CHAPTER XIX
I've had much leisure to be thinking of late. A man has time to wonder and to speculate concerning life and what he's seen o' it when he's taking a long ocean voyage. And I've been meditating on some curious contrasts. I was in Australia when I heard of the coming of the war. My boy John was with me, then; he'd come there tae meet his mither and me. He went hame, straight hame; I went to San Francisco.
Noo I'm on ma way hame frae Australia again, and again I've made the lang journey by way of San Francisco and the States. And there's a muckle to think upon in what I've seen. Sad sichts they were, a many of them. In yon time when I was there before the world was a' at peace. Men went aboot their business, you in Australia, underneath the world, wi' no thought of trouble brewing. But other men, in Europe, thousands of miles way, were laying plans that meant death and the loss of hands and een for those braw laddies o' Australia and New Zealand that I saw—those we came to ken sae weel as the gallant Anzacs.
It makes you realize, seeing countries so far awa' frae a' the war, and yet suffering so there from, how dependent we all are upon one another. Distance makes no matter; differences make none. We cannot escape the consequences of what others do. And so, can we no be thinking sometimes, before we act, doing something that we think concerns only ourselves, of all those who micht suffer for what we did?
I maun think of labor when I think of the Anzacs. Yon is a country different frae any I have known. There's no landed aristocracy in the land of the Anzac. Yon's a country where all set out on even terms. That's truer there, by far, than in America, even. It's a young country and a new country, still, but it's grown up fast. It has the strength and the cities of an old country, but it has a freshness of its own.
And there labor rules the roost. It's one of the few places in the world where a government of labor has been instituted. And yet, I'm wondering the noo if those labor leaders in Australia have reckoned on one or twa things I think of? They're a' for the richts of labor—and so am I. I'd be a fine one, with the memory I have of unfairness and exploitation of the miners in the coal pits at Hamilton, did I not agree that the laboring man must be bound together with his fellows to gain justice and fair treatment from his employers.
But there's a richt way and a wrong way to do all things. And there was a wrong way that labor used, sometimes, during the war, to gain its ends. There was sympathy for all that British labor did among laboring men everywhere, I'm told—in Australia, too. But let's bide a wee and see if labor didn't maybe, mak' some mistakes that it may be threatening to mak' again noo that peace has come.
Here's what I'm afraid of. Labor used threats in the war. If the government did not do thus and so there'd be a strike. That was meanin' that guns would be lacking, or shell, or rifles, or hand grenades, or what not in the way of munitions, on the Western front. But the threat was sae vital that it won, tae often I'm no saying it was used every time. Nor am I saying labor did not have a richt to what it asked. It's just this—canna we get alang without making threats, one to the other?
And there were some strikes that had serious consequences. There were strikes that delayed the building of ships, and the making of cannon and shell. And as a result of them men died, in France, and in Gallipoli, and in other places, who need no have died. They were laddies who'd dropped all, who'd gi'en up all that was dear to them, all comfort and safety, when the country called.
They had nae voice in the matters that were in dispute. None thought, when sic a strike was called, of hoo those laddies in the trenches wad be affected. That's what I canna forgie. That's what makes me wonder why the Anzacs, when they reach home, don't have a word to say themselves aboot the troubles that the union leaders would seem to be gaein' to bring aboot.
We're in a ficht still, even though peace has come. We're in a ficht wi' poverty, and disease, and all the other menaces that still threaten our civilization. We'll beat them, as we ha' beaten the other enemies. But we'll no beat them by quarrelling amang oorselves, any more than we'd ever have beaten the Hun if France and Britain had stopped the war, every sae often, to hae oot an argument o' their own. We had differences with our gude friends the French, fraw time to time. Sae did the Americans, and whiles we British and our American cousins got upon ane anither's nerves. But there was never real trouble or difficulty, as the result and the winning of the war have shown.
Do you ken what it is we've a' got to think of the noo? It's production. We must produce more than we ha' ever done before. It's no a steady raise in wages that will help. Every time wages gang up a shilling or twa, everything else is raised in proportion. The workingman maun mak' more money; everyone understands that. But the only way he can safely get more siller is to earn more—to increase production as fast as he knows how.
It's the only way oot—and it's true o' both Britain and America. The more we mak' the more we'll sell. There's a market the noo for all we English speaking folk can produce. Germany is barred, for a while at least; France, using her best efforts and brains to get back upon her puir, bruised feet, canna gae in avily for manufactures for a while yet. We, in Britain, have only just begun to realize that the war is over. It took us a long time to understand what we were up against at the beginning, and what sort of an effort we maun mak' if we were to win the war.
And then, before we'd done, we were doing things we'd never ha dreamed it was possible for us tae do before the need was upon us. We in Britain had to do without things we'd regarded as necessities and we throve without them. For the sake of the wee bairns we went without milk for our tea and coffee, and scarce minded it. Aye, in a thousand little ways that had not seemed to us to matter at all we were deprived and harried and hounded.
Noo, what I'm thinking sae often is just this. We had a great problem to meet in the winning of the war. We solved it, though it was greater than any of those we were wont to call insoluble. Are there no problems left? There's the slum. There's the sort of poverty that afflicts a man who's willing tae work and can nicht find work enough tae do tae keep himself and his family alive and clad. There's all sorts of preventible disease. We used to shrug our shoulders and speak of such things as the act of God. But I'll no believe they're acts of God. He doesna do things in such a fashion. They're acts of man, and it's for man to mak' them richt and end what's wrong wi' the world he dwells in.
They used to shrug their shoulders in Russia, did those who had enough to eat and a warm, decent hoose tae live in. They'd hear of the sufferings of the puir, and they'd talk of the act of God, and how he'd ordered it that i' this world there maun always be some suffering.
And see what's come o' that there! The wrong sort of man has set to work to mak' a wrong thing richt, and he's made it worse than it ever was. But how was it he had the chance to sway the puir ignorant bodies in Russia? How was it that those who kenned a better way were not at work long agane? Ha' they anyone but themselves to blame that Trotzky and the others had the chance to persuade the Russian people tae let them ha' power for a little while'?
Oh, we'll no come to anything like that in Britain and America. I've sma' patience wi' those that talk as if the Bolsheviki would be ruling us come the morrow. We're no that sort o' folk, we Britons and Americans. We've settled our troubles our ain way these twa thousand years, and we'll e'en do sae again. But we maun recognize that there are things we maun do tae mak' the lot of the man that's underneath a happier and a better one.
He maun help, tae. He maun realize that there's a chance for him. I'm haulding mysel' as one proof of that—it's why I've told you sae muckle in this book of myself and the way that I've come frae the pit tae the success and the comfort that I ken the noo.
I had to learn, lang agane, that my business was not only mine. Maybe you'll think that I'm less concerned with others and their affairs than maist folk, and maybe that's true, tae. But I. canna forget others, gi'en I would. When I'm singing I maun have a theatre i' which to appear. And I canna fill that always by mysel'. I maun gae frae place to place, and in the weeks of the year when I'm no appearing there maun be others, else the theatre will no mak' siller enough for its owners to keep it open.
And then, let's gie a thought to just the matter of my performance. There must be an orchestra. It maun play wi' me; it maun be able to accompany me. An orchestra, if it is no richt, can mak' my best song sound foolish and like the singing o' some one who dinna ken ane note of music frae the next. So I'm dependent on the musicians—and they on me. And then there maun be stage hands, to set the scenes. Folk wouldna like it if I sang in a theatre wi'oot scenery. There maun be those that sell tickets, and tak' them at the doors, and ushers to show the folk their seats.
And e'en before a'body comes tae the hoose to pay his siller for a ticket there's others I'm dependent upon. How do they ken I'm in the toon at a'? They've read it in the papers, maybe—and there's reporters and printers I've tae thank. Or they've seen my name and my picture on a hoarding, and I've to think o' the men who made the lithograph sheets, and the billposters who put them up. Sae here's Harry Lauder and a' the folk he maun have tae help him mak' a living and earn his bit siller! More than you'd thought' Aye, and more than I'd thought, sometimes.
There's a michty few folk i' this world who can say they're no dependant upon others in some measure. I ken o' none, myself. It's a fine thing to mind one's ain business, but if one gies the matter thought one will find, I think, that a man's business spreads oot more than maist folk reckon it does.
Here, again. In the States there's been trouble about the men that work on the railways. Can I say it's no my business? Is it no? Suppose they gae oot on strike? How am I to mak' my trips frae one toon the the next? And should I no be finding oot, if there's like that threatening to my business, where the richt lies? You will be finding it's sae, too, in your affairs; there's little can come that willna affect you, soon or late.
We maun all stand together, especially we plain men and women. It was sae that we won the war—and it is sae that we can win the peace noo that it's come again, and mak' it a peace sae gude for a' the world that it can never be broken again by war. There'd be no wars i' the world if peace were sae gude that all men were content. It's discontented men who stir up trouble in the world, and sae mak' wars possible.
We talk much, in these days, of classes. There's a phrase it sickens me tae hear—class consciousness. It's ane way of setting the man who works wi' his hands against him who works wi' his brain. It's no the way a man works that ought to count—it's that he works at all. Both sorts of work are needful; we canna get along without either sort.
Is no humanity a greater thing than any class? We are all human. We maun all be born, and we maun all die in the end. That much we ken, and there's nae sae much more we can be siccar of. And I've often thought that the trouble with most of our hatreds an' our envy and malice is that folk do not know one another well enough. There's fewer quarrels among folk that speak the same tongue. Britain and America dwelt at peace for mair than a hundred years before they took the field together against a common enemy. America and Canada stand side by side—a great strong nation and a small one. There's no fort between them; there are no fichting ships on the great lakes, ready to loose death and destruction.
It's easier to have a good understanding when different peoples speak the same language. But there's a hint o' the way things must be done, I'm thinking, in the future. Britain and France used tae have their quarrels. They spoke different tongues. But gradually they built up a gude understanding of one another, and where's the man in either country the noo that wadna laugh at you if you said there was danger they micht gae tae war?
It's harder, it may be, to promote a gude understanding when there's a different language for a barrier. But walls can be climbed, and there's more than the ane way of passing them. We've had a great lesson in that respect in the war. It's the first time that ever a coalition of nations held together. Germany and Austria spoke one language. But we others, with a dozen tongues or mair to separate us, were forged into one mighty confederation by our peril and our consciousness of richt, and we beat doon that barrier of various languages, sae that it had nae existence.
And it's not only foreign peoples that speak a different tongue at times. Whiles you'll find folk of the same family, the same race, the same country, who gie the same words different meanings, and grow confused and angry for that reason. There's a way they can overcome that, and reach an understanding. It's by getting together and talking oot all that confuses and angers them. Speech is a great solvent if a man's disposed any way at all to be reasonable, and I've found, as I've gone about the world, that most men want to be reasonable.
They'll call me an optimist, maybe. I'll no be ashamed of that title. There was a saying I've heard in America that taught me a lot. They've a wee cake there they call a doughnut—awfu' gude eating, though no quite sae gude as Mrs. Lauder's scones. There's round hole in the middle of a doughnut, always. And the Americans have a way of saying: "The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist sees the hole." It's a wise crack, you, and it tells you a good deal, if you'll apply it.
There's another way we maun be thinking. We've spent a deal of blood and siller in these last years. We maun e'en have something to show for all we've spent. For a muckle o' the siller we've spent we've just borrowed and left for our bairns and their bairns to pay when the time comes. And we maun leave the world better for those that are coming, or they'll be saying it's but a puir bargain we've made for them, and what we bought wasna worth the price.
CHAPTER XX
There's no sadder sicht my een have ever seen than that of the maimed and wounded laddies that ha' come hame frae this war that is just over. I ken that there's been a deal of talk aboot what we maun do for them that ha' done sae much for us. But I'm thinking we can never think too often of those laddies, nor mak' too many plans to mak' life easier for them. They didna think before they went and suffered. They couldna calculate. Jock could not stand, before the zero hour came in the trenches, and talk' wi' his mate.
He'd not be saying: "Sandy, man, we're going to attack in twa-three meenits. Maybe I'll lose a hand, Sandy, or a leg. Maybe it'll be you'll be hit. What'll we be doing then? Let's mak' our plans the noo. How'll we be getting on without our legs or our arms or if we should be blind?"
No, it was not in such fashion that the laddies who did the fichting thought or talked wi' one another. They'd no time, for the one thing. And for another, I think they trusted us.
Weel, each government has worked out its own way of taking care of the men who suffered. They're gude plans, the maist of them. Governments have shown more intelligence, more sympathy, more good judgment, than ever before in handling such matters. That's true in America as well as in Britain. It's so devised that a helpless man will be taken care of a' his life lang, and not feel that he's receiving any charity. It's nae more than richt that it should be so; it would be a black shame, indeed, if it were otherwise. But still there's more tae be done, and it's for you and me and all the rest of us that didna suffer sae to do it.
There's many things a laddie that's been sair wounded needs and wants when he comes hame. Until he's sure of his food and his roof, and of the care of those dependent on him, if such there be, he canna think of anything else. And those things, as is richt and proper, his country will take in its charge.
But after that what he wants maist is tae know that he's no going to be helpless all his days. He wants to feel that he's some use in the world. Unless he can feel sae, he'd raither ha' stayed in a grave in France, alongside the thousands of others who have stayed there. It's an awfu' thing to be a laddie, wi' maist of the years of your life still before you to be lived, and to be thinking you micht better be dead.
I know what I'm talking aboot when I speak of this. Mind ye, I've passed much time of late years in hospitals. I've talked to these laddies when they'd be lying there, thinking—thinking. They'd a' the time in the world to think after they began to get better. And they'd be knowing, then, that they would live—that the bullet or the shell or whatever it micht be that had dropped them had not finished them. And they'd know, too, by then, that the limb was lost for aye, or the een or whatever it micht be.
Noo, think of a laddie coming hame. He's discharged frae the hospital and frae the army. He's a civilian again. Say he's blind. He's got his pension, his allowance, whatever it may be. There's his living. But is he to be just a hulk, needing some one always to care for him? That's a' very fine at first. Everyone's glad tae do it. He's a hero, and a romantic figure. But let's look a wee bit ahead.
Let's get beyond Jock just at first, when all the folks are eager to see him and have him talk to them. They're glad to sit wi' him, or tae tak' him for a bit walk. He'll no bore them. But let's be thinking of Jock as he'll be ten years frae noo. Who'll be remembering then hoo they felt when he first came home? They'll be thinking of the nuisance it is tae be caring for him a' the time, and of the way he's always aboot the hoose, needing care and attention.
What I'm afraid of is that tae many of the laddies wull be tae tired to fit themselves tae be other than helpless creatures, despite their wounds or their blindness. They can do wonders, if we'll help them. We maun not encourage those laddies tae tak' it tae easy the noo. It's a cruel hard thing to tell a boy like yon that he should be fitting himself for life. It seems that he ought to rest a bit, and tak' things easy, and that it's a sma' thing, after all he's done, to promise him good and loving care all his days.
Aye, and that's a sma' thing enough—if we're sure we can keep our promise. But after every war—and any old timer can tell ye I'm tellin' ye the truth the noo—there have been crippled and blinded men who have relied upon such promises—and seen them forgotten, seen themselves become a burden. No man likes to think he's a burden. It irks him sair. And it will be irksome specially tae laddies like those who have focht in France.
It's no necessary that any man should do that. The miracles of to-day are all at the service of the wounded laddies. And I've seen things I'd no ha' believed were possible, had I had to depend on the testimony o' other eyes than my own. I've seen men sae hurt that it didna seem possible they could ever do a'thing for themselves again. And I've seen those same men fend for themselves in a way that was as astonishing as it was heart rending.
The great thing we maun all do wi' the laddies that are sae maimed and crippled is never tae let them ken we're thinking of their misfortunes. That's a hard thing, but we maun do it. I've seen sic a laddie get into a 'bus or a railway carriage. And I've seen him wince when een were turned upon him. Dinna mistake me. They were kind een that gazed on him. The folk were gude folk; they were fu' of sympathy. They'd ha' done anything in the world for the laddie. But—they were doing the one thing they shouldna ha' done.
Gi'en you're an employer, and a laddie wi' a missing leg comes tae ye seeking a job. You've sent for him, it may be; ye ken work ye can gie him that he'll be able tae do. A' richt—that's splendid, and it's what maun be done. But never let him know you're thinking at a' that his leg's gone. Mak' him feel like ithers. We maun no' be reminding the laddies a' the time that they're different noo frae ither folk. That's the hard thing.
Gi'en a man's had sic a misfortune. We know—it's been proved a thousand times ower—that a man can rise above sic trouble. But he canno do it if he's thinking of it a' the time. The men that have overcome the handicaps of blindness and deformity are those who gie no thought at all to what ails them—who go aboot as if they were as well and as strong as ever they've been.
It's a hard thing not to be heeding such things.
But it's easier than what these laddies have had to do, and what they must go on doing a' the rest of their lives. They'll not be able to forget their troubles very long; there'll be plenty to remind them. But let's not gae aboot the streets wi' our een like a pair of looking glasses in which every puir laddie sees himsel' reflected.
It's like the case of the lad that's been sair wounded aboot the head; that's had his face sae mangled and torn that he'd be a repulsive sicht were it not for the way that he became sae. If he'd been courting a lassie before he was hurt wadna the thought of how she'd be feeling aboot him be amang his wairst troubles while he lay in hospital? I've talked wi' such, and I know.
Noo, it's a hard thing to see the face one loves changed and altered and made hideous. But it's no sae hard as to have tha face! Who wull say it is? And we maun be carefu' wi' such boys as that, tae. They're verra sensitive; all those that have been hurt are sensitive. It's easy to wound their feelings. And it should be easy for all of us to enter into a conspiracy amang ourselves to hide the shock of surprise we canna help feeling, whiles, and do nothing that can make a lad-die wha's fresh frae the hospital grow bitter over the thocht that he's nae like ither men the noo.
Yon's a bit o' a sermon I've been preaching, I'm afraid. But, oh, could ye ha' seen the laddies as I ha' seen them, in the hospitals, and afterward, when they were waiting tae gae hame! They wad ask me sae often did I think their ain folk could stand seeing them sae changed.
"Wull it be sae hard for them, Harry?" they've said the me, over and over again. "Whiles I've thocht it would ha' been better had I stayed oot there——"
Weel, I ken that that's nae sae. I'd gie a' the world tae ha' my ain laddie back, no matter hoo sair he'd been hurt. And there's never a faither nor a mither but wad feel the same way—aye, I'm sure o' that. Sae let us a' get together and make sure that there's never a look in our een or a shrinking that can gie' any o' these laddies, whether they're our kin or no, whether we saw them before, the feeling that there's any difference in our eyes between them and ourselves.
The greatest suffering any man's done that's been hurt is in his spirit, in his mind—not in his body. Bodily pain passes and is forgotten. But the wounds of the human spirit lie deep, and it takes them a lang time tae heal. They're easily reopened, tae; a careless word, a glance, and a' a man has gone through is brought back to his memory, when, maybe, he'd been forgetting. I've seen it happen too oft.
CHAPTER XXI
I've said sae muckle aboot myself in this book that I'm a wee bit reluctant tae say mair. But still, there's a thing I've thought about a good deal of late, what wi' all this talk of hoo easy some folk have it, and how hard others must work. I think there's no one makes a success of any sort wi'oot hard work—and wi'oot keeping up hard work, what's mair. I ken that's so of all the successful men I've ever known, all over the world. They work harder than maist folk will ever realize, and it's just why they're where they are.
Noawadays it's almost fashionable to think that any man that's got mair than others has something wrong about him. I know folks are always saying to me that I'm sae lucky; that all I have tae do is to sing twa-three songs in an evening and gae my ain gait the rest of my time. If they but knew the way I'm working!
Noo, I'd no be having anyone think I'm complaining. I love my work. It's what I'd rather do, till I retire and tak' the rest I feel I've earned, than any work i' a' the world. It's brought me happiness, my work has, and friends, and my share o' siller. But—it's work.
It's always been work. It's work to-day. It'll be work till I'm ready to stop doing it altogether. And, because, after all, a man knows more of his own work than of any other man's, I think I'll tell you just hoo I do work, and hoo much of my time it takes beside the hour or two I'll be in the theatre during a performance.
Weel, to begin with, there's the travelling. I travel in great comfort. But I dinna care how comfortable ye are, travel o' the sort I do is bound tae be a tiring thing. It's no sae hard in England or in Scotland. Distances are short. There's seldom need of spending a nicht on a train. So there it's easy. But when it comes to the United States and Canada it's a different matter.
There it's almost always a case of starting during the nicht, after a performance. That means switching the car, coupling it to a train. I'm a gude sleeper, but I'll defy any man tae sleep while his car is being hitched to a train, or whiles it's being shunted around in a railroad yard. And then, as like as not, ye'll come tae the next place in the middle of the nicht, or early in the morning, whiles you're taking your beauty sleep. The beauty sleeps I've had interrupted in America by having a switching engine come and push and haul me aboot! 'Is it any wonder I've sae little o' my manly beauty left?
There's a great strain aboot constant travelling, too. There will aye be accidents. No serious ones, maist of them, but trying tae the nerves and disturbing tae the rest. And there's aye some worry aboot being late. Unless you've done such work as mine, you canna know how I dread missing a performance. I've the thought of all the folk turning oot, and having them disappointed. There's a sense of responsibility one feels toward those who come oot sae to hear one sing. One owes them every care and thought.
Sae it's the nervous strain as much as the actual weariness of travel that I'm thinking of. It's a relief, on a long tour, tae come to a city where one's booked for a week. I'm no ower fond of hotels, but there's comfort in them at such times. But still, that's another thing. I miss my hame as every man should when he's awa frae it. It's hard work to keep comfortable and happy when I'm on tour so much.
Oh, aye, I can hear what you're saying to yourself! You're saying I've talked sae much about hoo fond I am of travelling. You'll be thinking, maybe, you'd be glad of the chance to gae all around the world, travelling in comfort and luxury. Aye, and so am I. It's just that I want you to understand that it's all wear and tear. It all takes it out of me.
But that's no what I'm meaning when I talk of the work I do. I'm thinking of the wee songs themselves, and the singing of them. Hoo do you think I get the songs I sing? Do you think they're just written richt off? Weel, it's not so.
A song, for me, you'll ken, is muckle mair than just a few words and a melody. It must ha' business. The way I'll dress, the things I do, the way I'll talk between verses—it's all one. A song, if folks are going to like it, has to be thought out wi' the greatest care.
I keep a great scrapbook, and it gaes wi' me everywhere I go. In it I put doon everything that occurs tae me that may help to make a new song, or that will make an old one go better. I'll see a queer yin in the street, maybe. He'll do something wi' his hands, or he'll stand in a peculiar fashion that makes me laugh. Or it'll be something funny aboot his claes.
It'll be in Scotland, maist often, of course, that I'll come upon something of the sort, but it's no always there. I've picked up business for my songs everywhere I've ever been. My scrap book is almost full now—my second one, I mean. And I suppose that there must be ideas buried in it that are better by far than any I've used, for I must confess that I can't always read the notes I've jotted down. I dash down a line or two, often, and they must seem to me to be important at the time, or I'd no be doing it. But later, when I'm browsing wi' the old scrapbook, blessed if I can make head or tail of them! And when I can't no one else can; Mrs. Lauder has tried, often enough, and laughed at me for a salt yin while she did it.
But often and often I've found a treasure that I'd forgotten a' aboot in the old book. I mind once I saw this entry——
"Think about a song called the 'Last of the Sandies'."
I had to stop and think a minute, and then I remembered that I'd seen the bill of a play, while I was walking aboot in London, that was called "The Last of the Dandies." That suggested the title for a song, and while I sat and remembered I began to think of a few words that would fit the idea.
When I came to put them together to mak' a song I had the help of my old Glasga friend, Rob Beaton, who's helped me wi' several o' my songs. I often write a whole song myself; sometimes, though, I can't seem to mak' it come richt, and then I'm glad of help frae Beaton or some other clever body like him. I find I'm an uncertain quantity when it comes to such work; whiles I'll be able to dash off the verses of a song as fast as I can slip the words doon upon the paper. Whiles, again, I'll seem able never to think of a rhyme at a', and I just have to wait till the muse will visit me again.
There's no telling how the idea for a song will come. But I ken fine how a song's made when once you have the idea! It's by hard work, and in no other way. There's nae sic a thing as writing a song easily—not a song folk will like. Don't let anyone tell you any different—or else you may be joining those who are sae sure I've refused the best song ever written—theirs!
The ideas come easily—aye! Do you mind a song I used to sing called "I Love a Lassie?" I'm asked ower and again to sing it the noo, so I'm thinking perhaps ye'll ken the yin I mean. It's aye been one of the songs folk in my audiences have liked best. Weel, ane day I was just leaving a theatre when the man at the stage door handed me a letter—a letter frae Mrs. Lauder, I'll be saying.
"A lady's handwriting, Harry," he said, jesting. "I suppose you love the lassies,"
"Oh, aye—ye micht say so," I answered. "At least—I'm fond o' all the lassies, but I only love yin."
And I went off thinking of the bonnie lassie I'd loved sae well sae lang.
"I love ma lassie," I hummed to myself. And then I stopped in my tracks. If anyone was watching me they'd ha' thought I was daft, no doot!!
"I love a lassie!" I hummed. And then I thocht: "Noo—there's a bonny idea for a bit sang!"
That time the melody came to me frae the first. It was wi' the words I had the trouble. I couldna do anything wi' them at a' at first. So I put the bit I'd written awa'. But whiles later I remembered it again, and I took the idea to my gude friend Gerald Grafton. We worked a long time before we hit upon just the verses that seemed richt. But when we'd done we had a song that I sang for many years, and that my audiences still demand from me.
That's aye been one great test of a song for me. Whiles I'll be a wee bit dootful aboot a song-in my repertory for a season. Then I'll stop singing it for a few nichts. If the audiences ask for it after that I know that I should restore it to its place, and I do.
I do not write all my own songs, but I have a great deal to do with the making of all of them. It's not once in a blue moon that I get a song that I can sing exactly as it was first written. That doesna mean it's no a good song it may mean that I'm no just the man tae sing it the way the author intended. I've my ain ways of acting and singing, and unless I feel richt and hamely wi' a song I canna do it justice. Sae it's no reflection on an author if I want to change his song about.
I keep in touch with several song writers—Grafton, J. D. Harper and several others. So well do they understand the way I like to do that they usually send me their first rough sketch of a song—the song the way it's born in their minds, before they put it into shape at all. They just give an outline of the words, and that gives me a notion of the story I'll have to be acting out to sing the song.
If I just sang songs, you see, it would be easy enough. But the song's only a part of it. There must aye be a story to be told, and a character to be portrayed, and studied, and interpreted. I always accept a song that appeals to me, even though I may not think I can use it for a long time to come. Good ideas for songs are the scarcest things in the world, I've found, and I never let one that may possibly suit me get away from me.
Often and often there'll be nae mair than just the bare idea left after we get through rebuilding and writing a new song. It may be just a title-a title counts for a great deal in a song with me.
I get a tremendous lot of songs frae ane year's end tae the other. All sorts of folk that ha' heard me send me their compositions, and though not one in fifty could possibly suit me I go through them a'. It doesna tak' much time; I can tell by a single glance at the verses, as a rule, if it's worth my while tae go on and finish reading. At the same time it has happened just often enough that a good song has come to me so, frae an author that's never been heard of before, that I wullna tak' the chance of missing one.
It may be, you'll understand, that some of the songs I canna use are very good. Other singers have taken a song I have rejected and made a great success wi' it. But that means just nothing at a' tae me. I'm glad the song found it's place—that's all. I canna put a song on unless it suits me—unless I feel, when I'm reading it, that here's something I can do so my audience will like to hear me do it. I flatter myself that I ken weel enough what the folk like that come to hear me—and, in any case, I maun be the judge.
But, every sae oft, there'll be a batch of songs I've put aside to think aboot a wee bit more before I decide. And then I'll tell my wife, of a morning, that I'd like tae have her listen tae a few songs that seemed to me micht do.
"All richt," she'll say. "But hurry up I'm making scones the day."
She's a great yin aboot the hoose, is Mrs. Lauder. We've to be awa' travelling sae much that she says it rests her to work harder than a scullery maid whiles she's at hame. And it's certain I'd rather eat scones of her baking than any I've ever tasted.
I always sit sae that I can watch her whiles I'm reading. She never lets me get very far wi'oot some comment.
"No bad," she'll murmur, whiles, and I'll gae on, for that means a muckle frae her. Then, maybe, instead o' that, she'll just listen, and I'll see she's no sure. If she mutters a little I'll gae on, too, for that still means she's making up her mind. But when she says, "Stop yer ticklin'!" I always stop. For that means the same thing they meant in Rome when they turned their thumbs doon toward a gladiator. And her judgments aye been gude enow for me.
Sometimes I'll get long letters frae authors wha send me their songs— but nearly always they're frae those that wad be flattered tae be called authors, puir bodies who've no proper notion of how to write or how to go aboot getting what they've written accepted when they've done it. I mind a man in Lancashire who sent me songs for years. The first was an awfu' thing—it had nae meaning at a' that I could see. But his letter was a delight.
"Dear Harry," he wrote. "I've been sorry for a long time that so clever a man as you had such bad songs to sing. And so, though I'm busy most of the time, I've written one for you. I like you, so I'll only charge you a guinea for every time you sing it, and let you set your own music to it, too!"
It was a generous offer, surely, but I did not see my way clear to accept it, and the song went back immediately. A little later I got another. He wrote a very dignified letter this time; he'd evidently made up his mind to forgie me for the way I'd insulted him and his song before, but he wanted me to understand he'd have nae nonsense frae me. But this time he wanted only fifteen shilling a performance.
Weel, he kept on sending me songs, and each one was worse than the one before, though you'd never have thought it possible for anything to be worse than any one of them if you'd seen them! And each time his price went doon! The last one was what he called a "grand new song."
"I'm hard up just now, Harry," he said, "and you know how fond I've always been of you. So you can have this one outright for five shillings, cash down."
D'ye ken, I thought his persistence deserved a reward of some sort, sae I sent him the five shillings, and put his song in the fire. I rather thought I was a fool tae do sae, because I expected he'd be bombarding me wi' songs after that bit of encouragement. But it was not so; I'm thankfu' to say I've never heard of him or his songs frae that day tae this.
I've had many a kind word said tae me aboot my songs and the way I sing them. But the kindest words have aye been for the music. And it's true that it's the lilt of a melody that makes folk remember a song. That's what catches the ear and stays wi' those who have heard a song sung.
It would be wrong for me to say I'm no proud of the melodies that I have introduced with the songs I've sung. I have never had a music lesson in my life. I can sit doon, the noo, at a piano, and pick out a harmony, but that's the very limit of my powers wi' any instrument. But ever since I can remember anything I have aye been humming at some lilt or another, and it's been, for the maist part, airs o' my ain that I've hummed. So I think I've a richt to be proud of having invented melodies that have been sung all over the world, considering how I had no musical education at a'.
Certainly it's the melody that has muckle tae do wi' the success of any song. Words that just aren't quite richt will be soon overlooked if the melody is one o' the sort the boys in the gallery pick up and whustle as they gae oot.
I'm never happy, when a gude verse comes tae me, till I've wedded a melody tae the words. When the idea's come tae me I'll sit doon at the piano and strum it ower and ower again, till I maun mak' everyone else i' the hoose tired. 'Deed, and I've been asked, mair than once, tae gie the hoose a little peace.
I dinna arrange my songs, I needn't say, having no knowledge of the principles. But always, after a song's accompaniment has been arranged for the orchestra, I'll listen carefully at a rehearsal, and often I can pick out weak spots and mak' suggestions that seem to work an improvement. I've a lot of trouble, sometimes, wi' the players, till they get sae that they ken the way I like my accompaniment tae be. But after that we aye get alang fine together, the orchestra and me.
CHAPTER XXII
I've talked a muckle i' this book aboot what I think. Do you know why? It's because I'm a plain man, and I think the way plain men think all ower this world. It was the war taught me that I could talk to folk as well as sing tae them. If I've talked tae much in this book you maun forgie me—and you maun think that it's e'en yor ain fault, in a way.
During the war, whiles I'd speak aboot this or that after my show, people paid an attention tae me that wad have been flattering if I hadn't known sae well that it was no to me they were listening. It wasna old Harry Lauder who interested them—it was what he had to tell them. It was a great thing to think that folk would tak' me seriously. I've been amusing people for these many years. It seemed presumptuous, at first, when I set out to talk to them of other and more serious things.
"Hoots!" I said, at first, when they wanted me tae speak for the war and the recruiting or a loan. "They'll no be wanting to listen tae me. I'm just a comedian."
"You'll be a relief to them, Harry," I was told. "There's been too much serious speaking already."
Weel, I ken what they meant. It's serious speaking I've done, and serious thinking. But there's nae harm if I crack a bit joke noo and again; it makes the medicine gae doon the easier. And noo the medicine's swallowed. There's nae mair fichting tae be done, thank God! We've saved the hoose our ancestors built.
But its walls are crackit here and there. The roof's leaking. There's paint needed on all sides. There's muckle for us tae do before the' hoose we've saved is set in order. It's like a hoose that's been afire. The firemen come and play their hose upon it. They'll put oot the fire, a' richt. But is it no a sair sicht, the hoose they leave behind them when they gae awa'?
Ye'll see a wee bit o' smoke, an hour later, maybe, coming frae some place where they thocht it was a' oot. And ye'll have tae be taking a bucket of water and putting oot the bit o' fire that they left smouldering there, lest the whole thing break oot again. And here and there the water will ha' done a deal of damage. Things are better than if the fire had just burnt itself oot, but you've no got the hoose you had before the fire! 'Deed, and ye have not!
Nor have we. We had our fire—the fire the Kaiser lighted. It was arson caused our fire—it was a firebug started it, no spontaneous combustion, as some wad ha' us think. And we called the firemen—the braw laddies frae all the world, who set to work and never stopped till the fire was oot. Noo they've gaed hame aboot their other business. We'll no be wanting to call them oot again. It was a cruel, hard task they had; it was a terrible ficht they had tae make.
It's sma' wonder, after such a conflagration, that there's spots i' the world where there's a bit of flame still smouldering. It's for us tae see that they're a' stamped oot, those bits of fire that are still burning. We can do that ourselves—no need to ca' the tired firemen oot again. And then there's the hoose itself!
Puir hoose! But how should it have remained the same? Man, you'd no expect to sleep in your ain hoose the same nicht there'd been a fire to put out? You'd be waiting for the insurance folks. And you'd know that the furniture was a' spoiled wi' water, and smoke. And there'll be places where the firemen had to chop wi' their axes. They couldna be carfu' wi' what was i' the hoose—had they been sae there'd be no a hoose left at a' the noo.
Sae are they no foolish folk that were thinking that sae soon as peace came a' would be as it was before yon days in August, 1914? Is it but five years agane? It is—but it'll tak' us a lang time tae bring the world back to where it was then. And it can't be the same again. It can't. Things change.
Here's what there is for us tae do. It's tae see that the change is in the richt direction. We canna stand still the noo. We'll move. We'll move one way or the other—forward or back.
And I say we dare not move back. We dare not, because of the graves that have been filled in France and Gallipoli and dear knows where beside in these last five years. We maun move forward. They've left sons behind them, many of the laddies that died to save us. Aye, there's weans in Britain and America, and in many another land, that will ne'er know a faither.
We owe something to those weans whose faithers deed for this world's salvation. We owe it to them and to their faithers tae see that they have a better world to grow up in than we and their faithers knew. It can be a better world. It can be a bonnier world than any of us have ever dreamed of. Dare I say that, ye'll be asking me, wi' the tears of the widow and the orphan still flowing fresh, wi' the groans of those that ha' suffered still i' our ears?
Aye, I dare say it. And I'll be proving it, tae, if ye'll ha' patience wi' me. For it's in your heart and mine that we'll find the makings of the bonnier world I can see, for a' the pain.
Let's stop together and think a bit. We were happy, many of us, in yon days before the war. Our loved yins were wi' us. There was peace i' a' the world. We had no thought that any wind could come blowing frae ootside ourselves that would cast down the hoose of our happiness. Wasna that sae? Weel, what was the result?
I think we were selfish folk, many, too many, of us. We had no thought, or too little, for others. We were so used to a' we had and were in the habit of enjoying that we forgot that we owed much of what we had to others. We were becoming a very fierce sort of individualists. Our life was to ourselves. We were self-sufficient. One of the prime articles of our creed was Cain's auld question:
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
We answered that question wi' a ringing "No!" The day was enow for the day. We'd but to gae aboot our business, and eat and drink, and maybe be merry. Oh, aye—I ken fine it was sae wi' me. Did I have charity, Weel, it may be that the wife and I did our wee bit tae be helping some that was less fortunate than ourselves. But here I'll be admitting why I did that. It was for my ain selfish satisfaction and pleasure. It was for the sake of the glow of gude feeling, the warmth o' heart, that came wi' the deed.
And in a' the affairs of life, it seems to me, we human folk were the same. We took too little thought of God. Religion was a failing force in the world. Hame ties were loosening; we'd no the appreciation of what hame meant that our faithers had had. Not all of us, maybe, but too many. And a' the time, God help us, we were like those folk that dwell in their wee hooses on the slopes of Vesuvius—puir folk and wee hooses that may be swept awa' any day by an eruption of the volcano.
All wasna sae richt and weel wi' the world as we thought it in you days. We'd closed our een to much of bitterness and hatred and malice that was loose and seeking victims in the hearts of men. Aye, it was the Hun loosed the war upon us. It was he who was responsible for the calamity that overtook the world—and that will mak' him suffer maist of all in the end, as is but just and richt. But we'd ha' had trouble, e'en gi'en there'd been no war.
It wouldna ha' been sae great, perhaps. There'd not be sae much grief and sae much unhappiness i' the world today, save for him. But there was something wrang wi' the world, and there had tae be a visitation of some sort before the world could be made better.
There's few things that come to a man or a nation in the way of grief and sorrow and trouble that are no punishments for some wickedness and sin o' his ain. We dinna always ken what it is we ha' done. And whiles the innocent maun suffer wi' the guilty—aye, that's a part of the punishment of the guilty, when they come to realize hoo it is they've carried others, maybe others they love, doon wi' them into the valley of despair.
I love Britain. I think you'll all be knowing that I love my native land better than anything i' the world. I'd ha' deed for her gladly— aye, gladly. It was a sair grief tae me that they wadna tak' me. I tried, ye ken? I tried even before the Huns killed my boy, John. And I tried again after he'd been ta'en. Sae I had tae live for my country, and tae do what I could to help her.
But that doesna mean that I think my country's always richt. Far frae it. I ken only tae well that she's done wrang things. I'm minded of one of them the noo.
I've talked before of history. There was 1870, when Prussia crushed France. We micht ha' seen the Hun then, rearing himself up in Europe, showing what was in his heart. But we raised no hand. We let France fall and suffer. We saw her humbled. We saw her cast down. We'd fought against France—aye. But we'd fought a nation that was generous and fair; a nation that made an honorable foe, and that played its part honorably and well afterward when we sent our soldiers to fight beside hers in the Crimea.
France had clear een even then. She saw, when the Hun was in Paris, wi' his hand at her throat and his heel pressed doon upon her, that he meant to dominate all Europe, and, if he could, all the world. She begged for help—not for her sake alone, but for humanity. Humanity refused. And humanity paid for its refusal.
And there were other things that were wrang wi' Britain. Our cause was holy, once we began to ficht. Oh, aye—never did a nation take up the sword wi' a holier reason. We fought for humanity, for democracy, for the triumph of the plain man, frae the first. There are those will tell ye that Britain made war for selfish reasons. But it's no worth my while tae answer them. The facts speak for themselves.
But here's what I'm meaning. We saw Belgium attacked. We saw France threatened wi' a new disaster that would finish the murder her ain courage and splendor had foiled in 1871. We sprang to the rescue this time—oh, aye! The nation's leaders knew the path of honor—knew, too, that it was Britain's only path of safety, as it chanced. They declared war sae soon as it was plain how Germany meant to treat the world.
Sae Britain was at war, and she called oot her young men. Auld Britain—wi' sons and daughters roond a' the Seven Seas. I saw them answering the call, mind you. I saw them in Australia and New Zealand. I kissed my ain laddie gude bye doon there in Australia when he went back—to dee.
Never was there a grander outpouring of heroic youth. We'd no conscription in those first days. That didna come until much later. Sae, at the very start, a' our best went forth to ficht and dee. Thousands—hundreds of thousands—millions of them. And sae I come to those wha were left.
It's sair I am to say it. But it was in the hearts of sae many of those who stayed behind that we began tae be able tae see what had been wrang wi' Britain—and what was, and remains, wrang wi' a' the world to-day.
There were our boys, in France. We'd no been ready. We'd no spent forty years preparing ourselves for murder. Sae our boys lacked guns and shells, and aircraft, and a' the countless other things they maun have in modern war. And at hame the men in the shops and factories haggled and bargained, and thought, and talked. Not all o' them—oh, understand that in a' this I say that is harsh and bears doon hard upon this man and that, I'm only meaning a few each time! Maist of the plain folk i' the world are honest and straight and upright in their dealings.
But do you ken hoo, in a basket of apples, ane rotten one wi' corrupt the rest? Weel, it's sae wi' men. Put ane who's disaffected, and discontented, and nitter, in a shop and he'll mak' trouble wi' all the rest that are but seeking the do their best.
"Ca' Canny!" Ha' ye no heard that phrase?
It's gude Scots. It's a gude Scots motto. It means to go slow—to be sure before you leap. It sums up a' the caution and the findness for feeling his way that's made the Scot what he is in the wide world over. But it's a saying that's spread to England, and that's come to have a special meaning of its own. As a certain sort of workingman uses it it means this:
"I maun be carfu' lest I do too much. If I do as much as I can I'll always have to do it, and I'll get no mair pay for doing better—the maister'll mak' all the profit. I maun always do less than I could easily manage—sae I'll no be asked to do mair than is easy and comfortable in a day's work."
Restriction of output! Aye, you've heard those words. But do you ken what they were meaning early i' the war in Britain? They were meaning that we made fewer shells than we could ha' made. Men deed in France and Flanders for lack of the shells that would ha' put our artillery on even terms with that of the Germans.
It didna last, you'll be saying. Aye, I ken that. All the rules union labor had made were lifted i' the end. Labor in Britain took its place on the firing line, like the laddies that went oot there to ficht. Mind you, I'm saying no word against a man because he stayed at hame and didna ficht. There were reasons to mak' it richt for many a man tae do that. I've no sympathy wi' those who went aboot giving a white feather to every young man they saw who was no in uniform. There was much cruel unfairness in a' that.
But I'm saying it was a dreadfu' thing that men didna see for themselves, frae the very first, where their duty lay. I'm saying it was a dreadfu' thing for a man to be thinking just of the profit he could be making for himself oot of the war. And we had too many of that ilk in Britain—in labor and in capital as well. Mind you there were men i' London and elsewhere, rich men, who grew richer because of their work as profiteers.
And do you see what I mean now? The war was a great calamity. It cost us a great toll of grief and agony and suffering. But it showed us, a' too plainly, where the bad, rotten spots had been. It showed us that things hadna been sae richt as we'd supposed before. And are we no going to mak' use of the lesson it has taught us?
CHAPTER XXIII
I've had a muckle to say in this book aboot hoo other folk should be
acting. That's what my wife tells me, noo that she's read sae far.
"Eh, man Harry," she says, "they'll be calling you a preacher next.
Dinna forget you're no but a wee comic, after a'!"
Aye, and she's richt! It's a good thing for me to remember that. I'm but old Harry Lauder, after a'. I've sung my songs, and I've told my stories, all over the world to please folk. And if I've done a bit more talking, lately, than some think I should, it's no been all my ain fault. Folk have seemed to want to listen to me. They've asked me questions. And there's this much more to be said aboot it a'.
When you've given maist of the best years of your life to the public you come to ken it well. And—you respect it. I've known of actors and other artists on the stage who thought they were better than their public—aye. And what's come tae them? We serve a great master, we folk of the stage. He has many minds and many tongues, and he tells us quickly when we please him—and when we do not. And always, since the nicht when I first sang in public, so many yearst agane that it hurts a little to count the tale o' them, I've been like a doctor who keeps his finger on the pulse of his patient.
I've tried to ken, always, day in, day oot, how I was pleasing you— the public. You make up my audiences. And—it is you who send the other audiences, that hae no heard me yet, to come to the theatre. To- morrow nicht's audience is in the making to-nicht. If you folk who are out in front the noo, beyond the glare of the footlights, dinna care for me, dinna like the way I'm trying to please you, and amuse you, there'll be empty seats in the hoose to-morrow and the next day.
Sae that's my answer, I'm thinking, to my wife when she tells me to beware of turning into a preacher. I mind, do you ken, the way I've talked to audiences at hame, and in America and Australia, these last twa or three years. It was the war led me to do it first. I was surprised, in the beginning. I had just the idea of saying a few words. But you who were listening to me would not let me stop. You asked for more and more—you made me think you wanted to know what old Harry Lauder was thinking.
There was a day in Kansas City that I remember well. Kansas City is a great place. And it has a wonderful hall—a place where national conventions are held. I was there in 1918 just before the Germans delivered their great assault in March, when they came so near to breaking our line and reaching the Channel ports we'd held them from through all the long years of the war. I was nervous, I'll no be denying that. What Briton was not, that had a way of knowing how terrible a time was upon us? And I knew—aye, it was known, in London and in Washington, that the Hun was making ready for his last effort.
Those were dark and troubled days. The great American army that General Pershing has led hame victorious the noo was still in the making. The Americans were there in France, but they had not finished their training. And it was in the time when they were just aboot ready to begin to stream into France in really great numbers. But at hame, in America, and especially out West, it was hard to realize how great an effort was still needed.
America had raised her great armies. She had done wonders—and it was natural for those folk, safe at hame, and far, far away frae all the turmoil and the stress of the fighting, to think that they had done enough.
The Americans knew, you'll ken, that they were resistless. They knew that the gigantic power of America could crush half a dozen Germanys— in time. But what we were all fearing, we who knew how grave the situation was, how tremendous the Hun's last effort would be, was that the line in France would be broken. The French had fought almost to the last gasp. Their young men were gone. And if the Hun broke through and swept his way to Paris, it was hard to believe that we could have gathered our forces and begun all over again, as we would have had to do.
In Kansas City there was a great chance for me, I was told. The people wanted to hear me talk. They wanted to hear me—not just at the theatre, but in the great hall where the conventions met. There was only the one time when I could speak, and I said so—that was at noon. It was the worst time of all the day to gather an audience of great size. I knew that, and I was sorry. But I had been booked for two performances a day while I was in Kansas City, and there was no choice.
Well, I agreed to appear. Some of my friends were afraid it would be what they called a frost. But when the time came for me to make my way to the platform the hall was filled. Aye—that mighty hall! I dinna ken how many thousand were there, but there were more than any theatre in the world could hold—more than any two theatres, I'm thinking. And they didna come to hear me sing or crack a joke. They came to hear me talk—to hear me preach, if you'll be using that same word that my wife is sae fond of teasing me with.
I'm thinking I did preach to them, maybe. I told them things aboot the war they'd no heard before, nor thought of, maybe, as seriously as they micht. I made them see the part they, each one of them, man, and woman, and child, had to play. I talked of their president, and of the way he needed them to be upholding him, as their fathers and mothers had upheld President Lincoln.
And they rose to me—aye, they cheered me until the tears stood in my een, and my voice was so choked that I could no go on for a space. So that's what I'm meaning when I say it's no all my fault if I preach, sometimes, on the stage, or when I'm writing in a book. It's true, too, I'm thinking, that I'm no a real author. For when I sit me doon to write a book I just feel that I maun talk wi' some who canna be wi' me to hear my voice, and I write as I talk. They'll be telling me, perhaps, that that's no the way to write a book, but it's the only way I ken.
Oh, I've had arguments aboot a' this! Arguments, and to spare! They'll come tae me, good friends, good advisers. They'll be worried when I'm in some place where there's strong feeling aboot some topic I'm thinking of discussing wi' my friends in the audience.
"Now, Harry, go easy here," I mind a Scots friend told me, once during the war. I was in a town I'll no be naming. "This is a queer place. There are a lot of good Germans here. They're unhappy about the war, but they're loyal enough. They don't want to take any great part in fighting their fatherland, but they won't help against their new country, either. They just want to go about their business and forget that there's a war."
Do you ken what I did in that town I talked harder and straighter about the war than I had in any place I'd talked in up to then! And I talked specially to the Germans, and told them what their duty was, and how they could no be neutral.
I've small use for them that would be using the soft pedal always, and seeking to offend no one. If you're in the richt the man who takes offence at what you say need not concern you. Gi'en you hold a different opinion frae mine. Suppose I say what's in my mind, and that I think that I am richt and you are wrong. Wull ye be angry wi' me because of that? Not if you know you're richt! It's only the man who is'na sure of his cause who loses his temper and flies into a rage when he heard any one disagree wi' him.
There's a word they use in America aboot the man who tries to be all things to a' men—who tries to please both sides when he maun talk aboot some question that's in dispute. They call him a "pussyfooter." Can you no see sicca man? He'll no put doon his feet firmly—he'll walk on the balls of them. His een will no look straight ahead, and meet those of other men squarely. He'll be darting his glances aboot frae side to side, looking always for disapproval, seeking to avoid it. But wall he? Can he? No—and weel ye ken that—as weel as I! Show me sicca man and I'll show you one who ends by having no friends at all—one who gets all sides down upon him, because he was so afraid of making enemies that he did nothing to make himself freinds.
Think straight—talk straight. Don't be afraid of what others will say or think aboot ye. Examine your own heart and your own mind. If what you say and what you do suits your ain conscience you need ha' no concern for the opinions of others. If you're wrong—weel, it's as weel for you to ken that. And if you're richt you'll find supporters enough to back you.
I said, whiles back, that I'd in my mind cases of artists who thocht themselves sae great they need no think o' their public. Weel, I'll be naming no names—'twould but mak' hard feeling, you'll ken, and to no good end. But it's sae, richt enough. And it's especially sae in Britain, I think, when some great favorite of the stage goes into the halls to do a turn.
They're grand places to teach a sense of real value, the halls! In the theatre so muckle counts—the play, the rest of the actors, reputation, aye, a score of things. But in a music hall it's between you and the audience. And each audience must be won just as if you'd never faced one before. And you canna be familiar wi' your audience. Friendly—oh, aye! I've been friendly wi' my audiences ever since I've had them. But never familiar.
And there's a vast difference between friendliness and what I mean when I say familiarity. When you are familiar I think you act as though you were superior—that's what I mean by the word, at least, whether I'm richt or no. And it's astonishing how quickly an audience detects that—and, of course, resents it. Your audience will have no swank frae ye—no side. Ye maun treat it wi' respect and wi' consideration.
Often, of late, I've thocht that times were changing. Folk, too many of them, seem to have a feeling that ye can get something for nothing. Man, it's no so—it never will be so. We maun work, one way or another, for all we get. It's those lads and lassies who come tae the halls, whiles, frae the legitimate stage, that put me in mind o' that.
Be sure, if they've any real reputation upon the stage, they have earned it. Oh, I ken fine that there'll be times when a lassie 'll mak' her way tae a sort of success if she's a pretty face, or if she's gained a sort of fame, I'm sorry to say, frae being mixed up in some scandal or another. But—unless she works hard, unless she has talent, she'll no keep her success. After the first excitement aboot her is worn off, she's judged by what she can do—not by what the papers once said aboot her. Can ye no think of a hundred cases like that? I can, without half trying.
Weel, then, what I'm meaning is that those great actors and actresses, before they come to the halls to show us old timers what's what, and how to get applause, have a solid record of hard work behind them. And still some of them think the halls are different, and that there they'll be clapped and cheered just because of their reputations. They'd be astonished tae hear the sort of talk goes on in the gallery of the Pav., in London—just for a sample. I've heard!
"Gaw bli'me, Alf—'oo's this toff? Comes on next. 'Mr. Arthur Andrews, the Celebrated Shakespearian Actor.'"
"Never heard on him," says Alf, indifferently.
And so it goes. Mr. Andrews appears, smiling, self-possessed, waiting gracefully for the accustomed thunders of applause to subside. Sometimes he gets a round or two—from the stalls. More often he doesn't. Music hall audiences give their applause after the turn, not before, as a rule, save when some special favorite like Miss Vesta Tilley or Mr. Albert Chevalier or—oh, I micht as weel say it like old Harry Lauder!—comes on!
And then Mr. Andrews, too often, goes stiffly through a scene from a play, or gives a dramatic recitation. In its place what he does would be splendid, and would be splendidly received. The trouble, too often, is that he does not realize that he must work to please this new audience. If he does, his regard will be rich in the event of success. I dinna mean just the siller he will earn, either.
It's true, I think, that there's a better living, for the really successful artist, in varieties than there is on the stage. There's more certainty—less of a speculative, dubious element, such as ye canna escape when there's a play involved. The best and most famous actors in the world canna keep a play frae being a failure if the public does not tak' to it. But in the halls a good turn's a good turn, and it can be used longer than even the most successful plays can run.
But still, it's no just the siller I was thinking of when I spoke of the rich rewards of a real success in the halls. An artist makes real friends there—warm-hearted, personal friends, who become interested in him and his career; who think of him, and as like as not, call him by his first name. Oh—aye, I've known artists who were offended by that! I mind a famous actor who was with me once when I was taking a walk in London, and a dozen costers, recognizing me, wished me good luck—it was just before I was tae mak' my first visit to America.
It was "Good luck, Harry," and "God bless you, Harry!" frae them. 'Deed, and it warmed the cockles of my heart to hear them! But my friend was quite shocked.
"I say, Harry—do you know those persons?" he said.
"Never saw them before," I told him, cheerfully.
"But they addressed you in the most familiar fashion," he persisted.
"And why not?" I asked. "I never saw them before—but they've seen me, thanks be! And as for familiarity—they helped to buy the shoon and the claes I'm wearing! They paid for the parritch I had for breakfast, and the bit o' beef I'll be eating for my dinner. If it wasna for them and the likes of them I'd still be digging coal i' the pit in Scotland! It'll be the sair day for me when they call me Mr. Lauder!"
I meant that then, and I mean it now. And if ever I hear a coster call out, "There goes Sir Harry Lauder," I'll ken it's time for me to be really doing what I'm really going tae do before sae long—retire frae the stage and gae hame to my wee hoose amang the heather at Dunoon tae live!
I'd no be having you think I'm meaning to criticize all the actors and actresses of the legitimate stage who have done a turn in the halls. Many of them are among our prime favorites, and our most successful artists. Some have given up appearing in plays to stick to the halls; some gae tae the halls only when they can find no fitting play to occupy their time and their talent. Some of the finest and most talented folk in the world are, actors and artists; whiles I think all the most generous and kindly folk are! And I can count my friends, warm, dear, intimate friends amang them by the score—I micht almost say by the hundred.
No, it's just the flighty ones that gie the rest a bad name I'm addressing my criticisms to. There'll be those that accept an opportunity to appear in the halls scornfully. They'll be lacking an engagement, maybe. And so they'll turn to the halls tae earn some siller easily, with their lips curling the while and their noses turned up. They see no need tae give of their best.
"Why should I really act for these people?" I heard one famous actor say once. "The subtleties of my art would be wasted upon them. I shall try to bring myself down to their level!"
Now, heard you ever sae hopeless a saying as that? It puts me in mind of a friend of mine—a novelist. He's a grand writer, and his readers, by the million, are his friends. It's hard for his publishers to print enough of his books to supply the demand. And he's a kindly, simple wee man; he ust does his best, all the time, and never worries aboot the results. But there are those that are envious of him. I mind the only time I ever knew him to be angry was when one of these, a man who could just get his books published, and no mair, was talking.
"Oh, I suppose I'll have to do it!" he said. "Jimmy"—Jimmy was the famous novelist my friend—"tell me how you write one of your best sellers? I think I'll turn out one or two under a pen name. I need some money."
Man, you can no even mak' money in that fashion! I ken fine there's men succeed, on the stage, and in literature, and in every other walk of life, who do not do the very best of work. But, mind you, they've this in common—they do the best they can! You may not have to be the best to win the public—but you maun be sincere, or it will punish you.