Books: Idle Ideas in 1905
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Jerome K. Jerome >> Idle Ideas in 1905
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But as I explained at the beginning, my friend is a mad sort of
person.
IS THE AMERICAN HUSBAND MADE ENTIRELY OF STAINED GLASS.
I am glad I am not an American husband. At first sight this may
appear a remark uncomplimentary to the American wife. It is nothing
of the sort. It is the other way about. We, in Europe, have plenty
of opportunity of judging the American wife. In America you hear of
the American wife, you are told stories about the American wife, you
see her portrait in the illustrated journals. By searching under the
heading "Foreign Intelligence," you can find out what she is doing.
But here in Europe we know her, meet her face to face, talk to her,
flirt with her. She is charming, delightful. That is why I say I am
glad I am not an American husband. If the American husband only knew
how nice was the American wife, he would sell his business and come
over here, where now and then he could see her.
Years ago, when I first began to travel about Europe, I argued to
myself that America must be a deadly place to live in. How sad it
is, I thought to myself, to meet thus, wherever one goes, American
widows by the thousand. In one narrow by-street of Dresden I
calculated fourteen American mothers, possessing nine-and-twenty
American children, and not a father among them--not a single husband
among the whole fourteen. I pictured fourteen lonely graves,
scattered over the United States. I saw as in a vision those
fourteen head-stones of best material, hand-carved, recording the
virtues of those fourteen dead and buried husbands.
Odd, thought I to myself, decidedly odd. These American husbands,
they must be a delicate type of humanity. The wonder is their
mothers ever reared them. They marry fine girls, the majority of
them; two or three sweet children are born to them, and after that
there appears to be no further use for them, as far as this world is
concerned. Can nothing be done to strengthen their constitutions?
Would a tonic be of any help to them? Not the customary tonic, I
don't mean, the sort of tonic merely intended to make gouty old
gentlemen feel they want to buy a hoop, but the sort of tonic for
which it was claimed that three drops poured upon a ham sandwich and
the thing would begin to squeak.
It struck me as pathetic, the picture of these American widows
leaving their native land, coming over in shiploads to spend the rest
of their blighted lives in exile. The mere thought of America, I
took it, had for ever become to them distasteful. The ground that
once his feet had pressed! The old familiar places once lighted by
his smile! Everything in America would remind them of him.
Snatching their babes to their heaving bosoms they would leave the
country where lay buried all the joy of their lives, seek in the
retirement of Paris, Florence or Vienna, oblivion of the past.
Also, it struck me as beautiful, the noble resignation with which
they bore their grief, hiding their sorrow from the indifferent
stranger. Some widows make a fuss, go about for weeks looking gloomy
and depressed, making not the slightest effort to be merry. These
fourteen widows--I knew them personally, all of them, I lived in the
same street--what a brave show of cheerfulness they put on! What a
lesson to the common or European widow, the humpy type of widow! One
could spend whole days in their company--I had done it--commencing
quite early in the morning with a sleighing excursion, finishing up
quite late in the evening with a little supper party, followed by an
impromptu dance; and never detect from their outward manner that they
were not thoroughly enjoying themselves.
From the mothers I turned my admiring eyes towards the children.
This is the secret of American success, said I to myself; this high-
spirited courage, this Spartan contempt for suffering. Look at them!
the gallant little men and women. Who would think that they had lost
a father? Why, I have seen a British child more upset at losing
sixpence.
Talking to a little girl one day, I enquired of her concerning the
health of her father. The next moment I could have bitten my tongue
out, remembering that there wasn't such a thing as a father--not an
American father--in the whole street. She did not burst into tears
as they do in the story-books. She said:
"He is quite well, thank you," simply, pathetically, just like that.
"I am sure of it," I replied with fervour, "well and happy as he
deserves to be, and one day you will find him again; you will go to
him."
"Ah, yes," she answered, a shining light, it seemed to me, upon her
fair young face. "Momma says she is getting just a bit tired of this
one-horse sort of place. She is quite looking forward to seeing him
again."
It touched me very deeply: this weary woman, tired of her long
bereavement, actually looking forward to the fearsome passage leading
to where her loved one waited for her in a better land.
For one bright breezy creature I grew to feel a real regard. All the
months that I had known her, seen her almost daily, never once had I
heard a single cry of pain escape her lips, never once had I heard
her cursing fate. Of the many who called upon her in her charming
flat, not one had ever, to my knowledge, offered her consolation or
condolence. It seemed to me cruel, callous. The over-burdened
heart, finding no outlet for its imprisoned grief, finding no
sympathetic ear into which to pour its tale of woe, breaks, we are
told; anyhow, it isn't good for it. I decided--no one else seeming
keen--that I would supply that sympathetic ear. The very next time I
found myself alone with her I introduced the subject.
"You have been living here in Dresden a long time, have you not?" I
asked.
"About five years," she answered, "on and off."
"And all alone," I commented, with a sigh intended to invite to
confidence.
"Well, hardly alone," she corrected me, while a look of patient
resignation added dignity to her piquant features. "You see, there
are the dear children always round about me, during the holidays."
"Besides," she added, "the people here are real kind to me; they
hardly ever let me feel myself alone. We make up little parties, you
know, picnics and excursions. And then, of course, there is the
Opera and the Symphony Concerts, and the subscription dances. The
dear old king has been doing a good deal this winter, too; and I must
say the Embassy folks have been most thoughtful, so far as I am
concerned. No, it would not be right for me to complain of
loneliness, not now that I have got to know a few people, as it
were."
"But don't you miss your husband?" I suggested.
A cloud passed over her usually sunny face. "Oh, please don't talk
of him," she said, "it makes me feel real sad, thinking about him."
But having commenced, I was determined that my sympathy should not be
left to waste.
"What did he die of?" I asked.
She gave me a look the pathos of which I shall never forget.
"Say, young man," she cried, "are you trying to break it to me
gently? Because if so, I'd rather you told me straight out. What
did he die of?"
"Then isn't he dead?" I asked, "I mean so far as you know."
"Never heard a word about his being dead till you started the idea,"
she retorted. "So far as I know he's alive and well."
I said that I was sorry. I went on to explain that I did not mean I
was sorry to hear that in all probability he was alive and well.
What I meant was I was sorry I had introduced a painful subject.
"What's a painful subject?"
"Why, your husband," I replied.
"But why should you call him a painful subject?"
I had an idea she was getting angry with me. She did not say so. I
gathered it. But I had to explain myself somehow.
"Well," I answered, "I take it, you didn't get on well together, and
I am sure it must have been his fault."
"Now look here," she said, "don't you breathe a word against my
husband or we shall quarrel. A nicer, dearer fellow never lived."
"Then what did you divorce him for?" I asked. It was impertinent, it
was unjustifiable. My excuse is that the mystery surrounding the
American husband had been worrying me for months. Here had I
stumbled upon the opportunity of solving it. Instinctively I clung
to my advantage.
"There hasn't been any divorce," she said. "There isn't going to be
any divorce. You'll make me cross in another minute."
But I was becoming reckless. "He is not dead. You are not divorced
from him. Where is he?" I demanded with some heat.
"Where is he?" she replied, astonished. Where should he be? At
home, of course." I looked around the luxuriously-furnished room
with its air of cosy comfort, of substantial restfulness.
"What home?" I asked.
"What home! Why, our home, in Detroit."
"What is he doing there?" I had become so much in earnest that my
voice had assumed unconsciously an authoritative tone. Presumably,
it hypnotised her, for she answered my questions as though she had
been in the witness-box.
"How do I know? How can I possibly tell you what he is doing? What
do people usually do at home?"
"Answer the questions, madam, don't ask them. What are you doing
here? Quite truthfully, if you please." My eyes were fixed upon
her.
"Enjoying myself. He likes me to enjoy myself. Besides, I am
educating the children."
"You mean they are here at boarding-school while you are gadding
about. What is wrong with American education? When did you see your
husband last?"
"Last? Let me see. No, last Christmas I was in Berlin. It must
have been the Christmas before, I think."
"If he is the dear kind fellow you say he is, how is it you haven't
seen him for two years?"
"Because, as I tell you, he is at home, in Detroit. How can I see
him when I am here in Dresden and he is in Detroit? You do ask
foolish questions. He means to try and come over in the summer, if
he can spare the time, and then, of course -
"Answer my questions, please. I've spoken to you once about it. Do
you think you are performing your duty as a wife, enjoying yourself
in Dresden and Berlin while your husband is working hard in Detroit?"
"He was quite willing for me to come. The American husband is a good
fellow who likes his wife to enjoy herself."
"I am not asking for your views on the American husband. I am asking
your views on the American wife--on yourself. The American husband
appears to be a sort of stained-glass saint, and you American wives
are imposing upon him. It is doing you no good, and it won't go on
for ever. There will come a day when the American husband will wake
up to the fact he is making a fool of himself, and by over-
indulgence, over-devotion, turning the American woman into a
heartless, selfish creature. What sort of a home do you think it is
in Detroit, with you and the children over here? Tell me, is the
American husband made entirely of driven snow, with blood distilled
from moonbeams, or is he composed of the ordinary ingredients?
Because, if the latter, you take my advice and get back home. I take
it that in America, proper, there are millions of real homes where
the woman does her duty and plays the game. But also it is quite
clear there are thousands of homes in America, mere echoing rooms,
where the man walks by himself, his wife and children scattered over
Europe. It isn't going to work, it isn't right that it should work."
"You take the advice of a sincere friend. Pack up--you and the
children--and get home."
I left. It was growing late. I felt it was time to leave. Whether
she took my counsel I cannot say. I only know that there still
remain in Europe a goodly number of American wives to whom it is
applicable.
DOES THE YOUNG MAN KNOW EVERYTHING WORTH KNOWING?
I am told that American professors are "mourning the lack of ideals"
at Columbia University--possibly also at other universities scattered
through the United States. If it be any consolation to these
mourning American professors, I can assure them that they do not
mourn alone. I live not far from Oxford, and enjoy the advantage of
occasionally listening to the jeremiads of English University
professors. More than once a German professor has done me the honour
to employ me as an object on which to sharpen his English. He also
has mourned similar lack of ideals at Heidelberg, at Bonn. Youth is
youth all the world over; it has its own ideals; they are not those
of the University professor. The explanation is tolerably simple.
Youth is young, and the University professor, generally speaking, is
middle-aged.
I can sympathise with the mourning professor. I, in my time, have
suffered like despair. I remember the day so well; it was my twelfth
birthday. I recall the unholy joy with which I reflected that for
the future my unfortunate parents would be called upon to pay for me
full railway fare; it marked a decided step towards manhood. I was
now in my teens. That very afternoon there came to visit us a
relative of ours. She brought with her three small children: a
girl, aged six; a precious, golden-haired thing in a lace collar that
called itself a boy, aged five; and a third still smaller creature,
it might have been male, it might have been female; I could not have
told you at the time, I cannot tell you now. This collection of
atoms was handed over to me.
"Now, show yourself a man," said my dear mother, "remember you are in
your teens. Take them out for a walk and amuse them; and mind
nothing happens to them."
To the children themselves their own mother gave instructions that
they were to do everything that I told them, and not to tear their
clothes or make themselves untidy. These directions, even to myself,
at the time, appeared contradictory. But I said nothing. And out
into the wilds the four of us departed.
I was an only child. My own infancy had passed from my memory. To
me, at twelve, the ideas of six were as incomprehensible as are those
of twenty to the University professor of forty. I wanted to be a
pirate. Round the corner and across the road building operations
were in progress. Planks and poles lay ready to one's hand. Nature,
in the neighbourhood, had placed conveniently a shallow pond. It was
Saturday afternoon. The nearest public-house was a mile away.
Immunity from interference by the British workman was thus assured.
It occurred to me that by placing my three depressed looking
relatives on one raft, attacking them myself from another, taking the
eldest girl's sixpence away from her, disabling their raft, and
leaving them to drift without a rudder, innocent amusement would be
provided for half an hour at least.
They did not want to play at pirates. At first sight of the pond the
thing that called itself a boy began to cry. The six-year-old lady
said she did not like the smell of it. Not even after I had
explained the game to them were they any the more enthusiastic for
it.
I proposed Red Indians. They could go to sleep in the unfinished
building upon a sack of lime, I would creep up through the grass, set
fire to the house, and dance round it, whooping and waving my
tomahawk, watching with fiendish delight the frantic but futile
efforts of the palefaces to escape their doom.
It did not "catch on"--not even that. The precious thing in the lace
collar began to cry again. The creature concerning whom I could not
have told you whether it was male or female made no attempt at
argument, but started to run; it seemed to have taken a dislike to
this particular field. It stumbled over a scaffolding pole, and then
it also began to cry. What could one do to amuse such people? I
left it to them to propose something. They thought they would like
to play at "Mothers"--not in this field, but in some other field.
The eldest girl would be mother. The other two would represent her
children. They had been taken suddenly ill. "Waterworks," as I had
christened him, was to hold his hands to his middle and groan. His
face brightened up at the suggestion. The nondescript had the
toothache. It took up its part without a moment's hesitation, and
set to work to scream. I could be the doctor and look at their
tongues.
That was their "ideal" game. As I have said, remembering that
afternoon, I can sympathise with the University professor mourning
the absence of University ideals in youth. Possibly at six my own
ideal game may have been "Mothers." Looking back from the pile of
birthdays upon which I now stand, it occurs to me that very probably
it was. But from the perspective of twelve, the reflection that
there were beings in the world who could find recreation in such
fooling saddened me.
Eight years later, his father not being able to afford the time, I
conducted Master "Waterworks," now a healthy, uninteresting, gawky
lad, to a school in Switzerland. It was my first Continental trip.
I should have enjoyed it better had he not been with me. He thought
Paris a "beastly hole." He did not share my admiration for the
Frenchwoman; he even thought her badly dressed.
"Why she's so tied up, she can't walk straight," was the only
impression she left upon him.
We changed the subject; it irritated me to hear him talk. The
beautiful Juno-like creatures we came across further on in Germany,
he said were too fat. He wanted to see them run. I found him
utterly soulless.
To expect a boy to love learning and culture is like expecting him to
prefer old vintage claret to gooseberry wine. Culture for the
majority is an acquired taste. Speaking personally, I am entirely in
agreement with the University professor. I find knowledge, prompting
to observation and leading to reflection, the most satisfactory
luggage with which a traveller through life can provide himself. I
would that I had more of it. To be able to enjoy a picture is of
more advantage than to be able to buy it.
All that the University professor can urge in favour of idealism I am
prepared to endorse. But then I am--let us say, thirty-nine. At
fourteen my candid opinion was that he was talking "rot." I looked
at the old gentleman himself--a narrow-chested, spectacled old
gentleman, who lived up a by street. He did not seem to have much
fun of any sort. It was not my ideal. He told me things had been
written in a language called Greek that I should enjoy reading, but I
had not even read all Captain Marryat. There were tales by Sir
Walter Scott and "Jack Harkaway's Schooldays!" I felt I could wait a
while. There was a chap called Aristophanes who had written
comedies, satirising the political institutions of a country that had
disappeared two thousand years ago. I say, without shame, Drury Lane
pantomime and Barnum's Circus called to me more strongly.
Wishing to give the old gentleman a chance, I dipped into
translations. Some of these old fellows were not as bad as I had
imagined them. A party named Homer had written some really
interesting stuff. Here and there, maybe, he was a bit long-winded,
but, taking him as a whole, there was "go" in him. There was another
of them--Ovid was his name. He could tell a story, Ovid could. He
had imagination. He was almost as good as "Robinson Crusoe." I
thought it would please my professor, telling him that I was reading
these, his favourite authors.
"Reading them!" he cried, "but you don't know Greek or Latin."
"But I know English," I answered; "they have all been translated into
English. You never told me that!"
It appeared it was not the same thing. There were subtle delicacies
of diction bound to escape even the best translator. These subtle
delicacies of diction I could enjoy only by devoting the next seven
or eight years of my life to the study of Greek and Latin. It will
grieve the University professor to hear it, but the enjoyment of
those subtle delicacies of diction did not appear to me--I was only
fourteen at the time, please remember--to be worth the time and
trouble.
The boy is materially inclined--the mourning American professor has
discovered it. I did not want to be an idealist living up a back
street. I wanted to live in the biggest house in the best street of
the town. I wanted to ride a horse, wear a fur coat, and have as
much to eat and drink as ever I liked. I wanted to marry the most
beautiful woman in the world, to have my name in the newspaper, and
to know that everybody was envying me.
Mourn over it, my dear professor, as you will--that is the ideal of
youth; and, so long as human nature remains what it is, will continue
to be so. It is a materialistic ideal--a sordid ideal. Maybe it is
necessary. Maybe the world would not move much if the young men
started thinking too early. They want to be rich, so they fling
themselves frenziedly into the struggle. They build the towns, and
make the railway tracks, hew down the forests, dig the ore out of the
ground. There comes a day when it is borne in upon them that trying
to get rich is a poor sort of game--that there is only one thing more
tiresome than being a millionaire, and that is trying to be a
millionaire. But, meanwhile, the world has got its work done.
The American professor fears that the artistic development of America
leaves much to be desired. I fear the artistic development of most
countries leaves much to be desired. Why the Athenians themselves
sandwiched their drama between wrestling competitions and boxing
bouts. The plays of Sophocles, or Euripides, were given as "side
shows." The chief items of the fair were the games and races.
Besides, America is still a young man. It has been busy "getting on
in the world." It has not yet quite finished. Yet there are signs
that young America is approaching the thirty-nines. He is finding a
little time, a little money to spare for art. One can almost hear
young America--not quite so young as he was--saying to Mrs. Europe as
he enters and closes the shop door:
"Well, ma'am, here I am, and maybe you'll be glad to hear I've a
little money to spend. Yes, ma'am, I've fixed things all right
across the water; we shan't starve. So now, ma'am, you and I can
have a chat concerning this art I've been hearing so much about.
Let's have a look at it, ma'am, trot it out, and don't you be afraid
of putting a fair price upon it."
I am inclined to think that Mrs. Europe has not hesitated to put a
good price upon the art she has sold to Uncle Sam. I am afraid Mrs.
Europe has occasionally "unloaded" on Uncle Sam. I talked to a
certain dealer one afternoon, now many years ago, at the Uwantit
Club.
"What is the next picture likely to be missing?" I asked him in the
course of general conversation.
"Thome little thing of Hoppner'th, if it mutht be," he replied with
confidence.
"Hoppner," I murmured, "I seem to have heard the name."
"Yeth; you'll hear it a bit oftener during the next eighteen month or
tho. You take care you don't get tired of hearing it, thath all," he
laughed. "Yeth," he continued, thoughtfully, "Reynoldth ith played
out. Nothing much to be made of Gainthborough, either. Dealing in
that lot now, why, it'th like keeping a potht offith. Hoppner'th the
coming man."
"You've been buying Hoppners up cheap," I suggested.
"Between uth," he answered, "yeth, I think we've got them all. Maybe
a few more. I don't think we've mithed any."
"You will sell them for more than you gave for them," I hinted.
"You're thmart," he answered, regarding me admiringly, "you thee
through everything you do."
"How do you work it?" I asked him. There is a time in the day when
he is confidential. "Here is this man, Hoppner. I take it that you
have bought him up at an average of a hundred pounds a picture, and
that at that price most owners were fairly glad to sell. Few folks
outside the art schools have ever heard of him. I bet that at the
present moment there isn't one art critic who could spell his name
without reference to a dictionary. In eighteen months you will be
selling him for anything from one thousand to ten thousand pounds.
How is it done?"
"How ith everything done that'th done well?" he answered. "By
earnetht effort." He hitched his chair nearer to me, "I get a chap--
one of your thort of chapth--he writ'th an article about Hoppner. I
get another to anthwer him. Before I've done there'll be a hundred
articleth about Hoppner--hith life, hith early thruggie, anecdo'th
about hith wife. Then a Hoppner will be thold at public auchtion for
a thouthand guineath."
"But how can you be certain it will fetch a thousand guineas?" I
interrupted.
"I happen to know the man whoth going to buy it." He winked, and I
understood.
"A fortnight later there will be a thale of half-a-dothen, and the
prithe will be gone up by that time."
"And after that?" I said.
"After that," he replied, rising, "the American millionaire! He'll
jutht be waiting on the door-thtep for the thale-room to open."
"If by any chance I come across a Hoppner?" I said, laughing, as I
turned to go.
"Don't you hold on to it too long, that'th all," was his advice.
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