Читать книгу On - Hilaire Belloc - Страница 46

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There is in the dark heart of Soho, not far from a large stable where Zebras, Elephants, and trained Ponies await their turn for the footlights and the inebriation of public applause, a little tavern, divided, as are even the meanest of our taverns, into numerous compartments, each corresponding to some grade in the hierarchy of our ancient and orderly society.

For many years the highest of these had been called “the Private Bar,” and was distinguished from its next fellow by this, that the cushions upon its little bench were covered with sodden velvet, not with oilcloth. Here, also, the drink provided by the politician who owned this and many other public-houses was served in glasses of uncertain size and not by imperial measure. This, I say, had been the chief or summit of the place for many years; from the year of the great Exhibition, in fact until that great change in London life which took place towards the end of the eighties and brought us, among other things, a new art and a new conception of world-wide power. In those years, as the mind of London changed so did this little public-house (which was called “the Lord Benthorpe”), and it added yet another step to its hierarchy of pens. This new place was called “the Saloon Bar.” It was larger and better padded, and there was a tiny table in it. Then the years went on and wars were fought and the modern grip of man over natural forces marvellously extended, and the wealth of a world’s Metropolis greatly swelled, and “The Lord Benthorpe” found room for yet another and final reserve wherein it might receive the very highest of its clients. This was built upon what had been the backyard, it had several tables, and it was called “the Lounge.”

So far so good. Here late one evening when the music-halls had just discharged their thousands, and when the Elephants, the Zebras, and the Ponies near by were retiring to rest, sat two men, both authors; the one was an author who had written for now many years upon social subjects, and notably upon the statistics of our industrial conditions. He had come nearer than any other to the determination of the Incidence of Economic Rent upon Retail Exchange and had been the first to show (in an essay, now famous) that the Ricardian Theory of Surplus did not apply in the anarchic competition of Retail Dealing, at least in our main thoroughfares.

His companion wielded the pen in another manner. It was his to analyse into its last threads of substance the human mind. Rare books proceeded from him at irregular and lengthy intervals packed with a close observation of the ultimate motives of men and an exact portrayal of their labyrinth of deed; nor could he achieve his ideal in this province of letters save by the use of words so unusual and, above all, arranged in an order so peculiar to himself, as to bring upon his few readers often perplexity and always awe.

Neither of these two men was wealthy. Such incomes as they gained had not even that quality of regular flow which, more than mere volume, impresses the years with security. Each was driven to continual expedients, and each had lost such careful habits as only a regular supply can perpetuate. The consequence of this impediment was apparent in the clothing of both men and in the grooming of each; for the Economist, who was the elder, wore a frock-coat unsuited to the occasion, marked in many places with lighter patches against its original black, and he had upon his head a top hat of no great age and yet too familiar and rough, and dusty at the brim. The Psychologist, upon the other hand, sprawled in a suit of wool, grey and in places green, which was most slipshod and looked as though at times he slept in it, which indeed at times he did. Unlike his elder companion he wore no stiff collar round his throat, a negligence which saved him from the reproach of frayed linen worn through too many days; his shirt was a grey woollen shirt with a grey woollen collar of such a sort as scientific men assure us invigorates the natural functions and prolongs the life of man.

These two fell at once to a discussion upon that matter which absorbs the best of modern minds. I mean the organisation of Production in the modern world. It was their favourite theme. Their drink was Port, which, carelessly enough, they continued to order in small glasses instead of beginning boldly with the bottle. The Port was bad, or rather it was not Port, yet had they bought one bottle of it they would have saved the earnings of many days.

It was their favourite theme.... Each was possessed of an intellectual scorn for the mere ritual of an older time; neither descended to an affirmation nor even condescended to a denial of private property. Both clearly saw that no organised scheme of production could exist under modern conditions unless its organisation were to be controlled by the community. Yet the two friends differed in one most material point, which was the possibility, men being what they were, of settling thus the control of machinery. Upon land they were agreed. The land must necessarily be made a national thing, and the conception of ownership in it, however limited, was, as a man whom they both revered had put it, “unthinkable.” Indeed, they recognised that the first steps towards so obvious a reform were now actually taken, and they confidently expected the final processes in it to be the work of quite the next few years; but whereas the Economist, with his profound knowledge of external detail, could see no obstacle to the collective control of capital as well, the Psychologist, ever dwelling upon the inner springs of action, saw no hope, no, not even for so evident and necessary a scheme, save in some ideal despotism of which he despaired. In vain did the Economist point out that our great railways, our mines, the main part of our shipping, and even half our textile industry had now no personal element in their direction save that of the salaried management; the Psychologist met him at every move with the effect produced upon man by the mere illusion of a personal element in all these things. The Economist, not a little inspired as the evening deepened, remembered and even invented names, figures, cases that showed the growing unity of the industrial world; the Psychologist equally inspired, and with an equal increase of fervour, drew picture after picture, each more vivid and convincing than the last, of man caught in the tangle of imaginary motive and unobedient to any industrial control, unless that control could by some miracle be given the quality of universal tyranny.

Music was added to their debate, and subtly changed, as it must always change, the colour of thought. In the street without a man with a fine baritone voice, which evidently he had failed through vice or carelessness to exploit with success, sang songs of love and war, and at his side there accompanied him a little organ upon wheels which a weary woman played. The rich notes of his voice filled “The Lord Benthorpe” through the opened windows of that hot night, and drowned or modified the differences of cabmen and others in the Public Bar; as he sang the two disputants rose almost to the lyric in their enthusiasm, the one for the new world that was so soon to be, the other for that gloomy art of his by which he read the hearts of men and saw their doom.

* * * * *

It has been remarked by many that we mortals are surrounded by coincidence, and least observe Fate at its nearest approach, so that friends meet or leave us unexpectedly, and that the accidents of our lives make part of a continual play. So it was with these two. For as they warmly debated, and one of them had upset and broken his glass while the other lay back repeating again and again some favourite phrase, a third was on his way to meet them. A man much older than either, a man who did nothing at all and lived when his sister remembered him, was in that neighbourhood, vaguely wandering and feeling in every pocket for a coin. His hand trembled with age, and also a little with anxiety, but to his great joy he felt at last through the lining of his coat a large round hardness, and very carefully searching through a tear, and aided by the light that shone from the windows of “The Lord Benthorpe,” he discovered and possessed half a crown. With that he entered in, for he knew that his friends were there. In what respect he held them, their accomplishments, and their public fame, I need not say, for that respect is always paid by the simple to the learned. He sat by them at the little table, drinking also, and for some minutes listened to their stream of affirmation and of vision, but soon he shook his head in a quavering senile way, as he very vaguely caught the drift of their contention. “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick,” he said.... “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick!... Can’t take away what a man’s got ... ’tis wrawng!... ’Vide it up, all the same next week.... Same hands! Same hands!” he went on foolishly wagging his head, and still smiling almost like an imbecile. “All in the same hands again in a week!... ’Vide it up ever so much.” They neglected him and continued their ardent debate, and as they flung repeated bolts of theory he, their new companion, still murmured to himself the security of established things and the ancient doctrine of ownership and of law.

But now the night and the stars had come to their appointed hour, and the ending which is decreed of all things had come also to their carousal. A young man of energy stood before them in his shirt sleeves, crying, “Time, Time!” as a voice might cry “Doom!” and, by force of crying and of orders, “The Lord Benthorpe” was emptied, and there was silence at last behind its shutters and its bolted doors.

These three, not yet in a mood for sleep, sauntered together westward through the vast landed estates of London, westward, to their distant homes.