Books: Idle Ideas in 1905
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Jerome K. Jerome >> Idle Ideas in 1905
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12 *END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END*
This etext was produced from the 1905 Hurst and Blackett edition by
David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
IDLE IDEAS IN 1905
by Jerome K. Jerome
Contents:
Are We As Interesting As We Think We Are?
Should Women Be Beautiful?
When Is The Best Time To Be Merry?
Do We Lie A-Bed Too Late?
Should Married Men Play Golf?
Are Early Marriages A Mistake?
Do Writers Write Too Much?
Should Soldiers Be Polite?
Ought Stories To Be True?
Creatures That One Day Shall Be Men
How To Be Happy Though Little
Should We Say What We Think, Or Think What We Say?
Is The American Husband Made Entirely Of Stained Glass
Does The Young Man Know Everything Worth Knowing?
How Many Charms Hath Music, Would You Say?
The white man's burden! Need it be so heavy?
Why Didn't He Marry The Girl?
What Mrs. Wilkins thought about it
Shall We Be Ruined By Chinese Cheap Labour?
How To Solve The Servant Problem
Why We Hate The Foreigner
ARE WE AS INTERESTING AS WE THINK WE ARE?
"Charmed. Very hot weather we've been having of late--I mean cold.
Let me see, I did not quite catch your name just now. Thank you so
much. Yes, it is a bit close." And a silence falls, neither of us
being able to think what next to say.
What has happened is this: My host has met me in the doorway, and
shaken me heartily by the hand.
"So glad you were able to come," he has said. "Some friends of mine
here, very anxious to meet you." He has bustled me across the room.
"Delightful people. You'll like them--have read all your books."
He has brought me up to a stately lady, and has presented me. We
have exchanged the customary commonplaces, and she, I feel, is
waiting for me to say something clever, original and tactful. And I
don't know whether she is Presbyterian or Mormon; a Protectionist or
a Free Trader; whether she is engaged to be married or has lately
been divorced!
A friend of mine adopts the sensible plan of always providing you
with a short history of the person to whom he is about to lead you.
"I want to introduce you to a Mrs. Jones," he whispers. "Clever
woman. Wrote a book two years ago. Forget the name of it.
Something about twins. Keep away from sausages. Father ran a pork
shop in the Borough. Husband on the Stock Exchange. Keep off coke.
Unpleasantness about a company. You'll get on best by sticking to
the book. Lot in it about platonic friendship. Don't seem to be
looking too closely at her. Has a slight squint she tries to hide."
By this time we have reached the lady, and he introduces me as a
friend of his who is simply dying to know her.
"Wants to talk about your book," he explains. "Disagrees with you
entirely on the subject of platonic friendship. Sure you'll be able
to convince him."
It saves us both a deal of trouble. I start at once on platonic
friendship, and ask her questions about twins, avoiding sausages and
coke. She thinks me an unusually interesting man, and I am less
bored than otherwise I might be.
I have sometimes thought it would be a serviceable device if, in
Society, we all of us wore a neat card--pinned, say, upon our back--
setting forth such information as was necessary; our name legibly
written, and how to be pronounced; our age (not necessarily in good
faith, but for purposes of conversation. Once I seriously hurt a
German lady by demanding of her information about the Franco-German
war. She looked to me as if she could not object to being taken for
forty. It turned out she was thirty-seven. Had I not been an
Englishman I might have had to fight a duel); our religious and
political beliefs; together with a list of the subjects we were most
at home upon; and a few facts concerning our career--sufficient to
save the stranger from, what is vulgarly termed "putting his foot in
it." Before making jokes about "Dumping," or discussing the question
of Chinese Cheap Labour, one would glance behind and note whether
one's companion was ticketed "Whole-hogger," or "Pro-Boer." Guests
desirous of agreeable partners--an "agreeable person," according to
the late Lord Beaconsfield's definition, being "a person who agrees
with you"--could make their own selection.
"Excuse me. Would you mind turning round a minute? Ah, 'Wagnerian
Crank!' I am afraid we should not get on together. I prefer the
Italian school."
Or, "How delightful. I see you don't believe in vaccination. May I
take you into supper?"
Those, on the other hand, fond of argument would choose a suitable
opponent. A master of ceremonies might be provided who would stand
in the centre of the room and call for partners: "Lady with strong
views in favour of female franchise wishes to meet gentleman holding
the opinions of St. Paul. With view to argument."
An American lady, a year or two ago, wrote me a letter that did me
real good: she appreciated my work with so much understanding,
criticised it with such sympathetic interest. She added that, when
in England the summer before, she had been on the point of accepting
an invitation to meet me; but at the last moment she had changed her
mind; she felt so sure--she put it pleasantly, but this is what it
came to--that in my own proper person I should fall short of her
expectations. For my own sake I felt sorry she had cried off; it
would have been worth something to have met so sensible a woman. An
author introduced to people who have read--or who say that they have
read--his books, feels always like a man taken for the first time to
be shown to his future wife's relations. They are very pleasant.
They try to put him at his ease. But he knows instinctively they are
disappointed with him. I remember, when a very young man, attending
a party at which a famous American humorist was the chief guest. I
was standing close behind a lady who was talking to her husband.
"He doesn't look a bit funny," said the lady.
"Great Scott!" answered her husband. "How did you expect him to
look? Did you think he would have a red nose and a patch over one
eye?"
"Oh, well, he might look funnier than that, anyhow," retorted the
lady, highly dissatisfied. "It isn't worth coming for."
We all know the story of the hostess who, leaning across the table
during the dessert, requested of the funny man that he would kindly
say something amusing soon, because the dear children were waiting to
go to bed. Children, I suppose, have no use for funny people who
don't choose to be funny. I once invited a friend down to my house
for a Saturday to Monday. He is an entertaining man, and before he
came I dilated on his powers of humour--somewhat foolishly perhaps--
in the presence of a certain youthful person who resides with me, and
who listens when she oughtn't to, and never when she ought. He
happened not to be in a humorous mood that evening. My young
relation, after dinner, climbed upon my knee. For quite five minutes
she sat silent. Then she whispered:
"Has he said anything funny?"
"Hush. No, not yet; don't be silly."
Five minutes later: "Was that funny?"
"No, of course not."
"Why not?"
"Because--can't you hear? We are talking about Old Age Pensions."
"What's that?"
"Oh, it's--oh, never mind now. It isn't a subject on which one can
be funny."
"Then what's he want to talk about it for?"
She waited for another quarter of an hour. Then, evidently bored,
and much to my relief, suggested herself that she might as well go to
bed. She ran to me the next morning in the garden with an air of
triumph.
"He said something so funny last night," she told me.
"Oh, what was it?" I inquired. It seemed to me I must have missed
it.
"Well, I can't exactly 'member it," she explained, "not just at the
moment. But it was so funny. I dreamed it, you know."
For folks not Lions, but closely related to Lions, introductions must
be trying ordeals. You tell them that for years you have been
yearning to meet them. You assure them, in a voice trembling with
emotion, that this is indeed a privilege. You go on to add that when
a boy -
At this point they have to interrupt you to explain that they are not
the Mr. So-and-So, but only his cousin or his grandfather; and all
you can think of to say is: "Oh, I'm so sorry."
I had a nephew who was once the amateur long-distance bicycle
champion. I have him still, but he is stouter and has come down to a
motor car. In sporting circles I was always introduced as
"Shorland's Uncle." Close-cropped young men would gaze at me with
rapture; and then inquire: "And do you do anything yourself, Mr.
Jerome?"
But my case was not so bad as that of a friend of mine, a doctor. He
married a leading actress, and was known ever afterwards as "Miss B-
's husband."
At public dinners, where one takes one's seat for the evening next to
someone that one possibly has never met before, and is never likely
to meet again, conversation is difficult and dangerous. I remember
talking to a lady at a Vagabond Club dinner. She asked me during the
entree--with a light laugh, as I afterwards recalled--what I thought,
candidly, of the last book of a certain celebrated authoress. I told
her, and a coldness sprang up between us. She happened to be the
certain celebrated authoress; she had changed her place at the last
moment so as to avoid sitting next to another lady novelist, whom she
hated.
One has to shift oneself, sometimes, on these occasions. A newspaper
man came up to me last Ninth of November at the Mansion House.
"Would you mind changing seats with me?" he asked. "It's a bit
awkward. They've put me next to my first wife."
I had a troubled evening myself once long ago. I accompanied a young
widow lady to a musical At Home, given by a lady who had more
acquaintances than she knew. We met the butler at the top of the
stairs. My friend spoke first:
"Say Mrs. Dash and--"
The butler did not wait for more--he was a youngish man--but shouted
out:
"Mr. and Mrs. Dash."
"My dear! how very quiet you have kept!" cried our hostess delighted.
"Do let me congratulate you."
The crush was too great and our hostess too distracted at the moment
for any explanations. We were swept away, and both of us spent the
remainder of the evening feebly protesting our singleness.
If it had happened on the stage it would have taken us the whole play
to get out of it. Stage people are not allowed to put things right
when mistakes are made with their identity. If the light comedian is
expecting a plumber, the first man that comes into the drawing-room
has got to be a plumber. He is not allowed to point out that he
never was a plumber; that he doesn't look like a plumber; that no one
not an idiot would mistake him for a plumber. He has got to be shut
up in the bath-room and have water poured over him, just as if he
were a plumber--a stage plumber, that is. Not till right away at the
end of the last act is he permitted to remark that he happens to be
the new curate.
I sat out a play once at which most people laughed. It made me sad.
A dear old lady entered towards the end of the first act. We knew
she was the aunt. Nobody can possibly mistake the stage aunt--except
the people on the stage. They, of course, mistook her for a circus
rider, and shut her up in a cupboard. It is what cupboards seem to
be reserved for on the stage. Nothing is ever put in them excepting
the hero's relations. When she wasn't in the cupboard she was in a
clothes basket, or tied up in a curtain. All she need have done was
to hold on to something while remarking to the hero:
"If you'll stop shouting and jumping about for just ten seconds, and
give me a chance to observe that I am your maiden aunt from
Devonshire, all this tomfoolery can be avoided."
That would have ended it. As a matter of fact that did end it five
minutes past eleven. It hadn't occurred to her to say it before.
In real life I never knew but of one case where a man suffered in
silence unpleasantness he could have ended with a word; and that was
the case of the late Corney Grain. He had been engaged to give his
entertainment at a country house. The lady was a nouvelle riche of
snobbish instincts. She left instructions that Corney Grain when he
arrived was to dine with the servants. The butler, who knew better,
apologised; but Corney was a man not easily disconcerted. He dined
well, and after dinner rose and addressed the assembled company.
"Well, now, my good friends," said Corney, "if we have all finished,
and if you are all agreeable, I shall be pleased to present to you my
little show."
The servants cheered. The piano was dispensed with. Corney
contrived to amuse his audience very well for half-an-hour without
it. At ten o'clock came down a message: Would Mr. Corney Grain come
up into the drawing-room. Corney went. The company in the drawing-
room were waiting, seated.
"We are ready, Mr. Grain," remarked the hostess.
"Ready for what?" demanded Corney.
"For your entertainment," answered the hostess.
"But I have given it already," explained Corney; "and my engagement
was for one performance only."
"Given it! Where? When?"
"An hour ago, downstairs."
"But this is nonsense," exclaimed the hostess.
"It seemed to me somewhat unusual," Corney replied; "but it has
always been my privilege to dine with the company I am asked to
entertain. I took it you had arranged a little treat for the
servants."
And Corney left to catch his train.
Another entertainer told me the following story, although a joke
against himself. He and Corney Grain were sharing a cottage on the
river. A man called early one morning to discuss affairs, and was
talking to Corney in the parlour, which was on the ground floor. The
window was open. The other entertainer--the man who told me the
story--was dressing in the room above. Thinking he recognised the
voice of the visitor below, he leant out of his bedroom window to
hear better. He leant too far, and dived head foremost into a bed of
flowers, his bare legs--and only his bare legs--showing through the
open window of the parlour.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the visitor, turning at the moment and
seeing a pair of wriggling legs above the window sill; "who's that?"
Corney fixed his eyeglass and strolled to the window.
"Oh, it's only What's-his-name," he explained. "Wonderful spirits.
Can be funny in the morning."
SHOULD WOMEN BE BEAUTIFUL?
Pretty women are going to have a hard time of it later on. Hitherto,
they have had things far too much their own way. In the future there
are going to be no pretty girls, for the simple reason there will be
no plain girls against which to contrast them. Of late I have done
some systematic reading of ladies' papers. The plain girl submits to
a course of "treatment." In eighteen months she bursts upon Society
an acknowledged beauty. And it is all done by kindness. One girl
writes:
"Only a little while ago I used to look at myself in the glass and
cry. Now I look at myself and laugh."
The letter is accompanied by two photographs of the young lady. I
should have cried myself had I seen her as she was at first. She was
a stumpy, flat-headed, squat-nosed, cross-eyed thing. She did not
even look good. One virtue she appears to have had, however. It was
faith. She believed what the label said, she did what the label told
her. She is now a tall, ravishing young person, her only trouble
being, I should say, to know what to do with her hair--it reaches to
her knees and must be a nuisance to her. She would do better to give
some of it away. Taking this young lady as a text, it means that the
girl who declines to be a dream of loveliness does so out of
obstinacy. What the raw material may be does not appear to matter.
Provided no feature is absolutely missing, the result is one and the
same.
Arrived at years of discretion, the maiden proceeds to choose the
style of beauty she prefers. Will she be a Juno, a Venus, or a
Helen? Will she have a Grecian nose, or one tip-tilted like the
petal of a rose? Let her try the tip-tilted style first. The
professor has an idea it is going to be fashionable. If afterwards
she does not like it, there will be time to try the Grecian. It is
difficult to decide these points without experiment.
Would the lady like a high or a low forehead? Some ladies like to
look intelligent. It is purely a matter of taste. With the Grecian
nose, the low broad forehead perhaps goes better. It is more
according to precedent. On the other hand, the high brainy forehead
would be more original. It is for the lady herself to select.
We come to the question of eyes. The lady fancies a delicate blue,
not too pronounced a colour--one of those useful shades that go with
almost everything. At the same time there should be depth and
passion. The professor understands exactly the sort of eye the lady
means. But it will be expensive. There is a cheap quality; the
professor does not recommend it. True that it passes muster by
gaslight, but the sunlight shows it up. It lacks tenderness, and at
the price you can hardly expect it to contain much hidden meaning.
The professor advises the melting, Oh-George-take-me-in-your-arms-
and-still-my-foolish-fears brand. It costs a little more, but it
pays for itself in the end.
Perhaps it will be best, now the eye has been fixed upon, to discuss
the question of the hair. The professor opens his book of patterns.
Maybe the lady is of a wilful disposition. She loves to run laughing
through the woods during exceptionally rainy weather; or to gallop
across the downs without a hat, her fair ringlets streaming in the
wind, the old family coachman panting and expostulating in the rear.
If one may trust the popular novel, extremely satisfactory husbands
have often been secured in this way. You naturally look at a girl
who is walking through a wood, laughing heartily apparently for no
other reason than because it is raining--who rides at stretch gallop
without a hat. If you have nothing else to do, you follow her. It
is always on the cards that such a girl may do something really
amusing before she gets home. Thus things begin.
To a girl of this kind, naturally curly hair is essential. It must
be the sort of hair that looks better when it is soaking wet. The
bottle of stuff that makes this particular hair to grow may be
considered dear, if you think merely of the price. But that is not
the way to look at it. "What is it going to do for me?" That is
what the girl has got to ask herself. It does not do to spoil the
ship for a ha'porth of tar, as the saying is. If you are going to be
a dashing, wilful beauty, you must have the hair for it, or the whole
scheme falls to the ground.
Eyebrows and eyelashes, the professor assumes, the lady would like to
match the hair. Too much eccentricity the professor does not agree
with. Nature, after all, is the best guide; neatness combined with
taste, that is the ideal to be aimed at. The eyebrows should be
almost straight, the professor thinks; the eyelashes long and silky,
with just the suspicion of a curl. The professor would also suggest
a little less cheekbone. Cheekbones are being worn low this season.
Will the lady have a dimpled chin, or does she fancy the square-cut
jaw? Maybe the square-cut jaw and the firm, sweet mouth are more
suitable for the married woman. They go well enough with the baby
and the tea-urn, and the strong, proud man in the background. For
the unmarried girl the dimpled chin and the rosebud mouth are,
perhaps, on the whole safer. Some gentlemen are so nervous of that
firm, square jaw. For the present, at all events, let us keep to the
rosebud and the dimple.
Complexion! Well, there is only one complexion worth considering--a
creamy white, relieved by delicate peach pink. It goes with
everything, and is always effective. Rich olives, striking pallors--
yes, you hear of these things doing well. The professor's
experience, however, is that for all-round work you will never
improve upon the plain white and pink. It is less liable to get out
of order, and is the easiest at all times to renew.
For the figure, the professor recommends something lithe and supple.
Five foot four is a good height, but that is a point that should be
discussed first with the dressmaker. For trains, five foot six is,
perhaps, preferable. But for the sporting girl, who has to wear
short frocks, that height would, of course, be impossible.
The bust and the waist are also points on which the dressmaker should
be consulted. Nothing should be done in a hurry. What is the
fashion going to be for the next two or three seasons? There are
styles demanding that beginning at the neck you should curve out,
like a pouter pigeon. There is apparently no difficulty whatever in
obtaining this result. But if crinolines, for instance, are likely
to come in again! The lady has only to imagine it for herself: the
effect might be grotesque, suggestive of a walking hour-glass. So,
too, with the waist. For some fashions it is better to have it just
a foot from the neck. At other times it is more useful lower down.
The lady will kindly think over these details and let the professor
know. While one is about it, one may as well make a sound job.
It is all so simple, and, when you come to think of it, really not
expensive. Age, apparently, makes no difference. A woman is as old
as she looks. In future, I take it, there will be no ladies over
five-and-twenty. Wrinkles! Why any lady should still persist in
wearing them is a mystery to me. With a moderate amount of care any
middle-class woman could save enough out of the housekeeping money in
a month to get rid of every one of them. Grey hair! Well, of
course, if you cling to grey hair, there is no more to be said. But
to ladies who would just as soon have rich wavy-brown or a delicate
shade of gold, I would point out that there are one hundred and
forty-seven inexpensive lotions on the market, any one of which,
rubbed gently into the head with a tooth-brush (not too hard) just
before going to bed will, to use a colloquialism, do the trick.
Are you too stout, or are you too thin? All you have to do is to say
which, and enclose stamps. But do not make a mistake and send for
the wrong recipe. If you are already too thin, you might in
consequence suddenly disappear before you found out your mistake.
One very stout lady I knew worked at herself for eighteen months and
got stouter every day. This discouraged her so much that she gave up
trying. No doubt she had made a muddle and had sent for the wrong
bottle, but she would not listen to further advice. She said she was
tired of the whole thing.
In future years there will be no need for a young man to look about
him for a wife; he will take the nearest girl, tell her his ideal,
and, if she really care for him, she will go to the shop and have
herself fixed up to his pattern. In certain Eastern countries, I
believe, something of this kind is done. A gentleman desirous of
adding to his family sends round the neighbourhood the weight and
size of his favourite wife, hinting that if another can be found of
the same proportions, there is room for her. Fathers walk round
among their daughters, choose the most likely specimen, and have her
fattened up. That is their brutal Eastern way. Out West we shall be
more delicate. Match-making mothers will probably revive the old
confession book. Eligible bachelors will be invited to fill in a
page: "Your favourite height in women," "Your favourite measurement
round the waist," "Do you like brunettes or blondes?"
The choice will be left to the girls.
"I do think Henry William just too sweet for words," the maiden of
the future will murmur to herself. Gently, coyly, she will draw from
him his ideal of what a woman should be. In from six months to a
year she will burst upon him, the perfect She; height, size, weight,
right to a T. He will clasp her in his arms.
"At last," he will cry, "I have found her, the woman of my dreams."
And if he does not change his mind, and the bottles do not begin to
lose their effect, there will be every chance that they will be happy
ever afterwards.
Might not Science go even further? Why rest satisfied with making a
world of merely beautiful women? Cannot Science, while she is about
it, make them all good at the same time. I do not apologise for the
suggestion. I used to think all women beautiful and good. It is
their own papers that have disillusioned me. I used to look at this
lady or at that--shyly, when nobody seemed to be noticing me--and
think how fair she was, how stately. Now I only wonder who is her
chemist.
They used to tell me, when I was a little boy, that girls were made
of sugar and spice. I know better now. I have read the recipes in
the Answers to Correspondents.
When I was quite a young man I used to sit in dark corners and
listen, with swelling heart, while people at the piano told me where
little girl babies got their wonderful eyes from, of the things they
did to them in heaven that gave them dimples. Ah me! I wish now I
had never come across those ladies' papers. I know the stuff that
causes those bewitching eyes. I know the shop where they make those
dimples; I have passed it and looked in. I thought they were
produced by angels' kisses, but there was not an angel about the
place, that I could see. Perhaps I have also been deceived as
regards their goodness. Maybe all women are not so perfect as in the
popular short story they appear to be. That is why I suggest that
Science should proceed still further, and make them all as beautiful
in mind as she is now able to make them in body. May we not live to
see in the advertisement columns of the ladies' paper of the future
the portrait of a young girl sulking in a corner--"Before taking the
lotion!" The same girl dancing among her little brothers and
sisters, shedding sunlight through the home--"After the three first
bottles!" May we not have the Caudle Mixture: One tablespoonful at
bed-time guaranteed to make the lady murmur, "Good-night, dear; hope
you'll sleep well," and at once to fall asleep, her lips parted in a
smile? Maybe some specialist of the future will advertise Mind
Massage: "Warranted to remove from the most obstinate subject all
traces of hatred, envy, and malice."
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