From smoky towns and cloudy sky
To things (the honest truth to say)
As bad—but in a different way.
Byron: “Farewell to Malta.”
(Amended by leave of the Court.)
“Some poet has observed that if any man would write down what has really happened to him in this mortal life he would be sure to make a good book, though he never had met with a single adventure from his birth to his burial.” Even Thackeray does not take the responsibility for the thesis, but with a light heart lays the burden upon the shoulders of “some poet.” And for my part I had never any intention of answering the poet’s challenge until after a quarter of a century of life in Manchester I found myself back again in my original domicile. I doubt if I had ever really acquired a domicile in Manchester. There was residence, but was there
intention? I think I must decide that somewhere at the back of my mind there was an intention if not a desire to return.
But when I did return, how many changes I found. Of course I had paid fleeting visits to London during the term of my exile; but here I was again for better or worse, and my mind made contrast of to-day with the memories of twenty-five years ago. Where were the familiar faces? Not all were gone certainly, but those that remained seemed to my eyes duller, grizzled and less alert than I had remembered them. And no doubt I was the same to them, and had grown rugged and provincial during my long absence. For when old friends met me in the Strand or the Temple they patted my shoulder in a kindly compassionate manner as if I were a pit pony who had just come to the surface after several decades of darkness. These Londoners who knew nothing of Manchester and the North seemed to fancy I was blinking and dazzled with the brilliancy of their converse, when in truth and in fact I was wondering why they all—except the Jews—spoke with a tinge of Cockney accent. When they congratulated me upon my “promotion,” as they called it, I could not help contrasting the trial of cases arising out of commercial contracts on the Manchester Exchange with the trespass of sheep among the turnip-tops, which is the nearest we have to a cause célèbre in the Weald of Kent.
But what caused me a greater sinking of heart was that, when I spoke of Manchester men and Manchester affairs, I spoke to deaf ears. Your Peckham
and Surbiton Londoner knows indeed that there is such a place as Manchester on the map, but intellectually and spiritually he is far nearer to New York or Johannesburg. The works and doings of these places interest and amuse him, but the annals of the great cities of the North are closed books to him. And when I was lamenting on such a state of things I came across Thackeray’s message and wondered if it was intended for me. I could not help thinking how many of us would like to have the reminiscences of the pit pony. How entertaining it would be to his fellow ponies below to know what the old fellow really thought of them, and how the story of a life underground would tickle the supercilious ears of the pony aristocrats who had spent their lives among surburban milk floats and butchers’ carts, or even let us say in the polo field. There was the personal pleasure, too, of remembering and setting down the story of the days that were gone and describing the highways and byways along which I had travelled so pleasantly, and the thought that some who were children in those years might like to know what sort of a world it was they used to live in.