IN A CANADIAN CANOE.
I.
ON ART AND SARDINES—BUT MORE ESPECIALLY SARDINES.
THERE is no pleasanter, sweeter, healthier spot than the Backs of the Colleges.
Get into your canoe at Silver Street. Put into that canoe:—
(1) The cushions of three other boats.
(2) Two pipes, in order that one may be always cool, and tobacco.
(3) One dozen boxes of matches, in order that one box may be always handy.
(4) The spiritual part of your nature, which will not take up much room, but is useful to talk to.
But do not take another man with you. I may frankly say, my reader, that you are absolutely the only man I know who has the keen appreciativeness, the capacity for quiet meditation, the dreaminess, the listlessness, the abominable laziness, that a Canadian canoe requires.
The man who would attempt to get pace on in a Canadian canoe probably would analyse the want of harmony in the death-song which a swan never sings—or worse than that.
The man who would try to make a Canadian canoe go where he wanted would be angry, because the inspiration of a poet does not always disappoint the expectations of a commonplace nature. You must go where the boat wants to go; and that depends upon wind and current, and on the number of other boats that run into you, and the way they do it, and the language of their occupants.
What a beautiful thing it is to lie at full length on the cushions, and see the sky through the trees—only the angels see the trees through the sky. My boat has taken me round to the back of Queen’s, and stopped just short of that little bridge. It is all old and familiar. The fowls coo as they cooed yesterday. The same two men in the same tub have the same little joke with one another in getting under the low bridge. Farther up, there is precisely the same number of flies on the same dead and putrescent animal. My boat went up to look at it, but could not stay. The recoil sent it back here; and here, apparently, it means to stop. You may take my word for it that a Canadian canoe knows a thing or two.
I wish I could paint the song of the birds and set the beauty of the trees to music. But there is a prejudice against it. Music is masculine, Art is feminine, and Poetry is their child. The baby Poetry will play with any one; but its parents observe the division of sexes. That is why Nature is so decent and pleasant. I would treat her to some poetry if I did but know the names of things. For instance, I have no idea what that bird is, and asparagus is the only tree which I recognise at sight.
I suppose you know that Art and Music are separated now. They sometimes meet, but they never speak. In the vacation I met them both one night by the edge of the sea; but they did not notice me. Art was busy in catching the effect of the moonlight and the lights on the pier. She did it well, and made it more beautiful than the reality seemed. Music listened to the wash of the waves, the thin sound of the little pebbles drawn back into the sea, and the constant noise of a low wind. He sat at a big organ, which was hidden from my sight by dark curtains of cloud; and as he played the music of all things came out into a song which was better than all things: for Art and Music are not only imitative, but creative. At present they are allowed to create only shadows, by the rules of the game. But I have been told that the old quarrel between them—I have no conception what the quarrel was about—will be made up one day, and they will love one another again. Their younger child, who will then be born, will take unto himself the strength and beauty of Art and Music and Poetry. He will be different from all three, and his name is not fixed yet.
Oh, confound the boat! I wish I’d tied it up. It’s just taken the painter between its teeth, and whipped sharp round and bolted. Woa, my lass, steady! It’s a little fresh, you see, not having been out before this week. I beg your pardon, sir—entirely my fault.
I don’t think he need have been so offensively rude about it. It’s not as if I’d upset him.
A fish jumped.
I know not the names of fishes, but it was not salmon steak or filleted soles, of that I’m sure. My boat goes waggling its silly old bows as if it knew but would not tell me. Can it have been a sardine?
No; the sardine is a foreign fish. It comes from Sardinia, where the Great Napoleon was exiled, as likely as not. It cannot swim in fresh water, but is brought to us in tins, which are packed in crates on trucks. It comes en huiles, in fact. Hence the inscription.
I cannot help thinking of the sad story of those two historical sardines—a buck-sardine and a doe-sardine—that lived on opposite sides of an island, which happened to be in the Ægean Sea.
They loved one another dearly; but they never, never told their love. He had no self-confidence, and she had too much self-respect. They met but once before their last day. It was at a place of worship in the neighbourhood of the Goodwin Sands. She caught his eye, and the umpire gave it out, and he had to go out. “Am I a hymn?” he said, just a little bitterly, “that I should be given out?” He was not a hymn, but he was a he, and had a tender heart.
All day long he sat on a stone, tail uppermost, and felt his position acutely. “Ah, if she only knew!” he sighed to himself.
And she was the life and soul of a select party in the roaring Adriatic. She quipped, and quirked; she became so brilliant that the surface of the sea grew phosphorescent. And no one guessed that beneath that calm exterior the worm was gnawing at the heart of the poor doe-sardine. No one would have been so foolish. For is it not well known that when a worm and a fish meet it’s mostly the fish that does the gnawing? Still, the doe-sardine did feel a trifle weary. Why might she not tell her love? Why must she suffer?
“Il faut souffrir pour être belle,” as the gong said when the butler hit it.
About this time a young man, who was dancing attendance on Queen Cleopatra, happened to be passing on a P.N.O. steamer. This was in the republican era, when Duilius introduced the P.N.O. line. The Carthaginian merchants, with a keen eye for business, always used P.T.O. steamers, which were insured far beyond their value by unsuspecting offices in the less tutored parts of Spain. These wild tribes did not know what P.T.O. signified, but the steamers did; so did the crews of low Teutonic slaves, who were thus saved all the worry and expense of burial.
But let us return to our sardines. The young man on the P.N.O. steamer was reading a novel of Ouida’s; and, misliking the book, he flung it into the ocean. The attendants of the doe-sardine brought it to their mistress, and she read it with avidity, and after that she became very elegant, and very French.
She sat in the rose-tinted boudoir, with a sad smile on her gills, dreaming of her love. “Ah!” she murmured faintly, “Si vous saviez.”
She could not sleep! No sooner had she closed her eyes than she was haunted by an awful vision of a man soldering up tins of fish. The doctors prescribed narcotics. When she had taken the morphia of the doctors she had no more fear of the dream. But she took too much of it. She took all there was of it. Then the doctors prescribed coral, and she took any amount of coral. She would have taken in a reef; but the auctioneer was away for his Easter holidays, and consequently there were no sales. So she took in washing instead. Then, and not till then, she knew that she must die.
A fishing-net was passing, and a conductor stood on the step. “’Ere yer are, lyedy!” he called out. “Hall the way—one penny! Benk, Benk, Gritty Benk!” He used to say this so quickly that he was called the lightning conductor. She entered the net, and as she did so she saw the buck-sardine seated there. She staggered, and nearly fell!
“Moind the step, lyedy,” cried the conductor.
And so they were brought to the gritty bank of the Mediterranean, and received temporary accommodation without sureties or publicity—on note-of-hand simply. As they came in with the tide, they were naturally paid into the current account.
They were preserved in the same tin, and served on the same piece of buttered toast.
As the man consumed the bodies of the buck-sardine and the doe-sardine, the two spiritualities of the two fishes walked down the empyrean, and cast two shadows.
When he had gulped down the last mouthful, the two shadows melted into one.
So they found peace at last; and I do not refer to buttered toast. But the queerest part of it is that they were both sprats.
It has turned chilly. No one but myself is left on the river, and the solitary end of the afternoon is good to look at. The thing that you and I want most is a power of expression. When I say you, I mean the sympathetic reader who can enter into the true spirit of loafing: the loafing of the body in the wayward Canadian canoe that does what it likes, and the loafing of the mind that does not take the nauseous trouble to think straight. I want the younger child who is to be born when Art and Music are reconciled again, who will never take aim and yet never miss the mark, who will be quite careless but quite true. That child will know all about the sympathy which exists between one man and one scene in which he finds himself, and may perhaps reveal it to us.
But I am sorry for poor Art. She is a woman, and, though her beauty will not leave her, she desires reconciliation and love.
I am taken with a sudden verse or two. Kindly excuse them:—
O Art, that lives not in the studio,
That has no special love for northern light!
Unto no studies from the nude I owe
Sense of my weakness, knowledge of thy might.
And to no stippling from the good antique,
My shame and joy before the joyous Greek.
For I have walked in galleries oftentimes,
And shaded with one hand a longing eye;
And found no touch of love to soften times
As hard as nails, as dead to ecstasy;
And nothing in the gallery was fair,
But the worn face of the commissionaire.
So in despair I wax a trifle coarse,
And eat a hearty steak, and drink my beer;
And twenty thousand million rifle-corps
Of evil spirits enter in and jeer.
“She’s dead and rotten!” cries my angry heart,
And sleeps—and sees the living face of Art.
II.
ON EXALTATION: TOGETHER WITH AN ANECDOTE FROM
THE ENTERTAINMENTS OF KAPNIDES.
ON quiet days, when no wind blows, my canoe is particularly restful. It has perfect sympathy with the weather. It creeps down slowly to King’s, leans itself against the bank, and thinks. Then, later in the afternoon, it bears the organ humming in the chapel—a faint, sweet sound which produces religious exaltation; and it becomes necessary to wrestle with the canoe, because it desires to fly away and be at rest. It is owing to this rhythmic alternation of laziness and spirituality in the boat that I have given it the name which is blazoned on its bows—Zeitgeist.
I have said the boat has sympathy with the weather. It also has sympathy with me, or I have sympathy with it, which is the same thing. There was a time when I suffered only from rhythmic alternations of two kinds of laziness. Now exaltation is beginning to enter in as well, and I do not know the reason, unless I have caught it from the boat. Materialistic friends have told me that too much pudding will cause exaltation. I have not so much as looked upon pudding this day. An unknown poet comes swiftly past me. I hail him, and ask him for information. He tells me that he had been that way himself, and that with him it is generally caused by the scent of gardenias, or hyacinths, or narcissus.
I am glad he has gone away. I think if he had stayed a moment longer I should have been a little rude.
Anyway, I have got it. When one suffers from it, memory-vignettes come up quickly before the mental eye, and the mental eye has a rose-tinted glass stuck in it.
O passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem.
That is a memory-vignette. I am back again at school in a low form, and I am asked to parse “passi,” and I parse it humorously, and there is awful silence; and then one sharp click, because the master in nervous irritation snaps in two the cedar pencil in his hand. I hate him, and he hates me. For the meaning of the words I care nothing. Now I think over them again, and I see that Virgil is very intimate with me, and that he knows the way I feel.
Up comes another quotation, this time from a more modern author:—
The sun was gone now; the curled moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather:
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.
Yes, and if he had said that the curled moon was like a bitten biscuit thrown out of window in a high wind, it would not have been much less true. But there is no poetry in a biscuit, and precious little sustenance. The gentle fall of a feather is full of poetry:—
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
Edgar Allan Poe quoted those lines in his lecture on The Poetic Principle, and remarked on their insouciance. Well, he’s dead.
There are no more memory-vignettes. I have no more exaltation left. For a certain young woman crossed the bridge, and she had a baby with her, and a young man behind her. And she had the impertinence to call the baby’s attention to my canoe. Then she spoke winged words to the infant, and these are the exact winged words she used:—
“Chickey-chickey-chickey, boatey-boatey-boatey, o-o-m! Do you love auntey?”
And she called to the young man, saying, “’Enry, cummere. ’Ere’s a boat.”
Then they staggered slowly away, and took my exaltation with them. Just as I was getting a little better, the wind set in the wrong direction, and I heard her say some of it over again.
There is magic in the words. They set a man thinking of his past, his bills, and things which he has done and wishes he had left undone. All at once it seems as if it were going to rain. The wind turns colder. The cushions of the canoe change to brickbats. Somebody nearly runs into me, and I drop my pipe, and remember I never posted that letter after all. I look at my watch, and, of course, it’s stopped. Mainspring broken, probably. The way that woman talked was enough to destroy the works of a steam-engine. And I have a twinge in my side which I am quite sure is heart disease. I had not hoped for Westminster Abbey quite so soon. “Deeply lamented. No flowers, by request.”
And all this is due to the fearful words which that woman spoke, or it may be merely reaction. If one gets too high, or too low, one pays for it afterwards; and the commonplace praises of aurea mediocritas are properly founded. The quietist never pays, because he incurs no debts. All the rest pay, and there is no dun like a Natural Law. It may agree to renew for a short time, on the consideration of that small glass of brandy, perhaps, or a week’s rest; but one has to pay for the accommodation, and the debt must be discharged in the end.
Do you remember that quaint old story told by Kapnides in his third book of Entertainments? Well, Kapnides is not enough read at Oxford or Cambridge. I doubt if he is read at all. He is a little artificial, perhaps, but he has his points. It is the story of a Greek boy.
No; it is not the story of the Spartan boy who lied about a fox, and subsequently died of the lies which were told about himself.
It is the story of an Athenian boy, who in the month of June sat quite alone in a thin tent by night. And the tent was pitched under the shadow of the long wall, and the night was hot and stifling.
He sat alone, for dead men are no company. His father and his eldest brother were in the tent with him; but he was alone. He had not been afraid to tend them in their sickness, for he had himself recovered from the pestilence; but it had taken away from him his beauty and his memory. He had been very beautiful, and his mind had been very full of fair memories. All were gone now. He kept only the few bare facts which his dying father had told him, that his mother had died long before; that they had lived in the country and had been ordered into the city; that Pericles had made a remarkably fine speech in the preceding year; and that his only surviving relation was his twin-brother, who had gone away into Eubœa with the sheep. On these few poor facts, and on the two dead manly bodies before him, he pondered as he sat. And the night grew late, and yet he could hear outside the tent people passing busily, and quarrels, and long horrible cries.
And suddenly the poor Greek boy, with the ghost of an old beauty haunting his dull eyes and scarred cheeks, looked up, because he was conscious of the presence of a deity; and there before him sat an old gentleman in a silk hat, a frock-coat worn shiny under the fore arm, pepper-and-salt trousers, with a pen stuck at the back of his ear.
“I perceive a divine fragrance,” the boy said. The fragrance was gin-and-water, but he knew it not. “And about thy neck there is a circle of brightness.” In this he was correct, because the old gentleman was wearing an indiarubber dickey covered with luminous paint, which saves washing and makes it possible to put in a stud in the dark. “And thy dress is not like unto mine. It cannot be but that thou art some god. And at the right time art thou come; for my heart is heavy, and none but a god can comfort me. And due worship have I ever rendered to the gods, but they love me not, and they have taken all things from me; and only my twin-brother is left, and he keeps the sheep in Eubœa. And what name dost thou most willingly hear?”
“Allow me,” said the old gentleman, and produced a card from his pocket, handing it to the boy. On it was printed:—
The Proleptical Cashier.
(Agent for Zeus & Co., Specialists in Punishments.)
“The tongue is barbarian,” said the boy, “and thy spoken words are barbarian, and yet I understand them; and now I know that the gods are kinder to me, because already I have greater wisdom than my fathers, and, perhaps, somewhat greater remains. Give to me, O cashier, the power to stay this pestilence.”
“For a young ’un,” said the cashier, “that’s pretty calm, seeing that I made that pestilence. I just want to go into your little account. Your great-grandpapa, my boy, incurred a little debt, and Zeus & Co. want the thing settled before they dissolve partnership. They’ve just taken those two lives.” He touched the body of the boy’s father lightly with his foot. “They’ve taken your beauty and your memory. How sweet the girls used to be on you, my lad! but you can’t recollect it, and you won’t experience it again. You are a bad sight. Now we shall just kill your brother, and give the sheep the rot, and then the thing will be square. Now then, it’s a hot night, and you’d better burn these two. I’ll show you how to do it on the cheap, without paying for it. As long as Zeus & Co. are paid I don’t care about the rest.”
The boy sat dazed, and did not speak.
“There’s a rich man built a first-class pyre twenty yards from your tent. They’ve gone to fetch his dead daughter to burn on it. We’ll collar it before they get back. I’ll take the old man, because he’s the lightest. You carry your brother. He was a hoplite, wasn’t he, one of them gentlemen that do parasangs? Oh, I know all about it.”
Still the boy did not speak. They took up the two bodies, passed out of the tent, and laid their burden on the pyre.
“You look as if something had hurt you,” said the old gentleman. “I like these shavings miles better than newspaper.” He pulled a box of matches from his pocket, and set light to the pyre. It flared up brightly.
Then the boy touched him on the shoulder, and pointed first in the direction of Eubœa, and then at himself. A word came into him from a future civilisation.
“Swop?” he said gently.
“All right,” grumbled the cashier. “I don’t mind. It gives a lot of trouble—altering the books. But I don’t mind, I’m sure. It’s a thirsty night.”
For a moment the boy stood motionless; then, with a little cry, leapt into the flames. And his life went to join his beauty and his memory in a land of which we know too little.
It’s begun to rain. I think I’ll be off. I do hate anachronisms.
III.
ON SELF-DECEPTION: TOGETHER WITH THE DREAM OF
THE DEAN’S PREPARATIONS.
THIS morning, because the air was fresh, and the sun was bright, and I had eaten too much breakfast, it seemed to be an excellent thing to cut all lectures and to loaf in the Backs. Few boats are there in the morning, and I have found, when my canoe takes me out, that the fewer the boats the less the unpleasantness. I can run into a bridge, but a bridge cannot run into me; and a bridge always takes my apologies in a nice spirit. The afternoon loafers on the river are not yet sufficiently educated to understand that a Canadian canoe must go its own way, and that any attempt to control it is a baseness.
The other afternoon my canoe got a little humorous. It saw a man on in front of us working hard in one of those vessels that went a thousand miles down the Jordan—or something to that effect. I knew what my canoe would do. It broke into a canter, caught the absolute stranger in the back of the neck, and knocked him into the water. You would have expected the absolute stranger to have come up, breathing the Englishman’s Shortest Prayer. He did not. He apologised for having been in my way, said that it was entirely his own fault, and hoped that he had not inconvenienced me. I shrugged my shoulders and forgave him, with considerable hauteur.
But my boat got Remorse badly. It did not want to live any more, and tried to knock its brains out against Clare Bridge. I soothed it, and tied it up. Canadian canoes are such sensitive things.
This sort of incident cannot happen when one cuts lectures to go on the river in the morning. And one does more work. You take your Plato’s “Phædo,” and you really enjoy it. If there’s any word you don’t know, you leave it; if there’s any sentence you can’t understand, you don’t worry about it; and if there’s any word you can understand, it goes home to you more. That’s the right spirit. That’s the way the ancient Greeks took their language. What did they know about dictionaries and grammars and cribs? And then, after a couple of minutes, one pitches the “Phædo” into the bows of the boat, and a great Peace falls on one’s soul.
My Better Self does not agree with me on these points; but I had words with my Better Self this morning, and since then we have not been on speaking terms. I find it impossible to convince my Better Self of great truths; I could deceive my Better Self, which is a common practice, but I will not do it. I have seen men do it; and I have been very, very sorry for them. I have known a man, who had previously been honest, commence to keep an average of the amount of work he did per diem. The way he faked that average would have brought a blush to the cheek of the chartered libertine, and made the chartered accountant moan for humanity. The first week gave a daily average of 2 hours 20·5 minutes. In the second week we were asked to believe that he had done rather more than ten hours a day. That man drives a cab now: self-deception never pays. Another man, who was quite a friend of mine, liked pork chops. He pretended that he didn’t, and made himself believe that he didn’t. Why? Simply and solely because he once wrote a poem—and published it—which began:
Darling, thy hot kiss lingers on my lips.
Before he wrote that poem, he used to feed almost entirely on pork chops. After it was published, he pretended that a little ripe fruit was all he needed. What’s become of him? What do you suppose? Trichinosis, of course. It’s much better to be perfectly honest. The worst case of all was last May. A man made himself believe that he loved Bradelby’s sister, and he never got any better. He just pined away and married her. Perhaps you don’t realise what that means, but you never met Bradelby’s sister.
I met her. She sat down at the piano, and stroked it as if it were a lap-dog. She was quite tender in her movements, and she sang:
Once in the deeeeer dead dyes beyond recall.
Shortly afterwards she said that she wanted to live a useful life. That sort of thing stamps a woman.
I suppose I must have been going to sleep when I thought that last sentence. For I suddenly found myself in the centre of Epping Forest, and before me was a college dean in full academicals. He was a leathery old dean to look at, and yet he had some nervousness of manner. Of course he was not a real dean, but only a dream dean. The real deans—I cannot say it too emphatically—are not leathery, and are not nervous.
When he saw me, he began to rub his hands gently and to smile, until I thought my heart would break.
“This is a little unusual,” he said; “a little irregular, is it not? Have you permission, may I ask, from the University authorities, to drive a Canadian canoe tandem through Epping Forest?”
“No, sir,” I said politely; “but I was not aware that permission was required.”
“Epps’s Forest,” he retorted inanely, “contains absolutely no fatty matter. Applicants are therefore assured, if they cannot borrow here, it would be futile to apply elsewhere. Personal visit invited.”
“But, sir,” I urged, “this is a personal——”
“Stop!” he interrupted me, tapping the palm of one hand with the forefinger of the other. “That’s not the point, and you know it’s not the point. I have come here to practise my part—Titania—in Midsummer Night’s Dream, with real fairies. I do not do it because I like it. I do it because I wish to entertain and interest some young ladies who will be staying with me during the June festivities. You interrupt my preparations, you frighten the fairies, you annoy me exceedingly, and your attendance in college chapel is not what it should be. You’ve been smoking, and you smell. Where no allotment is made the deposit will be returned in full.”
I could not quite make it out, because the dean did not seem as if he would make up into a good Titania. But that was the only thing that surprised me. I promised to sit quite still, and not to frighten the fairies, and entreated him to go on with the rehearsal.
“Very well,” he said, seating himself on a camp-stool. “You will not see the fairies; but you will hear them. We are now commencing Act II., Scene iii. I give them their cue:—
Sing me now asleep;
Then to your offices, and let me rest.
Now, then they sing—
You spotted snakes with double tongue.
You know it?”
I knew it very well; but what the fairies really sang was this:—
First Fairy.
You potted slates, disguised as tongue,
Cornèd oxen be not seen;
Such things never put him wrong,
Never hurt the college dean.
Chorus.
Fill him up with mayonnaise,
Made in several different ways;
(Salmon, chicken mayonnaise; also lobster mayonnaise);
Never fear,
’Twill keep him queer,
Shocking queer for several days;
He can’t work on mayonnaise.
Second Fairy.
Curried rabbits, come not nigh;
Hence, tomato-tinners, hence!
He can eat what you or I
Wouldn’t for a hundred pence.
(Chorus as before.)
“There,” exclaimed the dean, turning to me, “that goes pretty well, I think. Shakespeare would be pleased. I shall play Midsummer Night’s Dream on the first night of the visit of my lady friends. On the second night I am going to sing them some songs. On the third night I shall give a conjuring entertainment.” He suddenly stopped, and burst into tears. “And on the fourth night,” he sobbed, “their funeral will take place, and they are so young and fair!”
“Couldn’t you fix their funeral for the first night?” I asked. “They’d suffer less so.”
“No,” said the dean firmly, “they must be amused first—amused and interested and entertained. And I must amuse them, and I never amused any one in my life before. I can’t take them to the races, because there are undergraduates about. I can’t take them to dances for similar reasons. I’m going to do it all myself.” He burst out sobbing again. “And I know it will kill them. The fairies won’t play out of Epping Cocoa, so I shall have to undertake every character in the piece. Now I must go back, and practise my songs. I am so anxious to be amusing. It quite weighs on my mind. You don’t know anything that would do for the conjuring entertainment, do you? Card-tricks, you know, or think-of-any-number-you-like, or something of that sort?”
As he said these words he got into my boat, which started down a river that flowed into a drawing-room. We got out. Then the boat changed into a piano, and the dean sat down to it, and began to play the symphony.
“It’s one of those simple, touching songs, and it’s called ‘Papa.’”
Then he sang:
Take my head on your shoulders, papa,
Let’s have it back when you’ve done;
I only unscrewed it in jest, papa—
Only unscrewed it in fun.
And it’s pleasant to lie and to think, papa,
You can give it me back all right;
My head, though it’s screwed, is loose, papa,
And you, when you’re screwed, are tight.
“You can’t possibly sing that to the ladies,” I said.
“No,” he answered; “I’ve kept the words a little too long, and the weather’s been hot. I’ll try another—a fervent and passionate one.”
“No, you won’t,” I said firmly, and jumped into the piano, which changed into the canoe again, and started away down the river.
“That’s the wrong ’bus!” the dean shrieked after me. He shrieked so loudly that he woke me. At least, he half woke me. I was so full of the idea that I was in the wrong ’bus that I got out. The canoe was in the middle of the river at the time. You will find an excellent edition of Plato’s “Phædo,” a copy of last week’s Review, and my nicest pipe at the bottom of the river in King’s. At any rate, you may go and dive for them if you like.
IV.
ON REFLECTION; TO WHICH IS ADDED THE STORY OF
THE TIN HEART.
I LIKE to watch those trees reflected in the water. They are so suggestive, by reason of their being reflected wrong way up. All objective, outside facts are as trees, and the mind of man is as a river, and he consequently reflects everything in an inverted way. That is the reason why, if I try to guess a coin and say heads, it is always tails. That is the reason why, if I go to get a spoon out of my plate-basket in the dark, I always take out thirteen successive forks before I find one. It explains nearly everything. Probably the correct way to dine is really to begin with the fruit and end with the oysters. Itinerant musicians should begin by making a collection and leave out the other part. Anything that can be done backwards is better done backwards. When I leave for a moment the presence of royalty I am always required to walk backwards. That shows that royalty, together with Her Privy Council, which is the collected wisdom of the nation, thinks that it is best to walk backwards. And so it is. It is not only happier and holier, but it is also more piquant. You can never tell until you’ve kicked it whether you have backed into a policeman or a lamp-post. New possibilities are open to you. Anything may happen, and generally does. So, too, in skating. A good skater told me that the only enjoyable method of progression is the outside edge backwards. “It makes you feel like a bird,” he said; “and I don’t believe you can get that sensation of flight any other way.” He simply seemed to float on the ice. You see, he was a good skater. At last he galumphed into a snow-heap, flew just like a bird for a few yards, then came down hard and hurt a lady. Look at these railway collisions, too. We all know what an awful thing a railway collision is: and how does it always happen? It happens from two trains wanting to go to the same spot and arriving there simultaneously. If both trains had respectively reversed their directions, no collision could have happened. A train should never be allowed to go anywhere, but only to back to the place whence it came. But, as I should like these pages to be of solid, material use to any young men who are really trying to lead the philosophical life, and are quite earnest in their desire to avoid the Scylla of action without falling into the Charybdis of thought, I will put my facts and deductions clearly and briefly. The facts are two:—
(1) That a tree is reflected in the water wrong way up.
(2) That the reflection of such a reflection would be right way up.
From No. 2 we deduce that the best literary method is to crib some other man’s ideas or reflections; and this is what I always do when I write an article.
From No. 1 we deduce that as all reflection is the reverse of the thing reflected, it is best to act altogether without reflection; and this is what the editor always does when he prints my articles; and what you yourselves do when you pay two-and-sixpence for this volume in spite of it.
In the meanwhile, my dear old sympathetic canoe has been going slowly backwards on its own account, and must be stopped.
It was only the other night that I took my canoe out in the moonlight, when the river is solitary and quiet. I shall not take it by night any more, because it is too sympathetic. A man came and leaned over one of the bridges and watched the reflection of the spangled skies in the ripple. He sighed, and said, “Pree lil starsh!” Then he swore hard at them. Then he sighed again, and his cap tumbled off into the water. “Ish all over now,” he said solemnly, and walked wearily away. My boat simply shuddered. I could feel it shudder.
After that it got absurdly sentimental. Now I hate and I despise sentiment. I suppose it was the effect of the moonlight. It made some verses. At least I suppose the boat made them. I found them in my blazer pocket afterwards, and I’m sure I recognised the handwriting. So I will give them in full. (You will do nothing of the kind.—Ed.)
I’m not going to discuss the merit of those verses. There may be something in them which the world will one day learn to cherish, or there may not be; but I deprecate the weakness and sentimentality which cause verse. We want to be strong, really strong. We want more of the spirit of that Gallic chieftain who wanted a tin heart made for himself. The story is well enough known, and you will find it in Livy: it is in one of the lost books; but I give it for the benefit of readers who are not classical. I do not scorn such readers. I can remember the time when I had not the finished scholarship, the critical insight, the almost insolent familiarity with the more recondite parts of history, which—with all modesty be it spoken—I know that I now possess.
I have forgotten some of the names, all the dates, and a few of the facts. But these are not the essentials. Such things are but the dry bones of history. We want the flesh and blood and sinews—the words, the large, beautiful, vague words that smudge over a difficulty until you can’t see it.
To understand why the Gallic Chieftain wanted a tin heart, we must first of all appreciate the man’s character.
When the Gallic tribe, to which he belonged, formed one of their sudden plans (Gallorum subita sunt consilia), he was always in the front of the battle; but when he was at home he used to smoke his pipe in the back yard, because his wife and her mother would not allow it in the house. He had plenty of fighting courage, but no domestic courage. And there were other points in which he saw that he was weak. Sometimes, for instance, he found some aged veteran in the streets, in a state of destitution, with a card on his breast to say that he had lost his wife in a colliery explosion, selling sulfura, or playing on the tuba telescopica, an instrument resembling the trombone, but more deleterious. Whenever this happened, he would buy the matches, or give the man money. It was weak of him, but he couldn’t help it.
The tribe to which he belonged was transcendental, heterodox, habitually untruthful, and characterised by a belief that the affections resided in the heart. So, when this poor chieftain found that he was getting too good and kind (ah, how many of us have felt like that!—I often have), he concluded that something must be wrong with his heart, and went to a medicine man or fakir. And he said: “O fakir, would you fake me up a tin heart? For the heart which I have is too unpleasantly soft, and I want a metal one.” The fakir agreed to make the change for twelve ducats. But just at this time an accident happened to the budget of this tribe, and a tax of ten ducats per pound was put on plumbum album—no, my boy, not white lead: it means tin. So it was quite clear to the fakir that he could not afford to give the man a tin heart, and yet he had signed the document. Besides, he wanted those twelve ducats.
So he gave the man chloroform, removed his heart, and then proceeded to do his best with a cheap substitute. But the cheap substitute refused to be faked, and the fakir was still hard at work trying to make something which should do quite as well as a tin heart and last longer, when he noticed signs of reviving consciousness in the chieftain. He had no more chloroform to give him, and no time to lose. So he hurriedly sewed up the incision, and left the man with no heart at all, neither of flesh, nor of tin, nor of cheap substitute.
Then the chieftain started off home, and he looked very cheerful indeed. He tripped up two blind men, and threw their sulfura down a grating. Then he went into a public-house, and spent his week’s stipendium. Finally, he reeled home, kicked his wife, smoked two cigars in the drawing-room, broke his mother-in-law’s head, forgot to wipe his boots, said he wanted some tea, and went to sleep with his feet on the crimson plush mantelpiece.
Now, next day another Gaul was going down the street when he saw two goats being harnessed to a milk-cart. It at once occurred to him that it would be as well to throw off the Roman yoke. So another insurrection was started, and the Gallic chieftain who had no heart was put in the forefront of the battle.
Just as the trumpets sounded for a charge, this Gallic chieftain remembered that he had left his handkerchief in the tent, and went to look for it in a hurry, and got himself disliked. But as the rest of the tribe were mostly killed in the charge, he did not mind that much. The survivors said: “Our noble chief has begun to be a coward.” But he was not afraid of his wife, and used bad language in her presence during mealtimes. One of the survivors went so far as to run a lance through the place where the chieftain’s heart ought to have been. The chieftain smiled, and said sarcastically that he was not an umbrella-stand.
Death is connected with the stoppage of the heart’s action; consequently this chieftain never died, and it is argued that during the Syro-Phœnician attempt to——
Here there is a hiatus in the manuscript. A scribe has added a note in the margin pallido atramento, “The chieftain is still alive. I have seen him. I have written his name at the foot of the manuscript.” I have looked there, and simply found the words “Venditus iterum.”
But the other day I bought a cigar which was all case and no inwards. The tobacconist who sold it me said it was a Regalia Gallica; and he looked as if he had been in this world a long time, and had seen the wickedness of it. I simply mention this as a coincidence. There may be nothing in it, like the cigar. But it is a curious case, if nothing else—also like the cigar.
V.
A STORM ON THE BACKS; AND A STORY OF THREE.
I HAVE often considered it as one of my misfortunes that I simply do not know what fear is. As a boy I was so brave and bright that every one loved me; in my manhood my courage appals me. I feel that one day it will carry me too far.
As I climbed hand-over-hand up the side of the Zeitgeist at the Silver Street Docks, an old, old sailor stepped up to me. “Young stranger,” he said, “you will not attempt to make King’s Bridge on such a day as this? It would be madness. The boldest of us dare not.”
“Avaunt!” I cried; “where honour calls I follow. England expects. Per ardua ad astra.”
He turned away to hide his emotion. I gave him my hand, which he wrung and knocked twice. There was no answer.
With one wild, exultant leap the vessel burst from its moorings, churning the iron-bound waves to sheer desperation, foaming at the mouth, and sobbing piteously. Through the driving rain, the blinding fog, the dazzling lightning, the impenetrable mist, and the other atmospheric phenomena which Mr. Clark Russell had lent for the occasion, loomed a hideous dark object. I consulted the chart, the compass, the telescope, the ship’s biscuits, everything I could lay my hands on; but it was too late. Nearer and nearer it loomed. I could see that it was Silver Street Bridge, and that it was coming my way. Oh, the horror of it!
I shrieked to it to save itself and go away. But my voice was drowned in the fury of the elements. It loomed nearer—it never stopped looming once—and I knew that I should be unable to avoid it, that I should destroy it.
Bump! From the top of the bridge there came the voice of a small boy, asking if I was insured. He seemed hysterical, and fear had probably sapped his reason. I was swept on by the fury of the elements. No, I’ve just had that—swept on by the elemental fury—well, that’s much the same.
At any rate, I was swept on. The wind whistled in the rigging, until it got sick of being conventional. Then it went and whistled in the taffrail. At last it got so nastily original that it sang “Since first I saw your Face” in the binnacle. A hasty glance backward showed me that Silver Street Bridge was yet standing. My resolution was also unshaken.
The fierce old Berserker spirit fired my blood. Chanting aloud the grand old Latin hymn of the Crusaders—
A, ab, absque, coram, de,
Palam, clam, cum, ex and e—
I dashed forward. My speed may be guessed from the fact that by this time I was under Queen’s Bridge. Before me, or close behind me, or at any rate on one side or the other, lowered in thick banks of cloud an angry sun, red as the blood of an orange that the thunder had pealed! The waves were mountain high.
The light of the unbroken Viking was in my eyes. I could not see them, but I knew that it must be so. The waves were mounting higher now.
Suddenly the wind shifted. It became semicircular, with a pendulum action. It swung my boat round to the left, then swung it round to the right. It kept on doing this. A horrible thought flashed across me that I should never make King’s Bridge at this rate. I said “Excelsior” to the boat to encourage it, but it only went on wagging. I smote it on the bows with the flat of my paddle, and that had no effect. Lastly, I raised myself about four inches, and sat down again with the energy and directness of the wild Norsemen. The jerk started it on again. We went so fast that a sparrow seemed to be literally flying past me. I believe that was what it actually was doing. By this time the waves were quite extraordinary.
We were now but a few yards from home. There was another change in the weather. The sun was like a crystal chalice brimming with crimson wine, borne by an unseen Ganymede to his lord across the sapphire pavement of cloud. (Poetry is cheap to-day.) Had his white feet slipped on the wondrous far-off way? For of a sudden the crimson flood suffused the sapphire floor, and the gasp of the dying wind was as of one who cried, “Come away in my ’and, sir, and it was cracked before, and you didn’t ought to have left it there, and I never touched it, and ’ow was I to know yer didn’t want it broke?” Then the wind sank. My boat was motionless. I was becalmed within sight of my goal.
So I waited in the middle of the river. The storm was passed, and the waves were perfectly calm and collected, like a bad halfpenny in an offertory bag. There was not a breath of wind, and consequently the first two matches which I lit were blown out at once. The third match did what was expected of it, and then I attempted to blow it out. Finding this impossible, I threw it in the water. It floated on the top, and burnt with a clear steady flame for ten consecutive minutes. While I was watching it I let my pipe out, and had to strike a fourth match. The head came off it, and nestled lovingly in the palm of my hand. Then it walked away, and burned two holes in my blazer. How such little incidents as this make one wish that the nature of things was otherwise!
I may own that I never did make King’s Bridge that afternoon. My canoe did not seem to care about going there of its own accord, and I did not like to paddle it there because I hate unnecessary fuss; so I just stopped where I was and read a little.
What was I reading?
Well, I had his book, you know, after his death. Some of it interests me; but this is chiefly because I knew the man. He wrote it as a remedy, and he died as a remedy; but I have a notion that he is not quite cured yet. I take the book here to read sometimes. You may see a page or two of it. I am not pretending that it has any literary value But try to think you knew the man who wrote it.
She shivered a little as she sat there in her nightdress. In the small hours of the morning in early summer it is always cold. She would have been much warmer in bed; she really ought to have been in bed; but the bed had not been slept in. It stood there in one corner of the room, looking white and restful. It seemed to be calling her, “Come to me; sleep and forget it—sleep and forget it.” On the little table at the foot of the bed was the pile of books and newspapers that had slowly accumulated. She had always been interested in the world and in the things others did and thought.
A little impulse that came to her from nowhere made her pick up the newspaper that lay on the top of the pile. It would do to fill her mind and to keep her thoughts steady until the morning came. Her eyes ached, and the candles flickered on the dressing-table. Her brain seemed to her as a pool into which some thoughtless child that did what he liked had flung a stone, starting circle after circle, circles that grew and grew, spreading to the farther edge, and sobbing away into nothing because they could go no farther. Yet she read, and knew nothing of what she read, till one sentence seemed to shine brighter than the rest.
“The body had probably been in the water for several days.”
She stood up quickly, with a little gasp, and let the newspaper fall to the ground. For her brain, burning with torture and want of sleep, had suddenly flashed out a merciless, truthful, coloured illustration to that sentence. She steadied herself in a moment. Then she held up her hands and looked at them. “Will they turn like that?” she was asking herself. She shivered, and the muscles of her face contracted a little.
She was bending now over the mantelpiece. Her arms and her burning forehead rested upon it, and her thoughts went stealing away through the passages and rooms of the quiet old house. In the room next to hers slept stolid respectability. She loved him and her, as the accident of parentage makes love. But she must leave them. How she hated to hurt those two, those kind, misunderstanding parents, with their old ideas, and their love for her ever fresh! No, she could not leave them, she could not leave them. “You will leave them at dawn,” said the thing that was stronger than herself.
And her thoughts stood mutely listening outside the door of the room where Claud lay. “Are you asleep?” she whispered. Or was he lying awake and thinking, as she thought, of the night before? It all came back to her so easily,—the wistful refrain that lingered softly on the strings, the brilliant lights and the brilliant crowd, and suddenly the dim garden outside the ball-room. She could see him standing there; she could hear him speaking. No, she could never, never leave him. “You will leave him at dawn,” said the thing that was stronger than herself.
And the dawn had come now.
She drew up the blind, and opened the window softly. The sky was one dull grey but for the beauty in the east. A fresh, cool wind had awakened; and she could hear the chirrup, chirrup of waking birds. And she looked down the valley and saw the hurrying, winding river, with the grey mists hovering upon it. “River,” she said in a whisper, “take me to the sea. Take me to a sea that has no shores, that will flow for ever, bearing me farther and farther away from this.”
She crept down the stairs, bare-footed, and into the drawing-room. She drew back the heavy curtains from the windows that opened down to the ground. Outside was the terraced garden that sloped down to the edge of the river. Her hand was on the bolt of the window.
Suddenly she heard quick footsteps coming down the passage. In a moment she had hidden herself behind the screen that stood against the door. She knew those footsteps. Involuntarily her hands linked tightly together, and her breath came quickly.
He was not so careful as she had been; he came boldly into the room, opened the window noisily, and went out into the garden. As he went out she caught one glimpse of his face, and she knew what he would do. She sprang from behind the screen. “Claud, Claud!” she called. He stopped with a sudden start, and came towards her. “What are you doing here?” he asked, in a voice that was not like his voice.
“I,” she panted—“I came to save you, Claud. Oh, go back again!”
He would have taken her hands, but she shrank away from him. They only stayed there for a few minutes. She talked to him and pleaded with him. There was little need for such pleading, for he had yielded to her from the first. He gave her the only promise that she would let him make, and then he went back to his room.
She quietly closed the windows, and drew the curtains again. She seemed to herself both sad and happy now, and very tired.
And Fate had an approving smile upon her bitter face. “They are two obedient children,” she said. “They were going to take matters into their own hands, and they resisted the temptation. Very well, they shall be rewarded.”
So Fate sent the girl a present of a beautiful brain-fever with pictures in it. And when it was over she fell asleep, and dreamed that she was floating on a sea that had no shores and flowed for ever, bearing her farther and farther away from this. And she woke no more.
And Fate thought that she should then do something for Claud. So she killed another woman, and killed her with thirty other people in a railway accident, thereby escaping any charge of impartial justice. They both had loved him, and they were both dead, and he got much happier. In the unprepared passages of this life a glimpse at the context would be useful.
Poor stuff—isn’t it?
VI.
ON LOAFING; TOGETHER WITH A SECOND ANECDOTE FROM
THE ENTERTAINMENTS OF KAPNIDES.
I TOOK my canoe the other day up that part of the river where only Masters of Arts are allowed to drown themselves without a certificate. None of them were doing it on the day I was there, and it was rather dull, and the boat went to sleep with its cold nose resting on the soft grass that edged the river.
So I just stopped there and lazed, and watched other boats go past. There is a prevalent notion apparently that nothing which is said in one boat can possibly be heard in another. As each boat went past, its occupants made humorous and uncomplimentary remarks upon me. The waiters in some of the inferior London restaurants have a similar notion that nobody understands French. Without these little delusions we should not be as happy as we are. In my case there seemed to be an idea that I had got stuck in the bank and couldn’t get out again. The impression was wrong. My boat was a little tired, and went to sleep. It had come a long way, and I was not brute enough to wake it up again.
I watched the other boats go past. There were very fine and noble people in some of them, but I did not see one proper loafer, and hardly any one who had elementary notions of the right way to loaf. There is no subject which is less understood. The spirit of asceticism, the spirit of extravagance for its own sake, and the spirit of utilitarianism are fast spoiling us.
The popular idea that loafing is in some way connected with laziness should be removed. Loafing is the science of living without trouble. There may be a time when it is easier to work than to laze. A man, when suffering badly from Tripos, may find it less trouble to read Thucydides than to stifle his conscience. The condition of mind is unhealthy and morbid; but, where it exists, it would certainly be better loafing to work than to laze. And no one objects more than the well-trained loafer to enforced laziness. When he is in London he will have his hat ironed at the barber’s rather than at the maker’s. In the first case he will have to pay for it, but he will be shaved while it is being done; in the second case no charge is made, but more than sixpennyworth of vitality is consumed in the irritation of having to wait. It is not the waiting which the loafer minds: it is the having to wait.
There are many who would loaf, but fail from want of a little thought. They do not take enough trouble to avoid trouble. They arrive at some result, and half a loaf is better than no bread; but nevertheless they do not get the perfect life.
Here is a problem in loafing.
There were four men—A, B, C, D—who rose one morning, and all found they wanted shaving.
A was too lazy, left his chin as it was, was miserable all that day, and simply had to shave next day.
B half-way through the morning got shaved at a barber’s.
C conquered his inclinations and shaved himself at once.
D, knowing that it was impossible to grow a beard at Cambridge, and being too lazy to shave or be shaved, had his things packed up, and “went down.”
The vanity of the man, the strength of the beard, and the distance from a barber are the same in each case; and it is supposed that the price of a shave is so small that it may be disregarded: which was the best loafer of the four?
There was not a perfect loafer among them, but the best was undoubtedly C, and the next best was D. This will seem strange to any one who has not studied the effect of anticipation on happiness and the reverse. Nothing is real to us except our imagination of it. What would the perfect loafer have done? I know; and you, my sympathetic reader, know. But I do not think any of the others do. And it would be of no use to tell them, because they would not believe it. The answer is too long and elaborate to be given in any case.
It should be remembered that loafing is not the science of living for pleasure, which is foolishness, but the science of living without trouble. We may believe, as it is said in “The New Republic,” that one of the two most lasting pleasures is the pleasure of saying a neat thing neatly; yet the perfect loafer will never become a conversationalist.
But it is of little use to preach. After all I have said about the quantity of cushions necessary for comfort in a Canadian canoe, I constantly see men going out with far too few. I am always hearing complaints that we are not taught engineering or some other horribly useful thing. But why are we not taught the art of perfect living, which is loafing?
Only a few out of my many books do I ever bring on the water. Some of the best would seem quite out of place. To-day I’ve got that curious old translation of the “Entertainments of Kapnides” with me. I was reminded of it by seeing those children going along in the meadow, picking flowers. Of course you know the story well enough, but I cannot be bothered to be original in every chapter. It is the story of the Child Siren.
Ligeia never cared about the child from the first. It interfered with business. It absolutely refused to play her accompaniments, and said it could not bear to see the sailors tempted to their death. On this particular day it had interrupted Ligeia just as she reached the most tender, pathetic, touching part of her song. The sob of the child broke into the sloppy waltz refrain, and spoiled the spell. And the helmsman had turned the ship’s prow out again from the coast, and there was another crew gone.
“You sinful little beast,” said Ligeia. “Get out of my sight.”
The child was not sorry to go. She climbed up the cliff, and then wandered on away from the sea, where the long grass came up to her waist. And as she wandered, the sun shone brightly, and the cool wind blew into her hair, and the birds sang above her, and only a little distance away sounded the drowsy murmurs of the waves.
And then for the first time in her life the passion for song came into her. She felt that she must sing. Always before she had shuddered at the thought of song, for the song of Ligeia and others had ever brought death with it. But now she felt that she must sing, and she knew not why; for a study of hereditary tendencies was not included in the Board School education of that period. She had reached an open space now. The ground was sandy, with here and there a stunted clump of grass, and in one place a beautiful golden poppy.
“No one will hear me,” she thought, “and if I do not sing my heart will break.” So she sang, standing there white and naked, with the sunlight upon her, holding a lyre in her little hands.
And the music came out of her soul, but she knew not whence the words came.
She sang that it was not sweet for the golden poppy to bloom there alone, though the sun made it warm, and the wind was fragrant about it. It was sweeter that she should pluck it in her little hands, which were warm with a better life than the life of the sun, and more fragrant than the west wind with its burden of the breath of the flowers. She paused, and her fingers rested lightly on the lyre. Her eyes were strained in looking up to the east, and she did not see that the poppy had bowed its golden head and withered away.
“And it is not sweet,” she sang again, “for you, white bird, to fly on and on, and never to rest. It is better to lie here, and let me touch you, and fondle you, and love you.”
And out from the eastern sky flew the white bird, and it nestled for one moment at the child’s breast, and then fell dead on the sand.
And the child saw what she had done, and she flung herself down beside the dead bird and the withered flower, and sobbed in the foolishest way.
So the afternoon wore on, and the sea still murmured, and she still lay there. And when it was evening a new wind sprang up from the south, and it whispered to her,—
“A girl’s voice for a bird’s life.”
She stood up, erect, with eyes that flashed brightly, though the tears still stood in them. She held the white bird in her little hands. “I’ll give you my voice,” she said, as she kissed it. And the bird flew far away from her, and the girl was dumb.
For a little while she stood there, and the old passion of song came back to her, and tore at her heart; but she could not sing, for she was dumb.
“And I have nothing else left,” she thought, “with which I may give back the life to the golden poppy.”
“Crimson for golden,” the south wind called softly in her ear.
So she lay down once more, and put her pretty mouth to the dead bloom of the poppy, and she could not speak, but she thought the words—“Drink my blood! Drink my life, and live!”
And the dead flower drained out her life, and she grew white and whiter, and when the moonlight fell upon her, not a tint of colour was in her cheeks.
Out of the forest the south wind crept, and he seemed a little excited as he saw the dead girl lying there.
“I’ll never do it again,” he swore; “if they want such things done, they must do them themselves. Curse them!” Then he howled, for his masters had overheard him and chastised him.
He went back to the forest, and brooded all day over what had happened. And that night he went mad, and came forth to do one or two things on his own account. There was the tall poppy growing by the head of the dead girl, and it had become crimson.
The south wind gave one puff, and blew it out of the ground into the sea.
And over the child’s body it blew the finest white sand that it could find, until a heavy drift lay over it.
And it went away to a lonely place where a solitary tree was standing, and in the tree sat the white bird in her nest. And he blew down the tree, and broke the nest, and chased the bird for days and days over the water, till at last the bird sank.
And still the wind was not satisfied. He had a faint idea that he had not been doing much good. He ought, by rights, to have killed his masters. He knew that, but his masters could not be killed. How they smiled as they sat up in cloudland, and watched their angry servant snarling over a child, a bird, and a flower! “He’s not satisfied,” said the first. “Very few people are,” grunted a second. “You’re right there,” snorted a third. Their conversation rarely rose above the intellectual level of a market ordinary; but they had the power, and could afford to be a little dull at times.
VII.
ON CAUSES; WITH AN EXCURSION ON LUCK.
I HAVE just been lunching with a man. He is either a Socialist or a Vegetarian—I forget which. On second thoughts, he cannot have been a Vegetarian, because he ate cutlets. He may have been a Philatelist; but I doubt it, and I do not fancy that it really matters. He was something—one of those things that make a man want to lead a higher life, and collar most of the conversation. He told me a good deal about it, and I know that at the time I thought it was a fine thing and an interesting thing; and I wondered why more of us did not do it; and yet I’ve forgotten what it was. The main point, however, is not what he was, but the fact that he was something. He had a Cause, an Enthusiasm; something that lifted him above the common ruck, something he could brag about, something that made it necessary for him to fill up papers, and sign declarations, and feel as if the nation had purchased him at his own price.
The jilted are bitter on the subject of women; the fox was malicious about the grapes that he could not reach; Tantalus was often heard to remark that undiluted water was not worth drinking. If a man sneer at Causes, it is because he himself has not any Cause; and the sneer is idle, because he might have many Causes if he liked. A man may be so poor that he has no effects; but he may still have a Cause. Some of them require a subscription of one shilling; but with more it suffices that a man shall bother half a crown out of his friend. So, as the sneer is not required for the consolation of the sneerer, it must therefore be quite pointless and unprejudiced.
Personally, I must own that I have no Cause at present. I loaf. I am utterly selfish. But I am going to select one soon, because I feel sure that it will elevate me. Besides, I do not see why I should be bored to death by those of my friends who happen to be cracked—quite cracked—about some glorious ideal, and never be able to return their unkindness. Reciprocity is the rule of life. You brag to me about your picture gallery for the starving poor, and I feel at once that I must lie to you about thought-transference. It is partly because I am just about to ruin a Cause by my support that I feel so angry with those selfish, flippant, trivial people who sneer at Causes. The worst point in the sneer is its impartiality. We do not want cold, hard, uncoloured criticism with its shameful want of bias. We want warm, tender, muddle-headed enthusiasm, that does not quibble about merit or demerit, that tinges the mere critical faculty with good feeling or bad feeling as the case may be, that is full of humanity which is pigheadedness. But no amount of sneers will prevent me from selecting a Cause to which I may devote my life. The only thing which is likely to prevent me is the difficulty of selection. There are so many Causes, and they are all so good. Shall I be a Philanthropist? Help the poor, and you help yourself. The Philanthropist is the mainstay of the nation. Or shall I be a Dipsomaniac? Help yourself, and pass the bottle. The Dipsomaniac is the mainstay of the Budget. It would be difficult to choose even between these two. The Dipsomaniac sacrifices more than the Philanthropist, and he is less self-conscious; but, on the other hand, the Philanthropist is more popular and less truthful. If it be a fine thing to help the poor, is it not an equally fine thing to help the dear Budget? Perhaps the main distinction between the two is that the Dipsomaniac accounts for most of the rum, and the Philanthropist is mostly rum in his accounts. But who can possibly decide the difference in their merits? And these are but two: there are thousands of others.
There once was a cuckoo-clock bird; and after the manner of cuckoos it did not lay wind-eggs in its own nest. It deposited them in a mare’s nest, and a stuffed phœnix hatched them dead on the Greek Kalends of April. It was thought at the time that the mechanical, the impossible, and the futile had never been so beautifully combined. Yet I have seen a man repeat the lessons that the last pamphlet had wound him up to say, deposit a handsome donation of his father’s money in the society that published it, crow to all his friends and expect to see the world regenerated. The combination was quite as beautiful, and yet people sneer at Causes! What great general ever lived who had not this, or a similar faculty for combination? And though the things combined may be utterly bad in themselves, we should never forget how very much of them we get for our money—or our father’s money, as the case may be.
But it is of little use to speak. There are few men in the world who have a Cause. We are not serious enough. We give our minds to all manner of trifles. With the exception of yourself, perhaps, I believe that I am the only man left who really wants a Cause and is unable to find one. With the rest it is sheer selfishness.
See me hit that fly on my boat’s nose. Flop. Missed it. All right, you wait till it comes back again.
It seems to have aggravated that fly. It has left the boat’s nose and gone for mine. I wonder if it knows that I do not like to hit my own nose hard: instinct is a marvellous thing in insects. Or it may simply be luck: luck is quite as marvellous.
I knew a man once who wanted to do serious good until luck spoilt him. He was fond of whist, and he played a good—University-good—rubber; but he felt that it was not profiting the world, and that he should like to feel that he was working for humanity when he was playing for sixpenny points.
And, firstly, it struck him that it would be a good thing to put a small tax on trumps, and help the dear Budget. He wrote to his uncle about it, because his uncle was in the House, and had once picked an earwig off Mr. Gladstone’s coat, and had a good deal of influence. His uncle wrote back to say that it was a good idea, and that he had given it his earnest consideration; but that it was impracticable, because the tax would be too difficult to collect.
And, at the same time, his aunt sent him a collecting-box for the Servants’ Home in Tasmania, and asked him to place it in a prominent position in his rooms and do his best for it.
So it occurred to him that here was a chance for him to impose a voluntary tax upon himself, and make his whist do some serious good. He made a vow, and repeated it aloud in these words:—“I vow that the next time I have five trumps I will put half a crown in the collecting-box for the Servants’ Home in Tasmania.” He told me afterwards that if the experiment had turned out well he had intended to repeat it, and do a good deal in one way or another for the Tasmanian servants. He also called my attention to the wording of the vow, which he said was important. That very night he sat down to a rubber, and started by dealing himself five trumps. They were the five lowest trumps; but my friend was surprised and pleased at the coincidence, stole softly from his place, dropped half a crown into the collecting-box on the mantelpiece, and returned without saying anything.
As it happened, one of his opponents had the remaining eight trumps, and not one of my friend’s five made a trick. Ultimately he lost two trebles and the rub. It was then that he recalled the exact wording of his vow. Of course it is not an easy thing to break the bottom out of a collecting-box for the Servants’ Home in Tasmania with a common brass poker; but it had to be done, and he did it.
He lost his money by gambling, which shows how wrong and foolish gambling is, and the other man won it, which proves—— What beautiful weather it was on Bank Holiday, wasn’t it?
Still, it was a curious piece of luck.
A man once took out his purse in Fleet Street to buy a newspaper, and out rolled a golden sovereign. He did not see that he had dropped it. He only discovered his loss that night, and then he remembered the exact spot where he had taken out his purse. Next day he was ill in bed; but on the day after he said he should walk back to Fleet Street and look for that sovereign. His friends laughed at him. They pointed out that in so crowded a thoroughfare the coin must have been snapped up in a moment. But the man was obstinate, and went back. He did not find the whole coin, but he found twelve shillings and sixpence of it, and an I.O.U. for the remainder.
Yes, that story’s a lie. Stories about luck generally are.
That wretched, silly little fly has just perched itself on my boat’s nose again. Well, I shall hit it next time—the third time.
Have you ever noticed how luck is connected with the number three—one of the religious numbers? The dream which comes true is always dreamed three times. At the cocoanuts, too, you can have three shies for a penny. There’s a mystery about these things.
There once was an adopted father, and the son who had adopted him died without leaving a will, and the poor father was sonless and penniless. He felt sure that his adoptive son would never have been thoughtless enough to omit so important an arrangement as the making of a will. However, no will was found, and the property of the rich son was put up to auction. The poor father watched the sale with a gloomy face. There was the Broadwood grand-piano, on which his son had taught him his scales: he saw it disposed of to a stranger, and turned away to weep. Then a copper coal-scuttle was put up to auction, and the poor father fancied he heard a voice within him saying, “Buy the coal-scuttle! Buy the coal-scuttle!”
He had but a few pounds left, and it was a Louis XIV. coal-scuttle; but he bid for it, and ultimately secured it. With trembling hands he bore it off to the little cottage, which now was all that he had to call a home. Eagerly he opened the lid, and saw inside some small coal and a pair of broken braces.
That shows luck just as much as the other stories; but luck is like the moon—we see only one side of it. At any rate, it is quite as true as the other two stories.
That fly again! This is the third time. I feel that it is fated. I raise my paddle on high, and bring it down with one mighty whack and a murmured “Bismillah!”
I have missed the fly, and split the paddle, and could do with something shorter than “Bismillah!”
Now I’m going home.
VIII.
ON SOLITUDE: WITH A THIRD ANECDOTE FROM THE
“ENTERTAINMENTS” OF KAPNIDES.
IF I have gone some distance to seek solitude, it is not because I am sulky. But I never feel quite certain at this time of the year that there may not be penny steamers plying between Silver Street Bridge and Chesterton, or a Lockhart’s tea and cocoa palace erected in King’s. And I should hardly like to see it. Of course I did not find absolute solitude even here. The other day an apple fell on my head while I was like a child picking up pebbles on the shores of the ocean of life. I saw that there was no help for it; so I just followed precedent and discovered a natural law—that I never get anything I want. I am quite contented, consequently, that I did not find any solitude at first, and am pleasantly surprised that a large picnic party, who came and sniffed all round me suspiciously, as if they wondered why I was not muzzled, have finally decided to defile some other part of the river scenery with their happy laughter and packets of lukewarm comestibles.
I like a crowd immensely. Ditton Corner is good for the soul. So is the Strand at noon or midnight. But every one who really likes a crowd, really likes solitude.
It is pleasant enough to lie here in the hot sun, to have a pipe that does its work properly, and to wonder what the time is, but not to be enough distressed about it to take the trouble to consult one’s watch. I am finishing the “Entertainments” of Kapnides now, and I am not quite clear about the last story but one in his book. I give it, in case you have not read it.
It was a most beautiful cloud. Two highly respectable Athenians looked at it for a long time, and they understood beauty in Athens.
“Now, if any one were to paint that,” said the first, “every one would say that it was not natural.” He felt there was depth in the remark.
“I am not so sure of that,” said the second, intending to be thought judicious but not disagreeable.
If the cloud had been painted, its chiefest beauty would have been omitted. For in the centre of the cloud sat the unborn soul of a girl-child. To all mortals it had no visible appearance. But the stars, as they crept slowly up for a night’s work, saw with smiling eyes a graceful figure seated in the vapour, leaning a little backward, white against the crimson pillows of mist, with slender hands clasped behind a shapely head, and long dark hair and closed eyes. For it lived, but did not think, after the manner of unborn souls, which have ways distinctly of their own.
And as the sun poised over the cool, lighted sea that sang to welcome it, a noise of little tinkling silver bells was heard all down the sky; and there was some hurry and confusion amid Powers which were usually calm with the unjust, irritating, excessive calmness of a natural law.
When it was all over, no one exactly knew whose fault it was. But the Manager was summoned before the great Zeus, and reprimanded severely. “It’s carelessness,” said Zeus, “and that’s what I can’t stand. You ought to have been ready, and there are no two ways about it. You sit there in the office, wondering how long it will be before you can sneak out to your beastly lunch, and you forget that you’re paid to be managing my business for me all that time.”
Whether it was the Manager’s fault or not, the fact remained. Down in the world, in the beautiful country just outside Athens, a boy-child had been born, and he had been born with the soul of a girl-child inside him.
“Such a piece of bungling!” grumbled Zeus, and went off to play at making orphans.
To play this game you have to be a god, and possess thunderbolts; every time you kill a father or mother you score one; if you miss, it counts nothing; if you kill anything else by mistake, you lose one.
Before the boy was grown Zeus had forgotten all about it. Perhaps this was as well for the boy, for Zeus had intended only to give him five years’ life; and perhaps it was not as well.
At the age of twelve he was tall and straight. But his face was too delicate, and his eyes were the eyes that had slumbered a dreamless slumber under the closed lids of the unborn soul of a girl. And about his ways there was some sweet shyness and tenderness, or softness—names do not matter—although in courage and spirit and endurance he had no equal among his comrades. And with all his comrades he was gentle, and they loved him; but he, having no care for them nor for the parents who bore him, and angry with himself because he could feel no such care, went long, wandering walks alone, and heard strange stories told him by flowers and birds and winds.
And the years passed, and there was no change until the boy was sixteen, and then no one knew why he was so unhappy and quiet; he himself hardly knew. But now his wanderings would take him away for days at a time. A spirit of longing possessed him, for which he had no name, and the fulfilment of it was as a dim, dancing light before him, baffling and dazzling him, and leaving him no peace. And of this neither winds, nor birds, nor flowers told him anything. And the longing drove him to climb where no others had dared to climb, or to swim far out into the cool waters of the bay, that he might come back tired and sleep through the warm fragrant night in the long grass. And ever in sleep there came one dream and told him all; and ever when he awoke, the dream was gone from his memory. So he never knew, but always knew that he had known.
Comely maidens, with an intimate knowledge of their own best points, met him sometimes in his wanderings. And for them he cared nothing at all, and wondered why one or two of their number looked shyly at him as he passed them. They said nothing, for maidens are secretive animals; but one with shapely arms took to herself a new bracelet; and one with pretty pearly teeth got up a new sigh which just parted the lips without being ungraceful, and sounded extremely interesting. However, they might have painted themselves blue, and have had no effect whatever on the sorrowful youth. But they were not thus minded; and, seeing that this sad youth neither loved nor hated them, they looked out for those who understood love and hatred, and were married.
The boy’s father thought it necessary to consult a physician about this strange melancholy. Besides, the youth was growing paler every day, and was listless, and cared for nothing but to lie asleep, or almost asleep, with the feathery grass rustling in a gentle whisper over him.
So the physician came, and asked several impertinent questions. Then he delivered himself upon this wise:
“It is well known that much exercise and weariness consume the spirits and substance, refrigerate the body; and such humours which nature would have otherwise concocted and expelled, it stirs up and makes them rage; which, being so enraged, diversely affect and trouble the body and mind.”
“Those are comforting words,” said the boy’s father, who couldn’t understand them.
“Keep it vague,” murmured the boy softly.
“It is to the immoderate use of gymnastics,” said the physician, “that I ascribe your son’s melancholy. Wherefore, let him drink of a syrup of black hellebore, confected with the boiled seeds of anise, endive, mallow, fermitory, diacatholicon, hierologodium——”
“Half-time——change ends,” said the boy under his breath.
“Cassia and sweet almonds,” continued the physician. “And in the meantime he may drink of a broth of an exenterated chicken.”
He had heard the youth’s last remark. “And,” he added severely, “let him beware of intempestive laughter.”
So the physician went away.
“What did he say?” asked the mother of the youth.
“Well,” said the father, “he said that the boy had been growing too fast, at least he implied that, and he prescribed hierolo——French for chicken broth, you know.”
But while the doctor’s prescription was being prepared, the boy went off to the cliffs; and he stretched himself at full length on the thyme, and went to sleep, and dreamed the old sweet dream, and the sun drew near to its setting, and in his pleasant sleep the boy died.
Never had there been a happier and more desirable death.
And under the burning sun a cloud was stretched like a cloth of gold.
And the two highly respectable Athenians came out to look at it. “If I were to paint that exactly as it is,” said the first, “every one would say that my picture was intensely unnatural.”
“Great Zeus!” ejaculated the second, for the first had made the remark nearly every night for rather more than sixteen years, and still thought there was a certain insight about it.
In the golden heart of the cloud were together the soul of a youth and the soul of a young girl, two souls that had done their work and were resting. He sat in careless happiness looking down at her: for she was stretched at his feet, making a daisy-chain with the souls of the daisies that were to bloom next year. And ever she would look up from her work into his eyes; and the eyes of the two were strangely alike, and soft and bright.
Into the cloud came the Manager. He was in a terrible hurry; for there had been great doings in Sicily, and an army had been cut to pieces, and consequently there was a press of business.
“I’ve called to take your numbers,” he said.
They both gave the same number.
He seemed a little startled, then recovered himself, and jotted it down in his note-book. “I remember now,” he said, half apologetically. “It was not entirely my fault. I had slipped out to get a glass of beer, and I told the boy to send for me if anything happened. But he thought he could manage it himself, and he blundered, and I was blamed. So you both were born in the same body. I hope you were not crowded. Zeus had intended you to be born in different bodies, and fall in love with one another down below. But you can do it up here, you know. It’s not the same thing, but some people think it’s better: it’s much more spiritual. You will have this cloud all to yourselves for as long as you like. At any rate it was not so hard on you as it was on the girl’s body, which had to be born without any soul at all—but I am told that she made money out of it. Well, I must be off; good evening.”
So the Manager departed, and they were alone, and they floated away into the night when the night came. And the sea sang beneath them, and the wind was warm and perfumed with flowers.
“I love you for ever and ever,” he said.
The same remark had just occurred to her—not strikingly original, perhaps, but both were satisfied with it.
IX.
ON ASSOCIATIONS: TOGETHER WITH A LAST ANECDOTE
FROM THE “ENTERTAINMENTS” OF KAPNIDES.
I THINK Zeitgeist has grown lazy; I had meant to take it a long way to-day, but it simply stopped at the first shady spot it could find, and stretched itself there. One has to smoke a little brown tobacco to keep off the midges, but otherwise I do not mind much. I would not make use of my superior strength to force a tired boat to do more than it wanted to do. Besides, Zeitgeist has earned some consideration. It has behaved excellently; in fact, it has almost been morbid in the politeness with which it has avoided running into other boats lately. Somebody, I see, has put a bottle of cider into the canoe. How thoughtless of him! There are a corkscrew and a drinking-horn as well. Perhaps it’s all for the best.
The taste of cider should be full of associations. It should recall orchards in Devonshire; and rustic inns with porches, and honeysuckle, and earwigs; and the simple village maiden who got to be rather fond of the stranger artist, and cried a little in her simple village way when he went back again to civilisation. I am starving for dreamy poetry and pleasant memories this morning; I wish this cider had such beautiful associations for me. But it has not. To me cider is cider, and it is nothing more. I have never been in a Devonshire orchard; and I am not an artist; I have never drawn anything.
Except corks. By the way, I may as well put that bottle of cider in the shallow water here. It will cool it. Then, afterwards, I may be able to forgive the person who put it into my canoe.
I am not sure that people do not set too much store by associations. There is an old tune that most people have forgotten, I dare say; perhaps it is not very good music; in fact, I would take an affidavit that it is the nastiest, tuniest tune I ever heard, and yet it has associations for me. It recalls to me my landlady’s daughter; it was the tune she loved most and played most frequently; she was rather an ugly girl, too. But I do not value the tune any more on that account; I believe it makes me hate it more bitterly.
I should think that cider must be almost cool by now, but I will give it another minute or two.
I suppose it is for the sake of associations that people have their dead pets stuffed, or have portions of them made into tobacco-pouches or paper-knives. I never had any pet myself except one solitary, evil dog; he was an original dog, and was perfectly good-tempered with everybody except his master. I am thankful to say that I possess absolutely nothing which reminds me of him. The smell of tar has curious associations for me. It reminds me of a day when I drove frantically in the direction of Liverpool Street, with the intention of catching the 10.30. I had offered my cabby vast sums to get me there in time, and he certainly did his best. I did not stop to take a ticket, but dashed across the platform, and entered the train just as it was moving out. I sank back on the cushions with a sigh of relief. One gets so much pleasure out of just doing a thing. Then I found out that the train which I had entered was not the 10.30, was not going to the same place, and was not thinking of stopping anywhere for some considerable time. Perhaps you wonder why the smell of tar should remind me of this. So do I. I have not the least notion why it is.
One must not expect to see the reason for the connection always. Why are the girls with the biggest feet always devoted to quite inferior works of fiction? Why are clean-shaven men always cynical?
Then of course there are the tender, romantic associations. A good deal might be said about them. In the meantime I can’t think where I’ve put that corkscrew. Ah! here it is, sitting under one of the cushions and laughing at me. Now for the cider, with a golden glow in it like the curls of the love-god himself.
And flat—miserably flat.
As I said, Zeitgeist does not care to move about much. So I have amused myself with reading the last anecdote in the “Entertainments” of Kapnides. Here it is:—
A general feeling of content prevailed in the house of Zeus & Co. “We shall declare,” said Zeus, “such a dividend as never was.”
“We shall,” said Co.
Zeus & Co. occupied the two thrones at the back of the large hall. During the last spring-cleaning, Zeus had ordered his own throne to be regilded. Nothing had been done to the other throne, which was occupied by Co. But Co. was quite humble. As a general rule he merely echoed the sentiments of Zeus. If he felt the difference between the two thrones, he had never mentioned it. Perhaps it might be as well to notice that all the shares were in the hands of Zeus & Co. They were the directors, and also the shareholders. By this arrangement much unpleasantness was avoided.
But at this moment an old gentleman in a very shiny coat rose from the desk at the farther end of the hall, and stepped towards the thrones. He looked at Zeus, coughed a little nervously, and began:
“Mr. Zeus, and also Mr. Co., you will excuse me, but I’ve a little matter to bring before you, in my position as Chief Agent in the Punishment Department.”
“By all means,” said Zeus kindly. “There’s nothing wrong, I hope. It’s a good department.”
“A very good and profitable department,” echoed Co.
“Well, Mr. Zeus, you will probably remember that you assigned to me a young subordinate, a mere boy, called Eros.”
“I remember,” said Zeus. “He was not to draw any regular salary.”
“Precisely so,” replied the Agent. “He just took his small commission on every broken heart. Well, up to the present I’ve had no complaint to make of him. He did his work well and cheerfully. The Suicide Section used to send me in most favourable reports of him. I had even intended to recommend him for promotion.”
“But without increase of salary, I hope,” said Zeus. “The shareholders would never stand that, you know.”
“They simply wouldn’t tolerate it for a minute,” echoed Co. It was not supposed to be generally known that Zeus & Co. were the only shareholders.
“No, sir,” answered the Agent. “I should have left the question of salary to you. I hope I know my place, sir. But, if you will believe it, that boy actually wants to resign the post he holds already. He got mixed up in that Psyche business a good deal, you know. I never knew the rights of the case exactly; but I do know that he’s not been the same boy since, and takes no pleasure in his work at all.”
“Well, show him in,” said Zeus irritably, “and I’ll have a word or two to say to him.”
“I wonder,” suggested Co., “if the Agent can have been fool enough to let the boy know that he was a punishment and not a blessing?”
At this moment the Agent, who had retired, reappeared with Eros. He was a handsome boy, but it was evident that he was very angry. His eyes flashed, and tears stood in them. He made no obeisance to Zeus, but with a rapid movement unslung his bow and quiver from his shoulders, and snapt bow and arrows, one after another, across his knee, flinging them down on the floor of the hall.
“I’ve had enough of that,” he said shortly, setting his lips tight.
“Are you aware,” said Co. solemnly, “that what you have just broken is the property of the shareholders?”
“And are you aware,” thundered Zeus, “what the dickens you’re talking about? Explain yourself.”
The boy burst into tears. “I won’t do it any more,” he sobbed. “I won’t. I’m not a blessing; I’m a curse. And I’m not going to be your servant, because you hate everybody.”
“No,” said Co. quietly; “we love them.”
“Then what does your first rule mean?” asked the boy fiercely.
“The first rule,” replied Co., “is that twenty years shall not be enough to make a life, and ten minutes shall be more than enough to spoil it. We made that rule to stop people spoiling their lives.”
Zeus rubbed his hands softly together, and smiled, and said nothing.
“I did not mind once,” the boy went on, “when I made women weep and men rave. I do now. It’s always the same thing. They long, and long, and cannot obtain; and then the weaker sort kill themselves, and the stronger sort grow cruel. Or, if they obtain, misery in one form or another follows. I resign my post.”
“Just pass me that thunderbolt,” said Zeus, in an unpleasant voice.
“Oh, you can kill me,” the boy exclaimed, contemptuously, “I care nothing for that. I wish I had never lived.”
“But you mistake,” said Co., suavely, “you mistake; Mr. Zeus had no intention of killing you. You have a right to resign your post if you like. He was going to kill a young girl named Psyche.”
“What for?” gasped Eros.
“Oh, for sport.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Eros spoke in a hard, unnatural voice. “I will go back to my work, Zeus, and do it better than ever, if you will not kill Psyche.”
“Very well,” said Zeus kindly. “I don’t want to be disagreeable; as long as I kill somebody, it doesn’t matter. Now, trot along to your work, my boy, and I won’t kill Psyche.”
So the boy went back to his work, and did it better than ever.
“That was a good idea of yours, Co.,” said Zeus, after a moment’s pause.
“Very much may be done by kindness,” replied Co. “Don’t you think this throne of mine looks a little shabby beside yours?”
“I’ll give the order to have it regilded,” said Zeus affably.
But, if things go on like this, it will be “Co. & Zeus” soon.
It’s getting late; time for me to take Zeitgeist home again.
A curate was once complaining to me about certain hardships that he suffered at the hands of his vicar. “And, above all,” he said, “I am never allowed to preach an evening sermon. I get no chances. The vicar always preaches the evening sermons.” There was a good deal of justice in the complaint; we are all naturally more righteous in the evening. When the light dies behind the stained windows, and the music speaks, and through the open doors you can smell the syringa-bushes, then—for some reason that I know not—it is more easy to think oneself a sinner and to wish one were not. Preaching would naturally be more effective at such a time.
It is evening now, and I have been thinking about the different things that I am going to eat shortly. I do not know what is wrong with me that I should be so low. But external circumstances that suggest one line of thought are always liable to suggest the exact opposite. It has been proved by statistics that two-thirds of the best English jokes are invented, but not necessarily spoken, at funerals. Perhaps this accounts for the depression one always has to conceal when one hears of the joy or success of a dear friend.
Zeitgeist will have a long rest now—until my return. I could wish for some reasons that I had a more complete control over that boat; that, when I started out with it, I could be more definitely sure where it was going; that, in short, its nature was less petulant. However, there is a charm in uncertainty. I forgive it everything.