VILLADOM.

"I sojourned perforce for a long while in Villadom," says an enemy of Respectability; "and I came away with some of its froust about my person." You can't bide there without getting harm; but the worst of it is, we have no option, many of us; we have to live in Villadom at some time or another in our lives. Thackeray, Guy de Maupassant, George Gissing, and George Moore have given us some clever studies of the kind of folk who live in those genteel residences in the suburbs. Mr. Moore's picture of Ashbourne Crescent, in the last chapter of "A Drama in Muslin," is about the finest of the sort I have met with in fiction. It is so good a description of the region that I am tempted beyond resistance to steal parts of it.

"In Ashbourne Crescent there is neither dissent nor Radicalism, but general aversion to all considerations which might disturb belief in all the routine of existence, in all its temporal and spiritual aspects, as it had come amongst them. The fathers and the brothers go to the City every day at nine, the young ladies play tennis, read novels, and beg to be taken to dances at the Kensington Town Hall. On Sunday the air is alive with the clanging of bells, and, in orderly procession, every family proceeds to church, the fathers in all the gravity of umbrellas and prayer-books, the matrons in silk mantles and clumsy, ready-made elastic sides; the girls in all the gaiety of their summer dresses, with lively bustles bobbing; the young men in frock-coats which show off their broad shoulders, as from time to time they pull their tawny moustaches. Each house keeps a cook and housemaid, and on Sunday afternoons, when the skies are flushed with sunset, and the outlines of this human warren grow harshly distinct—black lines upon pale red—these are seen walking arm-in-arm away towards a distant park with their young men.... And that Ashbourne Crescent, with its bright brass knockers, its white-capped maidservants, and spotless oilcloths, will in the dim future pass away before some great tide of revolution that is now gathering strength far away, deep down and out of sight in the heart of a nation, is probable enough; but it is certainly now, in all its cheapness and vulgarity, more than anything else representative, though the length and breadth of the land be searched, of the genius of Empire that has been glorious through the long tale that nine hundred years have to tell."

I have conceived of a suburban colony of houses where a man might live and be natural and healthy-minded among his neighbours; where he might, if he chose, walk about in cool, backwoods dress, a shirt, breeks, and wide-brimmed hat—or no hat—in hot weather, without inciting derision, or becoming a pariah. But Villadom cares nothing for naturalness, nor liberty of opinion and conduct; and, unconscious of the madness of its severe conventionality, it deems those insane who cultivate ideas and try to live up to them. What! is there one man in ten in this great sheep-pen who would like to be seen blacking his own boots or sweeping the snow from the front of his house? No, they prefer to ill-pay some man's daughter to do all their irksome and dirty work. What does Villadom read, talk of, and think upon? The fathers read the newspapers, the mothers and daughters peruse "John Halifax," and such like literature of the Pap-boat and Pumplighter sort; and the talk is of money, the neighbours, and the back-parlour window curtains and carpets—all good themes enough in their season, but not the only things in life of vast importance. The denizens of Villadom tell you that they have their livings to earn, dinners to cook, and houses to control; therefore there is no time for cultivating their intellects, and developing their sense of the beautiful in nature and art. No time! It is the old plea of the men and women who squander hours in tittle-tattle and loafing. Gerald Massey, a bargeman's son, and a fag in a factory; Elihu Burritt, a blacksmith; Thomas Edward, a shoemaker; Walt Whitman, a compositor; Bradlaugh, a soldier, and afterwards a clerk; James Hosken, a postman, not to mention a hundred other hard-working men, found time to read, and think, and improve themselves. It is the will, and not the leisure, that is lacking in Villadom, the will to be something better than mere Respectables in the eyes of society.

The foppery and frippery of Villadom are miserable outlets for human energy. If this is the end of civilised beings, give me rather the wildest life of primitive barbarians, for they, at least, wish to learn higher arts of living. No past civilisation presents this picture of Philistine apathy to the nobler interests of life. Karl Pearson says truly that the two most pitiful illustrations of our pseudo-civilisation may be seen in the main streets of the West End of London. In the afternoon you see crowds of idle, shallow women standing, rapt in the admiration of bits of ribbon in the windows of the drapery stores. A few hours later, when the shops are closed, another army of women parade the pavements, ogling and smirking in their nightly quest for the bread of prostitution. The "ladies" of the afternoon promenade are mostly the wives and daughters of Villadom. They do not know how largely responsible they are for that nocturnal orgy of the streets when they are snug in their luxurious drawing-rooms. It is the fetish-worship of Respectability that makes thousands of women redundant, drives some to the streets, and condemns others to withered celibacy. Men realise that the Respectable daughters of Villadom are luxuries that they cannot afford to maintain, in early life, at least; and the demi-monde know this, too. As Mr. W. R. Greg wrote: "While the monde has been deteriorating, the demi-monde has been improving; as the one has grown stupider and costlier, the other has grown, more attractive, more decorous, and more easy. The ladies there are now often as clever and amusing, usually more beautiful, and not infrequently (in external demeanour, at least,) as modest, as their rivals in more recognised society."

This writer, rightly or wrongly, affirms that the way to set things straight in this anomaly of polyandry for thousands of women, and celibacy for thousands of their sisters is by the respectable ladies emulating the manners, and attaining the charms of the hetÆrÆ, in "cheerfulness and kindliness of demeanour," "economy of style," and "ease and simplicity."

I know the advanced women—some of them, at any rate—will tell me that men are not worth winning at this expense, and that they prefer to go their own ways alone. So be it. There is no coercion to matrimony for such as elect to remain in single independence. On the other hand, we have not yet killed the sexual attraction and the maternal instinct in all our emancipated women. And, as for the girls of Villadom, they, at all events, look upon marriage as their destiny. Then, I say, let them get rid of this spurious virtue of Respectability, which costs so much to maintain, and is worth nothing after all their pains. Villadom exists principally for women. Bachelor men do not, as a rule, need domestic whim-whams and nick-nacks to make them happy in their "diggings." Villadom has been built and embellished for the fair sex; they reign almost supreme there, and it is their part to refine the atmosphere of their domain.