and many a time the last guinea I had in the world has gone to help some brother-actor in difficulty.”
“Still, Mr. Gowling, you admit it is possible to save.”
“‘Oh, yes! possible, but difficult, inasmuch as the qualities that make the actor are not, nor are they usually found associated with, those of the rigid economist; and it is only the rigid economist amongst such men as myself who can save at all. Look, too, at the liabilities to disease, the uncertainties of the means of living we have, and you will see that we are, on the whole, as hardly worked for the amount of pay we receive as any class of men.”
“Well, then, Mr. Gowling, when you’ve not saved, and are poor, the State takes care of you.”
“Mr. Atherton, I don’t think it ought to be left to the State to do that. We actors do little for the State, add little to her wealth or greatness, but we do a good deal for that public which is not the State. I think that if any class in their old age have a claim on the public beyond that which the law of mere competition, of mere barter and sale, gives, it is my own class. We sacrifice our lives to a life-wearing profession, and we are paid for it. Well, you say, there the matter ends.”
“Certainly, the public pays you for your exertions, and all claim is discharged.”
“Not so: the public does not say so in other cases. Look at the hundreds of refuges for the old poor of various trades and professions, and you will see evidence enough that there is something in a man’s heart that tells him the law of competition must be supplemented by another—that of benevolence—and it should be so in our case particularly. How many pleasant hours have the public gained out of my expenditure of my life; and the public gratitude leaves me to the State, and the State puts me in this—(and he touched his grey coat). I, who have worn the mantle of a king, the robe of a senator, and the dress of a gentleman all my life, go about badged as a pauper, stamped as a beggar, and have to associate constantly with men whose lives have been spent on the roads, the field, or in a stable. They are men, I grant, but I’ve been used to different company,” and the old player’s vigour seemed to come back to him as he spoke. “The public, sir, should take it up; and if the decayed fishmongers, ironmongers, watermen, and a host of other useful trades have their refuges for their poor, I don’t think it is asking too much that we should have some place where we might spend the few remaining days of our lives—we should not trouble the earth long, any of us; and gratitude for what we have done might induce a public we have amused to find us this. If each one whom we amuse were to give a little, it might be done with ease to all.”
“But suppose,” urged the master, “that some such place were provided; would it not tend to induce still more that carelessness which I have mentioned?”
“Does this place tend to it?” said the old man, contemptuously. “No; nor could any place be made so attractive as to make a man become a beggar in order to claim it. You fancy, when you see me moving about here, I am hardened to it, and do not feel the degradation. I do—I feel it every day; and though I might feel it less were I accepting the graceful gift of a grateful public, I should still love independence of the gift more. No man would save less because such a place as players’ almshouses existed; but the existence of such a place would be at once a comfort for our old and poor men and women, and not a little creditable to the nation who established it.”
A bell here rung.
“There, Alice, you must go in. Good night, my child.”
She kissed him so fondly, and slid off his knee, and went in.
“And now I must go, sir, too. I’m going to bed, and my bed lies between a decayed journeyman butcher and a road mender, and they talk across me.”
“Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Gowling?”
“Well, a little tobacco and a few readable books would be acceptable. Perhaps you may live to see the day when an old worn-out actor may have less humiliating favours to ask at the hands of his friends.” And the old man slowly walked towards the house.
I walked home, and thought of the old grey-coated pauper actor. And now, thank God! the day has come when the public has resolved that the old players’ almshouses shall no longer be a wish and hope of years gone by, but a monument of its gratitude for all years to come.
VIOLET.
She stood where I had used to wait
For her, beneath the gaunt old yew,
And near a column of the gate
That open’d on the avenue.
The moss that capp’d its granite ball,
The grey and yellow lichen stains,
The ivy on the old park wall,
Were glossy with the morning rains.
She stood, amid such tearful gloom;
But close behind her, out of reach,
Lay many a mound of orchard bloom,
And trellis’d blossoms of the peach.
Those peaches blooming to the south,
Those orchard blossoms, seem’d to me
Like kisses of her rosy mouth,
Revived on trellis and on tree:
Kisses, that die not when the thrill
Of joy that answer’d them is mute;
But such as turn to use, and fill
The summer of our days with fruit.
And she, impressing half the sole
Of one small foot against the ground,
Stood resting on the yew-tree bole,
A-tiptoe to each sylvan sound:
She, whom I thought so still and shy,
Express’d in every subtle move
Of lifted hand and open eye
The large expectancy of love;
