INTRODUCTION

Long ago, visiting the monastery of La Trappe, I was struck with the very discontented appearance of its inmates. In some of their faces, indeed, I detected no expression whatever, but on none could I perceive the slightest gleam of satisfaction with their lot. No wonder: few men are of the stuff that makes a good recluse. The human animal is naturally gregarious, like the solan goose, the buffalo, the monkey, or the mackerel. Put him by himself, he pines for lack of mental aliment, just as a flower fades for want of[Pg 8] daylight in the dark. A multitude of fools forms an inspiriting spectacle, a solitary specimen becomes a sad and solemn warning. If the Trappists, who are not entirely isolated from their kind, thus wither under the rigour of those repressive rules enjoined by the Order, what must have been the condition of such hermits and anchorites as passed whole months, and even years together, in the wilderness, unvisited by anything more human than the distempered phantoms of their dreams? No shave, no wash, no morning greeting, and no evening wine. How

many, I wonder, preserved their sanity in the ordeal? How many, returning dazed and bewildered to the haunts of men, tottered about in helpless, wandering, maundering imbecility? Were there not some hard, boisterous natures who plunged wildly into the excesses of a world so long forsworn, with all the appetite of abstinence, all the reckless self-abandonment of the paid-off man-of-war’s man on a spree? No; few people are qualified[Pg 9] for recluses. I am proud to be amongst the number.

I live in a desert, but my desert is in the very heart of London. The waste is all round me though; I have taken good care of that. Once, indeed, it blossomed like the rose, for a thousand fertilising streams trickled through its bright expanse. Do not you as I did. I turned all the streams into one channel, “in the sweet summer-time long ago,” and “sat by the river,” like those poor fools in the song, and said, “Go to! Now I shall never thirst again!” But in the night there came a landslip from the upper level, and choked the river, turning its course through my neighbour’s pastures, so that the meadows, once so green and fresh, are bare and barren now for evermore. I speak in parables, of course; and the value of “this here observation,” like those of Captain Bunsby, “lies in the application of it.” I need not observe, the street in which I hide myself is a cul de sac. A man who sells[Pg 10] chickweed, perhaps I should say, who would sell chickweed if he could, is the only passenger. Of the houses on each side of me, one is unfinished, the other untenanted.

Over the way, I confront the dead wall at the back of an hospital. Towards dusk in the late autumn, when the weather is breaking, I must admit the situation is little calculated to generate over-exuberance of animal spirits. Sequestered, no doubt, shady too, particularly in the short days, and as remote from the noise or traffic of the town as John o’ Groat’s house, but enlivening—No.

On first beginning to reside here, I confess I felt at times a little lonely and depressed. Therefore I brought home “Bones” to come and live with me. And who is “Bones”? Ah! that is exactly what I have never been able to find out. Contemplative, affable, easily pleased, and an admirable listener, he is yet on some points reserved to a degree that might almost be termed morose; while in his personal appearance there is a dignity[Pg 11] of bearing, an imposing presence, which forbids the most intimate associate to attempt a liberty.

I will describe him as I see him at this moment, reclining in an easy attitude on the cushions of my favourite arm-chair, benevolently interested, it would seem, in my lightest movements, while I sit smoking silently by the fire. Neither of us are great talkers quite so early in the evening.

He is a well-formed and very complete skeleton of middle height—perfect in every respect, and in all his articulations, with the exception of two double teeth absent from the upper jaw. The arch of his lower ribs is peculiarly symmetrical, and his vertebræ are put in with a singular combination of flexibility and strength. As I look at him now leaning back in a graceful attitude, with one thigh-bone thrown carelessly over the other, he reminds me of so many people I knew when I lived in the world, that I seem to fancy myself once more a denizen of that revolving purgatory which goes by the name[Pg 12] of general society. Poor A—— was almost as fleshless, B—— much more taciturn, and C—— decidedly not so good-looking. “Bones,” however, possesses a quality that I have never found in any other companion. His tact is beyond praise. Under no circumstances does he become a bore—that is why we get on so admirably together. Like a ghost, he speaks only when spoken to. Unlike a wife, refrains from monopolising the last word. If he didn’t

rattle so on the slightest movement—a fault of anatomy, indeed, rather than temper—as a companion he would be—perfection.

It is a dull, close evening. Were it not so near winter one might predict a thunderstorm. The smoke from my meerschaum winds upwards in thin blue wreaths, uninfluenced by a breath of outward air, though the windows are open to the deserted street, black and silent as the grave. My lamp is not yet lit (we both affect a congenial gloom), the fire is burning out, but there is a dull red glow like a fever-spot lowering under a volcanic arch of[Pg 13] cinders; and looking into it with unwinking eyes, I see the long-drawn, weary, beaten road that leads backward through a life. I see a child set down to run alone, half-frightened, laughing, trusting, almost happy, and altogether gay. I see a youth bold, healthful, courageous, full of an impossible chivalry, a romantic generosity that delights to lavish no matter what—money, love, hope, happiness, coining heart and intellect into gold that he may squander it on the passers-by. I see a strong man crushed—a proud head grovelling in the dust, a high spirit broken, a cowering wretch imploring that his punishment may be

lightened ever such a little, trembling and wincing like a slave beneath the scourge. At this moment the fire falls in with a crash, while a pale yellow flame leaps flickering out of the midst, and starting from my seat to light our lamp for the rest of the evening, I demand aloud, “What then is the purpose of Creation? From a quenched rushlight to an extinct volcano, from the squeak of a mouse[Pg 14] to yesterday’s leading article, from a mite smothered in a cheese to an Emperor murdered in Mexico, is the march of Time but the destructive progress of a bull in a china-shop? Are the recurring centuries but so many ciphers added to the sum of a thriftless, objectless expenditure? Is the so-called economy of the universe but an unbridled, haphazard course of boundless and incalculable waste?”

His backbone creaks uncomfortably while he moves in his chair. “Waste?” he repeats in the hushed, placid tones that make him so invaluable as a companion—“Waste? The subject is by no means limited. I have some experience in it of my own. Would you favour me with your ideas?”—and I go off at score with—

[Pg 15]

CHAPTER I “ON WASTE”

“Why are these things so?” I exclaim, plumping down again into my seat. “Why have the times been out of joint ever since Hamlet’s first appearance on the stage, with black tights and rosettes in his shoes? Why is the whole world still at sixes and sevens? What is the object of it all? Cui bono? cui bono? cui bono? Is there the slightest appearance of a result? Any tendency towards a goal? Shall we ever get anywhere, or are we travelling perpetually in a circle, like squirrels in a cage, convicted pickpockets on the treadmill? By the way, who convicted the pickpockets, and sentenced them? The sitting magistrate, of course; and do the[Pg 16] awards of that worthy functionary produce any definite result in the direction of good order and morality, or must his daily incubation, too, be wasted upon addled eggs? Do you remember the story of the man who cut his throat because he was so tired of dressing and undressing every day? Don’t shake your head—I beg pardon, your skull—you told it me yourself. I can appreciate his prejudices, but how did he know there might not be

buttons and buttonholes where he was going? That is, supposing he went anywhere—if he didn’t, he was wasted altogether. If he did, perhaps he was of no use when he got there. Wasted again—only a human life after all. Not much when you think of it amongst the millions that cling about this old globe of ours, rising, swarming, disappearing like the maggots on a dead horse, but of no light importance to the bearer when you remember its weight of sorrows, anxieties, disappointments, and responsibilities, not to mention the Black Care sitting heavily at the top to keep the[Pg 17] whole burden in its place. Life is a bubble, they say. Very well—-but is it blown from a soap-dish by a school-boy, rising heavenward, tinted with rainbow hues, to burst only when at its most beautiful and its best? Or is it not rather a bubble gurgling to the surface from the agonised lungs of some struggling wretch drowning far below in the dark, pitiless water,

—Wasted, too, unless the fish eat him, and then who knows? None of us perhaps may ever eat the fish.

“Listen to me. I won’t make your flesh creep, for unanswerable reasons. I don’t even think I shall freeze the marrow in your bones. I could tell you some strange stories, but I dare say your own experiences are more remarkable than mine. I will only ask you to reflect on the amount of suffering that came under our daily notice when we lived in the world, and say whether every pang of mind or body, every tear shed or swallowed down,[Pg 18] every groan indulged or repressed, were anything but sheer waste? Can you not recall a hundred instances of strength sapped by drink, of intellect warped by madness, of beauty fading under neglect, or withered by disappointment? Here a pair of lives are wasted because they must needs run out their course in different grooves—there two more are utterly thrown away, because, encompassed in a golden link, they can by no means shake themselves free. The fairest of all, it may be, and the most promising, never blooms into perfection for want of its congenial comrade (wasted too, perhaps, at the antipodes), and

failing thus to reach maturity, dwindles, dwarfed and unmated, to the grave. Think of Beauty wasted on the Beast—the Beast, too, utterly out of his element, that he must roll on the garden sward rather than labour in the teeming furrow. Look at Hercules spell-bound in the lap of Omphale, broad-fronted Antony enervated by black-browed Cleopatra. Consider the many Messrs. Caudle[Pg 19] who lavish as much good-humour as would set up a dozen households on their legal nightmares, and do not forget poor Miss Prettyman pining in lonely spinsterhood over the way. See the mother training up her child, impressing on him, far more forcibly than she feels them for herself, lessons of honour, truth, probity, and the unspeakable blessing of faith—praying her heart out for that wilful little urchin, night and morning on her knees. A good Christian with humble hopes of heaven, does she know that, far more lavishly than those heathen termagants in hell, she is pouring water in a sieve? Does she know she may live to see that smooth, soft, wondering brow scored deep with sorrow,

or lowering black with sin—that round rosy cheek hollowed by depravity, or bloated with excess? Worst of all, the merry, guileless heart embittered by falsehood, and hardened with ill-usage till it has ceased to feel for others, even for itself! Great Heaven! have we not seen them—these simple, honest,[Pg 20] manly hearts, taken by some soft-eyed demon with loving ways, and sweet angelic smile, to be kept carefully, to be watched jealously, till their fabric has been thoroughly studied, then broken deftly and delicately, yet with such nice art that they can never mend again, and so, politely ‘Returned, with thanks’?

“Forgive me: on such anatomical outrages I have no right to expect you should feel so warmly as myself.

“Millions of creatures, beautiful exceedingly, scour over the desert plains of explored Africa; in its unknown regions, millions more may be supposed to feed, and gambol, and die. What is the use of them? If you come to that, what was the use of the Emperor Theodore, or the King of the Cannibal Islands, or any other potentate who remains utterly unimpressed when we threaten ‘to break off diplomatic relations’?

“Myriads of insects wheel about us in the sun’s declining rays every summer’s evening. Again, what is the use of them? What is the[Pg 21] use of the dragon-fly, the bumble-bee, the speckled toad, the blue-nosed monkey, the unicorn, the wild elephant,—or, indeed, the Ojibbeway Indians?”

Here, contrary to his custom, “Bones” interrupted me in full career.

“One moment,” said he, with his courteous grin. “Allow me to point out that yours is inadmissible, as being simply an argumentum ad absurdum. It would hold equally good with Léotard, Mr. Beales, or any other public exhibitor—nay, you might advance it for suppression of the Lord Mayor or the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

He bowed reverentially while he mentioned the last-named dignitary; and I confess I was inclined to admit the truth of his remark.

“Then I waive the question,” I replied, “as regards the brute creation, though I think I could find something to say, too, about the weasel sucking rabbits, the heron gobbling fish, the hawk striking its quarry, or the hounds running into their fox. But we will[Pg 22] suppose that the whole animal world, from the angler’s lob-worm to the costermonger’s donkey, is enjoying its paradise here, and return to our own kind, their sorrows, their sufferings, and, natural consequence of sorrow and suffering, their sins.”

He shook his skull gently, and muttered something in his spinal vertebræ about “a cart” and “a horse,” but I took no notice, and proceeded with dignity—

“I have learnt my Latin Grammar, and almost the only one of its precepts I have not forgotten impresses on me that—

I suppose you will not dispute that the root of all evil is money?”

“Most emphatically,” he exclaimed, and his articulations rattled with startling vehemence. “Most emphatically I deny the position. A man may roll in wealth and be none the worse for it. On the contrary, poverty, but for the unremitting labour it demands,[Pg 23] would be far more conducive to crime than a sufficiency, or even a superfluity of means. No; the real enemy with whom every man has to contend confronts him in the morning at his glass, and sticks persistently to him throughout the day. The source of most unhappiness, the cause of all ill-doing, the universal origin of evil, is not money, but self——”

“You mean selfishness,” I retorted; “and I am surprised to hear a man of the world—I mean of the other world, or, indeed, of any world whatever—assert so obvious a fallacy. Just as the liver, and not the heart, is the seat of our real well-being, so I maintain that self-indulgence, and not self-sacrifice, is the origin, the mainspring, the motive power of all effort, progress, improvement, moral, social, and physical. Researches of science, triumphs of art, masterpieces of genius,—what are these but results of the same instinct that directs the bee to the flower-garden, the vulture to the carcase? To eat is the first[Pg 24] necessity of man. He labours that he may live. Grant this, as you cannot but concede the position to be unassailable, and you talk to me in vain of sentiment, philanthropy, benevolence, all the loathsome affectations of sympathy with which the earth-worm tries to impose upon its kind. A man begins by being honest. Why? Because without honesty, down the particular groove in which he spins, he cannot earn his daily bread. When he has

enough of this and to spare, he turns his attention to decent apparel, a commodious house, a general appearance of respectability; that is, he aims at being respectable—in other words, at imposing on those who have been less successful in the universal scramble than himself. Soon he buys a warming-pan, a Dutch oven, china ornaments for his chimney-piece, and the History of the Prodigal to hang about his walls. By degrees, as wealth increases, he moves into a larger residence, he rolls upon wheels, he replaces the china ornaments with a French clock; the Prodigal Son with modern[Pg 25] oil-paintings, and hides the warming-pan in the housemaid’s closet up-stairs. About this period he begins to subscribe to charitable institutions, to give away what he does not want, to throw little pellets of bread at the monster who is always famished and always roaring out of doors, lest it should come in, and snatch the roast beef off his table. Some day a team of black horses with nodding plumes, and a red-nosed driver, come to take him away, ‘very much respected,’ and, forgive

the personality, there is an end of him, as far as we are concerned. Will you tell me that man’s life has not been a continual concession to self?—waste, waste, utter waste, from the pap-boat that preserved his infancy, to the brass-nailed coffin that protects his putridity from contact with the earth to which he returns? Why his very virtues, as he called them, were but payments, so to speak, keeping up the insurance for his own benefit, which he persuaded himself he had effected on the other world.

[Pg 26]

“Now, supposing the pap-boat had been withheld, or the nurse had tucked him into his cradle upside down, or—thus saving some harmless woman a deal of inconvenience and trouble—supposing he had never been born at all, would he have been missed, or wanted? Would not the world have gone on just as well without him? Has not his whole existence been a mistake? The food he ate, the clothes he wore, the house he lived in—were not these simply wasted? His efforts were waste, his wear-and-tear of body and mind were waste, above all, his sorrows and his sufferings were sheer, unpardonable waste. Yes; here I take my stand. I leave you every enjoyment to be found in creation, physical, moral, and intellectual. I make you a present of the elephant wallowing in his mud-bath, and the midge wheeling in the sun; I give you Juliet at her window, and Archimedes in his study; but I reserve the whale in her death-flurry, and the worm on its hook. I appeal to Jephthah sorrowing[Pg 27] for his darling, and Rachel weeping for her children. I repeat, if that self-care, which

indeed constitutes our very identity, be the object of existence, then all those tearful eyes that blur the light of every rising sun—all those aching hearts that long only for night to be eternal—are but so many witnesses to the predominance in creation of a lavish and unaccountable waste.”

Like many thoughtful and deliberate natures, I am persuaded that in early life “Bones” must have been a snuff-taker. He affects a trick of holding his fleshless finger and thumb pressed together and suspended in air, before he delivers himself of an opinion, that can only have originated in a practice he has since been compelled, for obvious reasons, to forego. Pausing during several seconds in this favourite attitude, he sank gravely back in his chair, and replied—