MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
SIR MAX BEERBOHM is the only modern essayist whose work is likely to survive. It may seem strange that a man who has devoted so much care and patience to recording the frivolities of the last fifty years should have built for himself a monument more durable than any of the powerful monoliths which others have erected to commemorate the disintegration of a mighty Empire. the revolt of the internal and external proletariates, or the effects of mass- production upon the genius of mankind. It has been said, by those whose imagination is not sufficiently subtle to realise the massive proportions of Sir Max's ingenuity, that he owes the esteem with which he is universally regarded to what is described as " his incom-
parable charm." But charm is an evanescent quality and one which, as the hungry generations succeed each other, melts into the forgotten air. The essays of Sir Max Beerbohm are admittedly charming ; but the point about them is that they are exquisitely carved and moulded and therefore very few. The enamels and cameos to which he has devoted such unremitting craftsmanship needed for their perfection extreme application, unfaltering taste, and an astonishing accuracy of execution. When I re-read his essays I recall Carducci's tremendous paean in honour of the poet. who is not an indolent aesthete gathering posies for the ladies, but an artificer whose muscles are of steel—nudo it busto. collo rohasio
e l'occhio gain. This may seem a- violent description of so delicate
an artist as Sir Max Beerbohm ; but the permanence of his work is due to the fact that, while reflecting the passing fashions of the moment, he has been able, with infinite pains, to create small works of art, each one or which is perfect in its form and content. It may be that, interested as he is in the rarities of our language, he has often encrusted his style with exotic jewels and archaic stones : but the form remains classical and the moulding and finish have about them an excellent Cellini swing. * * * * With what cunning will Sir Max select the titles of his essays so that they arouse momentary perplexity and therefore hang like banners in the mind. Only the other night, as I was lost in St. John's Wood, peering in the darkness for a house which I did not know and could not find, the title of one of these essays kept recurring to me. " If I were aedile," I repeated to myself, " if only I were aedile." I see but little prospect at this moment of my ever becoming Minister of Town and Country Planning or even Minister of Works. It must be a disheartening function to occupy and one in which the clear stream of idea and endeavour must peter out into the sands of lethargy and among the osiers and brambles of con- flicting interests. Even Sir Philip Sassoon, with his rich imagination and high prestige, was unable, during the short time he held his office, to effect much more than one or two new lavatories in the House of Commons and a collection of strong sensible benches in our parks. Yet if I were aedile there is one thing which I should certainly insist upon ; namely that the numbering of the houses in our streets should be rendered consistent, uniform and legible. In this endeavour I should, I am well aware, come up against the pride of local authorities, the individualism of landlords and the inherent English dislike of uniformity. My campaign might terminate in my having to resign my office and retire from public life. Yet I should die a happy man if, in some only of our residential quarters, I had been able to oblige people to adopt a logical and legible method for numbering their houses. * * * *
My aim the other night was to reach and identify a house, the number of which was 18, Barn Road. Its penultimate predecessor, No. 14, was easily recognised, since the words Number Fourteen were written in neat Italian script upon the gate post. The adjoining house, which might have been 15 or 16, bore no number at all. Even when I ascended the steps and gazed at the coloured glass with which the door was decorated, I could discover no indication whether it represented an bdd or an even number or even whether the numbers in the street followed each other in-an ascending or a
descending' order. I thus tried the next house, which might have proved the object of my investigations, only to discover, hidden in ampelopsis Vcitchii, the number 22. I crossed the intersecting road (a pretentious thoroughfare bearing the name Chatsworth Avenue), and found that the number of the first house beyond it was 49 I am a punctual man and dislike being late when I am invited to dinner. The birds of impatience, anger, resentment and anxiety began to flap their wings around me. I crossed the street to a lit doorway opposite. It had a neat little trellis door of artistic design which gave upon a small frontage of garden. Upon the trellis was written, in neat script, the words " 2b, Rosemary Walk." In despair I rang the bell. I explained my panting predicament. They were very kind. " Oh I see," they said, " but Barn Road begins again after it has finished with Chatsworth Avenue." " Why should it do that ? " I asked indignantly. " Well the two corner houses prefer to pretend they arc in Chatsworth Avenue." I was enraged by such fantastic snobbishness. " If I were aedile," I murmured with clenched teeth as once again 1 crossed the roadway.
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Surely it should not be impossible for the several borough Councils, the Ministry of Town Planning, the Ministry of Works, and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal to impose an ordinance obliging house- holders to number their houses consecutively, on a uniform system, and in the streets in which they actually live ? In New York, in Berlin and in all French towns the houses in the streets and squares are all numbered in such a manner as to enable the ignorant searcher to know in advance which way up they go and which way down. The actual numbers of the houses are inscribed on legible and uniform plaques, set at exactly the same level, easily recognisable from a passing car or taxi, and in the more garish cases neatly illumi- nated at night. There is no need in those sensible capitals to peer and pry and ring at lighted doors to enquire. But in our hugger-mugger London the numbers are strewn around chaotically, they are hidden under mouldering vegetation or inserted illegibly in stained glass. We miss and fumble and rush panting up and down the street. Now if I were aedile, all that would be reformed. I should endure much misrepresentation and unpopularity ; I should be reviled in the public prints ; but reformers should be pure and strong ; and in after year my name would silently be blessed. All decent aediles have been unpopular. In the days of the Roman Republic the office of aedile was not highly esteemed ; it was a function allotted to the younger aspirants for promotion, even as that of Assistant Postmaster General is allotted with us. The aediles had to look after the temples and public buildings, the aqueducts and sewers, the baths and taverns. They had also to control weights and measures, to supervise the games and to protect public morals. It is not surprising that the'. were much disliked, or that Augustus, with his tidy mind, replaced their office by that of the praefectus, who became the prefer of a subsequent civilisation.
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Yet in the long and murky history of aediles there was one at least who was supremely successful, the great Georges EtilOne Haussmann. He was able during his long tenancy of the office of Prffet de la Seine to spend as much as five hundred million francs. He had his enemies, of course, and Monsieur Jules Ferry, not without justification, published a fierce indictment of him under the title Les Comptes Fantastiques de Haussmann. But he was able to turn the Bois de Boulogne into a public park, to cut the Boulevard St. Germain through a highly congested district, to create the Avenue de l'Opdra and the great radiating boulevards of the Etoile area. and to establish a uniform design for residential frontages which survives until this day. Perhaps his greatest achievement was to live to see his whole work completed. He did not die till 1891. Yes. if I were aedile, I should like to be an aedile such as Baron Haussmann, rich as Alexander, imaginative as Le Corbusier and powerful as Hitler.
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