been brought
about by a succession of benevolent earthquakes that refined and
clarified her outlook.
Such disasters, obviously, have their uses. They knock down obsolete
rubbish and enable a man to start building anew. The most sensitive
recluse cannot help being a member of society. As such, he unavoidably
gathers about him a host of mere acquaintances, good folks who waste his
time dulling the edge of his wit and infecting him with their orthodoxy.
Then comes the cataclysm. He loses, let us say, all his money, or makes
a third appearance in the divorce courts. He can then at last (so one of
them expressed it to me) "revise his visiting-list," an operation which
more than counterbalances any damage from earthquakes. For these same
good folks are vanished, the scandal having scattered them to the winds.
He begins to breathe again, and employ his hours to better purpose. If
he loses both money and reputation he must feel, I should think, as
though treading on air. The last fools gone! And no sage lacks friends.
Consider well your neighbour, what an imbecile he is. Then ask yourself
whether it be worth while paying any attention to what he thinks of you.
Life is too short, and death the end of all things. Life must be lived,
not endured. Were the day twice as long as it is, a man might find it
diverting to probe down into that unsatisfactory fellow-creature and try
to reach some common root of feeling other than those physiological
needs which we share with every beast of earth. Diverting; hardly
profitable. It would be like looking for a flea in a haystack, or a joke
in the Bible. They can perhaps be found; at the expense of how much
trouble!
Therefore the sage will go his way, prepared to find himself growing
ever more out of sympathy with vulgar trends of opinion, for such is the
inevitable development of thoughtful and self-respecting minds.
