In nearly every English novel I find the expression, “I am dying for my tea!” On a voyage to Alaska, where tea was served on deck every afternoon, at precisely the same moment an elderly British lady appeared from below with precisely the same exclamation: “Oh, is there tea going?” And on her face was a holy look.
Alfred Noyes told me that during the war, when he was writing up important incidents for the benefit of the public, he was assigned to interview the sailors immediately after the tremendous naval battle of Jutland. He found a bluejacket who had been sent aloft and kept there during the fearful engagement, when shells weighing half a ton came hurtling through the air and when ships blew up around him. Thinking he would get a marvellous “story” out of this sailor, Mr. Noyes asked him to describe his sensations during those frightful hours. All the man said was, “Well, of course, I had to miss my tea!”
XVI
THE WEATHER
Nearly all the great poetry of the world, ancient and modern, has been written in Europe. This fact should never be forgotten in reading literature that alludes to the weather. The reason every one talks about the weather is not that the average person has nothing else to say; it is that the weather is usually the most interesting topic available. It is the first thing we think of in the hour of waking; it affects our plans, projects and temperament.
When I was a little boy at school there was a song sung in unison called “Hail, Autumn, Jovial Fellow!” It seemed to me to express correctly the true character of autumn. It was not until I had reached maturity in years that I discovered that the song, as judged by the world’s most famous writers, was a misfit. Instead of autumn’s being jovial, it was dull, damp, dark, depressing. To be sure, I never really felt that way about it; the evidence of my eyes was in favour of the school song, but, as the great poets had given autumn a bad reputation, I supposed in some way she must have earned it.
Still later I learned that Goethe was right when he said that in order to understand a poet you must personally visit the country where he wrote. Literary geography is seldom taught or seriously considered, but it is impossible to read famous authors intelligently without knowing their climatic and geographical environment. So keenly did I come to feel about this that I finally prepared a cardboard map of England, marking only the literary places, and I required my students to become familiar with it. One of them subsequently wrote me a magnificent testimonial, which I have often considered printing on the margin of the map.
Dear Mr. Phelps—I have been bicycling all over England this summer, and have found your Literary Map immensely useful. I have carried it inside my shirt, and I think on several occasions it has saved me from an attack of pneumonia.
There are millions of boys and girls studying Shakespeare in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand; the poet’s frequent allusions to the climate and the weather must seem strange.
That you have such a February face.
February “down under” is midsummer. Southern latitudes give the lie to Shakespeare’s metaphors.