On (Essays Collection). Hilaire Belloc

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СКАЧАТЬ illuminating I ever heard, was in a train going to the West Country and stopping first at Swindon.

      It passed between two men who sat in corners facing each other.

      The one was stout, tall, and dressed in a tweed suit. He had a gold watch-chain with a little ornament on it representing a pair of compasses and a square. His beard was brown and soft. His eyes were very sodden. When he got in he first wrapped a rug round and round his legs, then he took off his top hat and put on a cloth cap, then he sat down.

      The other also wore a tweed suit and was also stout, but he was not so tall. His watch-chain also was of gold (but of a different pattern, paler, and with no ornament hung on it). His eyes also were sodden. He had no rug. He also took off his hat but put no cap upon his head. I noticed that he was rather bald, and in the middle of his baldness was a kind of little knob. For the purposes of this record, therefore, I shall give him the name "Bald," while I shall call the other man "Cap."

      I have forgotten, by the way, to tell you that Bald had a very large nose, at the end of which a great number of little veins had congested and turned quite blue.

      CAP (shuts up Levy's paper, "The Daily Telegraph," and opens Harmsworth's "Daily Mail," Shuts that up and looks fixedly at BALD): I ask your pardon … but isn't your name Binder?

      BALD (his eyes still quite sodden): That is my name. Binder's my name. (He coughs to show breeding.) Why! (his eyes getting a trifle less sodden) if you aren't Mr. Mowle! Well, Mr. Mowle, sir, how are you?

      CAP (with some dignity): Very well, thank you, Mr. Binder. How, how's Mrs. Binder and the kids? All blooming?

      BALD: Why, yes, thank you, Mr. Mowle, but Mrs. Binder still has those attacks (shaking his head). Abdominal (continuing to shake his head). Gastric. Something cruel.

      CAP: They do suffer cruel, as you say, do women, Mr. Binder (shaking his head too—but more slightly). This indigestion—ah!

      BALD (more brightly): Not married yet, Mr. Mowle?

      CAP (contentedly and rather stolidly): No, Mr. Binder. Nor not inclined to neither. (Draws a great breath.) I'm a single man, Mr. Binder, and intend so to adhere. (A pause to think.) That's what I call (a further pause to get the right phrase) "single blessedness." Yes, (another deep breath) I find life worth living, Mr. Binder.

      BALD (with great cunning): That depends upon the liver. (Roars with laughter.)

      CAP (laughing a good deal too, but not so much as BALD): Ar! That was young Cobbler's joke in times gone by.

      BALD (politely): Ever see young Cobbler now, Mr. Mowle?

      CAP (with importance): Why yes, Mr. Binder; I met him at the Thersites' Lodge down Brixham way—only the other day. Wonderful brilliant he was … well, there … (his tone changes) he was sitting next to me—(thoughtfully)—as, might be here—(putting Harmsworth's paper down to represent Young Cobbler)—and here like, would be Lord Haltingtowres.

      BALD (his manner suddenly becoming very serious): He's a fine man, he is! One of those men I respect.

      CAP (with still greater seriousness): You may say that, Mr. Binder. No respecter of persons—talks to me or you or any of them just the same.

      BALD (vaguely): Yes, they're a fine lot! (Suddenly) So's Charlie Beresford!

      CAP (with more enthusiasm than he had yet shown): I say ditto to that, Mr. Binder! (Thinking for a few moments of the characteristics of Lord Charles Beresford.) It's pluck—that's what it is—regular British pluck (Grimly) That's the kind of man—no favouritism.

      BALD: Ar! it's a case of "Well done, Condor!"

      CAP: Ar! you're right there, Mr. Binder.

      BALD (suddenly pulling a large flask out of his pocket and speaking very rapidly): Well, here's yours, Mr. Mowle. (He drinks out of it a quantity of neat whisky, and having drunk it rubs the top of his flask with his sleeve and hands it over politely to) CAP.

      Cap (having drunk a lot of neat whisky also, rubbed his sleeve over it, screwed on the little top and giving that long gasp which the occasion demands): Yes, you're right there—"Well done. Condor."

      At this point the train began to go slowly, and just as it stopped at the station I heard Cap begin again, asking Bald on what occasion and for what services Lord Charles Beresford had been given his title.

      Full of the marvels of this conversation I got out, went into the waiting-room and wrote it all down. I think I have it accurately word for word.

      But there happened to me what always happens after all literary effort; the enthusiasm vanished, the common day was before me. I went out to do my work in the place and to meet quite ordinary people and to forget, perhaps, (so strong is Time) the fantastic beings in the train. In a word, to quote Mr. Binyon's admirable lines:

      "The world whose wrong

       Mocks holy beauty and our desire returned."

      ON THE RETURN OF THE DEAD

       Table of Contents

      The reason the Dead do not return nowadays is the boredom of it.

      In the old time they would come casually, as suited them, without fuss and thinly, as it were, which is their nature; but when such visits were doubted even by those who received them and when new and false names were given them the Dead did not find it worth while. It was always a trouble; they did it really more for our sakes than for theirs and they would be recognised or stay where they were.

      I am not certain that they might not have changed with the times and come frankly and positively, as some urged them to do, had it not been for Rabelais' failure towards the end of the Boer war. Rabelais (it will be remembered) appeared in London at the very beginning of the season in 1902. Everybody knows one part of the story or another, but if I put down the gist of it here I shall be of service, for very few people have got it quite right all through, and yet that story alone can explain why one cannot get the dead to come back at all now even in the old doubtful way they did in the '80's and early '90's of the last century.

      There is a place in heaven where a group of writers have put up a colonnade on a little hill looking south over the plains. There are thrones there with the names of the owners on them. It is a sort of Club.

      Rabelais was quarrelling with some fool who had missed fire with a medium and was saying that the modern world wanted positive unmistakable appearances: he said he ought to know, because he had begun the modern world. Lucian said it would fail just as much as any other way; Rabelais hotly said it wouldn't. He said he would come to London and lecture at the London School of Economics and establish a good solid objective relationship between the two worlds. Lucian said it would end badly. Rabelais, who had been drinking, lost his temper and did at once what he had only been boasting he would do. He materialised at some expense, and he announced his lecture. Then the trouble began, and I am honestly of opinion that if we had treated the experiment more decently we should not have this recent reluctance on the part of the Dead to pay us reasonable attention.

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