Over the Fireside with Silent Friends

by Richard King

I don't know if you, fair reader, find that in the spring your fancy turns to thoughts of love—I know mine doesn't! On the contrary, it turns to thoughts of sulphur tablets and camomile tea and other sickly or disagreeable circumventions of the "creakiness" of the human body. For among the things I could teach Nature is that, when she made man, she did not permit him to "flower" in the spring and start each year with something at least resembling his pristine vigour—if he ever had any. But, whereas the spring gives a new glory to birds, and trees, and plants, she only gives to us—built in the image of God—spots, a disordered liver, and a muddy complexion. It seems a piece of gross mismanagement, doesn't it? It would be so delightful if, once a year, we were filled with extra energy; if our hair sprouted once more in the colour with which we were born; if the old skin shed itself and a new one came on so beautiful as to ruin the business of all the "Mrs. Pomeroys" of this world. But Nature seems, once having made us, to leave us severely alone; to let us wither on our stalks, as it were, until we drop off them and are swept away into the dustbin of the worms and weeds. The mind is a far kinder ally. Oh, no; say what you will in the praise of spring, to all those who, as it were, have commenced the "bulge" of anno domini, it is a very trying season. Besides—here in England anyway—it is as uncertain as a flirt. Sometimes it suddenly comes upon us in the early days of March or lets mid-winter pay us a visit in the lengthening days of May. One never quite knows what spring is going to do. One never knows what kind of clothes to wear to please it. So often one sallies forth arrayed in winter underwear, because the morning awoke so coldly, only to spend the rest of the day eating ices to keep the body calm and cool. Or, again, the spring morning greets us with the warmth of an August day; we jump up gaily, deck ourselves out in muslin, sally forth, take a sudden "chill," and spend the rest of the week in bed!

One is always either too hot or too cold. It is the season of the unaccountable draught. True, it often turns the fancy towards sweet thoughts of love—but the fancy usually ends with an influenza cold through indulging in sentimental dalliance upon the grass. On the whole, I always think that spring in England is nicer to sing about than experience. It is delightful as a season of "promise"—but, like humanity, it often treats its promises like pie-crusts. Still, it is spring, and—although the body rarely recognises the fact except to ruin by biliousness the romance which is surging in its heart—summer is, as it were, knocking at the door. And from June to mid-July—that surely is the glory of the year! After July, summer becomes a little dusty at the hem. Still, dusty, or even dirty, it makes life worth living. Nevertheless, I only wish that it were greedier and stole three months away from winter. For winter is too long, and spring is too uncertain, and autumn too full of "Farewell."

But summer never palls. And we have five summers to make up for, haven't we? For no one could really enjoy anything during the war except the war news—when it was favourable. But now we can—well, if not enjoy ourselves, at least lie back, just whispering to ourselves that, when the sun shines the world is a lovely place, and, so far as England is concerned, there is at any rate a kind of camouflaged peace. And so we have to be very very old if we cannot feel in our hearts a breath of youth and spring. After all, when the sun shines, we are, or feel we are, of any age—or of no age whatever. And if we cannot burst into flower like the roses, we can at least enjoy the beauty of the rose when it blooms—which other roses cannot do. Thus, with a few small mercies, life is very good when the sun shines, isn't it?

Bad-tempered People

I would sooner live with an immoral man or woman than a bad-tempered one. An immoral person can often be a very charming companion, quite easy to live with—if you take the various excuses for sudden absences at their face value, and don't probe too deeply into the business; in fact, if you are not in love with the absentee. A bad-tempered person in the house may have the morality of the angels—but life with him is a daily "hell," like always living with strangers, or a mad dog, or in a room full of those ornaments which belong, almost exclusively, to lodging-houses everywhere. Briefly, he is always there—ready to burst into flames at any moment, ready to misunderstand everything anybody does or says, a perpetual bugbear; and not even the emotional repentances, which are often the only partially saving grace of bad-tempered people, can atone for the atmosphere of disturbance which they always inflict. And the man or woman who loses his temper whenever anything goes in the slightest bit wrong—well, from them may the Lord deliver me for ever, Amen! They carry their ill-nature about with them all day and under all circumstances. Sometimes they seem to imagine that their spirit of disagreeableness is a sign of the super-man, or of that dominating personality of which Caesar and Napoleon are historical examples. They frequent restaurants and harry the already over-harried waiters. It is such a very easy victory—the victory over a paid servant. But the conquerors stamp themselves for ever and for ever among Nature's "cads" nevertheless. Anybody who is rude enough can give a quelling performance of "God Almighty" before menials. Some people delight to do so, apparently. They possess everything except an instinctive respect for a man and woman, however lowly, who are earning their own living. And the lack of it places them among the inglorious army of the "bounders" for all time. When there is no "inferior" upon whom to vent the outbursts of their own supreme egoism, they find their wives extremely useful. In the days when the divorce laws are "sensible," freedom will be granted for perpetual bad temper sooner than for occasional unfaithfulness.

Of course, we all have our days when we are like nothing so much as gunpowder looking for a match. We can't be perfect and serene all the time. And if ever, as I have just hinted, we do wake up in the morning feeling as if we could get up and quarrel with a bee because it buzzes, a Beecham pill will probably soon put us in a regular "click" of a humour. ("Mr. Carter" never offered me anything; nor did Sir Thomas Beecham. But being fond of grand opera, I mention the pills "worth a guinea a box" for preference. Besides, they tell us a "Beecham at night makes you sing with delight!" So there!) That is one of the reasons why I always advocate a "silence room" in every household which otherwise is large enough to put the biggest room aside to play billiards in. I would have it quite small, and decorated in restful, neutral tints, with the finest view from the window thereof that the house could supply. I would also have a little window cut out of the door, through which food could be pushed in to the sufferer without him having to tell the domestic that it is a fine day and that he hopes her bunion's better. This little room would be devoted to those inmates of the house who got up on the wrong side of the bed because both sides were "wrong sides" that morning. There he, or she, would stay until the world seemed to be bright again. And they would come forth in their new and serener state of mind, blessing the idea with all their hearts. For if, as they have to do now, they had come downstairs in the mood in which they woke up, the whole house would have known of it to curse it, and most of its members would not be on polite speaking terms for days afterwards. Of course, the idea could be recommended also for those people whose temper is always in a state of uproar. The only difficulty, however, would be, then—they might live in the silence room all their lives and die there—beloved, because unseen. But that is the only thing to do with an habitually disagreeable person—lock him up, and, if you be wise, take away the key of the dungeon with you!

Polite Masks

You never really know anybody—until you have either lived with them, travelled with them, or drunk a glass of port with them quietly over the fireside. In almost every other instance, what you become acquainted with is one of a variety of masks! And everyone has a fine assortment of these, haven't they? For the most part you don them unconsciously—or rather, you have got so used to assuming them suddenly that you have lost all consciousness of effort. But they are masks, nevertheless—and a mask always hides the truth, doesn't it? Not that I am one of those, however, who dislike camouflage because it is camouflage. In fact, most of the time I thank Heaven for it—my own and other people's! The "assumed" is so often so much more agreeable than the natural, and nine times out of ten all you require of men and women is that they should at least look pleasant. You've got to get through this life day after day somehow, and time passes ever so much quicker for everyone if the hypocrite be a smiling hypocrite at all times. At every moment of the everyday—preserve me from the sour-visaged saint.

After all, only love and friendship and the law demand the truth and nothing but the truth. Among acquaintances, among all the many thousands you meet through life only to discuss the weather and your own influenza symptoms—all you ask of them is that they should bring out their smiling mask as readily as you struggle to assume your own. Only, as I said before, in love and friendship and the courts of law is the mask an insult, a tragic disillusion and a sham. In every other circumstance it is usually a blessing. Without it society, as a social entertainment, would become impossible. For society is but a collection of men and women wearing masks, each one vying with the others to make his mask the most attractive, and, at the same time, the most concealing. But the worst of wearing masks is, that we become tired at last of holding them in front of our features. This makes the entertainment of watching the truth peering through the camouflage one of the most amusing among the many unpremeditated amusements of the social world. After all, as I said before, so long as your lover and your friend, and the witnesses you have subpoenaed on behalf of your own case, show you truth—all you ask of the others is the most agreeable mask they can put on for the occasion. But even lovers and friends may deceive you, while some witnesses' idea of the truth in the law courts hasn't that semblance of reality possessed by the Medium's description of life in the world beyond. That is what makes matrimony often such a gamble with loaded dice, and holidays so often more tedious than work. To be in the company of one's lover for one ecstatic hour tells one nothing of what he will be when, day after day, one has to live with him in deadly intimacy until death doth part us both.

Neither do you really know how much, or how little, your friend means to you, until you have been with her on a cold railway station for hours, when fate has done its best to make you both lose your tempers and your luggage. Only a very real love can survive smiling through that period when, from almost maudlin appreciation, a husband gradually sinks into the commonplace mood of taking his soul's mate "for granted." Only real friendship can live through the disillusionment of irritable temper, lack of imagination, and boredom so often revealed while travelling in the company of friends. More than half the mutual life of lovers and friends is spent behind masks—for masks are sometimes necessary to keep love and friendship great and true. But one must, nevertheless, know something of the real man and woman behind the mask—even though that which lies behind it may prove disappointing—before you can prove that your love is real love, that your friendship is real friendship, that you love your lover or your friend, not only for what they are, but also in spite of what they are not.