Frank Frankfort Moore

“ Fame in painting, in music, in writing, means nothing—in many cases rather less than nothing—to the society of any English county. If the man had brought down a couple of hunters and gone out three times a week to hounds, the people in his division of the county would talk to you of him and look on you with astonishment if his name conveyed nothing to you; and the wife of a retired country doctor who takes up what is known as Church work—organising village teas and village concerts and Sunday “Unions”—is at once accorded a position that counts as fame in such communities in England. ”

“ Markham and her daughter, both dressed as if for a garden party, and close behind them came Major Sowerby of the Territorials and his son, for whom he had been unsuccessfully trying to get a billet for the previous two years.
“Glad to see you here, Mrs. Paston,” cried the Major heartily. “Yes, I maintain that it is our duty to welcome—to stretch out a right hand of greeting to the natives of our great Dependency—one Empire—one Flag—hands across the sea—that's what I have always advocated. ”

“ One breathes of the atmosphere that clings about the old stonework, and, in time, one is conscious of one's ideas and aspirations becoming assimilated with the traditions of the place. On a fine morning in summer even an Irishman feels himself to be an English Conservative—a genuine Tory of the good old days when boys were taught to touch their hats to a “passon,” and when it was a matter of common knowledge that the finest vintage ports were reposing in the cellars of the Close. ”

“ The next day the Prince appeared once again promenading the High Street. He was a man of fine presence, of a rich ruddy brown complexion and a black beard and moustache, and his turban was a sight! It contained a central diamond little inferior in size to the Koh-i-noor, and on each side of it was a pigeon's egg ruby—a lady who saw it called it a pigeon's blood ruby lest there should be any mistake: a casual glance of some one who did not know all about these great jewels might convey the impression that it was only a bantam's blood ruby, which was quite an inferior stone. ”

“ The splendid Gainsboroughs and Romneys of the Long Gallery made no more appeal to him than did the Van Dycks in the great hall or the three Fragonards of the drawing-room. He was quite satisfied with the reputation of having sufficient money to pay for the privilege of living in the midst of these masterpieces and of keeping about an acre and a half of roof in good repair: he knew more about the advantages of close-fitting slates than of the methods of eighteenth-century English artists or of fifteenth-century Italian carvers. ”

“ I have met people in more than one town who looked on a man's going to America as equivalent to absconding. I suppose most of these places have some foundation of their own for the tradition. It is quite plausible that, seventy or eighty or even a hundred years ago, some wild young men may have found a voyage to America to offer them a satisfactory alternative to an appearance behind the spikes of the dock of the County Court-House, and America got a bad name in consequence, being looked on as a continent peopled by men who had gone wrong at home. ”

“ Every day one may have experience of people living in the midst of such distorted perspective—fancying that the commonplace insects that move before them are creatures of enormous proportions and importance, and quite as frequently assuming that because an object appears small to them, being far away from them, it is quite insignificant. If one cannot find humour in observing the attitude of people who ignore the conditions of perspective in this way, one must be stolid indeed. ”

“ To be connected in some way with a charitable organisation seems to offer an irresistible attraction to some people, chiefly ladies; and every now and again a new lady starts up in Church circles with a new scheme of compelling people to accept alms or the equivalent, or of increasing the usefulness of the Church. The amount of time these masterful persons expend in reading papers embodying the most appalling of platitudes of sentiment, and betraying even a more astounding ignorance of political economy than a Chancellor of the Exchequer has ever revealed in a Budget speech, is astounding. ”

“ It was natural that the old Cathedral-goers should look at one another with startled eyes at first—here was an innovation indeed!—but before long the most hardened of them all had yielded to the exquisite charm of the girl's voice, and when the triumphant notes rang out there was no one who remained unmoved under that ancient canopy of Gothic arches. ”

“ He was a literary man whose name is known and respected in every part of the world—not merely in that narrow republic known as the world of letters. He was staying for a week at the house of a friend, when a lady, who was getting up a charity concert at Ringdon, calling at the house one day, and being told in a whisper by one of the daughters of the family when walking through the garden that they had a celebrity with them, entreated him to “do” something for the entertainment of her audience: she didn't mind what it might be that he would do, if he only agreed to do something. ”

“ The social distinctions in a country town such as Mallingham are sometimes very pathetic. It might be thought that the people would find a bond of union in that illiteracy which they enjoy in common, or in that profound ignorance of everything connected, however distantly, with art or science in which they live from one end of the year to the other; but one does not find it so. Mallingham is perhaps the most ill-informed town in England on all matters pertaining to culture, whether literary or artistic. ”

“ If I were a person in authority with a voice in framing the conditions which must be conformed with by all ladies who put themselves forward in the advocacy of some of these great social schemes, I would decree that no lady who uses a tortoiseshell lorgnette with a long handle should be permitted to read a paper, or to receive the laissez-passer of any organisation to a house the valuation of which is less than twenty-five pounds a year. ”

“ A painter! The idea of making a fuss over a painter!”
“You forget that the man was a total stranger to our neighbourhood,” said I. “You must make allowances: he knew no better.”
He said he supposed the fellow really did know no better; and I am convinced that in his own way he abused his visitor to his wife for the man's deplorable lack of all sense of proportion, to ignore the privilege of having a distant view of the mansion of a deputy-lieutenant of an English county and feasting his eyes on the cottage of a painter! ”

“ I could not tell him, under the shadow of the sacred building, the legend that I invented to account for the nuts, but I told him in full when we got away from that influence of veracity: it had to do with a crusader who, forsaken by his comrades in the Lebanon, was forced to sustain himself with nuts, and vowed that if ever he should get back to England he would endow a Minster and decree that nuts should be offered at the porch between prime and angelus every day for a thousand years. ”

“ IV.—HUMOURS OF THE ROSTRUM The humours of the auction-room deserve to be dealt with more fully than is in my power to treat them. Though an auctioneer's fun is sometimes a little forced, its aim being to keep his visitors in a good temper with him—for he knows that every time that he knocks something down to one person he hurts the feelings of the runner-up—still, now and again, something occurs to call for a witty comment, and occasionally a ludicrous incident may brighten up the monotonous reiteration of slowly increasing sums of money. ”

“ After all, it is safer for a tradesman to use his own imagination in the preparation of his wares than to ask his customers to use theirs. For instance a dealer in curious things, in Burford, seeing some funny wooden dolls in a shop window, bought the whole five and then used up some scraps of old brocade and remnants of Genoa velvet in dressing them in costumes to be found in the recognised authority. He exposed them for sale sitting in a row, and very amazing they must have appeared. ”

“ A dog of some sort lies asleep at midday under almost every shop window, and cats of all sorts may be seen crossing the High Street at almost any hour. That is how it comes that the town seems so charming to visitors, and to those of its inhabitants who are not engaged in business.
This being so, I was disposed to laugh at the sly humour of a man and his wife—they were Russian nobles who motored across from Brindlington to lunch with us at Thurswell—who said they had enjoyed the drive exceedingly, until they had come to Mallingham. ”

“ The migration that has been going on in our county for the past two hundred years seems to be interparochial. Individuals moved from village to village and from village to town. It is only within the past twenty-five or thirty years that the ablest and the best have occasionally braved public opinion and set sail for a colony.
Even families that have “got on” seem to love to cling to the county which saw the very small beginnings of their ancestors. Why should they not? Love of one's county is only a subdivision of the grand virtue of love of one's country. ”

“ For themselves, it is well known that the Misses Gifford never forget what is due to them, or to insist on its payment on the day that it becomes due. They have a brother who, without being an active philanthropist, is well worthy of them. He collects the rents from their insanitary tenements, and he does so with a ruthless hand. There is no measure of bluff or bluster of which he is not a master. But there are scores of people in their own town who see the dear old maiden ladies in church and say that they remind them of Cranford and Quality Street! ”

“ When an elderly clergyman has made a fool of himself within the precincts of his church people can only shake their heads.
But the next Sunday the congregation who crowded the Minster at the afternoon service shook not only their heads but their bodies also in their decorous but wholly ineffectual attempts to smother their laughter while the Prebendary read a chapter in the Book of Ruth which necessitated, he thought, full orchestral treatment. ”

“ Not many days after my interesting interview with Martha, the professional centenarian, the decease of an unobtrusive amateur was notified to me. It came about through the temporary disorganisation of our bread service, which I learned was due to the sudden death of the baker's mother. Entering his shop a week or two later, I ventured to say a word of conventional condolence to him, and this was responded to by him with a mournful volubility that made me feel as if I had just attended a funeral oration, or an inefficient reading of “In Memoriam.” ”

“ They had a whispered conversation together, but every whisper was clearly audible to the layman.
“Look here,” said the dealer, “you know that I bid up to eighteen pounds for that picture. Well, I'm willing to go to the length of twenty for it, if you're selling it privately.”
“I'm sorry I can't oblige you, Mr. Goldstein,” said the auctioneer. “You know as well as I do who the vendor is, and you know that he is as good a judge of a picture as any man living. You know that the picture is worth money.” ”

“ It was time, he thought, that steps were taken by men of genuine artistic feeling to put people on the right track in regard to Art in daily life; and he expressed to me in confidence the belief that a change could best be brought about by an appeal to the sense of beauty inherent in womankind. He begged the co-operation of one of the Minor Canons at the Cathedral at Broadminster, who had achieved fame on account of his artistic tendencies, and this gentleman consented to deliver an address at a specially convened mothers' meeting in the parish-room of the reformer. ”

“ Its one long street crawls along a ridge of the Downs, and from the lower level of the road that skirts this ridge and meanders among fat farms and luscious meadows, with an old Norman church here and there embowered in immemorial elms and granges mentioned in Domesday Book, steep lanes of old houses climb to the business street. ”

“ Hesketh continued to live alone in the old house with a niece—for she had no children of her own—and in course of time the girl fell in love with a man who seemed in every way the right sort of person for her to marry, only for the fact of his having a very limited income. The girl's aunt, however, having nothing to live for except the witnessing of the happiness of the young couple, was generous enough to make over to them all her property, retaining only a sufficient sum to enable her to live in comfort for the remainder of her life. ”

“ There can be no doubt, however, as to the absorbing power of croquet upon certain temperaments. I have met an elderly lady of Early Victorian proportions who, I am positive, can recollect the details of every match she has ever played. If she were not able to do so she would sometimes be compelled to sit in silence, for to her conversation means nothing beyond a recapitulation of her croquet games. Try her as you may upon other topics, it is no use. She seems intensely bored if you touch upon the theatre, and to music and the other arts she is rather more than indifferent. ”

“ It was my old gardener—not-the oldest of all, but the second oldest—who told me how it was that the annual prize given by the Moated Manor House people for the best floral display of the cottage order was very nearly withdrawn for ever, owing to the bad blood that was made by the award, no matter in what direction it was made. It seemed that the prize-winner invariably found himself compelled to accept the challenge to fight of all the disappointed aspirants to the prize, and before nightfall there was a general distribution of black eyes and front teeth ”

“ The eminence to which he has risen never makes him lose his head or forget that kind hearts are more than coronets, and only very little inferior to a Mayoral Chain of office. It was the proud but very proper boast of a Mayor of Mallingham that although he had been proprietor of a provision business in the very centre of the town for over forty years, and had worn the chain for two consecutive terms, he was still just as approachable as any man in the kingdom. ”

“ When a man with no ready money of his own inherits an estate that has not paid its expenses for many years, and a splendid mansion containing about fifty pictures, which, according to the most recent auction-room prices, may be worth from £100,000 to £150,000—people at picture sales think in pounds and bid in guineas—the question that at once presents itself is how to meet the demands of Somerset House. ”