Prose Fancies | Page 5

is so silent; because, when she does talk, she talks in a language which
we cannot understand, but only guess at; and her silence allows us to
hear her eternal meanings, which her gossiping would drown.
Happy monks of La Trappe! One has heard the foolish chattering world
take pity upon you. An hour of talk to a year of silence! O heavenly
proportion! And I can well imagine that when that hour has come, it
seems but a trivial toy you have forgotten how to play with. Were I a
Trappist, I would use my hour to evangelise converts to silence, would
break the long year's quiet but to whisper, 'How good is silence!' Let us
inaugurate a secular La Trappe, let us plot a conspiracy of silence, let
us send the world to Coventry. Or, if we must talk, let it be in Latin, or
in the 'Volapük' of myriad-meaning music; and let no man joke save in
Greek--that all may laugh. But, best of all, let us leave off talking
altogether, and listen to the morning stars.

LIFE IN INVERTED COMMAS
As I waited for an omnibus at the corner of Fleet Street the other day, I
was the spectator of a curious occurrence. Suddenly there was a scuffle
hard by me, and, turning round, I saw a powerful gentlemanly man
wrestling with two others in livery, who were evidently intent on
arresting him. These men, I at once perceived, belonged to the detective
force of the Incorporated Society of Authors, and were engaged in the
capture of a notorious plagiarist. I knew the prisoner well. He had, in
fact, pillaged from my own writings; but I was none the less sorry for
his plight, to which, I would assure the reader, I was no party. Yet he
was, I admit, an egregiously bad case, and my pity is doubtless
misplaced sentiment. Like many another, he had begun his career as a
quotation and ended as a plagiarism, daring even, in one instance, to
imitate that shadow in the fairy-tale which rose up on a sudden one day
and declared himself to be the substance and the substance his shadow.
Indeed, he had so far succeeded as to make many people question
whether or not he was the original and the other man the plagiarism.
However, there was no longer to be any doubt of it, for his captors had
him fast this time; and, presently, we saw him taken off in a hansom,
well secured between strong inverted commas.
This curious circumstance set me reflecting, and, as we trundled along
towards Charing Cross, my mind gave birth to sundry sententious
reflections.
After all, I thought, that unlucky plagiarist is no worse than most of us:
for is it not true that few of us live as conscientiously as we should
within our inverted commas? We are far more inclined to live in that
author, not ourselves, who makes for originality. It is, of course,
difficult, even with the best intentions, to make proper
acknowledgment of all our 'authorities'--to attach, so to say, the true
'del. et sculp.' to all our little bits of art. There is so much in our lives
that we honestly don't know how we came by.
As I reflected in this wise, I was drawn to notice my companions in the

omnibus, and lo! there was not an original person amongst us. Yet I
looked in vain to see if they wore their inverted commas. Not one of
them, believe me, had had the honesty to bring them. Each looked at
me unblushingly, as though he were really original, and not a cheap
German print of originals I had seen in books and pictures since I could
read. I really think that they must have been unaware of their imposture.
They could hardly have pretended so successfully.
There was the young dandy just let loose from his band-box, wearing
exactly the same face, the same smile, the same neck-tie, holding his
stick in exactly the same fashion, talking exactly the same words, with
precisely the same accent, as his neighbour, another dandy, and as all
the other dandies between the Bank and Hyde Park Corner. Yet he
seemed persuaded of his own originality. He evidently felt that there
was something individual about him, and apparently relied with
confidence on his friend not addressing a third dandy by mistake for
him. I hope he had his name safe in his hat.
Looking at these three examples of Nature's love of repeating herself, I
said to myself: Somewhere in heaven stands a great stencil, and at each
sweep of the cosmic brush a million dandies are born, each one alike as
a box of collars. Indeed, I felt that this stencil process had been
employed in