第36章

In those days, wishful to give the world the benefit of my wisdom, and seeking for a candle-stick wherefrom my brilliancy might be visible and helpful unto men, I arrived before a dingy portal in Chequers Street, St.Luke's, behind which a conclave of young men, together with a few old enough to have known better, met every Friday evening for the purpose of discussing and arranging the affairs of the universe."Speaking members" were charged ten-and-sixpence per annum, which must have worked out at an extremely moderate rate per word; and "gentlemen whose subscriptions were more than three months in arrear," became, by Rule seven, powerless for good or evil.We called ourselves "The Stormy Petrels," and, under the sympathetic shadow of those wings, Ilaboured two seasons towards the reformation of the human race;until, indeed, our treasurer, an earnest young man, and a tireless foe of all that was conventional, departed for the East, leaving behind him a balance sheet, showing that the club owed forty-two pounds fifteen and fourpence, and that the subscriptions for the current year, amounting to a little over thirty-eight pounds, had been "carried forward," but as to where, the report afforded no indication.Whereupon our landlord, a man utterly without ideals, seized our furniture, offering to sell it back to us for fifteen pounds.We pointed out to him that this was an extravagant price, and tendered him five.

The negotiations terminated with ungentlemanly language on his part, and "The Stormy Petrels" scattered, never to be foregathered together again above the troubled waters of humanity.Now-a-days, listening to the feeble plans of modern reformers, I cannot help but smile, remembering what was done in Chequers Street, St.Luke's, in an age when Mrs.Grundy still gave the law to literature, while yet the British matron was the guide to British art.I am informed that there is abroad the question of abolishing the House of Lords! Why, "The Stormy Petrels" abolished the aristocracy and the Crown in one evening, and then only adjourned for the purpose of appointing a committee to draw up and have ready a Republican Constitution by the following Friday evening.They talk of Empire lounges! We closed the doors of every music-hall in London eighteen years ago by twenty-nine votes to seventeen.They had a patient hearing, and were ably defended; but we found that the tendency of such amusements was anti-progressive, and against the best interests of an intellectually advancing democracy.I met the mover of the condemnatory resolution at the old "Pav" the following evening, and we continued the discussion over a bottle of Bass.He strengthened his argument by persuading me to sit out the whole of the three songs sung by the "Lion Comique"; but I subsequently retorted successfully, by bringing under his notice the dancing of a lady in blue tights and flaxen hair.I forget her name but never shall Icease to remember her exquisite charm and beauty.Ah, me! how charming and how beautiful "artistes" were in those golden days!

Whence have they vanished? Ladies in blue tights and flaxen hair dance before my eyes to-day, but move me not, unless it be towards boredom.Where be the tripping witches of twenty years ago, whom to see once was to dream of for a week, to touch whose white hand would have been joy, to kiss whose red lips would have been to foretaste Heaven.I heard only the other day that the son of an old friend of mine had secretly married a lady from the front row of the ballet, and involuntarily I exclaimed, "Poor devil!" There was a time when my first thought would have been, "Lucky beggar! is he worthy of her?" For then the ladies of the ballet were angels.How could one gaze at them--from the shilling pit--and doubt it? They danced to keep a widowed mother in comfort, or to send a younger brother to school.Then they were glorious creatures a young man did well to worship; but now-a-days--It is an old jest.The eyes of youth see through rose-tinted glasses.The eyes of age are dim behind smoke-clouded spectacles.

My flaxen friend, you are not the angel I dreamed you, nor the exceptional sinner some would paint you; but under your feathers, just a woman--a bundle of follies and failings, tied up with some sweetness and strength.You keep a brougham I am sure you cannot afford on your thirty shillings a week.There are ladies I know, in Mayfair, who have paid an extravagant price for theirs.You paint and you dye, I am told: it is even hinted you pad.Don't we all of us deck ourselves out in virtues that are not our own? When the paint and the powder, my sister, is stripped both from you and from me, we shall know which of us is entitled to look down on the other in scorn.

Forgive me, gentle Reader, for digressing.The lady led me astray.

I was speaking of "The Stormy Petrels," and of the reforms they accomplished, which were many.We abolished, I remember, capital punishment and war; we were excellent young men at heart.Christmas we reformed altogether, along with Bank Holidays, by a majority of twelve.I never recollect any proposal to abolish anything ever being lost when put to the vote.There were few things that we "Stormy Petrels" did not abolish.We attacked Christmas on grounds of expediency, and killed it by ridicule.We exposed the hollow mockery of Christmas sentiment; we abused the indigestible Christmas dinner, the tiresome Christmas party, the silly Christmas pantomime.

Our funny member was side-splitting on the subject of Christmas Waits; our social reformer bitter upon Christmas drunkenness; our economist indignant upon Christmas charities.Only one argument of any weight with us was advanced in favour of the festival, and that was our leading cynic's suggestion that it was worth enduring the miseries of Christmas, to enjoy the soul-satisfying comfort of the after reflection that it was all over, and could not occur again for another year.