I suppose that every one has made the acquaintance of the subject of this little biography at some time or other, though to others he may not have appeared as he has appeared to me, and, as I know, he has been called by many names. Indeed, when I consider that there have been men and women who have sought his society with a passionate eagerness, it is clear to me that his disguises must be extremely subtle, and that he employs them with a just regard for the personalities of his companions. For while some have found in his society the ultimate splendour of life, for me he has always been wearisome and ridiculously mean.
Of course it may be that I have known him too long, for even as a child I was accustomed to find him at my side, an unwelcome guest who came and went by no law that my youthful mind could determine. Certainly in those days he was more capricious, and the method of argument by repetition, which he still employs, was only too well calculated to weary and distress a child. But for the rest, the Harold whom I knew then was materially the Harold whom I know now. Conceive a small man so severely afflicted with St. Vitus’s dance that his features are hardly definable, endow him with a fondness for clothes of dull colours grievously decorated with spots, and a habit of asking meaningless questions over and over again in an utterly unemotional voice, and you will be able to form a not unfair estimate of the joys of Harold’s society. There have been exceptions, however, to the detestable colourlessness of Harold’s appearance. I have seen him on occasion dressed in flaming red, like Mephistopheles, and his shrill staccato voice has pierced my head like a corkscrew. But these manifestations have always been brief, and might even be considered enjoyable when compared with the unrestful monotony of Harold’s society in general.
Who taught me to call him by the name of Harold I do not know, but in my youthful days the man’s character was oddly associated with the idea of virtue as expounded in the books I read on Sunday afternoons. That I hated him was, I felt, merely a fitting attribute in one whose instincts were admittedly bad, but I did not allow the consideration to affect my rejoicings when I escaped from his company. Curiously, too, I perceived that the Olympians were with me in this, and since the moral soundness of those improving books was beyond question, I had grave doubts as to their ultimate welfare. But it was always an easy task to detect the Olympians tripping in their own moralities; they had so many.
As time went on, and I grew out of the Sunday books and all that they stood for, I came to believe that I was growing out of Harold too. His appearances became rare, and, from his point of view, a little ineffective. It pleased me to consider with a schoolboy’s arrogance that he was little more than a child’s nightmare, and that if a man turned to fight him Harold would vanish. For a while Harold, in his cunning, played up to this idea. He would seek my side timidly, and fly at a word. The long, sleepless nights of childhood and the weary days were forgotten, and I made of him a jest. Sometimes I wondered whether he really existed.
And then he came. At first I was only mildly astonished when I found that nothing I could say would make him leave me, but as the hours passed the old hatred asserted itself, and to fight the little man with the dull voice and the cruel spots on his clothes seemed all that there was in life to do. The hours passed into days and nights, and sometimes I was passive in the hope that he might weary, sometimes I shouted answers to his questions—the same answer to the same question—over and over again. I felt, too, that if I could only see his features plainly for a moment he would disappear, and I would stare at him until the sky grew red as my eyes. But I could not see him clearly, and the world became a thing of dull colours, terrible with spots. By now I was fighting him with a sense of my own fatuity, for I felt that nothing would make this man fight fairly. His voice had fallen to a passionless whisper and the spots on his clothes swelled into obscene blotches and burst like over-ripe fruit. It was then that the chloroform clutched me by the throat. I have never known anything on earth more sweet.
Since then, it seems to me, Harold has never been quite the same. He comes to see me now and again, and sometimes even he lingers by my side. But there is a note of doubt about him that I do not remember to have noticed before—some of his former spirit would seem to be lacking, and I am forced to wonder sometimes whether Harold is not ageing. And, though it may appear strange, the thought inspires me with a certain regret. I do not like the man, and I should be mad to seek him of my own accord, but in fairness I must acknowledge that in a negative way he has contributed to all the pleasures I have enjoyed. Sunsets and roses and the white light of the stars—I owe my appreciation of them all to Harold; and I know that it is by aid of his keen realism that I have founded the city of my dreams. It will be a grey world when Harold is no more.
ON DIGGING HOLES
When all the world was young and we were young with it there was no occupation more pleasing to our infant minds than the digging of great holes in that placid and maternal earth that endured the trampling of our childish feet with patience, and betrayed no realisation of the extraordinary miracle of life that had set us dancing in the fields and valleys of the world. As repentant children trace with curious finger on their mother’s foreheads the lines that they themselves have set there, so we followed the furrows on the forehead of our mother Earth with our little spades, smoothing here and deepening there, and not the less contented that our labours had but a vague and illusory aim. Sometimes, perhaps, we had a half-formed ambition to dig to those dim and incredible Antipodes where children walk head downwards, clinging to the earth with their feet, like the flies on the playroom’ ceiling. Sometimes, perhaps, we dug for treasure, immense masses of golden coin, like those memorable hoards described in “Treasure Island” and the “Gold Bug.” Or, again, it might be that we planned vast caves and galleries wherein tawny pirates and swart smugglers might carouse, shocking the echoes with blood-curdling oaths, and drinking boiling rum like Quilp. We dug, in fine.
There seems to be some element in the human mind that is definitely attracted by the digging of holes, for it is not only children who are interested by the spectacle. The genial excavators whose duty it is to make havoc of the London streets never fail to draw an attentive and apparently appreciative audience, whether of loafers or philosophers the critic may not lightly determine. They gaze into the pit with countenances of abysmal profundity, that appear to see all, to understand all, and to express nothing in particular. It is possible that they are placidly enjoying the reflection that beneath the complex contrivances of our civilisation, beneath London itself, the virgin earth lies unturned and unaffected. Perhaps, as each spadeful of earth reaches the surface, they perceive, like a child watching the sawdust trickle from the broken head of a doll, that here is the raw material of which worlds are made. Perhaps they do not think at all, but merely derive a mild satisfaction from watching other people work. Yet it is at least agreeable to believe that they are watchers for the unexpected, that they have discovered the great truth that if you dig long enough you will probably dig something up.
We children knew this very well, and we never dug without feeling the thrill proper to treasure-seekers. Even half a brick becomes eventful when found in these circumstances, and the earth had a hundred pleasant secrets in the shape of fragments of pottery, mysterious lumps of metal and excited insects for those who approached her reverently, trowel in hand. It was this variety of treasure that made us prefer inland digging to those more fashionable excavations that are carried on at the seaside. Sand is a friendly substance in which to dig, and it is very convenient to have a supply of water like the sea close at hand when it is necessary to fill a pond or add a touch of realism to a moat. But the ease with which sand obeys the spade soon becomes monotonous, and the seaside in general suffers from an air of having been elaborately prepared for children to play there. Our delving operations in the garden had the charm of nominal illegality, and the brown earth had a hundred moods to thwart and help and enchant us continually. Sometimes we dug with scientific precision; sometimes we set to work with fury, flinging the earth to all sides in our eagerness to rob her of her secrets. A philosopher might have found in us a striking instance of the revolt of civilised man against Nature; a woman would have noticed that we were getting our pinafores dirty.