Between You and Me by Sir Harry Lauder

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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."

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