第37章

[Music and the Savage.]

I never visit a music-hall without reflecting concerning the great future there must be before the human race.

How young we are, how very young! And think of all we have done!

Man is still a mere boy.He has only just within the last half-century been put into trousers.Two thousand years ago he wore long clothes--the Grecian robe, the Roman toga.Then followed the Little Lord Fauntleroy period, when he went about dressed in a velvet suit with lace collar and cuffs, and had his hair curled for him.The late lamented Queen Victoria put him into trousers.What a wonderful little man he will be when he is grown up!

A clergyman friend of mine told me of a German Kurhaus to which he was sent for his sins and his health.It was a resort, for some reason, specially patronized by the more elderly section of the higher English middle class.Bishops were there, suffering from fatty degeneration of the heart caused by too close application to study; ancient spinsters of good family subject to spasms; gouty retired generals.Can anybody tell me how many men in the British Army go to a general? Somebody once assured me it was five thousand, but that is absurd, on the face of it.The British Army, in that case, would have to be counted by millions.There are a goodish few American colonels still knocking about.The American colonel is still to be met with here and there by the curious traveller, but compared with the retired British general he is an extinct species.

In Cheltenham and Brighton and other favoured towns there are streets of nothing but retired British generals--squares of retired British generals--whole crescents of British generals.Abroad there are pensions with a special scale of charges for British generals.In Switzerland there has even been talk of reserving railway compartments "For British Generals Only." In Germany, when you do not say distinctly and emphatically on being introduced that you are not a British general, you are assumed, as a matter of course, to be a British general.During the Boer War, when I was residing in a small garrison town on the Rhine, German military men would draw me aside and ask of me my own private personal views as to the conduct of the campaign.I would give them my views freely, explain to them how I would finish the whole thing in a week.

"But how in the face of the enemy's tactics--" one of them would begin.

"Bother the enemy's tactics," I would reply."Who cares for tactics?""But surely a British general--" they would persist."Who's a British general?" I would retort, "I am talking to you merely as a plain commonsense man, with a head on my shoulders."They would apologize for their mistake.But this is leading me away from that German Kurhaus.

[Recreation for the Higher clergy.]

My clergyman friend found life there dull.The generals and the spinsters left to themselves might have played cards, but they thought of the poor bishops who would have had to look on envious.

The bishops and the spinsters might have sung ballads, but the British general after dinner does not care for ballads, and had mentioned it.The bishops and the generals might have told each other stories, but could not before the ladies.My clergyman friend stood the awful solemnity of three evenings, then cautiously felt his way towards revelry.He started with an intellectual game called "Quotations." You write down quotations on a piece of paper, and the players have to add the author's name.It roped in four old ladies, and the youngest bishop.One or two generals tried a round, but not being familiar with quotations voted the game slow.

The next night my friend tried "Consequences." "Saucy Miss A.met the gay General B.in"--most unlikely places."He said." Really it was fortunate that General B.remained too engrossed in the day before yesterday's Standard to overhear, or Miss A.could never have again faced him."And she replied." The suppressed giggles excited the curiosity of the non-players.Most of the bishops and half the generals asked to be allowed to join.The giggles grew into roars.

Those standing out found that they could not read their papers in comfort.

From "Consequences" the descent was easy.The tables and chairs were pushed against the walls, the bishops and the spinsters and the generals would sit in a ring upon the floor playing hunt the slipper.

Musical chairs made the two hours between bed and dinner the time of the day they all looked forward to: the steady trot with every nerve alert, the ear listening for the sudden stoppage of the music, the eye seeking with artfulness the likeliest chair, the volcanic silence, the mad scramble.

The generals felt themselves fighting their battles over again, the spinsters blushed and preened themselves, the bishops took interest in proving that even the Church could be prompt of decision and swift of movement.Before the week was out they were playing Puss-in-the-corner; ladies feeling young again were archly beckoning to stout deans, to whom were returning all the sensations of a curate.The swiftness with which the gouty generals found they could still hobble surprised even themselves.

[Why are we so young?]

But it is in the music-hall, as I have said, that I am most impressed with the youthfulness of man.How delighted we are when the long man in the little boy's hat, having asked his short brother a riddle, and before he can find time to answer it, hits him over the stomach with an umbrella! How we clap our hands and shout with glee! It isn't really his stomach: it is a bolster tied round his waist--we know that; but seeing the long man whack at that bolster with an umbrella gives us almost as much joy as if the bolster were not there.