Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2204 page)

“Salad, sir?” “Any oil in it?” “Yes, sir!” “Take it away directly, then. So long as sea-sickness continues to torture humanity, I cannot reconcile it to my conscience uselessly to consume even the small quantity of oil which adheres to the leaf of a lettuce.”

General astonishment
general anxiety to know what I mean. Down comes another Thing, directly, shaken out of my bottomless bag of ready-made information.

“What produces sea-sickness?” I ask, leaning back in my chair, and putting one hand impressively into my waistcoat. “The rolling of the sea, and the consequent pitching and tossing of the vessel that floats on it. Still the sea, and you still the vessel. Still the vessel, and you still the human stomach. But, who is to still the sea? Pooh! pooh! give me a boat, a vial of oil, and a Professor to pour it out
and the thing is done. You doubt that do you? Ah, dear! dear! this is what comes of Things not being generally known. It is a fact, with which few persons, unhappily, are familiar, that Professor Horsford (you see I don
’
t mind mentioning names)
that Professor Horsford, by emptying a vial of oil upon the sea in a stiff breeze, stilled the surface. After that, don
’
t talk to me about sea-sickness, and don
’
t expect a man who loves his species, to eat salad, and to waste oil which might be used in mitigating human suffering. Give me a row of boats from Dover to Calais, and a row of Professors in them (well wrapped up, for such men are precious), each armed with his vial of oil. Professor Number One empties his bottle, the moment the steamer leaves the harbour; Professor Number Two, at a proper interval, follows his example
and so on, all through the row, over to Calais. What is the inevitable consequence? A stiff breeze becomes known, to all future ages, only as a Horsford calm
the privileges of continental travel are thrown open to the most uproarious stomach in existence
and the children of the next generation, when they see the verb To Retch in the English Dictionary, look up innocently into our faces, and say, with a smile,
 
Papa, what does it mean?
“

Will that do, for dinner? If it will, I am ready to proceed up stairs, to join the soir
e
e and to go on inexhaustibly scattering my Things about me, in that new sphere of toil. Youth of the fair sex, which shuns the sober dinner-table, floats in with the evening gathering (I despise the man who can speak of a young lady and not be poetical) like the beams of the young moon; like the rays of the rising sun (I throw this sort of thing off very easily); like the flood of gorgeous light from a chemist
’
s window when the gas is lit; like the sparkles from a diamond ring; like the welcome glow from a lighthouse that brightens the bosom of the deep; like
 
well , well, the reader may be out of breath by this time, though I am not: let us therefore wind our way back through the labyrinth of comparisons to our original starting-point of female youth and beauty.

It (female youth and beauty) comes to the soir
e
e with its mama and its nosegay, and its smile and its precious dress, and its plump shoulders, and its captivating freshness in the matter of Things Not Generally Known. It sits down and looks innocently interested about nothing in particular. It receives compliments from male youth and beauty; and blushes and beams, and flirts its nosegay, and rustles its precious dress, responsive. But what compliments! Not the smallest atom of useful information wrapped up in my one of them. Not so much as the shadow of rivalry for me to dread, when I enter the field with my soft speech and my Thing Not Generally Known
my oil and vinegar; my nonsense and my knowledge
so mixed up together that no human art can ever separate them again. I bide my time till the eye of female youth and beauty catches mine, and beams indulgent recognition
then turn to my brother and whisper, interrogatively, “Compliment to a pretty girl?” he answers, directly, “Page Forty One: Phenomena of Vision,”
and I slide off forthwith to the corner where the charming creature sits twiddling her nosegay and bashfully expecting me.

“I saw you looking sympathetically at your sister-flowers,” I begin, in that soft, murmuring, mysterious tone of voice, which we ladies
 
men so perpetually and so successfully use in all our communications with the fair sex; “and I longed to be one of them,
this scarlet geranium, for instance. Do you know why I envy that one little flower with all my heart?”

“Because I like to look at it, I suppose, you selfish man!” says the young lady, little suspecting that, under cover of this apparent nonsense, there lies artfully in wait for her a Thing Not Generally Known.

“No, “I answer,” not because you look at it,
 
though that is much,
but because it has the happy, the priceless privilege of making your eyes undulate four hundred and eighty-two millions of times in a second. Todd
do you know him?
states it as a scientific fact that you must undulate all those millions of times
in one second (pray: don
’
t forget that) before you can perceive a scarlet tint. Why, ah why, am I not of a scarlet tint?
or, better still, of a violet tint? For, believe me, I am not exaggerating when I tell you (on the authority of Todd, whose Cyclop
ae
dia may be procured at any of the libraries) that those laughing eyes must undergo seven hundred and seven millions of millions of undulatory movements, if they look at a violet tint. Out of all those vibrations might there not be one little on adventurous enough to stray from the eye to the heart? May I sacrifice all propriety by wearing a violet waistcoat, the next time we meet, and will you reward me for that outrage on good manners by looking at it, for one second? Not for my sake and in my name
ah, no, I dare not ask that! — but for the sake of Science and in the name of Todd!”

After this specimen
a very slight one — of what I can do with a young lady at an evening party, it would be a mere waste of time to offer any proofs of my power of overwhelming elderly people of both sexes and of all degrees of capacity. I must have written vainly, indeed, if I have not made it manifest by this time that I can really and truly (densely ignorant as I am) carry out my intention of becoming a great talker, a most amusing man, and a mine of rare information, all together and all of a sudden, on Thursday week. Confident, however, as I feel on this point
thanks to my toilsome gentleman who has provided me with my Things
I must confess to one little misgiving, which troubles me at this very moment, and which I have no objection to communicate immediately.

Perhaps the intelligent reader thinks he can guess at my misgiving, without the slightest assistance from me. Perhaps he thinks that I am apprehensive, when I am quite prepared with my whole list of Things Not Generally Known, of becoming, not only a great talker, but also a finished and complete bore. No such fear ever has, or ever can, enter into my head. I have no objection whatever to being a bore. My experience of the world has shown me that, upon the whole, a bore gets on much better in it, and is much more respected and permanently popular, than what is called a clever man. A few restless people, with an un-English appetite for perpetual variety, have combined to set up the bore as a species of bugbear to frighten themselves, and have rashly imagined that the large majority of their fellow-creatures could see clearly enough to look at the formidable creature with their eyes. Never did any small minority make any greater mistake as to the real extent of its influence! English society has a placid enjoyment in being bored. If any man tells me that this is a paradox, I, in return, defy him to account, on any other theory, for three-fourths of the so-called recreations which are accepted as at once useful and amusing by the British nation. Why are people always ready to give, and to go to parties? Why do they throng to certain Lectures and to certain Plays? What takes them to public meetings, and to the Strangers
’
Gallery in the House of Commons? Why are the debates reported in full in the newspapers? Why are people on certain social occasions, always ready to leave off talking together, for the sake of making speeches and listening to them? Why is it that the few critics always discover the dullness of heavy books, and that the many readers never seem to be able to find it out? What, in short, to put the whole question into one sentence, is the secret of the notoriety and success of half the public men and half the public and private entertainments in this country? I answer, the steady indwelling element of Boredom: firmly-settled, long-established, widely-accepted Boredom. Let no young man, with an eye to getting on in the world, rashly despise the Bore: he is the only individual in this country who is sure of his position and safe with his public.

What is it, then, that I am afraid of? Plainly and only this:
I am afraid of being forestalled in the Deep Design on Society, which I have just been endeavouring to describe. On the title-page of my inestimable pocket Manual, I find these formidable words, “Sixteenth thousand.” Are there sixteen thousand ignorant people who have bought this book, with the fell purpose of distinguishing themselves in society, as I propose to distinguish myself? It seems fearfully probable that there are; and, in that case it is more than likely that we may, some of us, meet round the same festive board, and jostle each other in a manner dreadful to think of. Can we not, my sixteen thousand ignorant brothers and sisters, come to some arrangement? Shall we have a public meeting and divide the inestimable pocket Manual among us fairly? I must have my subjects for Thursday week
I must, indeed. If any one of the sixteen thousand is going out to dinner on that day, I call upon him publicly to come forward, as I have publicly come forward in this paper, for the purpose of stating plainly what house he is going to, and how many Things Not Generally Known he means to use, and which they are. If he will meet me fairly, I will meet him fairly; and, what is more, I will even lead up to his choice bits, and throw my brother in to prompt. All I want is that we should be a united body, and that we should not interfere with each other. We have a sure game before us, if we only shuffle our cards proper1y. Let us be organised like other societies. Why should we not take a leaf out of the Freemasons
 
book? I, for one, don
’
t mind sacrificing my own exclusive tastes, and walking in procession occasionally, with an apron round my loins, profusely decorated with symbols of Things Not Generally Known
supposing that ceremony to be essential, in our case (as it apparently is in that of the Freemasons), to the strict preservation of a secret. Let us forthwith have a mystic sign by which we may communicate privately, in the broadest glare of the public eye. Let us swear each other sixteen thousand times over to secresy on the subject of the pocket Manual. In one last word
for I must come to an end somewhere, inexhaustibly as I could run on, if I pleased
let us in the name of everything that is fraternal and fair and gentlemanly, combine to enjoy the good-Things-Not-Generally-Known-of-this-world, share and share alike. If we can do that, and if we can only keep the rest of the public out, we are sure of making out reputations, and sure of keeping our hold of society as long as we please.

Taken
from Household Words
2 January 1858