From the Angle of Seventeen

by Eden Phillpotts

“In tragedy,” I said, “a handsome face doesn’t matter so much.”

“When you talk of tragedy,” answered Mr. Blades, “you mention the greatest heights of the profession. You are not built to play tragic parts, being far too thin and long in the legs, in my opinion. Besides, it is a calling in which only one in a thousand does any real good. I should advise you to stick to insurance and try to master the principles of it.”

Of course I was getting on, but the lower walks of the science of insurance are tame, and it would not be interesting to explain rates and risks and tariffs and the explosive point of mineral oils and other important things, all of which have to be taken into account by the beginner.

But the clerks were far more full of interest, and some were stern and ambitious men, who were determined sooner or later to get to the top of the office and become Secretary; and some were easy men without great ambition, but full of ideas, though the ideas were not about the science of risk from fire. There was one remarkable man, whose age was thirty-two, and he lived at Clapham in lodgings all alone. This man, whose name was Tomlinson, possessed enormous ability in the direction of racehorses. His knowledge of these famous quadrupeds was most extraordinary. If you looked into a paper and saw the name of a racehorse, Tomlinson would instantly tell you whether it was a male or female horse, and the name of its father and mother, or I should say sire and dam. He would also tell you its age and its owner and its trainer and the jockeys who had ridden it, and the races it had run and was going to run, and the money, if any, it had earned in stakes during its career.

In this singular man’s desk were evidences of his passion for the turf. Nailed to the lid was the shoe or “racing plate” of a Derby winner, and arranged round it were photographic portraits of racehorses extracted from packets of cigarettes. A particular brand of cigarettes always contained these portraits, and so, naturally, Tomlinson smoked them. He seldom went to race-meetings himself, but read all the particulars of each race with great perseverance, in order to guide his future betting transactions. He had a Turf Agent and visited him frequently during the luncheon hour, and on the occasion of the classic races, such as the Derby and Oaks, or St. Leger, Tomlinson always arranged a sweepstake in the Country Department of the Apollo Fire Office and was well thought of for doing so.

He said that if he had been blessed with a good income he should have become a “gentleman backer,” which is some particular order of turf-specialist; and if he had been born with real wealth, he should have been an owner of racehorses, and a member of the Jockey Club. As it was, he knew several jockeys—though, curiously enough, jockeys are not themselves members of this far-famed club.

Then I might mention Wardle, who was the chief of one of the divisions of the Country Department, and a man of such varied mind that, while very skillful in his profession of insurance, he yet found leisure to develop the art of music to the very highest pitch. He was, in fact, a professional organist on Sundays; and not contented with this, actually composed music in the loftiest Gregorian manner, and played it on his organ before the congregation. His way of work was a great revelation to me, for while Tomlinson might be calculating the proper weights for a handicap, or taking down names for a sweepstake, Wardle, with a piece of music paper before him, which it always was in his spare moments, would be arranging triumphs of thorough bass and counterpoint and so on—all to delight his congregation some day, when the composition was finished. He did not like Wagner, and told me that he was a charlatan and would soon vanish forever; but Mozart he considered his own master, and said that Mozart was the very spirit and essence and soul of religious music. He spoke bitterly, but quite patiently, about the vicar of the church where he played and said that the man, though a well-meaning and honourable man, had never grasped the powers of music in religion.

“If he had,” said Wardle, “I should have had a new organ to play upon long ago. Our instrument is very inferior and our choir a thing of nought. As it is, the people come to hear me and not him.”

But one of his pieces of music had been played by a friend on the organ of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Wardle had heard it and been a good deal moved to find how his composition came out amid the solemn and glorious architecture of that sacred edifice. He hoped it would be played at Westminster Abbey, when the regular organist was taking his holiday and his locum tenens, as they call it, was in his place. Because this locum tenens was known to Mr. Wardle and believed in his powers of composition.

This genuine musician, on finding that every sort of art interested me a good deal, became very friendly and was so good as to ask me to go to his church one Sunday and hear him play, and have dinner with him afterwards. It was a great compliment, and of course I went and was deeply impressed to see the amazing ease with which Wardle, in surplice and cassock, handled his organ and managed the pedals and pulled out stops, and turned over the music and played psalms and hymns and responses and so on,—all with unfailing success. During the collection the hymn came to an end too soon, and doubtless, with a less complete master of harmony than Wardle, an awkward pause would have ensued; but, with a nerve begot of long practice, he permitted his fingers to stray over the “Ivories,” as they call them, and his feet to stray over the pedals, with a result both rich and harmonious. A solemn melody reverberated through the aisles and rolled from the instrument, and entirely concealed the mean sound of pennies and threepenny pieces falling into the collecting dishes.