I.
It was Sunday evening in July—an evening aglow with warmth and splendor; an evening when even the streets of London were glorious with the light of the splendid west; an evening when, if you are young (as I sincerely hope you are), only to wander hand-in-hand over the grass and under the trees with your sweetheart should be happiness enough. One ought to be ashamed to ask for more. Nay, a great many do not ask for more.
They are engaged. Some time, but not just yet, they will marry. They work separately all the week, but on the Sunday they are free to go about together. Of all the days that make the week they dearly love but one day—namely the day that lies between the Saturday and Monday. Now that the voice of the Sabbatarian has sunk to a whisper or a whine; now that we have learned to recognize the beauty, the priceless boon, the true holiness of the Sunday, which not only rests body and brain, but may be so used as to fill the mind with memories of lovely scenes, of sweet and confidential talk, of love-making and of happiness, we ought to determine that of all the things which make up the British liberties, there is nothing for which the working man should more fiercely fight or more jealously watch than the full freedom of his Sunday—freedom uncontrolled 441 to wander where he will, to make his recreation as he chooses.
If the church doors are open wide, let the doors of the public galleries and the museums and the libraries be opened wide as well. Let him, if he choose, step from church to library. But if he is wise, when the grass is long and the bramble is in blossom, and the foliage is thick and heavy on the elms, he will, after dinner, repair to the country, if it is only to breathe the air of the fields, and lie on his back watching the slow westering of the sun and listening to the note of the blackbird in the wood.
Two by two they stroll or sit about Hempstead Heath on such an evening. If you were to listen (a pleasant thing to do, but wrong) to the talk of these couples you would find that they are mostly silent, except that they only occasionally exchange a word or two. Why should they talk? They know each other’s cares and prospects; they know the burden that each has to bear—the evil temper of the boss, the uncertainties of employment, the difficulties in the way of an improved screw, and the family troubles—there are always family troubles, due to some inconsiderate member or other. I declare that we have been teaching morality and the proper conduct of life on quite a wrong principle—namely, the selfish principle.
We say, “Be good, my child, and you will go to heaven.” The proposition is no doubt perfectly true. But it proposes a selfish motive for action. I would rather say to that child, “Be good, my dear, or else you will become an intolerable nuisance to other people.” Now, no child likes to consider himself an intolerable nuisance.
These lovers, therefore, wander about the Heath, sometimes up to their knees in bracken, sometimes sitting under the trees, not talking much, but, as the old phrase has it, “enjoying themselves” very much indeed. At the end of the Spaniards’ Road—that high causeway whence one can see, in clear weather, the steeple of Harrow Church on one side and the dome of St. Paul’s on the other—there is a famous clump of firs, which have been represented by painters over and over again. Benches have been placed under these trees, where one can sit and have a very fine view indeed, with the Hendon Lake in the middle distance, and a range of hills beyond, and fields and rills between.
On one of these benches were sitting this evening two—Adam and Eve, boy and girl—newly entered into paradise. Others were sitting there as well—an ancient gentleman whose thoughts were seventy years back, a working man with a child of three on his knee, and beside him his wife, carrying the baby. But these lovers paid no heed to their neighbors. They sat at the end of the bench. The boy was holding the girl’s hand, and he was talking eagerly.
“Lily,” he said, “you must come some evening to our debating society when we begin again and hear me speak. No one speaks better. That is acknowledged. There is to be a debate on the House of Lords in October. I mean to come out grand. When I’m done there will be mighty little left of the Lords.” He was a handsome lad, tall and well set up, straight featured and bright eyed. The girl looked at him proudly. He was her own lad—this handsome chap. Not that she was bad-looking either. Many an honest fellow has to put up with a girl not nearly so good-looking, if you were to compare.
He was a clerk in the city. She was in the post-office. He attended at his office daily from half-past nine to six, doing such work as was set before him for the salary of a pound a week. She stood all day long at the counter, serving out postal orders, selling stamps, weighing letters, and receiving telegrams. When I add that she was civil to everybody you will understand that she was quite a superior clerk—one of the queen’s lucky bargains. It is not delicate to talk about a young lady’s salary, therefore I shall not say for how much she gave her services to the British Empire.
He was a clever boy, who read and thought. That is to say, he thought that he thought—which is more than most do. As he took his facts from the newspapers, and nothing else, and 442 as he was profoundly ignorant of English history, English law, the British Constitution, the duties of a citizen, and the British Empire generally, his opinions, after he had done thinking, were not of so much value to the country, it is believed. But still a clever fellow, and able to spout in a frothy way which carried his hearers along, if it never convinced or defeated an opponent.
To this kind of clever boy there are always two or three dangers. One is that he should be led on to think more and more of froth and less of fact; another, that he should grow conceited over his eloquence and neglect his business. A third temptation which peculiarly besets this kind is that he should take to drink. Oratory is thirsty work, and places where young men orate are often in immediate proximity to bars. As yet, however, Charley was only twenty. He was still at the first stage of everything—oratory, business, and love; and he was still at the stage when everything appears possible—the total abolition of injustice, privilege, class, capital, power, oppression, greed, sweating, poverty, suffering—by the simple process of tinkering the constitution.
“Oh,” he cried, “we shall have the most glorious, the most splendid time, Lily! The power of the people is only just beginning; it hasn’t begun yet. We shall see the most magnificent things....” He enumerated them as above indicated. Well, it is very good that young men should have such dreams and see such visions. I never heard of any girl being thus carried out of herself. The thing belongs exclusively to male man in youth, and it is very good for him. When he is older he will understand that over and above the law and the constitution there is something else more important still—namely, that every individual man should be honest, temperate, and industrious. In brief, he will understand the force of the admonition: “Be good, my child, or else you will become an intolerable nuisance to everybody.”
The sun sank behind Harrow-on-the-Hill. The red light of the west flamed in the boy’s bright eyes. Presently the girl rose.
“Yes, Charley,” she said, less sympathetic than might have been expected; “yes, and it will be a very fine time, if it comes. But I don’t know. People will always want to get rich, won’t they? I think this beautiful time will have to come after us. Perhaps we had better be looking after our own nest first.”
“Oh, it will come—it will come!”
“I like to hear you talk about it, Charley. But if we are ever to marry—if I am to give up the post-office, you must make a bigger screw. Remember what you promised. The shorthand and the French class. Put them before your speechifying.”
“All right, Lily dear, and then we will get married, and we will have the most splendid time. Oh, there’s the most splendid time for us—ahead!”