CHAPTER XXI.
A ROMAN HOLIDAY.
I was alone with the clouds, the ocean, and my note-book. I could attend to the note-book, only by forgetting the ocean and the clouds; so, after one last look at them, I retired to the back of the Cave, and set to work.
Notes for the Lecture.
‘Old England and Old Rome; Parallel.—England, my friends, you are to understand, is in the position of Old Rome after the conquest. She is sitting down to enjoy the world she has won. She wants no more: after dinner, the lion would not hurt a fly. She feels the lassitude of digestion, especially in governing circles. Yet, somehow, the duties of empire are still carried on. Rome fed all her children from the subject realms, and they all grew lazy. England feeds only some of hers, and, what with need and hunger, the watch of empire is duly kept. The reliefs are sent out to the distant provinces; the pro-consuls come home regularly to die of liver-complaint in ancestral halls. Take a bird’s-eye view of our hemisphere, and you would see its main roads of earth and ocean speckled with the foam or dust that marks the movements of her legions. ’Tis a pretty sight!
‘Holiday Preparations.—The public holidays in England are ordained by law, and, three or four times a year, there is a general suspension of work in this workshop of the world. It is a Sabbath of popular festivity. One of its first signs is the general migration from town of the select few. All who can possibly manage it get out of the way—only, of course, to leave more room for the others. It is just like them.
‘London is given up to its masses, with all its spacious environs. The streets are theirs, the parks are theirs. Every lamp-post in the slums is turned into a screw swing.
‘Adaptiveness of the Race.—The diversions of infancy among the English masses are of primitive simplicity. The youthful slummer plays, as the mature savage wrought, with the rudest tools. His swing is the knotted fragment of a clothes-line; and, in the national game, he demands no more than a bundle of old coats for the wicket, with a splinter of deal for the bat. This healthy contempt for “plant” shows the adaptiveness of the race, its readiness in making the most of the materials that come to hand. Waterloo was won in the playing fields of Eton, and Australia in the playing fields of Seven Dials. Walk through St. James’s Park on a public holiday, and you can no longer doubt it. Cricket is contrived with the implements aforesaid; football, with an old hat, or a broken kettle. The same adaptiveness is shown in all the arrangements: the average of breech, to the extent of nakedness it has to cover, may be put at about three-fifths. Yet there are no glaring whites to mar the beauty of the landscape; and even the faces are in a sort of keeping of pale green. Artists might picture this Bank Holiday scene in the Park; it could hardly fail to attract attention at Burlington House. The sicklier children, and the very young, play in the alleys nearer home, where the dust is considerately left in sufficient abundance to enable them to make their mud-pies. Many play in the old graveyards adjacent to these alleys, recently opened to them by the munificence of a public-spirited society. This is perhaps the highest example of our national readiness to make the best of circumstances.
‘Note.—Sketch of Tom All Alone’s—real or supposed—on a public holiday, as one of the most suggestive sights of the universe: “Tom All Alone’s; with a few observations on Russell Court and Vinegar Yard.” Ancient cemetery or native barrow of district, consisting of three back-yards rolled into one; now a public playground, dedicated for ever, etc., with becoming circumstance, as local “boon.” To get it into focus, should be seen from the meadows about Eton College. So seen, will inspire sentiments of devout gratitude to God for the mysteries of patience, far surpassing the mysteries of faith, in the souls of men. Tom All Alone’s, as something to be thankful for. Ha! ha! ha! (try to laugh here). Oh, by what magic, by what magic, do we get them to take this irreducible minimum in settlement of the human claim? (try not to weep).
‘Same adaptability, too, in grown-up natives of region—veritable note of our race. Require no costly machinery of enjoyment. Take a plank of wood, put a row of taps and glasses on one side, and, on the other, a kind of horse box in which fifteen or twenty people may manage to stand upright, and you have “house of entertainment.” A young woman turns taps, as fast as she can, and fills glasses; people in horse-box empty them with equal dispatch; and public enjoyment is at its height. Marble tables, public gardens, flowers, music, not indispensable. A trough would be simpler still; but horses do not care for gin, and the higher animal would object to it, as it implies the unsound principle of community of goods.
‘Here, in these houses of entertainment, they exchange their artless confidences, and settle their family affairs. Not inquisitive about future; have learned to take short views. Whenever perplexed about problems of destiny, and their own relations of joy to this joyous world, they nod to young woman, who turns tap, and their perplexities disappear.