第6章 WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO BE MERRY?(1)

There is so much I could do to improve things generally in and about Europe,if only I had a free hand.I should not propose any great fundamental changes.These poor people have got used to their own ways;it would be unwise to reform them all at once.But there are many little odds and ends that I could do for them,so many of their mistakes I could correct for them.They do not know this.If they only knew there was a man living in their midst willing to take them in hand and arrange things for them,how glad they would be.But the story is always the same.One reads it in the advertisements of the matrimonial column:

"A lady,young,said to be good-looking"--she herself is not sure on the point;she feels that possibly she may be prejudiced;she puts before you merely the current gossip of the neighbourhood;people say she is beautiful;they may be right,they may be wrong:it is not for her to decide--"well-educated,of affectionate disposition,possessed of means,desires to meet gentleman with a view to matrimony."Immediately underneath one reads of a gentleman of twenty-eight,"tall,fair,considered agreeable."Really the modesty of the matrimonial advertiser teaches to us ordinary mortals quite a beautiful lesson.I know instinctively that were anybody to ask me suddenly:

"Do you call yourself an agreeable man?"I should answer promptly:

"An agreeable man!Of course I'm an agreeable man.What silly questions you do ask!"If he persisted in arguing the matter,saying:

"But there are people who do not consider you an agreeable man."Ishould get angry with him.

"Oh,they think that,do they?"I should say."Well,you tell them from me,with my compliments,that they are a set of blithering idiots.Not agreeable!You show me the man who says I'm not agreeable.I'll soon let him know whether I'm agreeable or not."These young men seeking a wife are silent on the subject of their own virtues.Such are for others to discover.The matrimonial advertiser confines himself to a simple statement of fact:he is considered agreeable."He is domestically inclined,and in receipt of a good income.He is desirous of meeting a lady of serious disposition,with view to matrimony.If possessed of means--well,it is a trifle hardly worth considering one way or the other.He does not insist upon it;on the other hand he does not exclude ladies of means;the main idea is matrimony.

It is sad to reflect upon a young lady,said to be good-looking (let us say good-looking and be done with it:a neighbourhood does not rise up and declare a girl good-looking if she is not good-looking,that is only her modest way of putting it),let us say a young lady,good-looking,well-educated,of affectionate disposition--it is undeniably sad to reflect that such an one,matrimonially inclined,should be compelled to have recourse to the columns of a matrimonial journal.What are the young men in the neighbourhood thinking of?

What more do they want?Is it Venus come to life again with ten thousand a year that they are waiting for!It makes me angry with my own sex reading these advertisements.And when one thinks of the girls that do get married!

But life is a mystery.The fact remains:here is the ideal wife seeking in vain for a husband.And here,immediately underneath--Iwill not say the ideal husband,he may have faults;none of us are perfect,but as men go a decided acquisition to any domestic hearth,an agreeable gentleman,fond of home life,none of your gad-abouts--calls aloud to the four winds for a wife--any sort of a wife,provided she be of a serious disposition.In his despair,he has grown indifferent to all other considerations."Is there in this world,"he has said to himself,"one unmarried woman,willing to marry me,an agreeable man,in receipt of a good income."Possibly enough this twain have passed one another in the street,have sat side by side in the same tram-car,never guessing,each one,that the other was the very article of which they were in want to make life beautiful.

Mistresses in search of a servant,not so much with the idea of getting work out of her,rather with the object of making her happy,advertise on one page.On the opposite page,domestic treasures--disciples of Carlyle,apparently,with a passionate love of work for its own sake--are seeking situations,not so much with the desire of gain as with the hope of finding openings where they may enjoy the luxury of feeling they are leading useful lives.These philanthropic mistresses,these toil-loving hand-maidens,have lived side by side in the same town for years,never knowing one another.

So it is with these poor European peoples.They pass me in the street.They do not guess that I am ready and willing to take them under my care,to teach them common sense with a smattering of intelligence--to be,as one might say,a father to them.They look at me.There is nothing about me to tell them that I know what is good for them better than they do themselves.In the fairy tales the wise man wore a conical hat and a long robe with twiddly things all round the edge.You knew he was a clever man.It avoided the necessity of explanation.Unfortunately,the fashion has gone out.

We wise men have to wear just ordinary clothes.Nobody knows we are wise men.Even when we tell them so,they don't believe it.This it is that makes our task the more difficult.

One of the first things I should take in hand,were European affairs handed over to my control,would be the rearrangement of the Carnival.As matters are,the Carnival takes place all over Europe in February.At Nice,in Spain,or in Italy,it may be occasionally possible to feel you want to dance about the streets in thin costume during February.But in more northern countries during Carnival time I have seen only one sensible masker;he was a man who had got himself up as a diver.It was in Antwerp.The rain was pouring down in torrents;a cheery,boisterous John Bull sort of an east wind was blustering through the streets at the rate of fifteen miles an hour.