Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1658 page)

“Good Christian people, will you be so obliging as to leave off your various occupations for a few minutes only, and listen to the harrowing statement of a father of a family, who is reduced to acknowledge his misfortunes in the public streets? Work, honest work, is all I ask for; and I cannot get it. Why? — I ask, most respectfully, why? Good Christian people, I think it is because I have no friends. Alas! indeed I have no friends. My wife and seven babes are, I am shocked to tell you, without food. Yes, without food. Oh yes, without food. Because we have no friends; I assure you I am right in saying, because we have no friends. Why am I and my wife and my seven babes starving in a land of plenty? Why have I no share in the wholesome necessaries of life, which I see, with my hungry eyes, in butchers’ and bakers’ shops on each side of me? Can anybody give me a reason for this? I think, Good Christian people, nobody can. Must I perish in a land of plenty because I have no work and because I have no friends? I cannot perish in a land of plenty. No, I cannot perish in a land of plenty. Oh no, I cannot perish in a land of plenty. Bear with my importunity, if you please, and listen to my harrowing statement. I am the father of a starving family, and I have got no friends.”

With this neat return to the introductory passage of his speech, the mendicant individual paused; collected the pecuniary tokens of public approval; and walked forward, with a funereal slowness of step, to deliver a second edition of his address in another part of the street.

While I had been looking at this man, I had also been insensibly led to compare myself, as I stood on the pavement, with my oratorical vagrant, as he stood in the roadway. In some important respects, I found, to my own astonishment, that the result of the comparison was not by any means flattering on my side. I might certainly assume, without paying myself any extraordinary compliment, that I was the honester man of the two; also that I was better educated, and a little better clad. But here my superiority ceased. The beggar was far in advance of me in all the outward and visible signs of inward mental comfort which combine to form the appearance of a healthily-constituted man. After perplexing myself for some time in the attempt to discover the reason for the enviably prosperous and contented aspect of this vagabond — which appeared palpably to any sharp observer, through his assumed expression of suffering and despair — I came to the singular conclusion that the secret of his personal advantages over me lay in the very circumstance on which he chiefly relied for awakening the sympathies of the charitable public — the circumstance of his having no friends.

“No friends!” I repeated to myself, as I walked away. “Happily situated vagrant! there is the true cause of your superiority over me — you have no friends! But can the marvelous assertion be true? Can this enviable man really go home and touch up his speech for tomorrow, with the certainty of not being interrupted? I am going home to finish an article, without knowing whether I shall have a clear five minutes to myself all the time I am at work. Can he take his money back to his drawer in broad daylight, and meet nobody by the way who will say to him, ‘Remember our old friendship, and lend me a trifle?’ I have money waiting for me at my publisher’s, and I dare not go and fetch it, except under cover of the night. Is that spoiled child of fortune, from whom I have just separated myself, really and truly never asked to parties and obliged to go to them? He has a button on his coat — I am positively certain I saw it — and is there no human finger and thumb to lay hold of it, and no human tongue to worry him the while? He does not live in the times of the pillory, and he has his ears — the lucky wretch. Have those organs actually enjoyed the indescribable blessedness of freedom from the intrusion of ‘well-meant advice’? Can he write — and has he got no letters to answer? Can he read — and has he no dear friend’s book to get through, whether he likes it or not? No wonder that he looks prosperous and healthy, though he lives in a dingy slum, and that I look peevish and pale, though I reside on gravel, in an airy neighbourhood. Good heavens! does he dare to speak of his misfortunes, when he has no calls to make? Irrational Sybarite! what does he want next, I wonder?”

These are crabbed sentiments. But, perhaps, as it is the fashion, nowadays, to take an invete-rately genial view of society in general, my present outbreak of misanthropy may be pardoned, in consideration of its involving a certain accidental originality of expression in relation to social subjects. It is a dreadful thing to say; but it is the sad truth that I have never yet been able to appreciate the advantage of having a large circle of acquaintances, and that I could positively dispense with a great many of my dearest friends.

There is my Boisterous Friend, for instance — an excellent creature, who has been intimate with me from childhood, and who loves me as his brother. I always know when he calls, though my study is at the top of the house. I hear him in the passage the moment the door is opened — he is so hearty; and, like other hearty people, he has such a loud voice. I have told my servant to say that I am engaged, which means simply that I am hard at work. “Dear old boy!” I hear my Boisterous Friend exclaim, with a genial roar, “writing away just as usual — eh, Susan? Lord bless you! he knows me — he knows I don’t want to interrupt him. Upstairs, of course? I know my way. Just for a minute, Susan — just for a minute.” The voice stops, and heavily-shod feet (all boisterous men wear thick boots) ascend the stairs, two at a time. My door is burst open, as if with a battering-ram (no boisterous man ever knocks), and my friend rushes in like a mad bull. “Ha, ha, ha! I’ve caught you,” says the associate of my childhood. “Don’t stop for me, dear old boy; I’m not going to interrupt you (bless my soul, what a lot of writing!) — and you are all right, eh? That’s all I wanted to know. By George, it’s quite refreshing to see you here forming the public mind! No! I won’t sit down; I won’t stop another instant. So glad to have seen you, dear fellow — good-by.” By this time his affectionate voice has made the room ring again; he has squeezed my hand, in his brotherly way, till my fingers are too sore to hold the pen; and he has put to flight, for the rest of the day, every idea that I had when I sat down to work. And yet (as he would tell me himself) he has not been in the room more than a minute — though he. might well have stopped for hours without doing any additional harm. Could I really dispense with him? I don’t deny that he has known me from the time when I was in short frocks, and that he loves me like a brother. Nevertheless, I could dispense — yes, I could dispense — oh, yes, I could dispense — with my Boisterous Friend.

Again, there is my Domestic Friend, whose time for calling on me is late in the afternoon, when I have wrought through my day’s task; and when a quiet restorative half-hour by myself, over the fire, is precious to me beyond all power of expression. There is my Domestic Friend, who comes to me at such times, and who has no subject of conversation but the maladies of his wife and children. No efforts that I can make to change the subject can get me out of the range of the family sick-room. If I start the weather, I lead to a harrowing narrative of its effect on Mrs. Ricketts, or the Master and Misses Ricketts. If I try politics or literature, my friend apologizes for knowing nothing about any recent events in which ministers or writers are concerned, by telling me how his time has been taken up by illness at home. If I attempt to protect myself by asking him to meet a large party, where the conversation must surely be on general topics, he brings his wife with him (though he told me, when I invited her, that she was unable to stir from her bed), and publicly asks her how she feels at certain intervals; wafting that affectionate question across the table as easily as if he was handing the salt-cellar or passing the bottle. I have given up defending myself against him of late, in sheer despair. I am resigned to my fate. Though not a family man, I know (through the vast array of facts in connection with the subject with which my friend has favored me) as much about the maladies of young mothers and their children as the doctor himself. Does any other unmedical man know when half a pint of raw brandy may be poured down the throat of a delicate and sensitive woman, without producing the slightest effect on her, except of the restorative kind? I know when it may be done — when it must be done — when, I give you my sacred word of honour, the exhibition of alcohol in large quantities may be the saving of one precious life — ay, sir, and perhaps of two! Possibly it may yet prove a useful addition to my stores of information to know what I know now on such interesting subjects as these. It may be so; but, good Christian people, it is not the less true that I could also dispense with my Domestic Friend.

My Country Friends — I must not forget them — and least of all, my hospitable hostess, Lady Jinkinson, who is in certain respects the type and symbol of my whole circle of rural acquaintance. Lady Jinkinson is the widow of a gallant general officer. She has a charming place in the country. She has also sons who are splendid fellows, and daughters who are charming girls. She has a cultivated taste for literature — so have the charming girls — so have not the splendid fellows. She thinks a little attention to literary men is very becoming in persons of distinction; and she is good enough to ask me to come and stay at her country house, where a room shall be specially reserved for me, and where I can write my “fine things” in perfect quiet, away from London noises and London interruptions. I go to the country house with my work in my portmanteau — work which must be done by a certain time. I find a charming little room made ready for me, opening into my bedroom, and looking out on the lovely garden terrace, and the noble trees in the park beyond. I come down to breakfast in the morning; and after the second cup of tea I get up to return to my writing-room. A chorus of family remonstrances rises instantly. Oh, surely I am not going to begin writing on the very first day. Look at the sun, listen to the birds, feel the sweet air. A drive in the country, after the London smoke, is absolutely necessary — a drive to Shockley Bottom, and a picnic luncheon (so nice!), and back by Grimshawe’s Folly (such a view from the top!), and a call on the way home, at the Abbey, that lovely old house, where the dear Squire has had my last book read aloud to him (only think of that! the very last thing in the world that I could possibly have expected!) by darling Emily and Matilda, who are both dying to know me. Possessed by a (printer’s) devil, I gruffly break through this string of temptations to be idle, and resolutely make my escape.

“Lunch at half-past one,” says Lady Jinkinson, as I retire.

“Pray don’t wait for me,” I answer.

“Lunch at half-past one,” persists Lady Jinkinson, as if she thought I had not heard her.

“And cigars in the billiard-room,” adds one of the splendid fellows.

“And in the greenhouse, too,” continues one of the charming girls, “where your horrid smoking is really of some use.”

I shut the door desperately. The last words I hear are from Lady Jinkinson. “Lunch at half-past one.”

I get into my writing-room, and take the following inventory of the contents:

Table of rare inlaid woods, on which a drop of ink would be downright ruin; silver inkstand of enormous size, holding about a thimbleful of ink; clarified pens in scented papier-mache box; blotting-book lined with crimson watered-silk, full of violet and rose-coloured note-paper with the Jinkinson crest stamped in silver at the top of each leaf; penwiper, of glossy new cloth, all ablaze with beads; tortoise-shell paper-knife; also paperweight, exhibiting a view of the Colosseum in rare mosaic; also light-green taper, in ebony candlestick; wax in scented box; matches in scented box; pencil-tray made of fine gold, with a torquoise eruption breaking out all over it: upon the whole, about two hundred pounds’ worth of valuable property, as working materials for me to write with.

I remove every portable article carefully from the inlaid table, look about me for the most worthless thing I can discover to throw over it, in case of ink-splashes; find nothing worthless in the room, except my own summer paletot; take that, accordingly, and make a cloth of it, pull out my battered old writing-case, with my provision of cheap paper, and my inky steel pen in my twopenny holder.

With these materials before me on my paletot (price one guinea), I endeavor to persuade myself, by carefully abstaining from looking about the room, that I am immersed in my customary squalor, and upheld by my natural untidiness.

After a little while, I succeed in the effort, and begin to work.

Birds. The poets are all fond of birds. Can they write, I wonder, when their favorites are singing in chorus close outside their window? I, who only produce prose, find birds a nuisance. Cows also. Has that one particular cow who bellows so very regularly a bereavement to mourn? I think we shall have veal for dinner to-day; I do think we shall have nice veal and stuffing. But this is not the train of thought I ought to be engaged in. Let me be deaf to these pastoral noises (including the sharpening of the gardener’s scythe on the lawn), and get on with my work.

Tum-dum-tiddy-hidy-dum — tom-tom-tiddy-hiddy-tom — ti-too-tidy-hidy-ti — ti-ti-ti-tum. Yes, yes, that famous tenor bit in the “Trovatore,” played with prodigious fire on the piano in the room below, by one of the charming girls. I like the “Trovatore” (not being, fortunately for myself, a musical critic). Let me lean back in my chair on this balmy morning — writing being now clearly out of the question — and float away placidly on the stream of melody. Brava! Brava! Bravissima! She is going through the whole opera, now in one part of it, and now in another. No, she stops, after only an hour’s practice. A voice calls to her — I hear her ringing laugh in answer; no more piano — silence. Work, work, you must be done! Oh, my ideas, my only stock in trade, mercifully come back to me — or, like the famous Roman, I have lost a day.