Читать книгу The Message - A. J. Dawson - Страница 10

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"Religion crowns the statesman and the man,

Sole source of public and of private peace."

Young.

I am bound to suppose that I must have been a tolerably tiring person to have to do with during my first year in London. The reason of this was that I could never concentrate my thoughts upon intimate, personal interests, either my own or those of the people I met. My thoughts were never of persons, but always of the people; never of affairs, but always of tendencies, movements, issues, ultimate ends. Probably my crude unrest would have made me tiresome to any people. It must have been peculiarly irritating to my contemporaries at that period, who, whatever they may have lacked, assuredly possessed in a remarkable degree the faculty of concentration upon their own individual affairs, their personal part in the race for personal gain.

I remember that I talked, even to the poor, overworked servant at my lodging, rather of the prospects of her class and order than of anything more intimate or within her narrow scope. Poor Bessie! She was of the callously named tribe of lodging-house "slaveys"; and what gave me some interest in her personality, apart from the type she represented, was the fact that she had come from the Vale of Blackmore, a part of Dorset which I knew very well. I even remembered, for its exceptional picturesqueness and beauty of situation, the cottage in which Bessie had passed her life until one year before my arrival at the fourth-rate Bloomsbury "apartments" house in which she now toiled for a living. There was little enough of the sap of her native valley left in Bessie's cheeks now. She had acquired the London muddiness of complexion quickly, poor child, in the semi-subterranean life she led.

I was moved to inquire as to what had led her to come to London, and gathered that she had been anxious to "see a bit o' life." Certainly she saw life, of a kind, when she entered her horrible underground kitchen of a morning, for, as a chance errand once showed me, its floor was a moving carpet of black-beetles until after the gas was lighted. In Bloomsbury, Bessie's daily work began about six o'clock—there were four stories in the house, and coals and food and water required upon every floor—and ended some seventeen hours later. Occasionally, an exacting lodger would make it eighteen hours—the number of Bessie's years in the world—but seventeen was the normal.

The trains which every day came rushing in from the country to the various railway termini of London were almost past counting. The "rural exodus," as it was called, was a sadly real movement then. Every one of them brought at least one Bessie, and one of her male counterparts, with ruddy cheeks, a tin box, and bright eyes straining to "see life." Insatiable London drew them all into its maw, and, while sapping the roses from their cheeks, enslaved many of them under one of the greatest curses of that day: the fascination of the streets.

So terrible a power was exercised by this unwholesome passion that men and women became paralyzed by it, and incapable of plucking up courage enough to enable them to leave the streets. I talked with men—poor, sodden creatures, whose greasy black coats were buttoned to their stubbly chins to hide the absence of collar and waistcoat—who supported a wretched existence in the streets, between begging, stealing, opening cab-doors, and the like, in constant dread of police attention. Among these I found many who had refused again and again offers of help to lead an honest, self-dependent life, for the sole reason that these offers involved quitting the streets.

The same creeping paralysis of the streets kept men from emigration to parts of the Empire in which independent prosperity was assured for the willing worker. They would not leave the hiving streets, with their chances, their flaunting vice, their incessant bustle, and their innumerable drinking bars.

The disease did not stop at endowing the streets with fascination for these poor, undisciplined, unmanned creatures; it implanted in them a lively fear, hard to comprehend, but very real to them, of all places outside the streets, with their familiar, pent noises and enclosed strife.

I met one old gentleman, the head of an important firm of printers, who, being impressed with the squalid wretchedness of the surroundings in which his work-people lived, decided to shift his works into the country. He chose the outskirts of a charmingly situated garden city, then in course of formation. He gave his people a holiday and entertained them at a picnic party upon the site of his proposed new works. He set before them plans and details of pleasant cottages he meant to build for them, with good gardens, and scores of conveniences which they could never know in the dingy, grimy tenements for which they paid extortionate rents in London.

There were four hundred and thirty-eight of these work-people. Twenty-seven of them, with some hesitation, expressed their willingness to enter into the new scheme for their benefit. The remaining four hundred and eleven refused positively to leave their warrens in London for this garden city, situated within an hour's run of the metropolis.

Figure to yourself the attitude of such people, where the great open uplands of the Empire were concerned: the prairie, the veld, the bush. Consider their relation to the elements, or to things elemental. We went farther than "Little Englandism" in those days; we produced little street and alley men by the hundred thousand; and then we bade them exercise their rights, their imperial heritage, and rule an Empire. As for me, I was busy in my newspaper work trying to secure more rights for them; for men whose present freedom from all discipline and control was their curse.

The reporters' room at the office of the Daily Gazette was the working headquarters of five other men besides myself. One was a Cambridge man, one had been at Oxford, one came from Cork, and the other two were products of Scotch schools. Two of the five would have been called gentlemen; four of them were good fellows; the fifth had his good points, but perhaps he had been soured by a hard upbringing. One felt that the desire for money—advancement, success, or whatever you chose to call it; it all meant the one thing to Dunbar—mastered every feeling, every instinct even, in this young man, and made him about as safe and agreeable a neighbour as a wolf might be for a kennel of dogs.

A certain part of our time was devoted to waiting in the reporters' room for what Mr. Pierce called our "assignments," to this or that reporting task. Also, we did our writing here, and a prodigious amount of talking. The talk was largely of Fleet Street, the ruffianism of Mr. Pierce, the fortunes of our own and other journals, the poorness of our pay, the arduousness of our labours, the affairs of other newspaper offices, and the like. But at other times we turned to politics, and over our pipes and copy paper would readjust the concert of Europe and the balance of world power. More often we dealt with local politics, party intrigue, and scandals of Parliament; and sometimes—more frequently since my advent, it may be—we entered gaily upon large abstractions, and ventilated our little philosophies and views of the eternal verities.

By my recollection of those queer confused days, my colleagues were cynically anarchical in their political views, unconvinced and unconvincing Socialists, and indifferent Agnostics. I am not quite sure that we believed in anything very thoroughly—except that things were in a pretty bad way. Earnest belief in anything was not a feature of the period. I recall one occasion when consideration of some tyrannical act of our immediate chief, the news-editor, led our talk by way of character and morality to questions of religion. The Daily Gazette, I should mention, was a favourite organ with the most powerful religious community—the Nonconformists. Campbell, one of the two Scotch reporters, hazarded the first remark about religion, if I remember aright: something it was to the effect that men like Pierce had neither religion nor manners. Brown, the Cambridge man, took this up.

"Well now," he said, "that's a queer thing about religion. I'd like you to tell me what anybody's religion is in London."

"It's the capital of a Christian country, isn't it?" said Dunbar.

"Yes," admitted Brown. "That's just it. We're officially and politically Christian. It's a national affair. We're a Christian people; but who knows a Christian individual? Ours is a Christian newspaper, Christian city, Christian country, and all the rest of it. There's no doubt about it. All England believes; but no single man I ever meet admits that he believes. I suppose it's different up your way, Campbell. One gathers the Scotch are religious?"

"H'm! I won't answer for that," growled Campbell. "As a people, yes, as you say; but as individuals—well, I don't know. But my father's a believer; I could swear to it."

"Ah, yes; so's mine. But I'm not talking of fathers. I mean our generation."

"Well," I began, "for my part, I'm not so sure of the fathers."

"Oh, we can count you out," said Kelly, the Irishman. "All parsons' sons are atheists, as a matter of course; and bad hats at that."

"Rather a severe blow at our Christianity, isn't it?" said Brown.

I had no more to say on this point, not wishing to discuss my father. But I knew perfectly well that that good, kind man had cherished no belief whatever in many of what were judged to be the vital dogmas of Christianity.

"Well, I've just been thinking," said Campbell, "and upon my soul, Brown—if I've got one—I believe you're right. I don't know any one of our generation who believes. Every one thinks every one else believes, and everybody is most careful not to be disrespectful about the belief everybody else is supposed to hold. But, begad, nobody believes himself. We all wink at each other about it; accepting the certainty of every one else's belief, and only recognizing as a matter of course that you and me—we've got beyond that sort of thing."

"Well, I've often thought of it," said Brown. "I'll write an article about it one of these days."

"Who'll you get to publish it?"

"H'm! Yes, that's a fact. And yet, hang it, you know, how absurd! Who is there in this office that believes?"

"Echo answers, 'who?'"

"I happen to know that both Rainham and Baddeley go to church," said Dunbar, naming a proprietor and a manager.

"I don't see the connection," said Brown.

"Because there isn't any," said Campbell. "But Dunbar sees it, and so does the British public, begad. That's the kernel of the whole thing. That's why every one thinks every one else, except himself, believes. Rainham and Baddeley think their wives, and sons, and servants, and circle generally believe, and therefore would be shocked if Rainham and Baddeley didn't go to church. And every one else thinks the same. So they all go."

"But, my dear chap, they don't all go. The parsons are always complaining about it. The women do, but the men don't—not as a rule, I mean; particularly when they've got motors, and golf, and things. You know they don't. Here's six of us here. Does any one of us ever go to church?"

Dunbar, looking straight down over his nose, said: "I do—often."

"You're a fine fellow, Dunbar, sure enough," said Campbell; "and I believe you'll be a newspaper proprietor in five years. You've got your finger on the pulse. Can you look me in the face and say you believe?"

Dunbar smiled in his knowing way and wobbled. "I certainly believe it's a good thing to go to church occasionally," he said.

"And I believe you'll make a fortune in Fleet Street, my son."

"Well, in my humble opinion," said Kelly, "the trouble with you people in England is not so much that you don't believe; a good many believe, in a kind of a way, like they believe in ventilation, without troubling to act on it. They believe, but they don't think about it; they don't care, it isn't real. The poor beggars 'ld go crazy with fear of hell-fire, if the sort of armchair belief they have was real to 'em. It isn't real to 'em, like business, and money, and that, or like patriotism is in Japan."

"Well, it really is a rum thing," said Brown, with an affectation of pathos, "that in all this Christian country I shouldn't know a single believer of my generation."

"It's a devilish bad thing for the country," said Campbell. And even then, with all my fundamentally rotten sociological nostrums, I had a vague feeling that the Scotchman was right there.

"Well, then, that's why it's good to go to church," said Dunbar, with an air of finality.

"I still don't see the connection," murmured Brown.

"Because it still isn't there. But, of course, it's perfectly obvious. That's why Dunbar sees it, and why he'll presently run a paper." Then Campbell turned to Dunbar, and added slowly, as though speaking to a little child: "You see, my dear, it's not their not going to church that's bad; it's their not believing."

If I remember rightly, Mr. Pierce ended the conversation, through his telephone, by assigning to Brown the task of reporting a clerical gathering at Exeter Hall. Brown was credited with having a particularly happy touch in the reporting of religious meetings. He certainly had an open mind, for I remember his saying that day that he thought Christianity was perhaps better adapted to a skittish climate like ours than Buddhism, and that Ju-Ju worship in London would be sure to cause friction with the County Council.

As I see it now, there was a terribly large amount of truth in the view taken by Brown and Campbell and Kelly about belief in England, and more particularly in London. But there were devout men of all ages who did not happen to come within their circle of acquaintance. I met Salvation Army officers occasionally, who were both intelligent, self-denying, and hard-working; and I suppose that with them belief must have been at least as powerful a motive as devotion to their Army, their General, and the work of reclamation among the very poor. Also, there were High Church clergymen, who toiled unceasingly among the poor. Symbolism was a great force with them; but there must have been real belief there. Also, there were some fine Nonconformist missions. I recall one in West London, the work of which was a great power for good in such infected warrens as Soho. But it certainly was not an age of faith or of earnest beliefs. The vast majority took their Christianity, with the national safety and integrity, for granted—a thing long since established by an earlier generation; a matter about which no modern could spare time for thought or effort.

I believe it was on the day following this particular conversation in the reporters' room that I met Leslie Wheeler by appointment at Waterloo, and went down to Weybridge with him for the week-end. My friend was in even gayer spirits than usual, and laughingly told me that I must "Work up a better Saturday face than that" before we got to Weybridge.

I had known Leslie Wheeler since our school-days; and I remember lying awake in the room next his own at Weybridge that night, and wondering why in the world it was I felt so out of touch with my high-spirited friend. During that Saturday afternoon and evening I had been pretty much preoccupied in securing as much as possible of Sylvia's attention. But the journey down had been made with Leslie alone, and when his father had gone to bed, we two had spent another half-hour together in the billiard-room, smoking and sipping whiskey and soda. Leslie was in the vein most usual with him, of "turning to mirth all things on earth"; and I was conscious, upon my side, of a notable absence of reciprocal feeling, of friendly rapport. And I could find no explanation for this, as I lay thinking of it in bed.

Looking backward, I see many causes which probably contributed to my feeling of lost touch. I had only been about a month in London, but it had been a busy month, and full of new experiences, of intimate touch with realities of London life, sordid and otherwise. It was all very unlike Rugby and Cambridge; very unlike the life of the big luxurious Weybridge house, and even more unlike lichen-covered Tarn Regis. In those days I took little stock of such mundane details as bed and board. But these things count; I had been made to take note of them of late.

I paid 12s. 6d. a week for my garret, and 7s. a week for my breakfast, 1s. for lighting, and 1s. for my bath. That left me with 28s. 6d. a week for daily lunch and dinner, clothes, boots, tobacco, and the eternal penny outgoings of London life. The purchase of such a trifle as a box of sweets for Sylvia made a week's margin look very small. Already I had begun to note the expensiveness of stamps, laundry work, omnibus fares, and such matters. My training had not been a hopeful one, so far as small economies went. Leslie twitted me with neglecting golf, and failing to attend the Inter-'Varsity cricket match. He found economy, like all other things under heaven, and in heaven for that matter, suitable subjects for the exercise of his tireless humour. But I wondered greatly that his incessant banter should jar upon me; that I should catch myself regarding him with a coldly appraising eye. Indeed, it troubled me a good deal; and the more so when I thought of Sylvia.

I flatly declined to admit that London had affected my feeling for Sylvia. Whatever one's view, her big violet eyes were abrim with gentle sympathy. I watched her as I sat by her side in church, and thought of our irreverent talk at the office. Here was sincere piety, at all events, I thought. Mediævalism never produced a sweeter devotee, a worshipper more rapt. I could not follow her into the place of ecstasy she reached. But, I told myself, I could admire from without, and even reverence. Could I? Well, I was somewhat strengthened in the belief that very Sunday night by Sylvia's father.