On Something (Dodo Press) (11 page)

We possess in this country a breed of men in whom we feel a pride so
loyal, so strong, and so frank that were I to give further expression to
it here I should justly be accused of insisting upon a hackneyed theme.
These are the Empire Builders, the Men Efficient, the agents whom we
cannot but feel—however reluctantly we admit it—to be less strictly
bound by the common laws of life than are we lesser ones.

But there is something about these men not hackneyed as a theme, which is
their youth. By what process is the great mind developed? Of what sort is
the Empire Builder when he is young?

The fellow commonly rises from below: What was his experience there below?
In what school was he trained? What accident of fortune, how met, or how
surmounted, or how used, produced at last the Man who Can? In
that
inquiry there is food for very deep reflection. It is here that our
Masters, whose general motives are so open and so plain, touch upon
mystery. That secret power of determining nourishment which is at the base
of all organic life has in its own silent way built up the boyhood and the
adolescence which we only know in their maturity.

I will not pretend to a full knowledge of that strange education of the
mind which has produced so many similar men for the advancement of the
race, but I can point to one example which lately came straight across my
vision—an accident, an illumination, a revealing flash of how our time
breeds the Great Type. I was acquainted for some hours with the actions of
a youth of whose very name I am ignorant, but whose face I am very certain
will reappear twenty years hence in a setting of glory, recognized as yet
one other of those superb spirits who will do all for England.

The occasion was a pageant—no matter what pageant—a great public pageant
which passed through the Strand, and was to be witnessed by hundreds of
thousands. Let us call it "The Function."

Well, I was walking down the Strand three days before this Function was
to take place, when I saw in an empty shop window about twenty-five
wooden chairs, arranged in tiers one above the other upon a sloping
platform, and lettered from A to Y. In the window was a large notice,
very clearly printed, and it was to this effect:

At a little desk in the gangway by which the chairs were approached sat
a dark, pale child—I can call him by no other name, so frail and young
did he seem—and the delicacy of his complexion led me to wonder perhaps
whether he was not one of those whom the climate of England strikes with
consumption, and who, in the mysterious providence of our race, wander
abroad in search of health and find a Realm. His alertness, however, and
the brilliance of his eye; his winning, almost obsequious address, and the
hooked clutch of his gestures betrayed an energy that no physical weakness
could conquer. He invited me to enter, and begged me to purchase a seat.

I had no need of one, for I had made arrangements to spend the Great
Day itself and the next at a small hotel in the extreme north of
Sutherlandshire, but I was arrested by the evident mental power of my new
acquaintance, and I wasted five shillings in buying the chair marked D.

It was with some difficulty that I could purchase it, so eager was he that
I should have the best place; "seeing," said he, "that they are all one
price, and that you may as well benefit by being an early bird." I noted
the strict rectitude which, for all that men ignorant of modern commerce
may say, is at the basis of commercial success.

Something so attracted me
in the whole business that I was weak enough to take a chair in a tea-shop
opposite and watch all day the actions of the Child of Fate.

In less than an hour twenty different people, mainly gentlefolk, had come
in and bought places at the sensible price at which he offered them. To
each of them he gave a ticket corresponding to the number of the chair. He
was courteous to all, and even expansive. He explained the advantage of
each particular seat.

So far so good; but, what was more astonishing, in the second hour another
twenty came and appeared to purchase; in the third (which was the busiest
time of the day) some forty, first and last, must have done business with
the Favourite of Fortune. I pondered upon these things very deeply, and
went home.

Next morning the attraction which the place had for me drew me as with
a magnet, and I went, somewhat stealthily I fear, to the same tea-shop
and noticed with the greatest astonishment that the chairs were now not
lettered, but numbered, and that the boy was sitting at his little desk
with a series of white cards bearing the figures from one to twenty-five.
It was very early—not ten o'clock—but the Child was as spruce and neat
as he had been in the afternoon of the day before. He bore already that
mark of energy combined with neatness which is the stamp of success.

I crossed the road and entered. He recognized me at once (their memory for
faces is wonderful), and said cheerfully:

"Your D corresponds to the number 4."

I thanked him very much, and asked him why he had changed his system of
notation. He told me it was because several people had explained to him
that they remembered figures more easily than letters. We then talked to
each other, agreeing upon the maxims of simplicity and directness which
are at the root of all mercantile stability. He told me he required
cash from all who bought his chairs; that there was no agreement, no
insurance—no "frills," as he wittily called them.

"It is as simple," he said, "as buying a pound of tea. I am satisfied, and
they are satisfied. As for the risk, it is covered by the low price, and
if you ask me how I can let them at so low a price, I will tell you. It is
because I have found exactly what was needed and have added nothing more.
Moreover, I did not buy the chairs, but hired them."

I went back to my tea-shop with head bent, murmuring to myself those
memorable lines:

   We founded many a mighty State,
   Pray God that we may never fail
   From craven fears of being great

(or words to that effect).

That day no less than 153 people did business with the Youth.

Next day I found among my morning letters a note from a politician of my
acquaintance, telling me that the Function was postponed—indefinitely.
I wasted not a moment. I went at once to my post of observation, my
tea-shop, and I proceeded to watch the Leader.

There was as yet no knowledge of the calamity in London.

My friend seemed to have noticed me; at any rate a new and somewhat
anxious look was apparent on his face. With a firm and decided step I
crossed the road to greet him, and when he saw me he was all at his ease.
He told me that my seat had been especially asked for, and that a higher
price had been offered; but a bargain, he said, was a bargain, and so we
fell to chatting. When I mentioned, among other subjects, the very great
success of his enterprise, he gave a slight start, which did honour to his
heart; but he was of too stern a mould to give way. He was of the temper
of the Pioneers.

I assured him at once that it was very far from my intention to reproach
him for the talents which he had used with so much ability and energy. I
pointed out to him that even if I desired to injure him, which I did not,
it would be impossible for me, or for any one, to trace more than half a
dozen, at the most, of his numerous clients.

It is frequently the case that men of small business capacity will
perceive some important element in a commercial problem which escapes the
eyes of Genius; and I could see that this simple observation of mine had
relieved him almost to tears.

Before he could thank me, a newsboy appeared with a very large placard,
upon which was written

In a moment his mind grasped the whole meaning of that word; but he went
out with a steady step, and paid the sixpence which the newsboy demanded.
Even in that uncomplaining action, the uncomplaining forfeiture of the
comparatively large sum which necessity demanded, one could detect the
financial grip which is the true arbiter of the fates of nations. He
needed the paper: he did not haggle about the price. He first mastered the
exact words of the announcement, and then, looking up at me with a face of
paper, he said:

"It is not only postponed, but all this preparation is thrown away."

I have said that I have no commercial aptitude; I admit that I was
puzzled.

"Surely," said I, "this is exactly what you needed?"

He shook his head, still restraining, by a powerful effort, the natural
expression of his grief, and showed me, for all his answer, a rail way
ticket to Boulogne which he had purchased, and which was available for the
night boat on the eve of the Function. I then understood what he meant
when he said that all his preparations had been thrown away.

I do not know whether I did right or wrong—I felt myself to be nothing
more than a blind instrument in the hands of the superior power which
governs the destinies of a people.

"How much did the ticket cost?" said I.

"Thirty shillings," said he.

I pulled out a sovereign and a half-sovereign from my pocket, and said:

"Here is the money. I have leisure, and I would as soon go to Boulogne as
to Sutherlandshire."

He did not thank me effusively, as might one of the more excitable and
less efficient races; but he grasped my hand and blessed me silently. I
then left him.

* * * * *

In the steamer to Boulogne, as I was musing over this strange adventure, a
sturdy Anglo-Saxon man, a true son of Drake or Raleigh, came up and asked
me for my ticket. As I gave it him my eye fell idly upon the price of the
ticket. It was twenty-five shillings—but I had saved a directing and
creative mind.

If he should come across these lines he will remember me. He is probably
in the House of Commons by now. Perhaps he has bought his peerage.
Wherever he is I hope he will remember me.

Caedwalla, a prince out of Wales (though some deny it), wandered in the
Andredsweald. He was nineteen years of age and his heart was full of anger
for wrong that had been done him by men of his own blood. For he was
rightfully heir to the throne of the kingdom of Sussex, but he was kept
from it by the injustice of men.

A retinue went with him of that sort which will always follow adventure
and exile. These, the rich of the seacoast and of the Gwent called broken
men; but they loved their Lord. So he went hunting, feeding upon what he
slew, and proceeding from steading to steading in the sparse woods of
Andred where is sometimes an open heath, and sometimes a mile of oak, and
often a clay swamp, and, seen from little lifted knolls of sand where the
broom grows and the gorse, the Downs to the south like a wall.

As he so wandered upon one day, he came upon another man of a very
different fashion, for Caedwalla would have nothing to do with the Cross
of Christ, nor with the customs of the towns, nor with the talk of foreign
men. But this man was a bishop wandering, and his name was Wilfrid. He
also had his little retinue, and, by an accident of his office or of his
exile, he had proceeded to a steading in the heaths and woods of the
Weald where also was Caedwalla: so they met. The pride and the bearing of
Wilfrid, seeing that he was of a Roman town and an officer of the State,
and a bishop to boot, nay, a bishop above bishops, was not the pride
Caedwalla loved, and the young man bore himself with another sort of
pride, which was that of the mountains and of pagan men. Nevertheless
Wilfrid put before him, with Roman rhetoric and with uplifted hands, the
story of our Lord, and Caedwalla, keeping his face set during all that
recital, could not forbid this story to sink into the depths of his heart,
where for many years it remained, and did no more than remain.

The kingdom of Sussex, cultivated by men of various kinds, received
Wilfrid the Bishop wherever he went. He did many things that do not here
concern me, and his chief work was to make the rich towns of the sea plain
and of Chichester and of Lewes and of Arundel, and of the steadings of
the Weald, and of the wealden markets also, Christian men; for he showed
them that it was a mean thing to go about in a hairy way like pagans,
unacquainted with letters, and of imperfect ability in the making of
raiment or the getting of victuals. Indeed, as I have written in another
place, it was St. Wilfrid who taught the King of Sussex and his men how to
catch fish in nets. They revered him everywhere, and when they had given
up their shameful barbarism and decently accepted the rules of life and
the religion of it, they pressed upon St. Wilfrid that he should found a
bishopric, and that it should have a cathedral and a see (all of which
things he had explained to them), and he did this on Selsey Bill: but
to-day the sea has swallowed all.

Time passed, and the young man Caedwalla, still a very young man in the
twenties, came to his own, and he sat on the throne that was rightfully
his in Chichester and he ruled all Sussex to its utmost boundaries. And
he was king of much more, as history shows, but all the while he proudly
refused in his young man's heart the raiment and the manner of the thing
which he had hated in his exile, nor would he accept the Latin prayers,
nor bow to the name of the Christian God.

Caedwalla, still so young but now a king, thought it shameful that he
should rule no more than the empire God had given him, and he was filled
with a longing to cross the sea and to conquer new land. Wherefore,
whether well or ill advised, he set out to cross the sea and to conquer
the Isle of Wight, of which story said that Wight the hero had established
his kingdom there in the old time before writing was, and when there were
only songs. So Caedwalla and his fighting men, they landed in that island
and they fought against the many inhabitants of it, and they subdued it,
but in these battles Caedwalla was wounded.