Vincent.
LXXVII
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
My Dear Verena, to return to the great money problem, I think you ought to know that the papers print particulars of the will of a Hastings innkeeper who set apart the interest on £300 for an annual supper to sixty Hastings newsboys. And a little while ago I cut from the Times a will in which the testator, a fellmonger and a gunner, killed during the War, left “£1000 in trust during the life of his wife to apply the income for a treat for the children of the Chelsea and District Schools, Banstead, such treat to consist of sweets, strawberries, or a visit to the pantomime, and to be in the nature of a surprise.”
Well, there would be no difficulty in arranging for little things like that. All you want is a good almoner and perhaps Miss Power would take the post. And here again you could see the fun going on, which the dead cannot. At least we used to think they couldn’t, but the evidence on the other side is accumulating. There is a conspiracy afoot to make us think that the dead “carry on” too much as we do.
All you need is to ask yourself which kind of worker is least rewarded, or you are most sorry for, and go ahead. Lamb’s friend, James White, would have chosen chimney-sweeps. The late landlord of the Royal Oak at Hastings would have replied “Newsboys.” Miss Rhoda Broughton would reply, “Overworked horses.” On my own list would occur railway porters. Also compositors. And what about the little girls who carry gentlemen’s new garments all about Savile Row and the tailors’ quarters—is anything done for them? And the window-cleaners—they can’t have much fun. And oyster-openers—what a life! And carpet-beaters—Heavens! And the little telegraph girls, in couples, with the grubby hands. No, the list would not be hard to compile.
There are possibilities of social regeneration in it, too. Certain horrible imperfections—due to haste and false economy and a want of thoroughness—are allowed year after year to persist, to the serious impairing of the nation’s nerves, which might be removed, or at any rate reduced in number, if some warm-hearted living hand, like yours now, or wise dead hand, like yours in the distant future, were outstretched. For example, a legacy of a thousand pounds would not be thrown away if the interest on it were offered every year as a prize to the maker of chests-of-drawers which would open most easily, or the maker of looking-glasses which remained at the desired angle without having to be wedged. The details would have to be worked out, perhaps through some furniture trade paper, but what a heightening of effort and what a saving of temper might result! And if a prize were offered to the firm of haberdashers whose buttons were most securely sewn on, what a wave of comfort might be started! I bought some soft collars at a first-class shop only last week and the buttons were all loose and some of the button-holes were too small; and it was I who suffered, not the haberdasher. All he did was to spread his hands and complain about post-war carelessness; whereas he might just as well have supervised the things before they were sent home as not. One of the most infuriating things in Peace-time is the impossibility of punishing anybody—except oneself. The world is so prosperous that one can’t touch it. Once one could set a tradesman’s knees shaking by merely expressing the intention of going elsewhere in future; but it is so no longer.
But this is dull reading for Herefordshire. Are not these lines on the toilet table of Marie Antoinette poignant?—
This was her table, these her trim outspread