The Angel and the Author, and Others
Transcribed from the 1908 Hurst and Blackett edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
by JEROME K. JEROME
Author of “Paul Kelver,” “Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow,” “The Passing of the Third Floor Back,” and others.
london: HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED 182, HIGH HOLBORN, W.C. 1908
I had a vexing dream one night, not long ago: it was about a fortnight after Christmas. I dreamt I flew out of the window in my nightshirt. I went up and up. I was glad that I was going up. “They have been noticing me,” I thought to myself. “If anything, I have been a bit too good. A little less virtue and I might have lived longer. But one cannot have everything.” The world grew smaller and smaller. The last I saw of London was the long line of electric lamps bordering the Embankment; later nothing remained but a faint luminosity buried beneath darkness. It was at this point of my journey that I heard behind me the slow, throbbing sound of wings.
I turned my head. It was the Recording Angel. He had a weary look; I judged him to be tired.
“Yes,” he acknowledged, “it is a trying period for me, your Christmas time.”
“I am sure it must be,” I returned; “the wonder to me is how you get through it all. You see at Christmas time,” I went on, “all we men and women become generous, quite suddenly. It is really a delightful sensation.”
“You are to be envied,” he agreed.
“It is the first Christmas number that starts me off,” I told him; “those beautiful pictures—the sweet child looking so pretty in her furs, giving Bovril with her own dear little hands to the shivering street arab; the good old red-faced squire shovelling out plum pudding to the crowd of grateful villagers. It makes me yearn to borrow a collecting box and go round doing good myself.
“And it is not only me—I should say I,” I continued; “I don’t want you to run away with the idea that I am the only good man in the world. That’s what I like about Christmas, it makes everybody good. The lovely sentiments we go about repeating! the noble deeds we do! from a little before Christmas up to, say, the end of January! why noting them down must be a comfort to you.”
Jerome K. Jerome
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CHAPTER I
The Author tells of his Good Deeds.
The Angel appears to have made a slight Mistake.
The Author is troubled concerning his Investments.
And questions a Man of Thought.
CHAPTER II
Philosophy and the Dæmon.
When the Dæmon will not work.
CHAPTER III
Literature and the Middle Classes.
May a man of intelligence live, say, in Surbiton?
CHAPTER IV
Man and his Master.
Why the Man in Uniform has, generally, sad Eyes.
The Traveller’s one Friend.
The disadvantage of being an unknown Person.
CHAPTER V
If only we had not lost our Tails!
And little Boys would always tell the Truth!
And everyone obtained his just Deserts!
And all the World had Sense!
CHAPTER VI
Fire and the Foreigner.
My British Stupidity.
I am considered Cold and Mad.
Sometimes I wish I were an American Woman.
CHAPTER VII
Too much Postcard.
The Postcard as a Family Curse.
The Artist’s Dream.
Why not the Eternal Male for a change?
How Women are ruined by Art.
Difficulty of living up to the Poster.
CHAPTER VIII
The Lady and the Problem.
The Stage Hero who, for once, had Justice done to him.
She has a way of mislaying her Husband.
Could she—herself—have been to blame?
CHAPTER IX
Civilization and the Unemployed.
Early instances of “Dumping.”
Cricket, as viewed from the fixed Stars.
The Heir of all Ages. His Inheritance.
Is it “Playing the Game?”
CHAPTER X
Patience and the Waiter.
Waiterkind in the making.
His Little Mistakes.
How to insult him.
CHAPTER XI
The everlasting Newness of Woman.
Doctor says she is not to be bothered.
That “Higher Life.”
Is there anything left for her to learn?
When they have tried it the other way round.
A brutal suggestion.
CHAPTER XII
Why I hate Heroes.
Because it always seems to be his Day.
Because he’s so damned clever.
CHAPTER XIII
How to be Healthy and Unhappy.
The unsympathetic Umbrella.
A Martyr to Health.
He was never pig-headed.
Only just in time.
How to avoid Everything.
The one Cure-All.
CHAPTER XIV
Europe and the bright American Girl.
She has the Art of Listening.
The Republican Idea in practice.
What the Soldier dared not do.
Her path of Usefulness.
CHAPTER XV
Music and the Savage.
Recreation for the Higher clergy.
Why are we so young?
Where Brotherly (and Sisterly) Love reigns supreme.
The one sure Joke.
How Anarchists are made.
CHAPTER XVI
The Ghost and the Blind Children.
Why not, occasionally, a cheerful Ghost.
Where are the dead Humorists?
The Spirit does not shine as a Conversationalist.
She is now a Believer.
How does he do it?
Blind Children playing in a World of Darkness.
CHAPTER XVII
Parents and their Teachers.
Their first attempt.
The Parent can do no right.
His foolish talk.
The Child of Fiction.
The misunderstood Father.
CHAPTER XVIII
Marriage and the Joke of it.
Love and the Satyr.
What the Gipsy did not mention.
A few rules for Married Happiness.
The real Darby and Joan.
Many ways of Love.
Which is it?
CHAPTER XIX
Man and his Tailor.
The difficulty of being a Gentleman.
How we might, all of us, be Gentlemen.
Things a Gentleman should never do.
How one may know the perfect Gentleman.
Why not an Exhibition of Gentlemen?
CHAPTER XX
Woman and her behaviour.
Woman’s God.
Those unsexed Creatures.
References given—and required.
The ideal World.
A Lover’s View.
No time to think of Husbands.
The Wife of the Future.