'How do, Jim? How do, Jo?'
And they responded laconically—
'How do, Bob?'
'How do, Bob?'
Our fellow-passengers were few and unromantic, perhaps half-a-dozen altogether on the long, shiny, yellow seats of the car, each apparently5 lost in gloomy reverie.
'It's the advertisements and notices in these cars that are the joy of the super-man like you and me,' shouted Mr Brindley. 'Look there, "Passengers are requested not to spit on the floor." Simply an encouragement to lie on the seats and spit on the ceiling, isn't it? "Wear only Noble's wonderful boots." Suppose we did! Unless they came well up above the waist we should be prosecuted6. But there's no sense of humour in this district.'
Greengrocers' shops and public-houses were now flying past the windows of the car. It began to climb a hill, and then halted.
'Here we are!' ejaculated Mr Brindley.
And he was out of the car almost before I had risen.
We strolled along a quiet street, and came to a large building with many large lighted windows, evidently some result of public effort.
'What's that place?' I demanded.
'That's the Wedgwood Institution.'
'Oh! So that's the Wedgwood Institution, is it?'
'Yes. Commonly called the Wedgwood. Museum, reading-room, public library—dirtiest books in the world, I mean physically—art school, science school. I've never explained to you why I'm chairman of the Management Committee, have I? Well, it's because the Institution is meant to foster the arts, and I happen to know nothing about 'em. I needn't tell you that architecture, literature, and music are not arts within the meaning of the act. Not much! Like to come in and see the museum for a minute? You'll have to see it in your official capacity tomorrow.'
We crossed the road, and entered an imposing7 portico8. Just as we did so a thick stream of slouching men began to descend9 the steps, like a waterfall of treacle10. Mr Brindley they appeared to see, but evidently I made no impression on their retinas. They bore down the steps, hands deep in pockets, sweeping11 over me like Fate. Even when I bounced off one of them to a lower step, he showed by no sign that the fact of my existence had reached his consciousness—simply bore irresistibly12 downwards13. The crowd was absolutely silent. At last I gained the entrance hall.
'It's closing-time for the reading room,' said Mr Brindley.
'I'm glad I survived it,' I said.
'The truth is,' said he, 'that people who can't look after themselves don't flourish in these latitudes14. But you'll be acclimatized by tomorrow. See that?'
He pointed to an alabaster15 tablet on which was engraved16 a record of the historical certainty that Mr Gladstone opened the Institution in 1868, also an extract from the speech which he delivered on that occasion.
'What do you THINK of Gladstone down here?' I demanded.
'In my official capacity I think that these deathless words are the last utterance17 of wisdom on the subject of the influence of the liberal arts on life. And I should advise you, in your official capacity, to think the same, unless you happen to have a fancy for having your teeth knocked down your throat.'
'I see,' I said, not sure how to take him.
'Lest you should go away with the idea that you have been visiting a rude and barbaric people, I'd better explain that that was a joke. As a matter of fact, we're rather enlightened here. The only man who stands a chance of getting his teeth knocked down his throat here is the ingenious person who started the celebrated18 legend of the man-and-dog fight at Hanbridge. It's a long time ago, a very long time ago; but his grey hairs won't save him from horrible tortures if we catch him. We don't mind being called immoral19, we're above a bit flattered when London newspapers come out with shocking details of debauchery in the Five Towns, but we pride ourselves on our manners. I say, Aked!' His voice rose commandingly, threateningly, to an old bent20, spectacled man who was ascending21 a broad white staircase in front of us.
'Sir!' The man turned.
'Don't turn the lights out yet in the museum.'
'No, sir! Are you coming up?' The accents were slow and tremulous.
'Yes. I have a gentleman here from the British Museum who wants to look round.'
The oldish man came deliberately22 down the steps, and approached us. Then his gaze, beginning at my waist, gradually rose to my hat.
'From the British Museum?' he drawled. 'I'm sure I'm very glad to meet you, sir. I'm sure it's a very great honour.'
He held out a wrinkled hand, which I shook.
'Mr Aked,' said Mr Brindley, by way of introduction. 'Been caretaker here for pretty near forty years.'
'Ever since it opened, sir,' said Aked.
We went up the white stone stairway, rather a grandiose23 construction for a little industrial town. It divided itself into doubling curving flights at the first landing, and its walls were covered with pictures and designs. The museum itself, a series of three communicating rooms, was about as large as a pocket-handkerchief.
'Quite small,' I said.
I gave my impression candidly24, because I had already judged Mr Brindley to be the rare and precious individual who is worthy25 of the high honour of frankness.
'Do you think so?' he demanded quickly. I had shocked him, that was clear. His tone was unmistakable; it indicated an instinctive26, involuntary protest. But he recovered himself in a flash. 'That's jealousy,' he laughed. 'All you British Museum people are the same.' Then he added, with an unsuccessful attempt to convince me that he meant what he was saying: 'Of course it is small. It's nothing, simply nothing.'
Yes, I had unwittingly found the joint27 in the armour28 of this extraordinary Midland personage. With all his irony29, with all his violent humour, with all his just and unprejudiced perceptions, he had a tenderness for the Institution of which he was the dictator. He loved it. He could laugh like a god at everything in the Five Towns except this one thing. He would try to force himself to regard even this with the same lofty detachment, but he could not do it naturally.
'By Jove!' I exclaimed, pointing to a vase. 'What a body!'
'Funny you should have hit on that,' said he. 'Old Daddy Perkins always called it his ewe-lamb.'
Thus spoken, the name of the greatest authority on Wedgwood ware that Europe has ever known curiously32 impressed me.
'I suppose you knew him?' I questioned.
'Considering that I was one of the pall-bearers at his funeral, and caught the champion cold of my life!'
'What sort of a man was he?'
'Outside Wedgwood ware he wasn't any sort of a man. He was that scourge33 of society, a philanthropist,' said Mr Brindley. 'He was an upright citizen, and two thousand people followed him to his grave. I'm an upright citizen, but I have no hope that two thousand people will follow me to my grave.'
'You never know what may happen,' I observed, smiling.
'No.' He shook his head. 'If you undermine the moral character of your fellow-citizens by a long course of unbridled miscellaneous philanthropy, you can have a funeral procession as long as you like, at the rate of about forty shillings a foot. But you'll never touch the great heart of the enlightened public of these boroughs34 in any other way. Do you imagine anyone cared a twopenny damn for Perkins's Wedgwood ware?'
'It's like that everywhere,' I said.
Who can tell what was passing in the breast of Mr Brindley? I could not. At least I could not tell with any precision. I could only gather, vaguely37, that what he considered the wrong-headedness, the blindness, the lack of true perception, of his public was beginning to produce in his individuality a faint trace of permanent soreness. I regretted it. And I showed my sympathy with him by asking questions about the design and construction of the museum (a late addition to the Institution), of which I happened to know that he had been the architect.
He at once became interested and interesting. Although he perhaps insisted a little too much on the difficulties which occur when original talent encounters stupidity, he did, as he walked me up and down, contrive38 to convey to me a notion of the creative processes of the architect in a way that was in my experience entirely39 novel. He was impressing me anew, and I was wondering whether he was unique of his kind or whether there existed regiments40 of him in this strange parcel of England.
That's surely something of Fuge's, isn't it?' I asked, indicating a small picture in a corner, after he had finished his explanation of the functions of the girder.
As on the walls of the staircase and corridors, so on the walls here, there were many paintings, drawings, and engravings. And of course the best were here in the museum. The least uninteresting items of the collection were, speaking generally, reproductions in monotint of celebrated works, and a few second—or third-rate loan pictures from South Kensington. Aside from such matters I had noticed nothing but the usual local trivialities, gifts from one citizen or another, travel-jottings of some art-master, careful daubs of apt students without a sense of humour. The aspect of the place was exactly the customary aspect of the small provincial42 museum, as I have seen it in half-a-hundred towns that are not among 'the great towns'. It had the terrible trite43 'museum' aspect, the aspect that brings woe44 and desolation to the heart of the stoutest45 visitor, and which seems to form part of the purgatorio of Bank-holidays, wide mouths, and stiff clothes. The movement for opening museums on Sundays is the most natural movement that could be conceived. For if ever a resort was invented and fore-ordained to chime with the true spirit of the British sabbath, that resort is the average museum. I ought to know. I do know.
But there was the incomparable Wedgwood ware, and there was the little picture by Simon Fuge. I am not going to lose my sense of perspective concerning Simon Fuge. He was not the greatest painter that ever lived, or even of his time. He had, I am ready to believe, very grave limitations. But he was a painter by himself, as all fine painters are. He had his own vision. He was Unique. He was exclusively preoccupied46 with the beauty and the romance of the authentic47. The little picture showed all this. It was a painting, unfinished, of a girl standing48 at a door and evidently hesitating whether to open the door or not: a very young girl, very thin, with long legs in black stockings, and short, white, untidy frock; thin bare arms; the head thrown on one side, and the hands raised, and one foot raised, in a wonderful childish gesture—the gesture of an undecided fox-terrier. The face was an infant's face, utterly49 innocent; and yet Simon Fuge had somehow caught in that face a glimpse of all the future of the woman that the girl was to be, he had displayed with exquisite50 insolence51 the essential naughtiness of his vision of things. The thing was not much more than a sketch52; it was a happy accident, perhaps, in some day's work of Simon Fuge's. But it was genius. When once you had yielded to it, there was no other picture in the room. It killed everything else. But, wherever it had found itself, nothing could have killed IT. Its success was undeniable, indestructible. And it glowed sombrely there on the wall, a few splashes of colour on a morsel53 of canvas, and it was Simon Fuge's unconscious, proud challenge to the Five Towns. It WAS Simon Fuge, at any rate all of Simon Fuge that was worth having, masterful, imperishable. And not merely was it his challenge, it was his scorn, his aristocratic disdain54, his positive assurance that in the battle between them he had annihilated55 the Five Towns. It hung there in the very midst thereof, calmly and contemptuously waiting for the acknowledgement of his victory.
'Which?' said Mr Brindley.
That one.'
'Yes, I fancy it is,' he negligently56 agreed. 'Yes, it is.'
'It's not signed,' I remarked.
'It ought to be,' said Mr Brindley; then laughed, 'Too late now!'
'How did it get here?'
'Don't know. Oh! I think Mr Perkins won it in a raffle57 at a bazaar58, and then hung it here. He did as he liked here, you know.'
'That thing under it is a photograph of a drinking-cup for which one of our pupils won a national scholarship last year!'
Mr Aked appeared in the distance.
So we left the Wedgwood Institution. I began to talk to Mr Brindley about music. The barbaric attitude of the Five Towns towards great music was the theme of some very lively animadversions on his part.
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1
din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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laconically
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| adv.简短地，简洁地 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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prosecuted
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| a.被起诉的 | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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8
portico
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| n.柱廊，门廊 | |
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9
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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10
treacle
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| n.糖蜜 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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13
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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14
latitudes
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| 纬度 | |
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15
alabaster
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| adj.雪白的；n.雪花石膏；条纹大理石 | |
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16
engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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17
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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18
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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19
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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20
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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21
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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22
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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23
grandiose
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| adj.宏伟的，宏大的，堂皇的，铺张的 | |
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candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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25
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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26
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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28
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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29
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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30
ware
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| n.(常用复数)商品，货物 | |
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31
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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32
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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33
scourge
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| n.灾难，祸害；v.蹂躏 | |
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boroughs
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| （尤指大伦敦的）行政区( borough的名词复数 )； 议会中有代表的市镇 | |
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35
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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38
contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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39
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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40
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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41
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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42
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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43
trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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44
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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45
stoutest
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| 粗壮的( stout的最高级 )； 结实的； 坚固的； 坚定的 | |
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46
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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47
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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48
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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49
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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50
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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51
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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52
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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53
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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54
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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55
annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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56
negligently
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57
raffle
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| n.废物，垃圾，抽奖售卖；v.以抽彩出售 | |
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58
bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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59
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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60
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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