Loe raamatut: «Rambles in Womanland», lehekülg 13

CHAPTER XIII
EXTRACTS FROM THE DICTIONARY OF A CYNIC
(After Jules Noriac)

Alabaster – Kind of beautiful white marble, so much used in novels for ladies' necks and shoulders that very little is left for ordinary consumption. Very rare now in the trade, still very common in poetry.

Alibi – An aunt for wives; the club for husbands.

Ardour – Heat, extreme and dangerous. Those who gamble with ardour ruin their families; those who work with ardour ruin their health; those who study with ardour go to a lunatic asylum; those who love with ardour get cured more quickly than others.

Argus – Domestic spy. Juno gave him a cow to look after. With his hundred eyes he did not find out that the cow was no other than a woman, Io.

Attraction – Force which tends to draw bodies to each other. Isaac Newton thought he had discovered the principle of universal attraction when he watched an apple fall. Eve had discovered it five thousand years earlier.

Austerity – Self-control which enables a man or a woman to receive a call from Cupid without inviting him to stay to dinner.

Boudoir – From the French bouder (to sulk). Coquettish little room where women retire when they have a love-letter to write or any other reason for wishing to be left alone.

Candour – A virtue practised by women who do not understand what they know perfectly well.

Collection – Hobby. Men collect flies, beetles, butterflies. Women collect faded flowers, hair, letters, and photographs.

Duenna – Old woman who watches over the good conduct of young Spanish girls and of married women. In the second case, her wages are higher.

Egotism – Piece of ground on which Love builds his cottage.

Love – A disease which mankind escapes with still more difficulty than the measles. It generally attacks men at twenty and women at eighteen. Then it is not dangerous. At thirty you are properly inoculated; it is, as it were, part of your system. At forty it is a habit. After sixty the disease is incurable.

To Love – Active verb – very active – the most active of all.

Mystery – The principal food of love. This is probably why elevated souls have raised love to the level of religion.

Nest – Sweet abode made for two. He brings soft moss, she a few bits of grass and straw; then both give the finishing touch by bringing flowers.

Passion – Violent affection that always finishes on a cross.

Platonic (love) – A kind of love invented by Plato, a philosopher who sat down at table only to sleep. Advice: If ever Platonic love knocks at your door, kick him down your stairs unmercifully, for he is a prince of humbugs.

Resolution – A pill that you take every night before going to bed, and which seldom produces any effect.

Respect – A dish of which women are particularly fond in public, and which they seldom appreciate in private. How many women would be happier if their husbands respected them less and loved them more!

Servitude – Most bitter and humiliating state when it is forced upon us by poverty; most sweet when it is imposed on a man by the woman whom he loves.

Tact – The quality that, perhaps, of all, women admire most in men. The next is discretion.

Veil – Piece of lace which women put over their faces to excite the curiosity of the passers-by. Women get married with a white veil, but they always flirt with a black one.

CHAPTER XIV
VARIOUS CRITICISMS ON CREATION

I shall never forget the dry way and pitiful manner in which Robert Louis Stevenson passed a funeral oration on Matthew Arnold. It was on a Sunday evening, in the early spring of 1888, at a reception given at the house of Edmund Clarence Stedman, whose poetry and scholarly attainments excite as much admiration as his warm heart excites love in those who, like myself, can boast of his friendship. Someone entered and created consternation by announcing that a cablegram had just reached New York with the news that Matthew Arnold was dead. 'Poor Matthew!' said Stevenson, lifting his eyes with an air of deep compassion; 'heaven won't please him!'

And it is true that on many occasions that great English writer had hinted that if the work of the Creation had been given to him to undertake, it would have proved more successful than it has been. For that matter, many philosophers of a more or less cynical turn of mind have criticised the work of Creation.

Voltaire said that if he had been Jehovah 'he would not have chosen the Jews.' My late friend, Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, a Voltairian to the core, said that if he had been consulted 'he would have made health, not disease, catching.' Ninon de Lenclos, the veriest woman that ever lived, said that, had she been invited to give an opinion, 'she would have suggested that women's wrinkles be placed under their feet.'

'Everything is for the best in the best of worlds!' exclaims Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire's famous novel, 'Candide,' but few people are as satisfied with the world as that amiable philosopher. There are people who are even dissatisfied with our anatomy, and who declare that man's leg would be much safer and would run much less risk of being broken if the calf had been placed in front of it instead of behind. Some go as far as to say that man is the worst handicapped animal of creation – that he should have been made as strong as the horse, able to run like the stag, to fly like the lark, to swim and dive like the fish, to have a keen sense of smell like the dog, and one of sight like the eagle. Not only that, but that man is the most stupid of all, the most cruel, the most inconsistent, the most ungrateful, the most rapacious, the only animal who does not know when he has had enough to eat and to drink, the only one who kills the fellow-members of his species, the only one who is not always a good husband and a good father.

'Man, the masterpiece of creation, the king of the universe!' they exclaim. 'Nonsense!' There is hardly an animal that he dares look straight in the face and fight. No; he hides behind a rock, and, with an engine of destruction, he kills at a distance animals who have no other means of defence than those given them by nature, the coward!

There is not the slightest doubt that the genius of man has to reveal itself in the discovery of all that may remedy the disadvantages under which he finds himself placed. Boats, railways, automobiles, balloons, steam, electricity, and what not, have been invented, and are used to cover his deficiencies. Poor man! he has to resort to artificial means in every phase of life. Even clothes he has to wear, as his body has not been provided with either fur or feathers.

CHAPTER XV
THE HUMOURS OF THE INCOME-TAX
(A WARNING)

I have often heard Americans say that the future may keep in store for them the paying of income-tax, and, as a warning to them, I should like to let them know how this tax is levied in England.

In theory the income-tax is the most just of taxes, since it compels, or seems to compel, the people to contribute to the maintenance of their country in proportion to the income they possess. In reality this tax, levied as it is in England, is little less than the revival of the Inquisition.

And, first of all, let me point out a great injustice, which I trust no Government will ever inflict on the American people or any other, and which is this: The income derived from property inherited, or any other which the idlest man may enjoy without having to work for it, is taxed exactly the same as the income which is derived from work in business, profession, or any other calling.

I maintain that if I have a private income of, say, £2,000, and my work brings me in another £2,000, the first income ought to be taxed much more heavily than the second.

I maintain that if a man enjoys a private income, and does no work for the community in return for the privilege of the wealth he possesses, he ought to pay a larger percentage than the man who has to work for every shilling which he amasses during the year.

But this is discussing, and in this article I only wish to show how the free-born Briton is treated in the matter of income-tax.

A fact not altogether free from humour is that the salary of the English tax-collector is a percentage of what he can extract from the tax-payer.

He asks you to send him the amount of your income, and warns you that you will have to pay a penalty of £50 if you send him a false return. I have it on the authority of Mr. W. S. Gilbert that every Englishman sends a false return and cheats his Government; but now a good many men, I am sure, cannot cheat the Government – those, for example, in receipt of a salary from an official post, and many others whose incomes it is easy to find out.

Of course, some cannot be found out; so that those who cannot conceal their real and whole income have got to pay for those who can.

A merchant sends his return, and values it at £10,000. The collector says to him, if he chooses to do so: 'Your return cannot be right. I will charge you on £20,000. Of course, you can appeal.'

The merchant is obliged to lose a whole day to attend the Court of Appeal, taking all his books with him, in order to prove that the return he sent is exact.

Very often he pays double what he owes, so as not to have to let everybody know that his business is not as flourishing as people think. But the most amusing side of the whole thing is yet to be told.

If you sell meat in one shop and groceries in another, and you make £5,000 in the first shop and lose £3,000 in the second, you must not suppose that you will be charged on £2,000, the difference between your profit in the first business and the loss in the second. Not a bit of it. The two businesses being distinct, you will have to pay on the £5,000 profit made in the first, and bear your loss in the other as best you can.

As an illustration, I will give you a somewhat piquant reminiscence. Many years ago I undertook to give lectures in England under my own management. My manager proved to be an incompetent idiot, and I lost money.

When I declared my yearly income, I said to the income-tax collector: 'My books brought me an income of so much, but I lost so much on my lecture tour; my income is the difference – that is, so much.'

'No,' he said; 'your books and your lectures are two perfectly different things, and I must charge you on the whole income you derived from the sale of your books.'

Then I was struck with a luminous idea, which proved to me that I was better fitted to deal with the English tax-collector than to manage a lecture tour.

'The two things are not at all distinct,' I replied; 'they are one and the same thing. I gave lectures for the sole purpose of keeping my name before the public and pushing the sale of my books.'

'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'you are right. In that case you are entitled to deduct your loss from the profit.'

And this is how I got out of the difficulty – a little incident which has made me proud of my business abilities ever since.

I was in America last season to give lectures. Instead of lecturing, I had to be in bed and in convalescence for a month, then undergo an operation and stay in the hospital for six weeks.

You may imagine the fine income I derived from my last American tour. On my return to Europe, I passed through London, and stopped there a week before coming to Paris.

I found awaiting me a bill for about £54, a percentage on 'my profit of £1,000 realized in America.' Now, this was adding insult to injury. I have the greatest respect for H.M. Edward VII., but I regret that his officials should have resorted to such means to defray the expenses of his Coronation.

CHAPTER XVI
HOW TO BE ENTERTAINING

To know how to entertain people is a talent; but there is one better, and which makes you still more popular with your friends and acquaintances – it is that talent which consists in drawing them out and allowing them to entertain you.

I know very clever people, not exactly conceited or assertive, but who have the objectionable knack of gently sitting upon you. Their opinions are given with an ex cathedra air that seems to exclude any appeal against them.

Sometimes they tell anecdotes very well, and they give you strings of them, each one bridged over to the other by a 'That reminds me.' They laugh at their anecdotes heartily, and invite you to do so with such a suggestion as 'That's a good one, isn't it?'

You do laugh, and you hope for your reward, that you will be able to tell a little anecdote yourself. Sometimes they will cut you short and go on with another; sometimes they will give you a chance, show little signs of impatience while you give it, and never laugh when you have finished.

Worse than that, they will occasionally say: 'Oh yes,' on the tune of 'I have heard that one before,' or, maybe, 'Why, I am the inventor of it myself.' I have known such clever people and good anecdote tellers to prove terrific bores.

Whether you are discussing a question or merely spending a little time telling stories over a cup of coffee and a couple of cigarettes, you like to be allowed to prove alive, and the really entertaining people are those who know how to make you enjoy yourself as well as their company.

You are grateful to those friends who give you a chance of shining yourself, and there are some who know not only how to draw you out, but who know how to do it to the extent of making you brilliant.

Those who make you feel like an idiot are no better than those who take you for one. Although they do not do it on purpose, the result is exactly the same as if they did. You find that kind of man in every walk of life.

There is the savant who pours forth science by the gallon and talks you deaf, dumb, and lame. There is the other kind also. I once spent an hour talking on philology with the greatest professor of the College of France in Paris.

I know a little philology, but my knowledge of that science compared to his is about in the proportion of the length of my little finger to that of his whole body, and he is over six feet. He put me so much at my ease; he so many times asked me 'if I didn't think that it was so,' that for the time being I really felt I was something of a philologist myself. It was only after I had left him that I realized that I had learned a great deal from the famous master.

The nice people of the world are those who make you feel satisfied with yourself. All the talkers, advice-givers, assertive critics put together are not worth for your good a considerate friend who gives you a little praise, or a good, loving woman who, two or three times a day, gives you a teaspoonful of admiration.

After all, the greatest reward for our humblest efforts is appreciation, the greatest incentive is encouragement. What makes us powerless to achieve anything are the sneers of all the wet-blankets and kill-joys of this world.

You do not make a child get on at school by calling him a little idiot and telling him he will never do anything in his life; you do not impart bravery into the heart of a timid soldier by treating him as if he were a coward.

If a horse is afraid of anything lying on the road, don't whip him, don't use the spurs; pat him gently on the neck and lead him near the object to make him acquainted with it. Like that you will cure him of his shyness.

Help men with encouragement, praise, and admiration.

CHAPTER XVII
WHAT IS GENIUS?

Genius is a form of madness. Early in the Christian era, St. Augustine declared that there was no genius without a touch of insanity. The human being who is born without a grain of folly will never be a great poet, a great novelist, a great painter or sculptor, a great musician, or a great anything.

Unless you are erratic, irritable, full of fads, you need not aspire to attain sublime heights. Homer, Shakespeare, Raphael, Shelley, Wagner were lunatics. That is why, to my mind, nothing is more absurd, preposterous, than to go and poke one's nose into the private life of geniuses. Let us admire the work that their genius has left to us, without inquiring whether they regularly came home to tea, and were attentive fathers and faithful husbands. Do we not love Burns and Shelley?

Certainly, if I had lived in their times and had a marriageable daughter, I would have been careful to see that she did not fall in love with either of them; but what has that to do with their poetry and the enjoyment of it?

To this very day, in the autumn of my life, I enjoy the fables of dear old La Fontaine, and can't help smiling when I am reminded that he was married, but that he was separated from his wife. She lived in Lyons and he in Paris. One day they persuaded him to go to Lyons and 'make it up' with her.

He started. In those days the journey took five days and five nights. On the eleventh day after his departure he was back in Paris. 'Well,' they said to him, 'is it all right?'

'I could not see her,' replied he, 'when I called at her house. They told me that she had gone to Mass.' So he came back.

I once criticised the acting of a well-known actress before good folks, who said to me: 'Ah, but she is a woman who leads an irreproachable life!' What do I care about that? I am very glad to hear it, for the sake of her husband and children; but I would rather go and hear Miss So-and-so, who stirs my soul to its very depth by her genius, although I am told, by jealous people, no doubt, that she is not quite as good as she should be.

I hear that Sarah Bernhardt travels with either a lion, a bear, or a snake. Very well, that is her business. She goes to a hotel with her menagerie, and does not ask you to invite her to stay with you. Is that a reason for not going to see her play Phedre, Tosca, Fedora, or any other of her marvellous creations?

Wagner could not compose his operas unless he had on a red plush robe and a helmet. What do I care if this enabled him to write 'Lohengrin,' 'Tannhäuser,' and the Trilogy?

One day Alexandre Dumas, a lunatic of the purest water, called on Wagner. The latter kept him waiting half an hour. Then he appeared dressed as Wotan. 'Excuse me, Master,' he said to Dumas, 'I am composing a scene between the god and Brunnehilde.'

'Don't mention it, please,' replied Dumas, who, before leaving, invited him to come and see him in Paris. A few months later Wagner called on Dumas. The latter kept him waiting a little, and then appeared with nothing on but a Roman helmet and a shield.

'Excuse me, Maestro,' he said, 'I am writing a Roman novel.' The two great geniuses or lunatics were quits.

I knew a great poet who could no more write good poetry than he could fly unless he had blue paper. Victor Hugo would have been a failure if he had not been able always to be provided with very thick pens.

Balzac could write only on condition he was dressed as a monk, had the shutters of the room closed, and the lamps lighted. Alfred de Musset would compose his immortal poetry only when under the influence of drink. All lunatics, every one.

CHAPTER XVIII
NEW AND PIQUANT CRITICISM

The Paris Matin has started a new kind of dramatic criticism. The day after a play has been produced it publishes a criticism of it by the author himself, or by the manager of the theatre. This is as piquant as it is novel, and if the French had the sense of humour as keenly developed as the Americans, the result would be highly diverting.

Just imagine a play by Mark Twain reviewed and criticised the following morning in a paper by Mr. Samuel L. Clemens!

Gentlemen of the American press, take the hint, if you like.

This new kind of criticism is only a few days old, but the readers of the Matin have taken to it kindly already. Two well-known men have inaugurated it. They are Pierre Wolff, the dramatist, and Antoine, the actor and proprietor-manager of the Antoine Theatre. Both give a very flattering account of their plays: how beautifully they were acted, how well they were received, and, after giving a short synopsis of them, wind up with heartfelt thanks to the actors and actresses who appeared in them. Everybody is satisfied, author, actors, managers, editor, who has attracted the notice of the public, and the readers, who are amused at the new idea, and do not care a jot what critics say of the plays which they review.

Why should not books be reviewed in the same way? Why should they not be reviewed and criticised by the author or the publisher? I should prefer – by the author.

I have never read a notice of any of my books, however favourable, which I did not think I could have done better myself, if I had had to write it.

Just imagine, if only for fun, a new novel (pronounced 'novell,' please) by Hall Caine reviewed by Mr. Hall Caine; or one by Marie Corelli criticised by that talented lady herself! I say, just think of it!

We might have the good-fortune to read something in the following style: 'A new novel by myself is one of those literary events which keep the world breathless, in awful silence, for a long time before it comes to pass. The first edition of 100,000 copies was exhausted a week before the book appeared, but a second edition of the same number will be ready in a day or two. The story is wonderful, colossal, like everything that comes from the pen of that author, whose genius is as Shakespearian as his brow, which even reminds one of that of – but perhaps it would be profane to name.'

Or something interesting like this: 'His Majesty the King and most members of the Royal Family ordered copies of this book long before it was ready for publication, and no doubt to-day, and for many days following, there will be no other topic of conversation than my book at Windsor Castle. I should like to call the attention of the reading public – and who is it that does not read me? – to the fact that this is the longest book I have yet published. The public will also, I am sure, forgive me for calling it my best. A mother's last baby is always, in her eyes, her best.'

At all events, I salute the new criticism. It should greatly add to the gaiety of nations.