Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (2210 page)

 
Once more, there are the theatres. There is hardly a person in this country, possessing an ordinary sense of comfort, who does not dread going, even to the most attractive performances, on account of the miserably defective accommodation which the managers offer to the public in return for their money. If we sit in the dress-circle, have we room for our legs? Can we move without jostling our neighbours on both sides? Can we even see comfortably unless we are in the front row? If we go down-stairs into the stalls, are we not jammed together on high seats, with no foot-stools and no carpet, on the principle of getting as many of us into the place as possible
that place never having been originally intended for stalls at all? I know two theatres in London
and two only
in which it is possible to sit in the stalls with moderate comfort, and to see below the knees of the actors. As for the pit
with its rows of narrow wooden planks, half of them without backs, and all of them twice as close together as they ought to be
what words can describe the wretchedness of it? Where, in the rest of the habitable world, out of doors or in, is the cruel discomfort of the so-called sitting accommodation of a British pit to be equalled? It is really inconceivable that the public should now have submitted, for years and years, to be packed together, for the sake of putting certain additional pounds per night into the manager
’
s pockets, like pigs on board an Irish steam-boat. And yet, they have submitted, when the remedy lay all the time, in their own hands. No miserable sinner in this country more thoroughly enjoys good acting than I do. And yet, if I thought the inhabitants of my parish would follow my example, and would try to rouse other parishes to the same sensible course of action, I would, from this moment, cheerfully engage to abstain from entering a theatre for a whole year
’
s time, if need be, for the sake of ultimately starving the managers into giving us decent accommodation for our money. How comfortably we might sit and see a play, if we could only combine to send round a circular letter of this sort to the proprietors of the London theatres!

 
Sir,
I am desired to inform you, on the part of the theatrically-disposed inhabitants of this parish, that our bones have ached in your pit, our necks stiffened in your stalls, and our legs caught the cramp in your boxes, long enough. Your audience, sir, in this district, has struck for better seats, to a man, to a woman, to a child. Put what you like in your bill, not one of us will enter your theatre till our good money has wrung out of you the common justice, in return, of a comfortable seat.

 
What palaces of luxury our theatres would become in a few months, if the managers received such a letter as that, next week, from every parish in London!

 
There is the question of school education again. The public, fast asleep as usual, has been woke up about that subject, lately, by the Times. The case has been mentioned of a gentleman whose bill for the half-year
’
s schooling and boarding of two little boys amounted to seventy-five pounds. This extortion was commented on publicly by an eminent novelist, was further exposed by an excellent article in the Times, which article was applauded with the usual unnecessary servility by the usual letter-writers who appear in that journal. What result has followed? One impudent letter, so far as I know, from one impudent schoolmaster. What other results are to be expected? Tell me plainly, will the comments of the eminent novelist, will the excellent article in the Times, will the fawning approval of the public letters, lower our school-bills
say, in a year
’
s time? Judging by past experience in other matters, and by the representative letter of the impudent schoolmaster, I should say not. What, then, will lower them? Emptying the expensive schools next half-year
or, in other words, a strike of parents. My house would be dreadfully noisy, my boys would break the windows and play tricks with gunpowder, and I should have to suffer the shocking hardship of teaching them myself, unless I looked about and hired a tutor for the half-year. All serious inconveniences, I admit
,
but which alternative is the worse? To be uncomfortable for six months, or to submit to be fleeced regularly every half-year until my boys are grown up?

 
Here I rest my case; not because I am getting to the end of my examples, but because I am getting to the end of my space. Many readers may differ with my opinions, and may laugh at my remedy. It is easy to do so. But it is equally easy to obey the injunction which heads this paper. We travel every day in peril of being burnt to death; we ride in uncomfortable omnibuses; we sit in theatres with aching necks and bones, and are fleeced in them by box-opening harpies after we have paid our admission money; we pay bi-annually for the teaching and boarding of two of our small children a sum which equals a year
’
s income for a clerk and his family
whose fault is it, really and truly, that these grievances, and dozens of others which might be mentioned, are not speedily and completely redressed? Has it actually come to this, that the English public has a capacity of common suffering, and a capacity of common grumbling, but no capacity of common action for the promotion of social reforms? Our system of civilisation relieves us of the performance of many irksome duties, by supplying us with deputies whose business it is to take them off our hands. This system has many obvious advantages, which no reasonable man can question. But, if it be pushed beyond its legitimate purpose of saving the useless waste of valuably employed time, then it leads to serious disadvantages
even, as I am inclined to think, to serious deterioration of the national character. Public opinion, in these latter days, is apathetically satisfied with much talking and much writing: it shifts all doing to the shoulders of any chance deputy who may, or may not, turn up to accept practical responsibilities. It was not always so in England. When HAMPDEN
’
S blood rose under the extortionate tyranny of Charles the First, he was not satisfied with expressing his opinion that his taxes were unjust; he struck,, and taught his countrymen to strike; he buttoned up his pockets like a man, and said, in plain, fearless words,
“
I will not pay the King his unjust demand.
”
What does Hampden now, when every species of audacious social imposition is practised on him? He pays
and writes to the Times.

WHILE we are still fighting for the possession of India, benevolent men of various religious denominations are making their arrangements for taming the human tigers in that country by Christian means. Assuming that this well-meant scheme is not an entirely hopeless one, it might, perhaps, not be amiss to preach to the people of India, in the first instance, out of some of their own books
or, in other words, to begin the attempt to purify their minds by referring them to the excellent moral lessons which they may learn from their own Oriental literature. Such lessons exist in the shape of ancient parables, once addressed to the ancestors of the sepoys, and still quite sufficient for the purpose of teaching each man among them his duty towards his neighbour, before he gets on to higher things. Here is a specimen of one of these Oriental apologues. Is there any reason why it should not be turned to account, as a familiar introduction to the first Christian sermon addressed to a pacified native congregation in the city of Delhi?

In the seventeenth century of the Christian era, the Emperor Shah Jehan
the wise, the bountiful, the builder of the new city of Delhi
saw fit to appoint the pious Vizir, Gazee Ed Din, to the government of all the district of Morodabad.

The period of the Vizir
’
s administration was gratefully acknowledged by the people whom he governed as the period of the most-precious blessings they had ever enjoyed. He protected innocence, he honoured learning, he rewarded industry. He was an object for the admiration of all eyes,
a subject for the praise of all tongues. But the grateful people observed, with grief, that the merciful ruler who made them all happy, was himself never seen to smile. His time, in the palace, was passed in mournful solitude. On the few occasions when he appeared in the public walks, his face was gloomy, his gait was slow, his eyes were fixed on the ground. Time passed, and there was no change in him for the better. One morning the whole population was astonished and afflicted by news that he had resigned the reins of government and had gone to justify himself before the emperor at Delhi.

Admitted to the presence of Shah Jehan, the Vizir made his obeisance, and spoke these words:

“Wise and mighty Ruler, condescend to pardon the humblest of your servants if he presumes to lay at your feet the honours which you have deigned to confer on him in the loveliest country on the earth. The longest life, oh bountiful Master, hardly grants time enough to man to prepare himself for death. Compared with the performance of that first of duties, all other human employments are vain as the feeble toil of an ant on the highway, which the foot of the first traveller crushes to nothing! Permit me, then, to prepare myself for the approach of eternity. Permit me, by the aid of solitude and silence, to familiarise my mind with. the sublime mysteries of religion; and to wait reverently for the moment when eternity unveils itself to my eyes, and the last summons calls me to my account before the Judgment Seat.”

The Vizir said these words, knelt down, laid his forehead on the earth, and was silent. After a minute of reflection, the emperor answered him in these terms:

“Faithful servant! Your discourse has filled my mind with perplexity and fear. The apprehensions which you have caused in me are like those felt by a man who finds himself standing, unawares, on the edge of a precipice. Nevertheless, I cannot decide whether the sense of trouble that you have awakened within me is justified by sound reason or not. My days, like yours, however long they may be, are but an instant compared with eternity. But, if I thought as you do; if all men capable of doing good followed your example, who would remain to guide the faithful? Surely the duties of government would then fall to the share of those men only who are brutally careless of the future that awaits them beyond the grave
,
who are insensible to all feelings which are not connected with their earthly passions and their earthly interests? In that case, should I not be;
should you not be
responsible before the Supreme Being for the miseries, without number, which would then be let loose on the world. Ponder that well, Vizir! And while I, on my side, consider the same subject attentively, depart in peace to the abode which I have prepared to receive you, since your arrival in this city. May Heaven direct us both into the way which it is safest and best to take!”

The Vizir withdrew. For three days he remained in his retirement, and received no message from the emperor. At the end of the third day, he sent to the palace to beg for a second audience. The request was immediately granted.

When he again appeared in the presence of his sovereign, his countenance expressed the tranquillity of his mind. He drew a letter from his bosom, kissed it, and presented it to the emperor on his knees. Shah Jehan having given him permission to speak, he expressed himself, thereupon, in these words:

“Sovereign lord and master! The letter which you have deigned to take from my hands has been addressed to me by the sage, Abbas, who now stands with me in the light of your presence, and who has lent me the assistance of his wisdom to unravel the scruples and perplexities which have beset my mind. Thanks to the lesson I have learned from him, I can now look back on my past life with pleasure, and contemplate the future with hope. Thanks to the wisdom which I have imbibed from his teaching, I can now conscientiously bow my head before the honours which your bounty showers on me, and can gladly offer myself again to be the shadow of your power in the province of Morodabad.