THE GOLDEN GOSPEL OF UGLINESS.
A JEREMIAD ON JEWELLERS.
(by H G Wells, 1866-1946)
MY uncle, it would seem, has fallen very badly in love this Christmas time,
and under the benign influence of the season and this interesting condition
has been going hither and thither seeking some costly and amazing gift. I
have missed him from my side more and more, and there has been an
increasing jauntiness in his attire and carriage, a coquettish tendency in his
treatment of such hair as Heaven has spared him, that is symptomatic.
The thought of a Christmas present clearly gave him immense delight
when it occurred to him — he is in that phase when a man would pluck out
his immortal soul, tie it up daintily with silver paper and mauve ribbons,
and apologue for the poverty of the gift — and he began asking me at once
what form I conceived the token might take and where it might be
purchased. Not for any value he attached to my opinion did he do this, but
simply for the pleasure of turning this delightful new idea of giving
something really princely to her over and over in his mind. And he called it
ever "a little present." Afterwards he fell into a pensive, faintly-smiling
state, and I knew he was rehearsing the presentation of the gift.
THE TOUR OF THE SHOPS.
But after his shopping he came to me in a querulous frame of mind, and
said — which is a rare thing for him — uncanonical words. He had been
through the land of London from Dan to Beersheba, and especially about
Bond-street and the Burlington Arcade and the adjacent shops, and he had
bought no gift at all. And with a simple and familiar directness he
intimated his persuasion that the jewellers of London were children of folly
and had irremediably lost their souls.
"I saw very soon, George," said he, "that I should get nothing fit for
her. When the first brute showed me the things he had to sell, told me
this was very pretty and that amazingly refined, I simply concluded he
was a lunatic, and shuffled out of the shop with such suspicious haste that
he sent an assistant to follow me. But the next man I went to had the
same hallucinations. He wanted me to stick horseshoes and gold house-flies
in her hair, and proffered me tiaras, brigades of diamonds set in rows
in gold, like onions in a bed, and so villainously that you could see a yard
off how the workmanship was shirked. There were also a miniature
five-barred gate, set with rubies, and a butterfly brooch — you know how
absolutely flat and opaque the colours of a butterfly's wings are — all covered
with tumours and excrescences and pimply abominations of scintillating
precious stones. This tradesman, also, I hastily left among the glass cases
of his chamber of horrors, and I went on with a certain dread now to the
next.
"I speedily forgot all about that present, George. The things I saw
began to exert a morbid fascination upon me. I can scarcely describe it.
An unwholesome appetite was awakened for fresh horrors, for further
depths of gross stupidity and bad taste in gold. I passed in a delirious
fever from jeweller's shop to jeweller's shop. It is amazing, simply
amazing, if you come to examine it, how bad our jewellery and metal work
is. If I were the devil, George, and Benvenuto Cellini was troublesome, as
I dare say he is, I would certainly take him out and lock him up in a
London goldsmith's showcase. He would soon scream for the old familiar
gridiron again."
GOLD ORNAMENTS BY WEIGHT!
"At four different places," said my uncle, speaking suddenly with deliberate
emphasis, "at four different places, George, they said they sold their gold
ornaments by the ounce. By the ounce! Workmanship counts for nothing,
and, so far as I can ascertain, in this metropolis of five million
barbarians no worker in gold, no designer of rings, watch-cases, necklaces,
or bracelets has any kind of fame or is in any way sought after. Or, if
he is, these shopkeepers consider they are serving themselves by avoiding
any mention of his existence.
"Just think of it! Gold is one of the most beautiful materials in the
world. Think what has been and what may be done with it! — the
subtle line and subtle thought, the delicate fancy, the infinite intricacy of
workmanship, and the delight of its beautiful colour. And since your
golden trinket must be seen again and again, it absolutely demands
superlative art to give it a perennial freshness. How can I venture to
give a keepsake that, scrutinized again and again, is seen ever more
clearly to be badly wrought, shallow in design, and stupid in execution?
I dare not, for gradually the thing will attaint the memory of me, and its
unworthiness at last be mine.
"I am loth to believe that people can wear gold and precious stones
for any other purpose than that of ornament. Yet what docs it mean when
I see sleeve-links and studs which arc absolutely plain lumps of gold
labelled 'fine gold'? Fine gold, perhaps, but a confoundedly coarse owner.
And what do the novels and novelettes intend by their 'priceless diamonds'
— is the charm in the price? Surely no considerable proportion of those
who wear jewellery do so simply to spite poverty! Still, if it is not so,
how is it that all our ornaments of gold and silver are so ugly?
A FEW "NOVELTIES."
"I will tell you of some of the 'novelties' I saw to-day, George. Here
are the things jewellers arc putting to the front and making a boast of.
Hearts come first of all: two hearts with diamonds upon them as thick as
the teeth of a shark, or one heart transfixed with an arrow of the suburban
archery type. Then follow horseshoes with a tendency to a realistic treatment
and with precious stones for nails; and golf sticks — innumerable
ugly little golf sticks of gold. One thing the shopman considered a 'pretty
fancy' was a precious curling stone and two golden brooms. There was
never a pretence of beauty in any of this costly rubbish, but merely a
certain flavour which a nine-year-old child brought up in the country might
consider to be 'up to date' and pleasantly allusive.
"The animals these followers of the public taste find saleable are foxes,
horses — some with jockeys up — poodle dogs, pheasants, partridge, and
pigs. 'Petit cochon' must be becoming naturalized over here in some
circles as a term of endearment, or else I cannot understand all these little
gages in the form of swine. All these unclean beasts are treated with
sufficient naturalism to be ugly, but not sufficient to be clever. Most have
little diamonds peppered over them. The other living things represented
are feebly executed, flies and bees, and the 'golden butterfly' I told
you of.
"Two flights of fancy will show to what our modern artists in the
precious metals can rise. One of these is the noughts-and-crosses bracelet
ever so much of the precious metal in the form of links of these simple
but scarcely significant shapes. I suppose it is the kind of thing one would
give to a girl to show you meant nothing. And another was two lumps of
gold — a pound's worth each or more, in me guise of beans, to form a
cuff-link; the legend on the satin lining of the case intimating that
they were 'Jack's beans,' and referring, of course, to the classic of
'Jack and the Beanstalk.' It would be a very suitable present for
Jack from a maiden aunt, and it is pleasant to fancy him of a sporting
turn of mind, dutifully accepting the omen and 'planting' the beans
at once in honest anticipation of the beanstalk and sack of gold to
follow. It is also a nice idea to expect a musical friend to wear a fiddle
or a harp as a modest advertisement of her capacity. There is really only
a very little step from this kind of thing to the ordinary professional brass
plate. One might improve upon this: a lawyer might mount a scarf-pin
of sword and scales, the doctor the serpent in the wilderness or a carbuncle
set in gold as a red lamp, and the artist in search of portraiture a paint-brush,
palette, and 'The beauty of Heaven is every where.'
ON THE BACK OF A WATCH.
"Then there are the watches. There is, apparently, only one design
in the world for a watch-back, excluding the enamelled monogram, and
that is with a blank shield in the middle. This is surrounded by some
cheap bordering, looking as if it had been made by the yard and put round it
in a hurry, or on cases which are 'neat' by a close felt of intersecting
parabolic curves 'engine turned.' Yet there is nothing which admits of beautiful
design more than the back of a watch. You have more room than you
have on any but the largest coins, and a slightly greater latitude of
relief. I can shut my eyes and dream of the most delightful symbolism and grouping, perfect dreams of beauty in miniature, upon the
back of a watch, and it is hard that this must be only a dream. As for the
watch chains, like the necklaces and the bracelets, link follows link with
miserable reiteration: there is no beginning and no end to them, and the eye
travels along them on a kind of treadmill journey, and finds neither relief
nor rest. Then again, to think of all the delightfully graceful and significant
things one might hang at my lady's girdle with her watch, and to see
the stupid puzzles, old coins, and dull shopman's devices we are proffered
in the shops, makes me long to be a pestilence to go and slay all these
evil men."
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
"If I were Crœsus I would somehow find out artists or create them,
and have all my jewellery wrought at home. But I am only a poor man,
with only a little money for a trinket now and then. And when I have
the money I cannot get the trinkets. I have seen to-day, George, pounds
and pounds of beautiful gold, lying bound in ugly shapes, and waiting to
be delivered. We seem to be worshipping the spirit of ugliness in idols
of gold. It reminds me of the time when the women of Israel brought all
their delightful ornaments and cast them into the melting pot, and Aaron
made one bestial shape of the lot of it. But the people worship and no
judgment comes.
"I do not see how we can redeem our jewellery. If the Royal
Academy knew its duty it would have cases of watches, charms, rings
and bracelets added to the pictures. We are inundated with artists who
paint pictures that nobody wants, and through the length and breadth of
the land there is scarcely a man who knows enough of the possibilities
and limitations of the precious metals to design us an endurable coin. If
there were, I do not see how he could get at customers to get a living. It
is hard to say who is to blame. The jeweller, being a tradesman, will
follow rather than lead the public taste, and public taste will remain as it
is until it knows of something better. This affair, if it is any one's, is
one of the neglected duties of the very rich. They should insist
upon more beauty in their baubles, they should insist upon
knowing the artists who made them, they should make the jeweller
understand that he is a mere middleman in the affair, and above
all, they should taboo the horseshoe and the heart. At present their
adornments are too often mere silently self-complacent displays of wealth
— and dullness. We want, George, an artistic mission to these very rich.
We want to preach to them the Gospel of the Beauty of Gold. And then,
perhaps, when a man of the people goes out shopping with his poor little
fifty or sixty pounds he may hope to find some crumbs of beauty that have
fallen from the table of these favourite children of the world. As it is,
George, about this present, I am utterly in despair."
(THE END)
