It is not much of a mountain, scarcely deserving the name of a hill in fact, but the name will indicate aptly enough the character of the inhabitants; for it is here that many look longingly into the social Promised Land which they cannot enter. Mount Pisgah is the region of struggling gentility; as Saffron Hill is of organ-grinders; as Brixton is of merchants; as Westburnia is of Hebrews and Anglo-Asiatics; as Brook Street is of doctors, and Islington of City clerks. From the centre and axis of the haut ton, which ends at Park Lane, respectability radiates in a north-westerly and south-westerly direction; but whereas South Kensington abruptly terminates in Brompton, the region of Hyde Park, properly so called, merges into Bayswater and Westburnia, the outer circle ending in Mount Pisgah. There is a general air of neglect about the neighbourhood, and although the houses are rather pretentious-looking buildings, they are rarely troubled with the hands of the painter or plasterer. Corinthian columns and stuccoed balustrades lose much of their effect when chipped and scribbled over and used as the vehicle for the artistic displays of youth—in chalks. The doorsteps are not always very clean; and in the street, if it is not dusty, it is muddy; and if scraps of paper are not flying about, orange-peel and broken crockery strew your path. But then this is also a great place for the 'slut of a servant,' who is cheap if nothing else; and for the streets, well, the vestry are not likely to be troubled with complaints from such birds of passage as the Pisgans all are—or all hope to be, I should say—for too often, alas, do they find their wings clipped and their stay involuntary. In Mount Pisgah, majors and colonels are as plentiful as blackberries; high-wranglers and ex-Indian judges jostle first classmen and 'late political residents.' Unbeneficed clergymen, who eagerly scan the Times advertisements each morning for pupils; unsuccessful doctors and disappointed barristers waiting for the patients and the briefs that are so long in coming; and others who are seeking to eke out a scanty income by that very poor crutch but passable walking-stick, as some one has aptly called literature—all these abound in this neighbourhood. The only prosperous people are the butchers and bakers and other trades-people. They nod familiarly their 'Good morning, Gineral,' or 'Wet day, Mister,' to the humble officer or tutor who shovels past with the weight of the remembrance of those rapidly increasing bills for inferior joints and alumed bread, which he must meet at the end of the quarter.
The commercial ethics of Mount Pisgah are not altogether peculiar to themselves; but if one rule meets with greater observance than another, it is, that as bills increase quality shall decrease; and after all, as Mr Undercut or Mr Crumpet will tell you, they are often 'took in dreadful.' How eagerly pay-day is looked forward to! the brief interval from the depressing pecuniary cares of their lives that comes to each four times a year. A 'social' then takes place. Ordinarily, old Mangosteen, of the —th Native Infantry, meeting Junglebird, C.S.I., who lived with him in the N.W.P., where they were as brothers, says 'How do?' and passes on. Each knows that the other has but one thought—his embarrassments: they respect one another's misfortunes, and avoid the hollow mockeries to which conversation must necessarily give rise. But towards the end of each quarter all this is changed; there is going to be a little dinner; or 'My womenkind are turning the house inside out for a dance;' or 'The boys are going to row us down to Richmond;' and then Junglebird and Mangosteen kill their tigers over again, and chuckle merrily over that roaring night at the —th mess; and Briefless and Exminus recall the old Combination Room jokes; and if, as they sip their cheap claret, they think with some regret of that mellow ruby nectar that the cellars of St Botolph's used sometimes to produce; they also remember how, when up last autumn for the election of a 'Silverpoker' (as the Esquire Bedel is irreverently called, from his emblem of office), they had found two fellows of their own time martyrs to gout and a nuisance to the whole college—for which that delicious 'old tawny' was doubtless responsible. The ladies in Mount Pisgah take quite a different tone too, at this eventful period. Although at other times not quite so 'solitary' in their habits as their husbands—for women find a comfort in talking over their common troubles—they have long discussions upon the chance of Charley getting a presentation to Christ's Hospital; or of Tommy's cadetship at Wellington; or how Mr Howling Hawley, the great singing-master, held out hopes of dear Amelia's voice being a fortune to her; and yet how dreadful it would be for the poor child to appear before the public; but then you know, my dear, things have altered so much since our time, and now you really find quite respectable people performing in public! But when they give their little dinners and dances and the rest, you shall see how the Pisgan ladies will rise to the occasion, and you shall not find in Grosvenor Square a more strict observance of the rules of etiquette. And if at times it is a little old-fashioned and somewhat more strict than Society demands in these loose times, it bears the right stamp, and might indeed be profitably imitated in many more pretentious houses.
Of course it is a long time since those Pisgans who have belonged to the Rag or the Oriental, or the Union or Junior, have ceased to be members of those institutions. Some have found that the seven or eight guineas required at the most critical period of the year could be spent to much better purpose; others have felt that the old associations would be too painful. But they have their clubs nevertheless. Within the last ten years clubs have become as plentiful as hotels nearly. And the enterprising City gentleman who fits up a big house with a dining and reading and smoking and morning and billiard room, and advertises the inauguration of the Pantheon Club, 'for the benefit of those gentlemen who are unable to enter the older clubs owing to their overcrowded condition,' requires names for his committee. Military Pisgans are admirably suited for this rôle. What a blessing too, that they have such a place to go to, instead of always pottering about at home, where they would be but too often in the way.
There are more troublesome things than canaries and poodles, novel-reading and invitation cards, to be attended to by the mammas and daughters of Pisgan households. Committees of ways and means; arguing with the cook who 'hasn't been accustomed' to some obviously wise little economy; softening the anger of some brow-beating creditor; twisting and turning, and 'managing,' to make old appear like new, are all matters in which the presence of a male creature is worse than useless. So there is a vague sort of tradition that papa goes to his club to write letters, and to be there if anything should turn up. And he sometimes writes a few letters, and reads all the papers, and smokes a good many pipes, and takes a sandwich and moderate tankard of beer for his lunch, and saunters down Regent Street, or drops into the British Museum Reading-room or the National Gallery—or into the India or Colonial Office, to see if 'anything is turning up.' Besides, he will give you the particulars of a review in Hyde Park, or a boat-race on the Thames, or a 'demonstration' at the 'Reformers' Tree,' just as well as the evening papers, for these are all luxuries within his reach. And in the season you will see him on the wrong side of the Row looking into the Promised Land. Time was perhaps when he too had joined a knot of laughing youths at the Corner, or seated on horseback had tapped his lackered boot with infinite self-satisfaction, or trotted along at the side of some fair creature with whom he would dance an unconscionable number of dances that same evening. He was a sub or an undergraduate at the time, and saw Fortune within his grasp; but he missed his chance, or Fortune was unkind; and gall and vinegar were his portion instead of milk and honey.
Some of the inhabitants of Mount Pisgah are fairly off, and merely live there because they find the place cheap and they are not forced into any fashionable extravagances. But this is not the case with most. Their pleasures are negative—the mere temporary absence of care. The continually recurring question, 'How shall I pay?' or 'What will it cost?' crushes every sense of comfort and ease out of them. For them is none of the happy regularity of well-to-do respectability—the wiping off of unpaid bills as regularly as Mary Jane the housemaid dusts the escritoire with its dainty pieces of Japan-work and ormolu. Not for them the pleasant little morning duties; the list for Mudie's; the tending of the conservatory; the new waltz by Godfrey; the orders for tradesmen and for dinner (the one crumpled rose-leaf perhaps, this); the afternoon shopping or visiting; the drive to Pall Mall, or the Temple, or the City, to bring papa back from his club, or his chambers, or his office; the pretty frequent theatre and concert; the weekly 'at-homes;' the friendly dances, and more elaborate balls, that are of constant occurrence when town is full. Life is very hard and ugly in Mount Pisgah. Captain Burton the great traveller, says in one of his late works that he wonders how any poor man can ever think of living in England, or any rich one out of it. If England, perhaps more so London; and it is only necessary to know a little of Mount Pisgah to learn what a fascination is exercised over some men's minds by this dear foggy, hard and tender, rich and squalid, centre of an Englishman's world, yclept London.
[SPRING SHOWERS.]
Sweet is the swart earth
After the April rain;
It will give the violets birth,
And quicken the grass in the plain.
The woodlands are dim—with dreams
Of the region they lately have left;
Like Man and his thoughts of Eden—
Of something of which he's bereft.
The stars they have left their veils
On the everlasting hills;
And angels have trodden the dales,
And spirits have touched the rills.