London's Heart: A Novel

by B. L. Farjeon

"I don't know that," replied Felix. "I am selfish enough to think I should."

The old man smiled at this reference to one of Felix's pet theories.

"It does not so much concern them as me," continued Felix, with sly gleams. "I give to please myself. Is not that a selfish motive? Not to give would be to deprive myself of a gratification. I say to myself sometimes, almost unconsciously (but the sentiment which prompts it belongs to my nature, or I should not have the thought), 'Bravo, Felix! that was a good thing to do. You are not a bad fellow.'"

The old man was amused at this.

"The thought comes afterwards," he said.

"But it comes," insisted Felix, as if determined to deprive the kind promptings of his nature of grace--"it comes, and that is enough. It is an investment. I give away a penny, and receive the best of interest. Pure selfishness, upon my word, as is every other action of our lives. But apart from this, I don't believe that these men and women are not in want."

"Ah, well," said the old man, looking in admiration at the animated face of Felix; "it is better to trust than doubt. Suspicion ages the heart, and robs life of bright colour."

Satisfied that he was spending his time profitably, Felix found life very enjoyable. He did not trouble himself about the past; the world was before him, and he was observing, and studying, and preparing himself to open his oyster. His hotel was in the Strand, and he soon became well acquainted with the phases of life presented in that locality. The streets were so full of life, and there was so much to see. The shops; the theatres; the conveyances the streams of people flowing this way and that, a few smiling as they walked, some idling, some talking eagerly to themselves, unconscious of the surging life through which they make their way--each man perfectly engrossed in his own personality, each a world, the secret ways of which were known only to himself. He was soon quite familiar also with the singular variety of street-shows which can there be seen daily. With the broad-shouldered, frizzly-haired Italian with his monkeys, residents of Short's-gardens, where probably the dumb brutes are not so tenderly treated as strangers, who see them hugged to their master's breast as he walks along, might suppose them to be. With another monkey also, a poor little creature, who, being pulled this way and that by a chain attached to its master's wrist, capers on the pavement (generally at night) to the dismal moaning of an organ, upon whose grinder's face a ghastly smile for ever sits, suggesting the idea that it must have been carved upon his features in infancy. With the melancholy-looking, straight-haired young man who plays operatic selections upon the spout of a coffee-pot and through the nozzle of a bellows, and who selects the widest of the side thoroughfares for his entertainment, seldom commencing until a perfect ring of admirers and curiosity-mongers is formed, and who, while his island is being made, stands with an air of proud humility, as who should say, "I am the only and original player upon the spout and nozzle in the kingdom; all others are counterfeit." With the inconceivably-maniacal Swiss quartette, who shout and caper, and produce hideous sounds from throat and windbag. With the Mongolian impostor who sits upon a doorstep, uttering never a word, with a look upon his face as of one suddenly stricken with fatal disease. With the poor miserable woman, whose thought may soar upwards, but whose eyes never see the sun, for her body is literally bent in two, who creeps almost daily along the Strand; and with many other forms of beggary, even less attractive than these.

What Felix saw in the streets were not his only studies; he read the newspapers carefully, and not seldom was he amazed at the inequality of things. He found it difficult to understand how, in one shape, a certain thing was held up for public censure and condemnation, while in another shape precisely the same thing (in a worse form perhaps) was quietly tolerated, and even admired. As thus: He read in the papers from time to time accounts of proceedings taken against the publishers and venders of a weekly illustrated sheet, against which it was charged that it contained objectionable pictures. When he saw the illustrations he at once acquiesced in the justice of the proceedings, and decided in his own mind that they pandered to the worst taste, and were calculated to do much harm. But looking in many of the shop windows in the locality of the Strand, he saw pictures infinitely worse in the effect they would be likely to produce than those which were published in the objectionable paper. The portraits and full-length pictures of nearly naked women, taken in every attitude that the lascivious imagination could suggest, and paraded conspicuously in these windows for public admiration, were worse, in their insidious badness, than anything that Holywell Street ever produced. There was no disguise of what are called "female charms" in the pictures; they were displayed to their fullest extent to feed the sensual taste, and neither art nor any useful purpose was served by these degrading exhibitions. On the contrary; they tended to mislead, in their incongruous mixture of worth and shamelessness. For here was an actor deservedly popular; here was a courtesan, deservedly notorious; here was a statesman and a poet, whose names add lustre to the history of the times in which they live; between them a shameless woman, bold and lewd, and almost naked; above her, a princess, worthily loved, with her baby on her back, clasping the mother round her neck--a picture which the poorest wife in England feels the happier for looking at, so much of homely love and wifely virtue and sisterly kinship does it suggest; while below was paraded the painted face of a wanton, whose name is shame. In one window of a semi-religious kind, in which the frequenters of the May meetings at Exeter Hall might be supposed to gaze without fear of contamination, the very worst of these lewd pictures were displayed in the company of Bibles, and Prayer Books, and Church Services; an association which, by any sophistry, could not have been proved to be a good one.

In the study of these and other matters Felix found the time pass rapidly away. Something else passed rapidly away also--his money. Calling for his hotel-bill one day, he found that, after paying it, he would have scarcely twenty pounds left. This set him thinking. If he continued to live in the hotel, he might not be able to pay his next bill, and the dishonour attaching to such a contingency caused him to resolve to adopt a more modest mode of living. The gravity of the position made him serious, but not for long. His idle days were gone--well, he was glad of it; he was tired of idleness, and longed to be up and doing. "If I were a rich man," he thought, "and could not get work without paying for it, I'd pay for it willingly, rather than be idle." Yes, it was time for him to set to work. He would first take lodgings in some cheap neighbourhood, and there he would look things straight in the face. It is amazing what comfort is found in metaphor, until the time for action arrives. In making this resolution Felix worked himself into such a state of excitement that he really believed he had already commenced life in earnest. At first he thought of Soho, but very slight reflection induced him to forego the temptation of living in the neighbourhood of Lily. "Whatever struggles I have," he thought, "I will keep to myself." Chance directing his steps to Vauxhall, he saw there numbers of bills in the windows announcing rooms to let. Seeing a decent-looking woman with a baby in her arms standing at the door of a house in which there was a first-floor to let, he spoke to her, and asked for particulars. The rent for sitting-room and bedroom was very moderate, he found. Upon inquiry he learned that there were other lodgers in the house, that indeed it was filled with lodgers. The landlady and her husband lived in the basement; a married couple occupied the parlours; and four or five persons, perfectly independent of each other, lived on the second and third floors. "You'll find us very quiet, sir," the landlady said, looking with an eye of favour upon Felix, and wondering why so smart a young gentleman as he should desire to live in that poor neighbourhood, "and you'll have no call to complain of the attendance." Felix, perfectly satisfied, pinched the baby's cheek, paid the first week's rent in advance, and received his latch-key. It was characteristic of him that when he left the hotel he was as liberal to the attendants as if he had been a gentleman of independent property.