diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13448-0.txt | 4626 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13448.txt | 5017 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13448.zip | bin | 0 -> 119148 bytes |
6 files changed, 9659 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13448-0.txt b/13448-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd355ae --- /dev/null +++ b/13448-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4626 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13448 *** + +THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE + + +BY ROBERT LYND + + + +LONDON + +GRANT RICHARDS LTD. + +ST MARTIN'S STREET + +1921 + +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED + +EDINBURGH + + + +TO JAMES WINDER GOOD + + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE 11 + + II. THE HERRING FLEET 19 + + III. THE BETTING MAN 29 + + IV. THE HUM OF INSECTS 40 + + V. CATS 51 + + VI. MAY 61 + + VII. NEW YEAR PROPHECIES 70 + + VIII. ON KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE 82 + + IX. THE INTELLECTUAL SIDE OF HORSE-RACING 91 + + X. WHY WE HATE INSECTS 102 + + XI. VIRTUE 114 + + XII. JUNE 123 + + XIII. ON FEELING GAY 132 + + XIV. IN THE TRAIN 141 + + XV. THE MOST CURIOUS ANIMAL 149 + + XVI. THE OLD INDIFFERENCE 158 + + XVII. EGGS: AN EASTER HOMILY 167 + +XVIII. ENTER THE SPRING 176 + + XIX. THE DAREDEVIL BARBER 186 + + XX. WEEDS: AN APPRECIATION 195 + + XXI. A JUROR IN WAITING 205 + + XXII. THE THREE-HALFPENNY BIT 215 + +XXIII. THE MORALS OF BEANS 224 + + XXIV. ON SEEING A JOKE 233 + + XXV. GOING TO THE DERBY 243 + + XXVI. THIS BLASTED WORLD 253 + + + +_Acknowledgments are due to "The New Statesman," in which all but one +of these essays appeared. "Going to the Derby" appeared in "The Daily +News."--R.L._ + + + + +I + + + +THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE + +It is impossible to take a walk in the country with an average +townsman--especially, perhaps, in April or May--without being amazed +at the vast continent of his ignorance. It is impossible to take a +walk in the country oneself without being amazed at the vast continent +of one's own ignorance. Thousands of men and women live and die +without knowing the difference between a beech and an elm, between the +song of a thrush and the song of a blackbird. Probably in a modern +city the man who can distinguish between a thrush's and a blackbird's +song is the exception. It is not that we have not seen the birds. It +is simply that we have not noticed them. We have been surrounded by +birds all our lives, yet so feeble is our observation that many of us +could not tell whether or not the chaffinch sings, or the colour of +the cuckoo. We argue like small boys as to whether the cuckoo always +sings as he flies or sometimes in the branches of a tree--whether +Chapman drew on his fancy or his knowledge of nature in the lines: + + When in the oak's green arms the cuckoo sings, + And first delights men in the lovely springs. + +This ignorance, however, is not altogether miserable. Out of it we get +the constant pleasure of discovery. Every fact of nature comes to us +each spring, if only we are sufficiently ignorant, with the dew still +on it. If we have lived half a lifetime without having ever even seen +a cuckoo, and know it only as a wandering voice, we are all the more +delighted at the spectacle of its runaway flight as it hurries from +wood to wood conscious of its crimes, and at the way in which it halts +hawk-like in the wind, its long tail quivering, before it dares +descend on a hill-side of fir-trees where avenging presences may lurk. +It would be absurd to pretend that the naturalist does not also find +pleasure in observing the life of the birds, but his is a steady +pleasure, almost a sober and plodding occupation, compared to the +morning enthusiasm of the man who sees a cuckoo for the first time, +and, behold, the world is made new. + +And, as to that, the happiness even of the naturalist depends in some +measure upon his ignorance, which still leaves him new worlds of this +kind to conquer. He may have reached the very Z of knowledge in the +books, but he still feels half ignorant until he has confirmed each +bright particular with his eyes. He wishes with his own eyes to see +the female cuckoo--rare spectacle!--as she lays her egg on the ground +and takes it in her bill to the nest in which it is destined to breed +infanticide. He would sit day after day with a field-glass against his +eyes in order personally to endorse or refute the evidence suggesting +that the cuckoo _does_ lay on the ground and not in a nest. And, if he +is so far fortunate as to discover this most secretive of birds in the +very act of laying, there still remain for him other fields to conquer +in a multitude of such disputed questions as whether the cuckoo's egg +is always of the same colour as the other eggs in the nest in which +she abandons it. Assuredly the men of science have no reason as yet to +weep over their lost ignorance. If they seem to know everything, it is +only because you and I know almost nothing. There will always be a +fortune of ignorance waiting for them under every fact they turn up. +They will never know what song the Sirens sang to Ulysses any more +than Sir Thomas Browne did. + +If I have called in the cuckoo to illustrate the ordinary man's +ignorance, it is not because I can speak with authority on that bird. +It is simply because, passing the spring in a parish that seemed to +have been invaded by all the cuckoos of Africa, I realised how +exceedingly little I, or anybody else I met, knew about them. But your +and my ignorance is not confined to cuckoos. It dabbles in all created +things, from the sun and moon down to the names of the flowers. I once +heard a clever lady asking whether the new moon always appears on the +same day of the week. She added that perhaps it is better not to know, +because, if one does not know when or in what part of the sky to +expect it, its appearance is always a pleasant surprise. I fancy, +however, the new moon always comes as a surprise even to those who are +familiar with her time-tables. And it is the same with the coming in +of spring and the waves of the flowers. We are not the less delighted +to find an early primrose because we are sufficiently learned in the +services of the year to look for it in March or April rather than in +October. We know, again, that the blossom precedes and not succeeds +the fruit of the apple-tree, but this does not lessen our amazement at +the beautiful holiday of a May orchard. + +At the same time there is, perhaps, a special pleasure in re-learning +the names of many of the flowers every spring. It is like re-reading a +book that one has almost forgotten. Montaigne tells us that he had so +bad a memory that he could always read an old book as though he had +never read it before. I have myself a capricious and leaking memory. I +can read _Hamlet_ itself and _The Pickwick Papers_ as though they were +the work of new authors and had come wet from the press, so much of +them fades between one reading and another. There are occasions on +which a memory of this kind is an affliction, especially if one has a +passion for accuracy. But this is only when life has an object beyond +entertainment. In respect of mere luxury, it may be doubted whether +there is not as much to be said for a bad memory as for a good one. +With a bad memory one can go on reading Plutarch and _The Arabian +Nights_ all one's life. Little shreds and tags, it is probable, will +stick even in the worst memory, just as a succession of sheep cannot +leap through a gap in a hedge without leaving a few wisps of wool on +the thorns. But the sheep themselves escape, and the great authors +leap in the same way out of an idle memory and leave little enough +behind. + +And, if we can forget books, it is as easy to forget the months and +what they showed us, when once they are gone. Just for the moment I +tell myself that I know May like the multiplication table and could +pass an examination on its flowers, their appearance and their order. +To-day I can affirm confidently that the buttercup has five petals. +(Or is it six? I knew for certain last week.) But next year I shall +probably have forgotten my arithmetic, and may have to learn once more +not to confuse the buttercup with the celandine. Once more I shall see +the world as a garden through the eyes of a stranger, my breath taken +away with surprise by the painted fields. I shall find myself +wondering whether it is science or ignorance which affirms that the +swift (that black exaggeration of the swallow and yet a kinsman of the +humming-bird) never settles even on a nest, but disappears at night +into the heights of the air. I shall learn with fresh astonishment +that it is the male, and not the female, cuckoo that sings. I may have +to learn again not to call the campion a wild geranium, and to +rediscover whether the ash comes early or late in the etiquette of the +trees. A contemporary English novelist was once asked by a foreigner +what was the most important crop in England. He answered without a +moment's hesitation: "Rye." Ignorance so complete as this seems to me +to be touched with magnificence; but the ignorance even of illiterate +persons is enormous. The average man who uses a telephone could not +explain how a telephone works. He takes for granted the telephone, the +railway train, the linotype, the aeroplane, as our grandfathers took +for granted the miracles of the gospels. He neither questions nor +understands them. It is as though each of us investigated and made his +own only a tiny circle of facts. Knowledge outside the day's work is +regarded by most men as a gewgaw. Still we are constantly in reaction +against our ignorance. We rouse ourselves at intervals and speculate. +We revel in speculations about anything at all--about life after death +or about such questions as that which is said to have puzzled +Aristotle, "why sneezing from noon to midnight was good, but from +night to noon unlucky." One of the greatest joys known to man is to +take such a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge. The great +pleasure of ignorance is, after all, the pleasure of asking questions. +The man who has lost this pleasure or exchanged it for the pleasure of +dogma, which is the pleasure of answering, is already beginning to +stiffen. One envies so inquisitive a man as Jowett, who sat down to +the study of physiology in his sixties. Most of us have lost the sense +of our ignorance long before that age. We even become vain of our +squirrel's hoard of knowledge and regard increasing age itself as a +school of omniscience. We forget that Socrates was famed for wisdom +not because he was omniscient but because he realised at the age of +seventy that he still knew nothing. + + + + +II + + + +THE HERRING FLEET + +The last spectacle of which Christian men are likely to grow tired is +a harbour. Centuries hence there may be jumping-off places for the +stars, and our children's children's and so forth children may regard +a ship as a creeping thing scarcely more adventurous than a worm. +Meanwhile, every harbour gives us a sense of being in touch, if not +with the ends of the universe, with the ends of the earth. This, more +than the entrance to a wood or the source of a river or the top of a +bald hill, is the beginning of infinity. Even the dirtiest coal-boat +that lies beached in the harbour, a mere hulk of utilities that are +taken away by dirty men in dirty carts, will in a day or two lift +itself from the mud on a full tide and float away like a spirit into +the sunset or curtsy to the image of the North Star. Mystery lies over +the sea. Every ship is bound for Thule. That, perhaps, is why men are +content day after day to stand on the pier-head and to gaze at the +water and the ships and sailors running up and down the decks and +pulling the ropes of sails. + +We may have no reason for pretending to ourselves that the +fishing-boats are ships of dreams setting out on infinite voyages. +But, none the less, even in a fishing village there is always a +congregation of watching men and women on the pier. Every day the +crowd collects to see the harbour awake into life with the bustle of +men about to set out among the nations of the fishes. By day the boats +lie side by side in the harbour--stand side by side, rather, like +horses in a stable. There are two rows of them, making a camp of masts +on the shallow water. In other parts of the harbour white gigs are +bottomed on the sand in companies of two and three. As the tide slowly +rises, the masts which have been lying over on one side in a sleepy +stillness begin to stir, then to sway, until with each new impulse of +the sea all the boats are dancing, and soon the whole harbour is awake +and merry as if every mast were a steeple with a peal of bells. It is +not long till the fishermen arrive. One meets them in every cobbled +lane. How magnificent the noise made by a man in sea-boots on the +stones! Surely, he strikes sparks from the road. He thumps the ground +as with a hammer. The earth rings. One has seen those boots in the +morning hanging outside the door of his house while he slept. They +have been oiled, and left there to dry. They have kept the shape of +his limb and the crook of his knee in an uncanny way. They look as +though he had taken off his legs before going into the house and hung +them on the wall. But the fisherman is a hero not only in his boots. +His sea-coat is no less magnificent. This may be of oil-skin yellow or +of maroon or of stained white or of blue, with a blue jersey showing +under it, and, perhaps, a red woollen muffler or a scarf with green +spots on a red ground round his throat. He has not learned to be timid +of colour. Even out of the mouths of his boots you may see the ends of +red knitted leggings protruding. His yellow or black sou'-wester +roofing the back of his neck, he comes down to harbour, as splendid as +a figure at a fair. And always, when he arrives, he is smoking a pipe. +As one watches him, one wonders if anybody except a fisherman, as he +looks out over the harbour, knows how to smoke. He has made tobacco +part of himself, like breathing. + +If the tide is already full the fishermen are taken off in small +rowing-boats, most of them standing, and the place is busy with a +criss-cross of travelling crews till the fishing-boats are all manned. +If the water is not yet deep, however, most of the men walk to their +boats, lumbering through the waves, and occasionally jumping like a +wading girl as a larger wave threatens the tops of their boots. Many +of them carry their supper in a basket or a handkerchief. The first of +the boats begins to move out of its stall. It is tugged into the clear +water, and the fishermen put out long oars and row it laboriously to +the mouth of the harbour and the wind. It is followed by a motor-boat, +and another, and another. There are forty putting up their sails like +one. The harbour moves. One has a sense as of things liberated. It is +as though a flock of birds were being loosed into the air--as though +pigeon after pigeon were being set free out of a basket for home. +Lug-sail after lugsail, brown as the underside of a mushroom, hurries +out among the waves. A green little tub of a steamboat follows with +insolent smoke. The motor-boats hasten out like scenting dogs. Every +sort of craft--motor-boat, gig, lugger and steamboat--makes for sea, +higgledy-piggledy in a long line, an irregular procession of black and +blue and green and white and brown. Here, as in the men's clothes, the +paint-pots have been spilled. + +There is nothing more sociable than a fishing-fleet. The boats +overtake each other, like horses in a race. They gallop in rivalry. +But for the most part they keep together, and move like a travelling +town over the sea. As likely as not they will have to come back out of +the storm into the shelter of the bay, and they will ride there till +nightfall, when every boat becomes a lamp and every sail a shadow. In +the darkness they hang like a constellation on the oily water. They +become a company of dancing stars. Every now and then a boat moves off +on a quest of its own. It is as though the firmament were shaken. One +hears the kick-kick-kick of the motor, and a star has become a +will-o'-the-wisp. These lights can no more keep still than a +playground of children. They always make a pattern on the water, but +they never make the same pattern. Sometimes they lengthen themselves +against the sandy shore on the far side of the bay into a golden +river. Sometimes they huddle together into a little procession of +monks carrying tapers.... + +One goes down to the harbour after breakfast the next morning to see +what has been the result of the night's fishing. One does not really +need to go down. One can see it afar off. There is movement as at the +building of a city. On every boat men are busy emptying the nets, +disentangling the fish that have been caught by the gills, tumbling +them in a liquid mass into the bottom of the boat. One can hardly see +the fish separately. They flow into one another. They are a pool of +quick-silver. One is amazed, as the disciples must have been amazed at +the miraculous draught. Everything is covered with their scales. The +fishermen are spotted as if with confetti. Their hands, their brown +coats, their boots are a mass of white-and-blue spots. The labourers +with the gurries--great blue boxes that are carried like Sedan-chairs +between two pairs of handles--come up alongside, and the fish are +ladled into the gurries from tin pans. As each gurry is filled the men +hasten off with it to where the auctioneer is standing. With the help +of a small notebook and a lead pencil he auctions it before an +outsider can wink, and the gurry is taken a few yards further, where +women are pouring herrings into barrels. They, too, are covered with +fish-scales from head to foot. They are dabbled like a painter's +palette. So great is the haul that every cart in the country-side has +come down to lend a hand. The fish are poured into the carts over the +sides of the boats like water. Old fishermen stand aside and look on +with a sense of having wasted their youth. They recall the time when +they went fishing in the North Sea and had to be content to sell their +catch at a shilling and sixpence a cran--a cran being equal to four +gurries, or about a thousand herrings. Who is there now who would sell +even a hundred herrings for one and sixpence? Who is there who would +sell a hundred herrings for ten and sixpence? Yet one gig alone this +morning has brought in fourteen thousand herrings. No wonder that +there is an atmosphere of excitement in the harbour. No wonder that +the carts almost run over you as they make journey after journey +between boat and barrel. No wonder that three different sorts of +sea-gulls--the herring gull, the lesser black-headed gull, and the +black-backed gull--have gathered about us in screaming multitudes and +fill the air like a snowstorm. Every child in the town seems to be +making for home with its finger in a fish's mouth, or in two fishes' +mouths, or in three fishes' mouths. Artists have hurried down to the +harbour, and have set up their easels on every spot that is not +already occupied by a fish barrel or an auctioneer or a man with a +knife in his teeth preparing to gut a dogfish. The town has lost its +head. It has become Midas for the day. Every time it opens its mouth a +herring comes out. A doom of herrings has come upon us. The smell +rises to heaven. It is as though we were breathing fish-scales. Even +the pretty blue overalls of the children have become spotted. +Everywhere barrels and boxes have been piled high. We are hoisting +them on to carts--farm carts, grocers' carts, coal carts, any sort of +carts. We must get rid of the stuff at all costs. Anything to get it +up the hill to the railway station. The very horses are frenzied. They +stick their toes into the hill and groan. The drivers, excited with +cupidity as they think of all the journeys they will be able to make +before evening, bully them and beat them with the end of the reins. +Their eyes are excited, their gestures impatient. They fill the town +with clamour and smell. It is an occasion on which, as the vulgar say, +they wouldn't call the Queen their aunt.... + +This, I fancy, is where all the romance of the sea began--in the story +of a greedy man and a fresh herring. The ship was a symbol of man's +questing stomach long before it was a symbol of his questing soul. He +was a hungry man, not a poet, when he built the first harbour. +Luckily, the harbour made a poet of him. Sails gave him wings. He +learned to traffic for wonders. He became a traveller. He told tales. +He discovered the illusion of horizons. Perhaps, however, it is less +the sailor than the ship that attracts our imagination. The ship seems +to convey to us more than anything else a sense at once of perfect +freedom and perfect adventure. + +That is why we are content to stand on the harbour stones all day and +watch anything with sails. We ourselves want to live in some such +freedom and adventure as this. We are feeding our appetite for liberty +as we gaze hungrily after the ships making their way out of harbour +into the sea. + + + + +III + + + +THE BETTING MAN + +If The Panther wins the Derby,[He didn't] as most people apparently +expect him to do, his victory will carry more weight among frequenters +of race-courses as an argument for Socialism than any that has yet +been invented. For The Panther is a Government-bred horse, born and +brought up in defiance of the _laissez-faire_ principles of Mr Harold +Cox. He will therefore carry the colours of a great principle at Epsom +as well as those of his present lessee. Who would have thought five +years ago that the Derby favourite of 1919 would start under so grave +a responsibility? + +Not that racing men have much time to spare for thoughts about social +problems, even when these are related to a horse. Theirs is a busy +life. They enjoy little of the leisure that falls to the lot of +statesmen and haberdashers. + +Their anxieties are a serial story continued from one edition of the +day's papers to another Nor does the last edition of the evening paper +make an end of their anxieties. It is not an epilogue to one day so +much as a prologue to the next. The programme of races for the +following day suggests more problems than the Peace Conference itself +could settle in a month. The racing man, having studied the names of +the horses entered, goes out to buy some tobacco. As he takes his +change from the tobacconist, he asks: "Have you heard anything for +to-morrow?" The tobacconist says: "I heard Green Cloak for the first +race," The racing man nods. "You didn't hear anything for the big +race?" he asks. "No. Somebody was saying Holy Saint." "I heard Oily +Hair," says the racing man gravely. "Good-night." And he goes out. His +brow becomes knitted with thought as he moves off along the pavement. +He tells himself that Holy Saint certainly does offer difficulties. +Holy Saint is a notoriously bad starter. If he could be trusted to get +away, he would be one of the finest horses of his year in +long-distance races. But he is continually being left at the post. To +back him would be pure gambling. He could win if he liked, but would +he like? On the whole, Oily Hair is a safer horse to back. He has +already beaten Holy Saint in the Chiswick Cup, and only lost the +Scotch Plate to Disaster by a neck. As the racing man allows his +memory to dwell on the achievements of Oily Hair his confidence rises. +"I see nothing to beat him," he says to himself. He has just decided +to put "a fiver" on him when he meets an acquaintance, who suggests a +drink. As they drink, the talk turns on horses. "What are you backing +in the big race to-morrow?" "Have you heard anything?" "I heard Oily +Hair." "I think not. I'll tell you why. Tommy Fitzgibbon's youngest +sister is at school with two sisters of Willie Soames, who's going to +ride Peace on Earth to-morrow, and one of them told her that Willie +had written to her to put every halfpenny she has on Peace on Earth." +"I'm sick, sore and tired of backing Peace on Earth. He's a +cantankerous beast that seems to take a positive pleasure in losing +races." "Well, remember what I told you...." + +On arriving home our sportsman goes to his shelves and takes down the +last annual volume of _M'Call's Racing Chronicle and Pocket Turf +Calendar_, and looks up Peace on Earth in the index. He turns up the +record of one race after another, and finds that the horse has a +better past than he had remembered. He cannot make up his mind what to +do. He looks over several weekly papers to see if any of them can +throw light on his difficulties. Each of them names a different winner +for the big race. When he puts on his pyjamas that night, all he knows +is that he has decided to decide nothing till the next day. + +Next day he once more reads the names of the horses entered for the +various races, and glances down the list of winners selected by the +racing prophet in the morning paper. Having breakfasted late, he finds +he has only about an hour to waste before catching a train for the +races, and he resolves to pay a call at the "Bird of Paradise," where +a friend of his who has an unusual gift for picking up information is +usually to be found about noon. He learns from the landlord that his +friend has been in and gone away, but the landlord tells him that he +hears Pudding is a certainty. + +"Have you any reason for thinking so?" + +"Well, there was a man in here who has a son a policeman close by +Jobson's stables, and he tells me that everybody in the neighbourhood +has been backing Pudding down to their last spoon. That looks as if +word had been passed round that it was going to win." The racing man +passes out and looks in at the "Pink Elephant" to see if his friend is +there. He is seated at a little table in an upstairs parlour with four +others, all drinking whisky and exchanging tips. They belong to the +most credulous race of men alive. They are all believers in what is +called information, and information is simply the betting man's name +for gossip. The friend is speaking in a low but excited voice to his +companions, who crouch over towards him in order to catch information +not meant for the rest of the room. He tells how he had just been in +to buy a paper at his newsagent's, and how his newsagent had been +calling on his solicitor that morning, and the solicitor told him that +the caller who had just left as he came in was Gordon, the owner of +Cutandrun, and Gordon said that Cutandrun was the biggest thing that +had ever come into his hands. The buzz-buzz of talk in the +smoke-filled room and the clatter of passing carts makes it difficult +to hear him, but the others lean over the table with red, intent +faces, like men among whom an apostle has come. They do not stay long +over their drinks, as they have not much time for social pleasures. +They swallow their whisky with a quick gesture look at their watches, +stand up hurriedly and part with handshakes. + +Then comes a drive to the railway station where race-cards are being +sold. The racing-man buys a "card" and several papers. He looks down +the lists of the horses again in the train, and tries to make up his +mind whether to take the tobacconist's tip and back Green Cloak for +the first race. He believes greatly in breeding, and by far the +best-bred horse in the race is Liberal, who has three Derby winners in +his pedigree. Then there is Red Rose, who created a sensation a month +ago by winning two races in a day. He decides to do nothing till he +sees the horses themselves. He pays thirty shillings at the turnstile +of the race-course and is admitted to the grand stand. Already one or +two bookmakers are shouting from their stands, and some of them have +chalked up on blackboards the odds they are willing to give in the big +race. He looks at the board and sees that he can get twenties against +Cutandrun. A five-pound note might bring him a hundred pounds. On the +other hand, if Oily Hair was going to win, he wouldn't like to miss +it. The bookmakers are offering fives against it. Holy Saint is hot +favourite at two to one. That alone makes him impatient of it, for he +dislikes backing favourites. He prefers the big risks, with great +scoops if he wins. However, he will make up his mind later. Meanwhile, +he will go to the paddock and have a look at the horses for the first +race. Half-a-dozen horses are already out, and men with numbers on +their arms are walking them round and round in a ring. He consults his +card and sees that No. 7 is Brighton Beauty, and No. 2 (a slender, +glossy, black beast with a white star in his forehead) Green Cloak. +Liberal has not appeared. The numbers of the starters, with the names +of the jockeys, are now being hoisted. He makes a pencil-mark opposite +the name of each starter on his racing-card, and jots down the name of +the jockey. Raff, he sees, is riding Green Cloak. That is in its +favour. + +When he gets back to the betting-ring, the bookmakers are shouting +hoarsely against each other. Liberal is a very hot favourite. They are +shouting: "I'll take two to one. I'll take two to one. Five to one bar +one. A hundred to eight Green Cloak." He feels almost sure Liberal +will win, but Green Cloak--he wishes he had asked the tobacconist +where he got his information from. Anyhow, half-a-sovereign doesn't +matter much. He goes up to a bookmaker, and says: "Ten shillings Green +Cloak." The bookmaker turns to his clerk and says: "Six pound five to +ten shillings Green Cloak," gives a red-white-and-blue card with his +name and a number on it; the other takes the card, writes on the back +of it the name of the horse and the amount of the bet, and makes for +the stand to see the race. The horses have now come out, and are off +one after another to the starting-post. Green Cloak would be hard to +miss because of his jockey's colours--old gold, scarlet sleeves, and +green and black quartered cap. The bell has hardly rung to announce +that the race has begun when men in the crowd begin to dogmatise about +the result. One man keeps saying: "Green Cloak wins this race. Green +Cloak wins this race." Another says: "Liberal leads." Another says: +"No; that's Jumping Frog." To the unaccustomed eye the horses seem as +close to each other as a swarm of bees. Suddenly, however, a bay horse +springs forward and seems to put a length between itself and the +others at every stride. The people in the stand shout: "Liberal! +Liberal!" It wins by about ten lengths. Green Cloak is second, but a +bad second. The crowd begins to pour down from the stand again. Those +who have won wait near the bookmakers till the winner has been to the +unsaddling enclosure and the announcement "All right" is made. Then +the bookmakers begin to pay out, and the crowd moves off to the +paddock again to see the horses for the next race. + +Friends stop each other and exchange information in low voices. Others +do their best to listen in the hope of overhearing information: "I +hear Tomsk," "Johnnie says lay your last penny on Glasgow Pet," "I'm +going to back Submarine." And the parade of the horses, the hoisting +of the names of the starters and jockeys, the laying of the bets, and +the climbing of the grand stand are all gone through over and over +again. The betting man has no time even for a drink. To the casual +onlooker a day's horse-racing has the appearance of a day's holiday. +But the racing man knows better. He is collecting information, coming +to decisions, wandering among the bookies in the hope of getting a +good price, climbing into the grand stand and descending from it, +studying the points of the horses all the time with as little chance +of leisure as though he were a stockbroker during a financial crisis +or a sailor on a sinking ship. + +Perhaps, in the train on the way home from the races, he may relax a +little. Certainly, if he has backed Cutandrun, he will. For Cutandrun +won at ten to one, and his pocket is full of five-pound notes. He +feels quite jocular now that the strain is over. He makes puns on the +names of the defeated horses. "Lie Low lay low all right," he +announces to the compartment, indifferent to the scowls of the man in +the corner who had backed it. "Hopscotch didn't hop quite fast +enough." Were he tipsy, he could not jest more fluently. His jokes are +small, but be not too severe on him. The man has had a hard day. Wait +but an hour, and care will descend on him again. He will not have sat +down to dinner in his hotel for three minutes till someone will be +saying to him: "Have you heard anything for the Cup to-morrow?" There +is no six-hours day for the betting man. He is the drudge of chance +for every waking hour. He is enviable only for one thing. He knows +what to talk about to barbers. + + + + +IV + + + +THE HUM OF INSECTS + + +It makes all the difference whether you hear an insect in the bedroom +or in the garden. In the garden the voice of the insect soothes; in +the bedroom it irritates. In the garden it is the hum of spring; in +the bedroom it seems to belong to the same school of music as the bizz +of the dentist's drill or the saw-mill. It may be that it is not the +right sort of insect that invades the bedroom. Even in the garden we +wave away a mosquito. Either its note is in itself offensive or we +dislike it as the voice of an unscrupulous enemy. By an unscrupulous +enemy I mean an enemy that attacks without waiting to be attacked. The +mosquito is a beast of prey; it is out for blood, whether one is as +gentle as Tom Pinch or uses violence. The bee and the wasp are in +comparison noble creatures. They will, so it is said, never injure a +human being unless a human being has injured them. The worst of it is +they do not discriminate between one human being and another, and the +bee that floats over the wall into our garden may turn out to have +been exasperated by the behaviour of a retired policeman five miles +away who struck at it with a spade and roused in it a blind passion +for reprisals. That or something like it is, probably, the explanation +of the stings perfectly innocent persons receive from an insect that +is said never to touch you if you leave it alone. As a matter of fact, +when a bee loses its head, it does not even wait for a human being in +order to relieve its feelings, I have seen a dog racing round a field +in terror as a result of a sting from an angry bee. I have seen a +turkey racing round a farmyard in terror as a result of the same +thing. All the trouble arose from a human being's having very properly +removed a large quantity of honey from a row of hives. I do not admit +that the bee would have been justified in stinging even the human +being--who, after all, is master on this partially civilised planet. +It had certainly no right to sting the dog or the turkey, which had as +little to do with stealing the honey as the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford +University. Yet in spite of such things, and of the fact that some +breeds of bees are notorious for their crossness, especially when +there is thunder in the air, the bee is morally far higher in the +scale than the mosquito. Not only does it give you honey instead of +malaria, and help your apples and strawberries to multiply, but it +aims at living a quiet, inoffensive life, at peace with everybody, +except when it is annoyed. The mosquito does what it does in cold +blood. That is why it is so unwelcome a bedroom visitor. + +But even a bee or a wasp, I fancy, would seem tedious company at two +in the morning, especially if it came and buzzed near the pillow. It +is not so much that you would be frightened: if the wasp alighted on +your cheek, you could always lie still and hold your breath till it +had finished trying to sting--that is an infallible preventive. But +there is a limit to the amount of your night's rest that you are +willing to sacrifice in this way. You cannot hold your breath while +you are asleep, and yet you dare not cease holding your breath while a +wasp is walking over your face. Besides, it might crawl into your ear, +and what would you do then? Luckily, the question does not often arise +in practice owing to the fact that the wasp and the bee are more like +human beings than mosquitoes and have more or less the same habits of +nocturnal rest. As we sit in the garden, however, the mind is bound to +speculate, and to revolve such questions as whether this hum of +insects that delights us is in itself delightful, whether its +delightfulness depends on its surroundings, or whether it depends on +its associations with past springs. + +Certainly in a garden the noise of insects seems as essentially +beautiful a thing as the noise of birds or the noise of the sea. Even +these have been criticised, especially by persons who suffer from +sleeplessness, but their beauty is affirmed by the general voice of +mankind. These three noises appear to have an infinite capacity for +giving us pleasure--a capacity, probably, beyond that of any music of +instruments. It may be that on hearing them we become a part of some +universal music, and that the rhythm of wave, bird and insect echoes +in some way the rhythm of our own breath and blood. Man is in love +with life and these are the millionfold chorus of life--the magnified +echo of his own pleasure in being alive. At the same time, our +pleasure in the hum of insects is also, I think, a pleasure of +reminiscence. It reminds us of other springs and summers in other +gardens. It reminds us of the infinite peace of childhood when on a +fine day the world hardly existed beyond the garden-gate. We can smell +moss-roses--how we loved them as children!--as a bee swings by. Insect +after insect dances through the air, each dying away like a note of +music, and we see again the border of pinks and the strawberries, and +the garden paths edged with box, and the old dilapidated wooden seat +under the tree, and an apple-tree in the long grass, and a stream +beyond the apple-tree, and all those things that made us infinitely +happy as children when we were in the country--happier than we were +ever made by toys, for we do not remember any toys so intensely as we +remember the garden and the farm. We had the illusion in those days +that it was going to last for ever. There was no past or future. There +was nothing real except the present in which we lived--a present in +which all the human beings were kind, in which a dim-sighted +grandfather sang songs (especially a song in which the chorus began +"Free and easy"), in which aunts brought us animal biscuits out of +town, in which there was neither man-servant nor maid-servant, neither +ox nor ass, that did not seem to go about with a bright face. It was a +present that overflowed with kindness, though everybody except the ox +and the ass believed that it was only by the skin of our teeth that +any of us would escape being burnt alive for eternity. Perhaps we +thought little enough about it except on Sundays or at prayers. +Certainly no one was gloomy about it before children. William John +McNabb, the huge labourer who looked after the horses, greeted us all +as cheerfully as if we had been saved and ready for paradise. + +It would be unfair to human beings, however, to suggest that they are +less lavish with their smiles than they were thirty years or so ago. +Everybody--or almost everybody--still smiles. We can hardly stop to +talk to a man in the street without a duet of smiles. The Prince of +Wales smiles across the world from left to right, and the Crown Prince +of Japan smiles across the world from right to left. We cannot open an +illustrated paper without seeing smiling statesmen, cricketers, +jockeys, oarsmen, bridegrooms, clergymen, actresses and +undergraduates. Yet somehow we are no longer made happy by a smile. We +no longer take it, as we used to take it, as evidence that the person +smiling is either happy or kind. It then seemed to come from the +heart. It now seems a formula. It is, we may admit, a pleasant and +useful formula. But a man might easily be a burglar or a murderer or a +Cabinet Minister and smile. Some people are supposed to smile merely +in order to show what good teeth they have. William John McNabb, I am +sure, never did that. + +We need not grumble at our contemporaries, however, for not being so +fine as William John McNabb. To children, for all we know, the world +may still seem to be full of people who laugh because they are happy +and smile because they are kind. The world will always remain to a +child the chief of toys, and the hum of insects as enchanting as the +hum of a musical top. Even those of us who are grown up can recover +this enchantment, not only through the pleasures of memory but through +the endless pleasures of watching the things that inhabit the earth. +The world is always waiting to be discovered in full, and yet no life +is long enough to discover the whole of a single county, or even the +whole of a single parish. Who alive, for instance, knows all the moles +of Sussex? I confess I got my first sight of one a few days ago, and, +though I had seen dead moles hanging from trees and had read +descriptions of moles, the living creature was as unexpected as if one +had come on it silent upon a peak in Darien. I had never expected it +to look so black and glossy in the midday sun or to have that little +pink snout that made me think of it as a small underground pig. I had +always been told, too, that the sound of a footstep would frighten a +mole, but this mole only began to show fright at the sound of voices. +Then it began to tear its way into the undergrowth with paws and snout +ever trying to overtake each other. Mr Blunden has described how + + The lost mole tries to pierce the mattocked clay + In agony and terror of the sun. + +I got much the same impression of agony and terror as this poor +creature dug its way into the grass and ferns and, coming out at the +far end of the clump, bolted under a tree like a frightened pig. And +yet, they say, this poor little coward is a fierce animal enough. He +is, we are told, impelled by so cruel a hunger that he would die of it +were it to go unsatisfied for even twenty-four hours. If he can find +nothing else to eat, he will kill and eat a fellow-mole. So the +authorities tell us, but I wonder how many of the authorities have +even seen a mole in the very act of cannibalism. How many of them have +followed him on his long journeys through the bowels of the earth? He +certainly looked no South Sea monster on the Sunday morning on which +for a few seconds I watched him. Nor would John Clare have written +affectionately about him had he been entirely bloody-minded. + +Then there was the hedgehog. The charm of hedgehogs is that we do not +see them every day--that their appearance is a secret and an accident. +They are a part of the busy life that goes on all about us as +mysteriously as the movements of spirits. Consequently, when I was +looking over a sloping field the other evening and, hearing a +crackling as of sticks being trodden on, turned my eyes and saw a +living creature making its way out of a wood into the grass, I was +delighted to find that it was a hedgehog and not a man or a rat. I +could see it only dimly in the twilight, and it was difficult to +believe that so small an animal had made so great a noise. The +pleasure of recognition, unfortunately, was not mutual. No sooner did +the hedgehog hear a foot pressing on the road than it gave up all +thoughts of its supper of insects and hobbled back into the thicket. I +regretted only that I had not made a greater noise, and scared it into +rolling itself into a ball, as everybody says it does when alarmed. +But it is perhaps just as well that the hedgehog did not merely repeat +itself in this way. We like a certain variety of behaviour in +animals--some element of the unexpected that always keeps our +curiosity alive and looking forward. + +But we must not exaggerate the pleasure to be got from moles and +hedgehogs. They make a part of our being happy, but they do not +delight the whole of our being, as a child is delighted by the world +every spring. It is probably the child in us that responds most +wholeheartedly to such pleasures. They, like the hum of insects, help +to restore the illusion of a world that is perfectly happy because it +is such a Noah's Ark of a spectacle and everybody is kind. But, even +as we submit to the illusion in the garden, we become restive in our +deck-chairs and remember the telephone or the daily paper or a letter +that has to be written. And reality weighs on us, like a hand laid on +a top, making an end of the spinning, making an end of the music. The +world is no longer a toy dancing round and round. It is a problem, a +run-down machine, a stuffy room full of little stabbing creatures that +make an irritating noise. + + + + +V + + + +CATS + + +The Champion Cat Show has been held at the Crystal Palace, but the +champion cat was not there. One could not possibly allow him to appear +in public. He is for show, but not in a cage. He does not compete, +because he is above competition. You know this as well as I. Probably +you possess him. I certainly do. That is the supreme test of a cat's +excellence--the test of possession. One does not say: "You should see +Brailsford's cat" or "You should see Adcock's cat" or "You should see +Sharp's cat," but "You should see our cat." There is nothing we are +more egoistic about--not even children--than about cats. I have heard +a man, for lack of anything better to boast about, boasting that his +cat eats cheese. In anyone else's cat it would have seemed an inferior +habit and only worth mentioning to the servant as a warning. But +because the cat happens to be his cat, this man talks about its vice +excitedly among women as though it were an accomplishment. It is +seldom that we hear a cat publicly reproached with guilt by anyone +above a cook. He is not permitted to steal from our own larder. But if +he visits the next-door house by stealth and returns over the wall +with a Dover sole in his jaws, we really cannot help laughing. We are +a little nervous at first, and our mirth is tinged with pity at the +thought of the probably elderly and dyspeptic gentleman who has had +his luncheon filched away almost from under his nose. If we were quite +sure that it was from No. 14, and not from No. 9 or No. 11, that the +fish had been stolen, we might--conceivably--call round and offer to +pay for it. But with a cat one is never quite sure. And we cannot call +round on all the neighbours and make a general announcement that our +cat is a thief. In any case the next move lies with the wronged +neighbour. As day follows day, and there is no sign of his irate and +murder-bent figure advancing up the path, we recover our mental +balance and begin to see the cat's exploit in a new light. We do not +yet extol it on moral grounds, but undoubtedly, the more we think of +it, the deeper becomes our admiration. Of the two great heroes of the +Greeks we admire one for his valour and one for his cunning. The epic +of the cat is the epic of Odysseus. The old gentleman with the Dover +sole gradually assumes the aspect of a Polyphemus outwitted--outwitted +and humiliated to the point of not even being able to throw things +after his tormentor. Clever cat! Nobody else's cat could have done +such a thing. We should like to celebrate the Rape of the Dover Sole +in Latin verse. + +As for the Achillean sort of prowess, we do not demand it of a cat, +but we are proud of it when it exists. There is a pleasure in seeing +strange cats fly at his approach, either in single file over the wall +or in the scattered aimlessness of a bursting bomb. Theoretically, we +hate him to fight, but, if he does fight and comes home with a torn +ear, we have to summon up all the resources of our finer nature in +order not to rejoice on noticing that the cat next door looks as +though it had been through a railway accident. I am sorry for the cat +next door. I hate him so, and it must be horrible to be hated. But he +should not sit on my wall and look at me with yellow eyes. If his eyes +were any other colour--even the blue that is now said to be the mark +of the runaway husband--I feel certain I could just manage to endure +him. But they are the sort of yellow eyes that you expect to see +looking out at you from a hole in the panelling in a novel by Mr Sax +Rohmer. The only reason why I am not frightened of them is that the +cat is so obviously frightened of me. I never did him any injury +unless to hate is to injure. But he lowers his head when I appear as +though he expected to be guillotined. He does not run away: he merely +crouches like a guilty thing. Perhaps he remembers how often he has +stepped delicately over my seed-beds, but not so delicately as to +leave no mark of ruin among the infant lettuces and the +less-than-infant autumn-sprouting broccoli. These things I could +forgive him, but it is not easy to forgive him the look in his eyes +when he watches a bird at its song. They are ablaze with evil. He +becomes a sort of Jack the Ripper at the opera. People tell us that we +should not blame cats for this sort of thing--that it is their nature +and so forth. They even suggest that a cat is no more cruel in eating +robin than we are cruel ourselves in eating chicken. This seems to me +to be quibbling. In the first place, there is an immense difference +between a robin and a chicken. In the second place, we are willing to +share our chicken with the cat--at least, we are willing to share the +skin and such of the bones as are not required for soup. Besides, a +cat has not the same need of delicacies as a human being. It can eat, +and even digest, anything. It can eat the black skin of filleted +plaice. It can eat the bits of gristle that people leave on the side +of their plates. It can eat boiled cod. It can eat New Zealand mutton. +There is no reason why an animal with so undiscriminating a palate +should demand song-birds for its food, when even human beings, who are +fairly unscrupulous eaters, have agreed in some measure to abstain +from them. On reflection, however, I doubt if it is his appetite for +birds that makes the cat with the yellow eyes feel guilty. If you were +able to talk to him in his own language, and formulate your +accusations against him as a bird-eater, he would probably be merely +puzzled and look on you as a crank. If you pursued the argument and +compelled him to moralise his position, he would, I fancy, explain +that the birds were very wicked creatures and that their cruelties to +the worms and the insects were more than flesh and blood could stand. +He would work himself up into a generous idealisation of himself as +the guardian of law and order amid the bloody strife of the +cabbage-patch--the preserver of the balance of nature. If cats were as +clever as we, they would compile an atrocities blue-book about worms. +Alas, poor thrush, with how bedraggled a reputation you would come +through such an exposure! With how Hunnish a tread you would be +depicted treading the lawn, sparing neither age nor sex, seizing the +infant worm as it puts out its head to take its first bewildered peep +at the rolling sun! Cats could write sonnets on such a theme.... Then +there is that other beautiful potential poem, _The Cry of the +Snail_.... How tender-hearted cats are! Their sympathy seems to be all +but universal, always on the look out for an object, ready to extend +itself anywhere where it is needed, except, as is but human, to their +victims. Yellow eyes or not, I begin to be persuaded that the cat next +door is a noble fellow. It may well be that his look as I pass is a +look not of fear but of repulsion. He has seen me going out among the +worms with a sharp--no, not a very sharp--spade, and regards me as no +better than an ogre. If I could only explain to him! But I shall never +be able to do so. He could no more appreciate my point of view about +worms than I can appreciate his about robins. Luckily, we both eat +chicken. This may ultimately help us to understand one another. + +On the other hand, part of the fascination of cats may be due to the +fact that it is so difficult to come to an understanding with them. A +man talks to a horse or a dog as to an equal. To a cat he has to be +deferential as though it had some Sphinx-like quality that baffled +him. He cannot order a cat about with the certainty of being obeyed. +He cannot be sure that, if he speaks to it, it will even raise its +eyes. If it is perfectly comfortable, it will not. A cat is obedient +only when it is hungry or when it takes the fancy. It may be a +parasite, but it is never a servant. The dog does your bidding, but +you do the cat's. At the same time, the contrast between the cat and +the dog has often been exaggerated by dog-lovers. They tell you +stories of dogs that remained with their dead masters, as though there +were no fidelity in cats. It was only the other day, however, that the +newspapers gave an account of a cat that remained with the body of its +murdered mistress in the most faithful tradition of the dogs. I know, +again, of cats that will go out for a walk with a human +fellow-creature, as dogs do. I have frequently seen a lady walking +across Hampstead Heath with a cat in train. When you go for a walk +with a dog, however, the dog protects you: when you go for a walk with +a cat, you feel that you are protecting the cat. It is strange that +the cat should have imposed the myth of its helplessness on us. It is +an animal with an almost boundless capacity for self-help. It can jump +up walls. It can climb trees. It can run, as the proverb says, like +"greased lightning." It is armed like an African chief. Yet it has +contrived to make itself a pampered pet, so that we are alarmed if it +attempts to follow us out of the gate into a world of dogs, and only +feel happy when it is purring--rolling on its back and purring as we +rub its Adam's apple--by the fireside. There is nothing that gives a +greater sense of comfort than the purring of a cat. It is the most +flattering music in nature. One feels, as one listens, like a humble +lover in a bad novel, who says: "You do, then, like me--a +little--after all?" The fact that a cat is not utterly miserable in +our presence always comes with the freshness and delight of a +surprise. The happiness of a crowing baby, newly introduced to us, may +be still more flattering, but a cat will get round people who cannot +tolerate babies. + +It is all the more to be wondered at that a cat, which is such a +master of this conversational sort of music, should ever attempt any +other. There never was an animal less fit to be a singer. Someone--was +it Cowper?---has said that there are no really ugly voices in nature, +and that he could imagine that there was something to be said even for +the donkey's bray. I should have thought that the beautiful voices in +nature were few, and that most of them could be defended only on the +ground of some pleasant association. Humanity, at least, has been +unanimous in its condemnation of the cat as part of nature's chorus. +Poems have been written in praise of the corncrake as a singer, but +never of the cat. All the associations we have with cats have not +accustomed us to that discordant howl. It converts love itself into a +torment such as can be found only in the pages of a twentieth-century +novel. In it we hear the jungle decadent--the beast in dissolution, +but not yet civilised. When it rises at night outside the window, we +always explain to visitors: "No; that's not Peter. That's the cat next +door with the yellow eyes." The man who will not defend the honour of +his cat cannot be trusted to defend anything. + + + + +VI + + + +MAY + + +May is chiefly remarkable for being the only month in which one does +not like cats. June, too, perhaps; but, after that, one does not mind +if the garden is full of cats. One likes to have a wild beast whose +movements, lazy as those of Satan, will terrify the childish birds out +of the gooseberry bushes and the raspberries and strawberries. He will +not, we know, have much chance of catching them as late as that. They +will be as cunning as he, and the robin will wind his alarum-clock, +the starling in the plum-tree will cry out like a hysterical drake, +and the blackbird will make as much noise as a farmyard. The cat can +but blink at the clamour of such a host of cunning sentinels and, +pretending that he had come out only to take the air, return +majestically to his dinner of leavings in the kitchen. In May and +June, however, one does not wish the birds to be frightened. One would +like one's garden to be an Alsatia for all their wings and all their +songs. There is no hope of this in a garden full of cats. Even a +Tetrazzini would cease to be able to produce her best trills if every +time she opened her mouth, a tiger padded in her direction down a path +of currant bushes. There are, it may be admitted, heroic exceptions. +The chaffinch sits in the plum and blusters out his music, cat or no +cat. To be sure, he only sings, a flush of all the colours, in order +to distract our attention. He is not an artist but a watchman. If you +look into the buddleia-tree beside him, you will see his hen moving +about in silence, creeping, dancing, fluttering, as she gorges herself +with insects. She is a fly-catcher at this season, leaping into the +air and pirouetting as she seizes her prey and returns to the bough. +She is restless and is not content with the spoil of a single tree. +She flings herself gracefully, like a ballet-dancer, into the plum, +and takes up a caterpillar in her beak. She does not eat it at once, +but stands still, eyeing you as though awaiting your applause. Her +husband, sitting on the topmost spray, goes on singing his version of +_The Roast Beef of Old England_. She does not even now eat the +caterpillar, but hurries along the paths of the branches with the +obvious purpose of finding a tasty insect to eat long with it. It may +be that there are insects that play the part of mustard or +Worcestershire sauce in the chaffinch world. What a meal she is making +in any case before she hurries back to her nest! It seems that among +the chaffinches the male is the more spiritual of the sexes. But then +he has so little to do compared with the female. He is still in that +state of savagery in which the male dresses finely and idles. + +The thrush cannot carry on with the same indifference to cats. He is +the most nervous of parents, and spends half his time calling on his +children to be careful. The young thrush hopping about on the lawn +knows nothing of cats and refuses to believe that they are dangerous. +He is not afraid even of human beings. His parent becomes +argumentative to the point of tears, but the young one stays where he +is and looks at you with a sideways jerk of his head as much as to +say: "Listen to the old 'un." You, too, begin to be alarmed at such +boldness. You know, like the pitiful parent, that the world is a very +dangerous place, and that your neighbour's cat goes about like a +roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. It has been contended by some +men of science that all birds are born fearless after the manner of +the young thrush, and that fear is a lesson that has to be taught to +each new generation by the more experienced parents. Fear, they say, +is not an inherited instinct, but a racial tradition that has to be +communicated like the morality of civilised people. The young thrush +on the lawn is certainly a witness on behalf of this theory. He hops +towards you instead of away from you. He moves his gaping beak as +though he were trying to say something. If there were no cats in the +world, you would encourage his confidences, but you feel that, much as +you would like to make friends with him, you must, for his own sake, +give him his first lesson in fear. You try to give yourself the +appearance of a grim giant: it has no effect on him. You make a quick +movement to chase him away: he runs a few yards and then stops and +looks round at you as though you were playing a game. It is too much +to expect of you that you will actually throw stones at a bird for its +good, and so you give up his education as a bad job. Alas, in two +days, your worst fears are justified. His dead body is found, torn and +ruffled, among the bushes. Some cat has murdered him--murdered him, +evidently, not in hunger, but just for fun. Two indignant children, +one gold, one brown, discover the dead body and bring in the tale. +They prepare the funeral rites of one whose only sin was his +innocence. This is not the first burial in the garden. There is +already a cemetery marked with half-a-dozen crosses and heaped with +flowers under the pear-tree on the south wall. Here is where the mouse +was buried; here where the starling; and here the rabbit's skull. They +all lie there under the earth in boxes, as you and I will lie, +expecting the Last Trump. The robins are not kinder to the "friendless +bodies of unburied men" than are children to the bodies of mice and +birds. Here the ghost of no creature haunts reproaching us with the +absence of a tomb, as the dead sailor washed up on an alien shore +reproaches us so often in the pages of _The Greek Anthology_. There is +a procession to the grave and all due ceremony. There is even a +funeral service. Over the starling, perhaps, it lacked something in +appropriateness. The buriers meant well however. Their favourite in +verse at the time was _Lars Porsena of Clusium_, and they gave the +starling the best they knew--gave it to him from beginning to end. +What he made of it, there is no telling: he is, it is said an +impressionable bird, though something of a satirist. Someone, +overhearing them, recommended a briefer and more fitting service for +the future. The young thrush had the benefit of the advice. He was +laid to his last rest with the recitation of that noblest of +valedictories: "Fear no more the heat o' the sun," over his tomb. He +is now gone where there is no cat or parent to disturb. The priests +who buried him declare that he has been turned into a golden +nightingale, and that there must be no noise or romping in the garden +for three days, as not till then will he have arrived safely at the +Appleiades. That is the name they give to the Pleiades--the seven +golden islands whither pass the souls of dead mice and birds and dolls +and where Scarlatti lives and where you, too, may expect to go if you +please them. Even the black cat will probably go there--one's own +black cat. But not the neighbour's cat--the reddish-brown one--thief, +murderer and beast. It is the neighbour's cat that makes one believe +there is a hell. + +Short is the memory of man, however. Shorter the memory of children. +There is no gloom that can withstand May pouring itself out in the +deep blue of anchusa and the paler blue of lupin, gushing out in the +yellow of laburnum, tossing like the tides in the wind. One is gloomy, +perhaps, when one looks at the lettuces and sees how slow is their +growth. Watching a plant grow is like watching a kettle boil. It seems +to take æons. The patience of gardeners always astonishes me. Were +gardening my profession, I should spend half my time inventing schemes +for making plants grow up in a night like Jonah's gourd. I should not +mind about parsnips. A parsnip might mature as slowly as an oak and +live as long for all I care. There is something, it may be, to be said +for parsnips, as there is something, it may be, to be said for Mr +Bonar Law. But I do not know it. They do not even tempt the slugs and +the leather-jackets away from the lettuces. There is nothing that +puzzles one more in a friend than if he confesses to a taste for +parsnips. Immediately, a gulf yawns deeper than could be caused by any +confession of religious or moral eccentricity. One's sympathies +instinctively close up like a sea-anemone touched by a child's finger. +Yet people eat them. All that you and I know about them is that kind +words do not butter them; but, if you go to Covent Garden at the right +time of the year, you will undoubtedly find them being sold for food. +Why should they make one gloomy, however, seeing that one has +successfully excluded them from one's garden? Perhaps one is gloomy +because of the reflection that there must be many other gardens in +which they are growing. Gloom of this kind, however, is mere +philanthropy. Turn your eyes, instead, to the strawberry-flowers and +think of June. Consider the broad beans and the young peas safe amid +their tall stakes. Consider even the spring onions. Is it any wonder +that the chaffinch sings and the wren is operatic on the thither side +of the garden wall? High in the air the swifts scream, as they rush +here and there after their prey, like polo teams galloping, pulling +up, scrimmaging, turning, and off on the gallop again. The swift is an +evil-looking bird, but playful. He has none of the grace of the +swallow, for he cannot fold his wings, and he is black as a +devil-worshipper. Still, he knows more of sport than most of the +birds. I suspect that those rushing companions are not merely bent on +food but have chosen out one individual insect for their pursuit like +a ball in a game. Otherwise, why such excitement? There are billions +of insects to be had for the mere asking. The fly-catcher knows this. +He can spend an hour at a meal without ever flying more than ten yards +from his bough. Still, one rejoices in the energy of the swift. One +wishes the greenfinch had a little of it. The yellow splashes on his +wings are undoubtedly delightful, but why will he perch so long in the +acacia wailing like a sick cricket? And why did Wordsworth write a +poem in praise of him? Probably he mistook some other bird for him. +Poets are like that. Or perhaps he liked a noise like the voice of a +sick cricket. One can never tell with Wordsworth. He had a +cuckoo-clock. + + + + +VII + + + +NEW YEAR PROPHECIES + + +Some people are surprised at the daring with which compilers of +prophetic almanacs forecast the details of the future. The most +astonishing thing of all is that nearly everybody still regards the +future as a mystery. As a matter of fact, we know a great deal about +the future. We know that next year will contain 365 days. We know--and +this is rather a tribute to our cleverness--that the year 1924 will +contain 366 days, and even the exact point at which the extra day will +slip in. Ask a savage to point you out the extra day in Leap Year, and +he will be more hopelessly at a loss than a man looking for a needle +in a haystack, but even the most ignorant Christian will pick it out +at the right end of February as neatly and inevitably as a love-bird +on a barrel-organ picking out a fortune. The art of prophecy has grown +with civilisation. Prophets were regarded as almost divine persons in +the old days, but now every man is his own Isaiah. I am the most +modest of the prophets, but even I venture to foretell that there will +be an annular eclipse of the sun in the coming year on the 8th of +April, that it will begin at twenty-two minutes to 8 A.M. at +Liverpool, and that it will be visible at Greenwich. What clairvoyant +could go further? Test my mantic gifts at any other point and I doubt +not I can satisfy you. Do you want to know at what time there will be +high water at Aberdeen on the afternoon of the 21th January? The +answer is: "Thirteen minutes past one." Do you want to know when +partridge shooting will begin? I do not even need to reflect before +giving the answer: "The 1st of September." And so I could go on, +almost _ad infinitum_, filling in the details of the year in advance. +On the 1st of March, for instance, being St David's Day, there will be +a banquet at which Mr Lloyd George will make a reference to hills, +mists, God, and a country called Wales. On the 28th of March, being +Easter Monday, there will be a Bank Holiday. On the 24th of May, being +Empire Day, the majority of shops in Regent Street will hang out Union +Jacks, and school children will salute the flag at Abinger Hammer, +Communists in various parts of London gnashing their teeth the while. +On the 15th of June the anniversary of Magna Charta will fall and will +pass without any disturbance. On the 12th of July Orangemen will dress +im in sashes and listen to orators whose speeches will prove the +hollowness of the old adage that you cannot serve both God and Mammon. +On the same day, Lord Birkenhead will celebrate his forty-ninth +birthday, showing that Gallopers are born not made. Need I continue, +however? The year is obviously going to be a crowded one. It will, as +I have said, contain 365 days and will come to an end at 12 P.M. on St +Silvester's Day at the time of the new moon. + +I have said enough, I think, to prove that one knows a great deal more +about the future than is generally realised. There may be sceptics who +doubt the virtue of my prophecies. If there be such, all I ask is that +they should mark them well and verify each of them as its fulfilment +falls due. The expense will be small. The most serious item will be +the journey to Aberdeen to see the tide coming in on the 24th of +January; but, by taking up a collection in Aberdeen, it should be +possible to reduce one's net outlay by the better part of a shilling. +On the whole, there never were prophecies easier to verify. I +confidently challenge comparison between them and any prophecy made by +any Cabinet Minister during the last five years. I even challenge +comparison with the much more respectable prophecies contained in +_Raphael's Prophetic Messenger_. Raphael at times strains our +credulity. When he tells us, for instance, that on the 27th of April +it is going to be "cold and frosty" and that on the 29th of April we +shall see "high winds, storms and thunder," we feel that he is giving +a free rein to his imagination and treating prophecy not as a science +but as an art. That the 30th of April will be "showery" I agree, but +how does he know that there will be "high wind and lightning" on the +21st of December? I am also somewhat puzzled as to the means by which +he arrives at the conclusions set forth in his "every-day" guide for +each day in the year. I can myself prophesy what you will do on each +day, but I cannot, as he does, prophesy what you ought to do. This +introduces an ethical element which is beyond my scope or horoscope. +We need not quarrel with him when he dismisses the 1st of January as +"an unimportant day," but when he bids us on the 2nd of January +"court, marry, and deal with females," we may reasonably ask: "Why?" +His advice for the 3rd is more acceptable. "Be careful," he says, +"until 1 P.M. then seek work and push thy business." That is about the +time of day one prefers to begin to "seek work"; would there were more +days in the calendar like the 3rd of January. Some saint must have it +in his keeping. On the 7th, however, it will be safer to abstain from +work altogether. Raphael says: "A very unfortunate P.M. and evening +for most purposes. Court and deal with females." Sunday, the 9th, is +better. "Ask favours," he says, "in the P.M., and court." Though +January is less than half gone, I confess I am getting a little +breathless with so much courting. Raphael probably recognises this, +and a note of caution creeps into his advice on the 13th, on which he +bids us "court and marry in the morning, then be careful." By the +18th, however, he is his old self again. "Court," he says cheerfully, +"marry and ask favours and push ahead." Then come one rather careful +day and two unfortunate ones, till on the 22nd, in a burst of +exuberance, he offers us the day of our lives. "Deal with others," he +exhorts us, "and push thy business, seek work, travel, court, marry, +buy and speculate." I doubt if all this can be crowded into +twenty-four hours outside _The Arabian Nights_. Besides, as a result +of following Raphael's advice, we are already bigamists several times +over, and have become sick of the sight of a Registry Office. By the +end of the month even Raphael shows signs of being a little weary of +his scarcely veiled incitements to Bluebeardism. For the 29th he +advises: "Avoid females and be very careful," and for the 30th, which +is a Sunday: "Avoid females and superiors." I should just about think +so. + +We need not follow Raphael through the rest of the year. It is enough +to say that he keeps us busy courting, marrying, seeking work, being +careful, travelling, speculating, pushing ahead, and avoiding females +right down till the end of December. He occasionally varies his +formula, as when on the 6th of April he bids us: "Do not quarrel. Be +quiet," and when, on the 23rd of June, he advises: "Ask favours of +females, and travel." On the whole however, his recommendations leave +us with a sense of the desperate monotony of human existence. It is no +wonder the novelists find it so difficult to invent an original plot. +Nothing seems to happen--even in the future--except the same old +thing. It is all as monotonous as North, South, East and West. We turn +with relief to the page on which Raphael tells us what are the best +days on which to hire maidservants and to set turkeys. Our interest +redoubles when we come on his advice to those about to kill pigs. "Do +this," he says, "between eight and ten in the morning, and between the +first quarter and full of the Moon; the pigs will weigh more, and the +flavour of the pork be improved." Then there are "Legal and Commercial +Notes," one of which--"A bailiff must not break into a house, but he +may enter by the chimney "--suggests a subject for a drawing by Mr +George Morrow. The medical notes are equally worthy of consideration. +On one page we are given a list of herbal remedies, and we are told +how one disease can be cured by pouring boiling water on hay (upland +hay being better than meadow hay) and applying it to the stomach. But +Raphael is no crank, as we see in his suggestion for the treatment of +influenza: + + "If you think you have got an attack of influenza slip off + to bed at once and take the whisky or brandy bottle with + you, and don't be afraid of it, for alcohol is the best + medicine you can take as it kills the germs in the blood. Do + not wait until you are half dead--remember that a stitch in + time saves nine, even with health." + +Even on the subject of the care of children's teeth he makes it clear +that, whoever may have come under the blight of Pussyfoot, it is not +he: + + "I believe a Committee is to be appointed to inquire into + the failing eyesight and decaying teeth in children. I think + I have already stated that these troubles were due to the + excessive amount of sugar or sweetstuffs consumed. All sweet + things cause an excessive exudation of saliva from the gums, + which affect and impair both the teeth and the eyesight for, + despite of what dentist and doctor may say, there is an + intimate relation between the two. Dr Sims Wallace, the + eminent lecturer on Dental Surgery, recommends _Beer_ or dry + _Champagne_ as an excellent mouth wash. They are also + pleasant to the throat and stomach!" + +The reader is now in a position to estimate for himself the extent to +which he can rely on Raphael's judgment, and to decide how far he will +accept the horoscope Raphael has cast for Mr Lloyd George. On this he +writes: + + "This gentleman has figured so prominently in our national + affairs for the last few years, that it may not be out of + place if I give a few remarks on his horoscope. The time of + his birth is stated to have been January 17th, 1863, 8h. + 55m. A.M., but neither myself, nor other Astrologers, are + satisfied with this hour. I think he was born some minutes + sooner. At his birth the Sun was in exact Square to Jupiter, + and also in Square to Mars, and Mars was in Opposition to + Jupiter. These are very ominous and important aspects. The + former denotes great extravagance, and waste of money, and + the latter gives impetuosity, and danger to the person." + +He then proceeds to give a "brief analysis" of Mr Lloyd George's +horoscope: + + "The Sun near Ascendant--self-praise, egotism, + self-satisfaction, fondness for publicity and notoriety. + + "Venus and Mercury on Ascendant--fluency in speech, + agreeableness, desire to please, fondness for Music, Arts, + and Sciences. + + "Mars in 2nd, in Opposition to Jupiter, unfavourable for + financial undertakings, extravagance, carelessness, and + losses in speculation. + + "Uranus in 4th, trouble at end of life. + + "Jupiter in the 8th, benefit or help from marriage partner. + + "Moon near cusp of the 11th, many friends, especially females. + + "The Aspects denote--Sun Square Jupiter and Mars, + recklessness in expenditure, public disapprobation, and an + unfavourable and sudden ending to life. + + "Venus in Trine to Saturn, and Moon in Sextile to + Jupiter--domestic relations of the happiest description, and + the wife a great help." + +I frankly doubt if any man can foretell the future of Mr Lloyd George. +No one knows what he will say or do to-morrow. We know what phrases he +will use, but we do not know on what side he will use them, or what he +will mean by them. All we know is that Sir William Sutherland will say +ditto. + +Let us, then, return to safer fields of prophecy. What, really, is +going to happen in 1921? I think I know. Human beings will behave like +bewildered sheep. They will be chiefly notable for their lack of moral +courage. Good men will apologise for the deeds of bad men, and bad men +will do very much as they please. Cruel and selfish faces will be seen +in every railway carriage and in every omnibus, but readers of the +respectable Press will refuse to believe that there are any cruel +people outside Germany and Russia. Not one but all the Ten +Commandments will be broken, and turkeys will be eaten on Christmas +Day. Men will die of disease, violence, famine and old age, and others +will be born to take their place. Intellectuals will be +pretentious--mules solemnly trying to look like Derby winners. There +will be a considerable amount of lying, injustice, and +self-righteousness. Dogs will be fairly decent, but some of them will +bite. Above all, the human conscience will survive. It will survive. +It will continue to be the old still, small voice we know--as still +and as small as it is possible to be without disappearing into silence +and nothingness. And some of us will get a certain amusement out of it +all, and will prefer life rather than death. We shall also go on +puzzling ourselves as to what under the sun it all means. Not even a +murderer will be without a friend or a pet dog or cat or bird. That is +what 1921 will be like. That, at least, is as certain as the time of +the high tide at Aberdeen on the 24th of January. + + + + +VIII + + + +ON KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE + + +It was only the other day that I came upon a full-grown man reading +with something like rapture a little book--_Ships and Seafaring Shown +to Children_. His rapture was modified however, by the bitter +reflection that he had already passed so great a part of his life +without knowing the difference between a ship and a barque; and, as +for sloops, yawls, cutters, ketches, and brigantines, they were simply +the Russian alphabet to him. I sympathise with his regret. It was a +noble day in one's childhood when one had learned the names of +sailing-vessels, and, walking to the point of the harbour beyond the +bathing-boxes, could correct the ignorance of a friend: "That's not a +ship. That's a brig." To the boy from an inland town every vessel that +sails is a ship. He feels he is being shown a new and bewildering +world when he is told that the only ship that has the right to be +called a ship is a vessel with three masts (at least), all of them +square-rigged. When once he has learned his lesson, he finds an +unaccustomed delight in wandering along the dirtiest coal-quay, and +recognising the barques by the fact that only two of their three masts +are square-rigged, and the brigs by the fact that they are +square-rigged throughout--a sort of two-masted ships. Vessels have +suddenly become as real to him in their differences as the different +sorts of common birds. As for his feelings on the day on which he can +tell for certain the upper fore topsail from the upper fore +top-gallant sail, and either of these from the fore skysail, the +crossjack, or the mizzen-royal, they are those of a man who has +mastered a language and discovers himself, to his surprise, talking it +fluently. The world of shipping has become articulate poetry to him +instead of a monotonous abracadabra. + +It is as though we can know nothing of a thing until we know its name. +Can we be said to know what a pigeon is unless we know that it is a +pigeon? We may have seen it again and again, with its bottle-shoulders +and shining neck, sitting on the edge of a chimney-pot, and noted it +as a bird with a full bosom and swift wings. But if we are not able to +name it except vaguely as a "bird," we seem to be separated from it by +an immense distance of ignorance. Learn that it is a pigeon however, +and immediately it rushes towards us across the distance, like +something seen through a telescope. No doubt to the pigeon-fancier +this would seem but the first lisping of knowledge, and he would not +think much of our acquaintance with pigeons if we could not tell a +carrier from a pouter. That is the charm of knowledge--it is merely a +door into another sort of ignorance. There are always new differences +to be discovered, new names to be learned, new individualities to be +known, new classifications to be made. The world is so full of a +number of things that no man with a grain of either poetry or the +scientific spirit in him has any right to be bored, though he lived +for a thousand years. Terror or tragedy may overwhelm him, but boredom +never. The infinity of things forbids it. I once heard of a tipsy +young artist who, on his way home on a beautiful night, had his +attention called by a maudlin friend to the stars, where they twinkled +like a million larks. He raised his eyes to the heavens, then shook +his head. "There are too many of them," he complained wearily. It +should be remembered, however, that he was drunk, and that he did not +know astronomy. There could be too many stars only if they were all +turned out on the same pattern, and made the same pattern on the sky. +Fortunately, the universe is the creation not of a manufacturer but of +an artist. + +There is scarcely a subject that does not contain sufficient Asias of +differences to keep an explorer happy for a lifetime. It would be easy +to do nothing but chase butterflies all one's days. It is said that +thirteen thousand species of butterflies have been already discovered, +and it is suggested that there may be nearly twice as many that have +so far escaped the naturalists. After so monstrous a figure, we are +not surprised to learn that there are sixty-eight species of +butterflies in Great Britain and Ireland. We should be astonished, +however, had we not already expended our astonishment on the larger +number. How many of us are there who could name even half-a-dozen +varieties? We all know the tortoiseshell and the white and the +blue--the little blue butterflies that flutter over the gold and red +of the cornfields. But the average man does not even know by name such +varieties as the Camberwell Beauty, the Dingy Skipper, the +Pearl-bordered Fritillary, and the White-letter Hairstreak. As for the +moth, are there not as many sorts of moths as there are words in a +dictionary? Many men give all the pleasant hours of their lives to +learning how to know the difference between one of them and another. +One used to see these moth-hunters on windless nights in a Hampstead +lane pursuing their quarry fantastically with nets in the light of the +lamps. In pursuing moths, they pursue knowledge. This, they feel, is +life at its most exciting, its most intense. They regard a man who +does not know and is not interested in the difference between one moth +and another as a man not yet thoroughly awakened from his pre-natal +sleep. And, indeed, one could not conceive a more appalling sort of +blank idiocy than the condition of a man who could not tell one thing +from another in any department of life whatever. We would rather +change lives with a jelly-fish than with such a man. This luxury of +variety was not meant to be ignored. We throw ourselves into it with +exhilaration as a swimmer plunges into the sea. There are few forms of +happiness I know which are more enviable than that of those who have +eyes for birds and flowers. How they rejoice on learning that, +according to one theory, there are a hundred and three different +species of brambles to be found in these islands! They would not have +them fewer by a single one. It is extraordinarily pleasant even for +one who is mainly ignorant of the flowers and their families to come +on two or three varieties of one flower in the course of a country +walk. As a boy, he is excited by the difference between the pin-headed +and the thrum-headed primrose. As he grows older, he scans the +roadside for little peeping things that to a lazy eye seem as like +each other as two peas--the dove's foot geranium, the round-leaved +geranium and the lesser wild geranium. "As like each other as two +peas," we have said: but _are_ two peas like each other? Who knows +whether the peas have not the same differences of feature among +themselves that Englishmen have? Half the similarities we notice are +only the results of our ignorance and idleness. The townsman passing a +field of sheep finds it difficult to believe that the shepherd can +distinguish between one and another of them with as much certainty as +if they were his children. And do not most of us think of foreigners +as beings who are all turned out as if on a pattern, like sheep? The +further removed the foreigners are from us in race the more they seem +to us to be like each other. When we speak of negroes, we think of +millions of people most of whom look exactly alike. We feel much the +same about Chinamen and even Turks. Probably to a Chinaman all English +children look exactly alike, and it may be that all Europeans seem to +him to be as indistinguishable as sticks of barley-sugar. How many +people think of Jews in this way! I have heard an Englishman +expressing his wonder that Jewish parents should be able to pick out +their own children in a crowd of Jewish boys and girls. + +Thus our first generalisations spring from ignorance rather than from +knowledge. They are true, so long as we know that they are not +entirely true. As soon as we begin to accept them as absolute truths, +they become lies. One of the perils of a great war is that it revives +the passionate faith of the common man in generalisations. He begins +to think that all Germans are much the same, or that all Americans are +much the same, or that all Conscientious Objectors are much the same. +In each case he imagines a lay figure rather than a human being. He +may hate his lay figure or he may like it; but, if he is in search of +truth, he had better throw the thing out of the window and try to +think about a human being instead. I do not wish to deny the +importance of generalisations. It is not possible to think or even to +act without them. The generalisation that is founded on a knowledge of +and a delight in the variety of things is the end of all science and +poetry. Keats said that he sought the principle of beauty in all +things, and poems are in a sense simply beautiful generalisations. +They subject the unclassified and chaotic facts of life to the order +of beauty. The mystic, meditating on the One and the Many, is also in +pursuit of a generalisation--the perfect generalisation of the +universe. And what is science but the attempt to arrange in a series +of generalisations the facts of what we are vain enough to call the +known world? To know the resemblances of things is even more important +than to know the differences of things. Indeed, if we are not +interested in the former, our pleasure in the latter is a mere +scrap-book pleasure. If we are not interested in the latter, on the +other hand, our sense of the former is apt to degenerate into +guesswork and assertion and empty phrases. Shakespeare is greater than +all the other poets because he, more than anybody else, knew how very +like human beings are to each other and because he, more than anybody +else, knew how very unlike human beings are to each other. He was +master of the particular as well as of the universal. How much poorer +the world would have been if he had not been so in regard not only to +human beings but to the very flowers--if he had not been able to tell +the difference between fennel and fumitory, between the violet and the +gillyflower! + + + + +IX + + + +THE INTELLECTUAL SIDE OF HORSE-RACING + + +Horse-racing--or, at least, betting--is one of the few crafts that are +looked down on by practically everybody who does not take part in it. +"It's a mug's game," people say. Even betting men talk like this. +There is a street called Mug's Row in a north of England town: it is +so called because the houses in it were built by a bookmaker. Whether +it was the bookmaker or his victims that gave the street its name I do +not know. To call a bookmaker a mug would seem to most people an abuse +of language. Yet the only bookmaker I have ever really known used to +confess himself a mug in the most penitent fashion. He was a mug, +however, not because he could not make money, but because he could not +keep it. The poor of his suburb, when in difficulties, he declared, +used always to come to him instead of going to the clergy, and he was +unable to refuse them. But then he was bitter against the clergy. As a +young man, he had been a Sunday school teacher, and so far as I could +gather, he might have gone on being a Sunday school teacher till the +present day if he had not suddenly been assailed with doubts one +Sabbath afternoon as he expounded the story of David and Goliath. +Whether it was that he looked on David as having taken an +unsportsmanlike advantage of the giant or whether he doubted that so +much could be done with such little stones, he did not make quite +clear. Anyhow, from that day on, he never believed in revealed +religion. He quarrelled with his clergyman. He broke the Sabbath. He +began to drink beer and to go to race-meetings. He rapidly rose from +the position of carpenter to that of bookmaker, and, were it not for +his infernal gift of charity, he would probably now be driving his own +car and be hall-marked with a Coalition title. Even as it was, he was +much more prosperous than any carpenter. Whenever he produced money, +it was in pocketfuls and handfuls. Strange that a bookmaker, who by +his trade must be accustomed to miracles, should find it difficult to +believe in David and Goliath. He was possibly a man who betted on +form, and on form Goliath should undoubtedly have won. David was an +outsider. He had no breeding. He would have been surprised if he could +have foreseen how his victory would rankle some thousands of years +later in the soul of an honest English bookmaker. + +It is, however, just these matters of form and breeding that raise +horse-racing and betting above the intellectual level of a game of +nap. Betting men who ignore these things are as unintellectual as the +average novelist. There are some, for instance, who shut their eyes +and bring down a pin or a pencil on a list of names of the horses, in +the hope that in this way they may discover a winner. No doubt they +may. It is perhaps as good a way as any other. But there is something +trivial in such methods. This is mere gambling for the sake of +excitement. There is no more fundamental brainwork in it than in a +game I saw being played in a railway carriage the other day, when a +man drew a handful of coins from his pocket and bet his friend +half-a-sovereign that there would be more heads than tails lying +uppermost. This is a game at which it is possible to lose five pounds +in two minutes. It is the sort of game to which a betting man will +resort when _in extremis_, but only then. The ruling passion is +strong, however. I have a friend who on one occasion went into retreat +in a Catholic monastery. Two well-known bookmakers had also gone into +temporary retreat for the good of their souls. My friend told me that +even during the religious services the bookmakers used to bet as to +which of the monks would stand up first at the conclusion of a prayer, +and that in the solemn hush of the worship he would suddenly hear a +hoarse whisper: "Two to one on Brownie"--a brother with hair of that +colour--and the answer: "I take you, Joe." I have even heard of men +betting as to which of two raindrops on a window-pane will reach the +bottom first. It is possible to bet on cats, rats or flies. Calvinists +do not bet, because they believe that everything that happens is a +certainty. The extreme betting man is no Calvinist, however. He +believes that most things are accidents, and the rest catastrophes. +Hence his philosophy is almost always that of Epicurus. To him every +day is a new day, at the end of which it is his aim to be able to say, +like Horace, _Vixi_, or, as the text ought perhaps to read, _Vici_. + +The intellectual betting man, on the other hand, has a position +somewhere between the extremes of Calvinism and Epicureanism. He +worships neither certainty nor chance. He reckons up probabilities. +When Mr Asquith picked out Spion Kop as the winner of the Derby, he +did so because he went about the business of selection not with a pin +or a pencil, but with one of the best brains in England. In the course +of his long conflicts with the House of Lords he had probably +interested himself somewhat profoundly in questions of heredity and +pedigree, and he was thus well equipped for an investigation into the +records of the parentage and grandparentage of the various Derby +horses. All that the ordinary casual better knows about Spion Kop is +that he is the son of Spearmint, which won the Derby in 1906. This, +however, would not alone make him an obviously better horse than +Orpheus, whose sire, Orby, won the Derby in 1907. The student of +breeding must be a feminist, who pays as much attention to the female +as to the male line. It was by the study of the female line that the +most cunning of the sporting journalists were able to eliminate +Tetratema from the list of probable winners. Tetratema, as son of the +Tetrarch, was excellently fathered for staying the mile-and-a-half +course at Epsom. More than this, as a writer in _The Sportsman_ +pointed out: "The Tetrarch himself is by Roi Herode, a fine stayer, +and his maternal grand-dam was by Hagioscope, who rarely failed to +transmit stamina." It is when we turn to Tetratema's mother, Scotch +Gift--or is it his grandmother something else?--apparently, that we +discover his hereditary vice. This mare our journalist exposed to +scathing and searching criticism, and concluded that "there can be +nothing unreasonable in the inference, based on the records of this +family, that the chances are against a Derby winner having descended +from the least distinguished of ... four sisters." Even so, however, +the writer a few sentences later abjures Calvinism, and denies that +there is anything certain in what he calls breeding problems. "It +seemed," he writes, "wildly improbable at one time that Flying Duchess +would produce a Derby winner, for I believe it is correct that two of +Galopin's elder brothers ran in a bus, and there were two others quite +useless So, on the face of it, the chances were against Galopin, the +youngest brother." I quote these passages as evidence of the immense +demand the serious pursuit of horse-racing puts on the intellect. The +betting man must be as well versed in precedents as a lawyer and in +genealogical trees as a historian. At school, I always found the +genealogical trees the most difficult and bewildering part of history. +Yet the genealogical tree of a king is a simple matter compared to +that of a horse. All you have to learn about a king is the names of +his relations: regarding a horse, however, you must know not only the +names but the character, staying power and domestic virtues of every +male and female with whom he is connected during several generations. +If a man spent as much labour in disentangling the cousinship of the +royal families of ancient Egypt, he would be venerated as a scholar in +five continents. Oxford and Cambridge would shower degrees on him. Sir +William Sutherland would get him a place on the Civil List. Hence it +seems to me that tipping the winners is not, as is too often regarded, +"anybody's job": it is work that should be undertaken only by men of +powerful mind. No man should be allowed to qualify as a tipster unless +he has taken a degree at one of the Universities. The ideal tipster +would at once be a great historian a great antiquary, a great +zoologist, a great mathematician, and a man of profound common-sense. +It is no accident that an ex-Prime Minister was one of the few +Englishmen to spot the winner of the Derby of 1920. Mr Asquith must +have gone patiently through all Spion Kop's relations, weighing up the +chances whether it was an accident or owing to the weather that such +an one fifteen years ago was beaten by a neck in a six-furlong race, +studying incidents in every one of their careers, seeing that none of +them had ever had a great-uncle a bus-horse, bringing out a table of +logarithms to decide difficult points.... We need not be surprised +that there are fewer great tipsters than great poets. Shakespeare +alone has given us a portrait of the perfect tipster--"looking before +and after ... in apprehension how like a god!" + +It is perhaps, however, when we leave questions of breeding and come +to those of form, that we realise most fully the amazing +intellectualism of the betting life. In the study of form we are faced +by problems that can be solved only by the higher algebra. Thus, if +Jehoshaphat, carrying 7 st., ran third to Jezebel, carrying 8 st. 4 +lb., in a mile race, and Jezebel, carrying 8 st. 4 lb., was beaten by +a neck by Woman and Wine, carrying 7 st. 9 lb., over a mile and a +quarter, and Woman and Wine, carrying 8 st. 1 lb., was beaten by Tom +Thumb, carrying 9 st. in a mile 120 yds., and Tom Thumb, carrying 9 +st. 7 lb., was beaten by Jehoshaphat over seven furlongs, we have to +calculate what chance Tom Thumb has of beating Jezebel in a race of a +mile and a half on a wet day. There are men to whom such calculations +may come easy. To Mr Asquith they are probably child's play. For +myself, I shrink from them and, if I were a betting man, would no +doubt in sheer desperation be driven back on the method of pin and +pencil. But it is obvious that the sincere betting man has to make +such calculations daily. Every morning the student of form finds his +sporting page full of such lists as the following:-- + + 0 0 0 CONCLUSIVE (7-5), Kroonstad-Conclusion. 8th of 9 to + Poltava (gave 17lb.) Gatwick May (6f) and 7th of 19 to + Orby's Pride (rec 4lb) Kempton May (5f). + + 3 3 3 RAPIERE (7-4), Sunder--Gourouli. Lost 3-4 length and 3 + lengths to Bantry (gave 2lb) and Marcia (rec 7lb) Newmarket + May (1m), GOLDEN GUINEA (gave 20lb) not in first 9. See + BLACK JESS. + + 0 0 4 ROYAL BLUE (7-0), Prince Palatine--China Blue. See + NORTHERN LIGHT. + + 0 2 0 BLACK JESS (6-11), Black Jester--Diving Bell. Not in + first 4 to St Corentin (gave 121b) Lingfield last week (7f). + Here Ap. (7f) lost 3 lengths to Victory Speech (rec 1lb), + RAPIERE (gave 13lb, favourite) ½ length off. + + 0 LLAMA (6-11), Isard II.--Laughing Mirror. Nowhere to + Silver Jug (gave 15lb) Newbury Ap. (7f). + +Is not a page of Thucydides simpler? Is Persius himself more succinct +or obscure? Our teachers used to apologise for teaching us Latin +grammar and mathematics by telling us that they were good mental +gymnastics. If education is only a matter of mental gymnastics, +however, I should recommend horse-racing as an ideal study for young +boys and girls. The sole objection to it is that it is so engrossing; +it might absorb the whole energies of the child. The safety of Latin +grammar lies in its dullness. No child is tempted by it into +forgetting that there are other duties in life besides mental +gymnastics. Horse-racing, on the other hand, comes into our lives with +the effect of a religious conversion. It is the greatest monopolist +among the pleasures. It affects men's conversation. It affects their +entire outlook. The betting man's is a dedicated life. Even books have +a new meaning for him. _The Ring and the Book_--it is his one and only +epic. And it is the most intellectual of epics. That is my point. + + + + +X + + + +WHY WE HATE INSECTS + + +It has been said that the characteristic sound of summer is the hum of +insects, as the characteristic sound of spring is the singing of +birds. It is all the more curious that the word "insect" conveys to us +an implication of ugliness. We think of spiders, of which many people +are more afraid than of Germans. We think of bugs and fleas, which +seem so indecent in their lives that they are made a jest by the +vulgar and the nice people do their best to avoid mentioning them. We +think of blackbeetles scurrying into safety as the kitchen light is +suddenly turned on--blackbeetles which (so we are told) in the first +place are not beetles, and in the second place are not black. There +are some women who will make a face at the mere name of any of these +creatures. Those of us who have never felt this repulsion--at least, +against spiders and blackbeetles--cannot but wonder how far it is +natural. Is it born in certain people, or is it acquired like the +old-fashioned habit of swooning and the fear of mice? The nearest I +have come to it is a feeling of disgust when I have seen a cat +retrieving a blackbeetle just about to escape under a wall and making +a dish of it. There are also certain crawling creatures which are so +notoriously the children of filth and so threatening in their touch +that we naturally shrink from them. Burns may make merry over a louse +crawling in a lady's hair, but few of us can regard its kind with +equanimity even on the backs of swine. Men of science deny that the +louse is actually engendered by dirt, but it undoubtedly thrives on +it. Our anger against the flea also arises from the fact that we +associate it with dirt. Donne once wrote a poem to a lady who had been +bitten by the same flea as himself, arguing that this was a good +reason why she should allow him to make love to her. It is, and was +bound to be, a dirty poem. Love, even of the wandering and polygynous +kind, does not express itself in such images. Only while under the +dominion of the youthful heresy of ugliness could a poet pretend that +it did. The flea, according to the authorities, is "remarkable for its +powers of leaping, and nearly cosmopolitan." Even so, it has found no +place in the heart or fancy of man. There have been men who were +indifferent to fleas, but there have been none who loved them, though +if my memory does not betray me there was a famous French prisoner +some years ago who beguiled the tedium of his cell by making a pet and +a performer of a flea. For the world at large, the flea represents +merely hateful irritation. Mr W.B. Yeats has introduced it into poetry +in this sense in an epigram addressed "to a poet who would have me +praise certain bad poets, imitators of his and of mine": + + You say as I have often given tongue + In praise of what another's said or sung, + 'Twere politic to do the like by these, + But where's the wild dog that has praised his fleas? + +When we think of the sufferings of human beings and animals at the +hands--if that is the right word--of insects, we feel that it is +pardonable enough to make faces at creatures so inconsiderate. But +what strikes one as remarkable is that the insects that do man most +harm are not those that horrify him most. A lady who will sit bravely +while a wasp hangs in the air and inspects first her right and then +her left temple will run a mile from a harmless spider. Another will +remain collected (though murderous) in presence of a horse-fly, but +will shudder at sight of a moth that is innocent of blood. Our fears, +it is evident, do not march in all respects with our sense of physical +danger. There are insects that make us feel that we are in presence of +the uncanny. Many of us have this feeling about moths. Moths are the +ghosts of the insect world. It may be the manner in which they flutter +in unheralded out of the night that terrifies us. They seem to tap +against our lighted windows as though the outer darkness had a message +for us. And their persistence helps to terrify. They are more +troublesome than a subject nation. They are more importunate than the +importunate widow. But they are most terrifying of all if one suddenly +sees their eyes blazing crimson as they catch the light. One thinks of +nocturnal rites in an African forest temple and of terrible jewels +blazing in the head of an evil goddess--jewels to be stolen, we +realise, by a foolish white man, thereafter to be the object of a +vendetta in a sensational novel. One feels that one's hair would be +justified in standing on end, only that hair does not do such things. +The sight of a moth's eye is, I fancy, a rare one for most people. It +is a sight one can no more forget than a house on fire. Our feelings +towards moths being what they are, it is all the more surprising that +superstition should connect the moth so much less than the butterfly +with the world of the dead. Who save a cabbage-grower has any feeling +against butterflies? And yet in folk-lore it is to the butterfly +rather than to the moth that is assigned the ghostly part. In Ireland +they have a legend about a priest who had not believed that men had +souls, but, on being converted, announced that a living thing would be +seen soaring up from his body when he died--in proof that his earlier +scepticism had been wrong. Sure enough, when he lay dead, a beautiful +creature "with four snow-white wings" rose from his body and fluttered +round his head. "And this," we are told, "was the first butterfly that +was ever seen in Ireland; and now all men know that the butterflies +are the souls of the dead waiting for the moment when they may enter +Purgatory." In the Solomon Islands, they say, it used to be the +custom, when a man was about to die, for him to announce that he was +about to transmigrate into a butterfly or some other creature. The +members of his family, on meeting a butterfly afterwards, would +exclaim: "This is papa," and offer him a coco-nut. The members of an +English family in like circumstances would probably say: "Have a +banana." In certain tribes of Assam the dead are believed to return in +the shape of butterflies or house-flies, and for this reason no one +will kill them. On the other hand, in Westphalia the butterfly plays +the part given to the scapegoat in other countries, and on St Peter's +Day, in February, it is publicly expelled with rhyme and ritual. +Elsewhere, as in Samoa--I do not know where I found all these +facts--probably in _The Golden Bough_--the butterfly has been feared +as a god, and to catch a butterfly was to run the risk of being struck +dead. The moth, for all I know, may be the centre of as many legends +but I have not met them. It may be, however, that in many of the +legends the moth and the butterfly are not very clearly distinguished. +To most of us it seems easy enough to distinguish between them; the +English butterfly can always be known, for instance, by his clubbed +horns. But this distinction does not hold with regard to the entire +world of butterflies--a world so populous and varied that thirteen +thousand species have already been discovered, and entomologists hope +one day to classify twice as many more. Even in these islands, indeed, +most of us do not judge a moth chiefly by its lack of clubbed horns. +It is for us the thing that flies by night and eats holes in our +clothes. We are not even afraid of it in all circumstances. Our terror +is an indoors terror. We are on good terms with it in poetry, and play +with the thought of + + The desire of the moth for the star. + +We remember that it is for the moths that the pallid jasmine smells so +sweetly by night. There is no shudder in our minds when we read: + + And when white moths were on the wing, + And moth-like stars were flickering out, + I dropped the berry in a stream, + And caught a little silver trout. + +No man has ever sung of spiders or earwigs or any other of our pet +antipathies among the insects like that. The moth is the only one of +the insects that fascinates us with both its beauty and its terror. + +I doubt if there have ever been greater hordes of insects in this +country than during the past spring. It is the only complaint one has +to make against the sun. He is a desperate breeder of insects. And he +breeds them not in families like a Christian but in plagues. The +thought of the insects alone keeps us from envying the tropics their +blue skies and hot suns. Better the North Pole than a plague of +locusts. We fear the tarantula and have no love for the tse-tse fly. +The insects of our own climate are bad enough in all conscience. The +grasshopper, they say, is a murderer, and, though the earwig is a +perfect mother, other insects, such as the burying-beetle, have the +reputation of parricides, But, dangerous or not, the insects are for +the most part teasers and destroyers. The greenfly makes its colonies +in the rose, a purple fellow swarms under the leaves of the apples, +and another scoundrel, black as the night, swarms over the beans. +There are scarcely more diseases in the human body than there are +kinds of insects in a single fruit tree. The apple that is rotten +before it is ripe is an insect's victim, and, if the plums fall green +and untimely in scores upon the ground, once more it is an insect that +has been at work among them. Talk about German spies! Had German spies +gone to the insect world for a lesson, they might not have been the +inefficient bunglers they showed themselves to be. At the same time, +most of us hate spies and insects for the same reason. We regard them +as noxious creatures intruding where they have no right to be, preying +upon us and giving us nothing but evil in return. Hence our +ruthlessness. We say: "Vermin," and destroy them. To regard a human +being as an insect is always the first step in treating him without +remorse. It is a perilous attitude and in general is more likely to +beget crime than justice. There has never, I believe, been an empire +built in which, at some stage or other, a massacre of children among a +revolting population has not been excused on the ground that "nits +make lice." "Swat that Bolshevik," no doubt, seems to many +reactionaries as sanitary a counsel as "Swat that fly." Even in regard +to flies, however, most of us can only swat with scruple. Hate flies +as we may, and wish them in perdition as we may, we could not slowly +pull them to pieces, wing after wing and leg after leg, as thoughtless +children are said to do. Many of us cannot endure to see them slowly +done to death on those long strips of sticky paper on which the flies +drag their legs and their lives out--as it seems to me, a vile +cruelty. A distinguished novelist has said that to watch flies trying +to tug their legs off the paper one after another till they are twice +their natural length is one of his favourite amusements. I have never +found any difficulty in believing it of him. It is an odd fact that +considerateness, if not actually kindness, to flies has been made one +of the tests of gentleness in popular speech. How often has one heard +it said in praise of a dead man: "He wouldn't have hurt a fly!" As for +those who do hurt flies, we pillory them in history. We have never +forgotten the cruelty of Domitian. "At the beginning of his reign," +Suetonius tells us "he used to spend hours in seclusion every day, +doing nothing but catch flies and stab them with a keenly sharpened +stylus. Consequently, when someone once asked whether anyone was in +there with Cæsar, Vibius Crispus made the witty reply: 'Not even a +fly.'" And just as most of us are on the side of the fly against +Domitian, so are most of us on the side of the fly against the spider. +We pity the fly as (if the image is permissible) the underdog. One of +the most agonising of the minor dilemmas in which a too sensitive +humanitarian ever finds himself is whether he should destroy a +spider's web, and so, perhaps, starve the spider to death, or whether +he should leave the web, and so connive at the death of a multitude of +flies. I have long been content to leave Nature to her own ways in +such matters. I cannot say that I like her in all her processes, but I +am content to believe that this may be owing to my ignorance of some +of the facts of the case. There are, on the other hand, two acts of +destruction in Nature which leave me unprotesting and pleased. One of +these occurs when a thrush eats a snail, banging the shell repeatedly +against a stone. I have never thought of the incident from the snail's +point of view. I find myself listening to the tap-tap of the shell on +the stone as though it were music. I felt the same sort of mild thrill +of pleasure the other day when I found a beautiful spotted ladybird +squeezing itself between two apples and settling down to feed on some +kind of aphides that were eating into the fruit. The ladybird, the +butterfly, and the bee--who would put chains upon such creatures? +These are insects that must have been in Eden before the snake. +Beelzebub, the god of the other insects, had not yet any engendering +power on the earth in those days, when all the flowers were as strange +as insects and all the insects were as beautiful as flowers. + + + + +XI + + + +VIRTUE + + +There is grave danger of a revival of virtue in this country. There +are, I know, two kinds of virtue, and only one of them is a vice +Unfortunately, it is the latter a revival of which is threatened +to-day. This is the virtue of the virtuously indignant. It is virtue +that is not content merely to be virtuous to the glory of God. It has +no patience with the simple beauty and goodness of the saints. Virtue, +in the eyes of the virtuously indignant, is hardly worthy to be called +virtue unless it goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom it may +devour. Virtue, according to this view, is a detective, inquisitor, +and flagellator of the vices--especially of the vices that are so +unpopular that the mob may be easily persuaded to attack them. One of +the chief differences between the two kinds of virtue, I fancy, is +that while true virtue regards the mob-spirit as an enemy, simular +virtue (if we may adopt the Shakespearean phrase) looks to the mob as +its cousin and its ally. To be virtuous in the latter sense is +obviously as easy as hunting rats or cats. Virtue of this kind is +simply the eternal huntsman in man's breast with eyes aglint for a +victim. It is Mr Murdstone's virtue--the persecutor's virtue. It is +the virtue that warms the bosom of every man who is more furious with +his neighbour's sins than with his own. If virtue is merely an +inflammation against our neighbour's sins, what man on earth is so +mean as to be incapable of it? To be virtuous in this fashion is as +easy as lying. Those who abstain from it do so not out of lack of +heart, but from choice. We have read of the popularity of the +ducking-stool in former days for women taken in adultery. Savage mobs +may have thought that by putting their hearts into this amusement they +were making up to virtue for the long years of neglect to which, as +individuals, they had subjected her. They might not have been virtue's +lovers, but at least they could be virtue's bullies. After all, virtue +itself is no bad sport, when chasing, kicking, thumping, and yelling +are made the chief part of the game. Sending dogs coursing after a +hare is nothing to it. Man's enjoyment of the chase never rises to the +finest point of ecstasy save when his victim is a human being. Man's +inhumanity to man, says the poet, makes countless thousands mourn. But +think also of the countless thousands that it makes rejoice! We should +always remember that the Crucifixion was an exceedingly popular event, +and in no quarter more so than among the virtuously indignant. It +would probably never have taken place had it not been for the close +alliance between the virtuously indignant and the mob. + +To be fair to the virtuously indignant and the mob, they do not insist +beyond reason that their victim shall be a bad man. Good hunting may +be had even among the saints, and who does not enjoy the spectacle of +a citizen distinguished mainly for his unblemished character being +dragged down into the dust? We have no reason to believe that the +people who were burned during the Inquisition were worse than their +neighbours, yet the mob, we are told, used to gather enthusiastically +and dance round the flames. The destructive instincts of the mob are +such that in certain moods it is ready to destroy any kind of man, +just as the destructive instincts of a puppy are such that in certain +moods it is ready to destroy any sort of book--whether Smiles's +_Self-Help_ or _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ is a matter of perfect +indifference. The virtuously indignant maintain their power by +constantly inciting and feeding this appetite for destruction. Hence, +when we feel virtuously indignant, we would do well to inquire of +ourselves if that is the limit and Z of our virtue. Have we no sins of +our own to amend that we have all this time for barking and biting at +the vices of our neighbours? And if we must attack the sins of our +fellows, would it not be the more heroic course to begin with those we +are most tempted by, instead of those to which we have no mind? Do not +let the drunkard feel virtuous because he is able with an undivided +heart to denounce simony, and do not let the forger, who happens to be +a teetotaller because of the weakness of his stomach, be too +virtuously indignant at the red-nosed patron of the four-ale bar. Any +of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of +the vices that do not attract us. Most of us can boast than we have +never been cruel to a hippopotamus or had dealings with a succubus or +taken a bribe of a million pounds to betray a friend. On these points +we can look forward with perfect confidence to the scrutiny of the Day +of Judgment. I fear, however, the Recording Angel is likely to devote +such little space as he can afford to each of us to the vices we have +rather than to the vices we have not. Even Charles Peace would have +been acquitted if he had been accused of brawling in church instead of +murder. Hence it is to be hoped that passengers in railway trains will +not remain content with gloating down upon the unappetising sins of +which the forty-seven thousand are accused by Mr Pemberton Billing. +Steep and perilous is the ascent of virtue, and the British public may +well be grateful to Mr Billing and Mr Bottomley if they help it with +voice or outstretched hand to climb to the snowy summits. So far as +can be seen, however, all that Mr Billing and Mr Bottomley do is to +interrupt the British public in its upward climb and orate to it on +the monstrous vices of the Cities of the Plain. This may be an +agreeable diversion for weary men, but it obviously involves the +neglect of virtue, not the pursuit of it. Most people imagine that to +pursue vice is to pursue virtue. But the wisdom of the ages tells us +that the only thing to do to vice is to fly from it. Lot's wife was a +lady who looked round once too often to see what was happening to the +forty-seven thousand. Let Mr Billing and Mr Bottomley beware. Their +interest in the Cities of the Plain will turn them into pillars of +salt a thousand years before it turns them into pillars of society. + +As for virtue, then, how is it to be achieved? Merely by blackening +the rest of the world, we cannot hope to make ourselves white. Modern +writers tell us that we cannot make ourselves white even by blackening +ourselves. They denounce the sense of sin as a sin, and tell us that +there is nothing of which we should repent except repentance. We need +not stay to discuss this point. We know well enough that, so long as +the human intellect (to leave the human conscience out of the +question) survives, men will be burdened with the sense of +imperfection and think enviously of the nobility of Epaminondas or +Julius Cæsar or St Francis of Assisi. For we have to count even Julius +Cæsar among the virtuous, though the scandalmongers would not have it +so. His vices may have made him bald and brought about his +assassination. But he had the heroic virtues--courage and generosity +and freedom from vindictiveness. When we read how he wept at the death +of his great enemy, and how "from the man who brought him Pompey's +head he turned away with loathing, as from an assassin," we bow before +the nobility of his character and realise that he was something more +than a stern man and an adulterer. Pompey, too, had this gift of +virtue--this capacity for turning away from foul means of besting his +enemies. When he had captured Perpenna in Spain, the latter offered +him a magnificent story of a plot, the knowledge of which would have +put the lives of many leading Romans in his power. "Perpenna, who had +come into possession of the papers of Sertorius, offered," says +Plutarch, "to produce letters from the chief men of Rome, who had +desired to subvert the existing order and change the form of +government, and had therefore invited Sertorius into Italy. Pompey, +therefore, fearing that this might stir up greater wars than those now +ended, put Perpenna to death and burned the letters without even +reading them." It was hard on Perpenna, but in burning the letters at +least Pompey gave us an example of virtue. It is Plutarch's feeling +for the beauty of such noble actions that has made his biographies a +primer of virtue for all time. None of his heroes are primarily "good" +men. There is scarcely one of them who could have been canonised by +any Church. They have enough of the weaknesses of flesh and blood to +satisfy even the most exacting novelist of these days. On the other +hand, they nearly all had that capacity for grandeur of conduct which +distinguishes the noble man from the base. Plutarch never pretends +that mean and filthy motives and generous motives do not jostle one +another strangely in the same breast, but his portraits of great men +give us the feeling that we are in presence of men redeemed by their +virtues rather than utterly destroyed by their vices. Suetonius, on +the other hand, is the historian of the forty-seven thousand. His book +may be recommended as scandalmongering--hardly as an aid to virtue. +Here we have the servants' evidence of Roman history, the plots and +the secret vices. Suetonius, fortunately, has the grace not to write +as though in narrating his story of vice he were performing a virtuous +act. If we are to have stories of fashionable sinners, let us at least +have them naked and not dressed up in the language of outraged virtue. +Scandal is sufficiently entertaining by itself. There is no need to +lace it with self-righteousness. + + + + +XII + + + +JUNE + + +There is always a cuckoo that stays out later than the other +cuckoos.... + +Two goldfinches came and sang in the catalpa-tree in the garden.... + +It is difficult to decide with which sentence to begin. There are so +many pleasures. The goldfinches have not come back again, however. +They and the faint blue flowers of the catalpa turned a sinister +growth for an interval into a small Paradise of colour and song. Then +the flowers fell. They had no more life than snow in May. Coming as +they did at the end of years of barrenness, they astonished one like +the blossoming of the Rose of Sharon. But now the bough is dark and +sinister and melancholy again. Sparrows squabble over their love +affairs in it. The, cuckoo that stays out later than the other cuckoos +is the triumphant survivor. + +Not that there is much to be said even for him as a model of +continuance. His note will soon change. He will become hoarse and only +half-articulate. He will cease to be the flying echo of the mystery of +skies and wood at dawn and in the still evening. The disreputable bat, +whose little wings flutter half visibly like waves of heat rising +above a stove, will outlast him. + +There is no getting beyond the old image of things in general as a +stream that disappears. The flowers and the birds come in tides that +sweep over the world and in a moment are lost like a broken wave. The +lilacs filled with purple; laburnum followed, and in a few days all +the gold ebbed, and nothing was left but a drift of withered blossoms +on the ground; then came the acacia-flowers, white as the morning +among the cool green plumage of the tree, and now they, too, have been +turned into dirtiness and deserted foam. And in the hedges change has +been as swift, as merciless--change so imperceptible in what it is +doing, so manifest in what it has done. The white blossoms of the sloe +gave place to the foam of the hawthorn and the flat clusters of the +wayfaring-tree; now in its turn has come the flood of the +elder-flowers, a flood of commonness, and June on the roads would +hardly be beautiful were it not for the roses that settle, delicate +and fleeting as butterflies, on the long and crooked briers. Perhaps +one has not the right to say of any flower or any bird that it is not +beautiful Even elder-flowers, seen at a distance, can give +cheerfulness to a roadside. But, if we have to pick and choose among +flowers, there are many who will give the lowest prize to the flowers +that have been compared to umbrellas--elder-flowers, cow's parsley, +hemlock, and the rest. These are the plebeians of the hedges and +ditches. They have the air of something useful. One would imagine they +were intended to be cooked and eaten in cheap restaurants. We +experience no lifting of the heart at sight of them. We should be +surprised to hear the abrupt ecstasy of a wren issuing from among +their leaves. And yet it is hardly a week since, walking in a Sussex +lane, I saw a long procession of cow's parsley on the top of a high +bank silhouetted against the twilight sky. There seemed never to have +been more exquisite flowers. They had captured the silver of evening +as in a net. + +There are many flowers that seem ugly to an indifferent eye. Even the +red valerian, that sprouts so boldly in bushes of coral from the top +of the wall, is regarded by some people as a weed and an impudent +intruder. For myself, I love the spectacle of stone walls breaking out +into flower with red valerian and ivy-leaved toad-flax. The country +people have greeted these flowers with comic and friendly names. +Valerian they call "drunken sailor," and the ivy-leaved toad-flax that +blossoms in a thousand tiny blue butterflies from the stones has (so +prolific it is) been given the nickname of "mother of thousands." I +doubt, however, whether the country people have as many fanciful names +for the flowers as they are represented as having in the books. When +Mr W.H. Hudson first came on winter heliotrope in Cornwall, and was +attracted by its meadow-sweet smell at a season when there were few +other flowers, he was told by a countryman that it was called simply +"weed." Countrymen, if they are asked the name of a flower, will often +say that they do not know, but that they call it so-and-so. A small +boy who was gathering green-stuffs for his rabbits came up and walked +beside me the other day, and, on being shown some goose-grass, and +asked what name he knew it by, said: "I don't know its name; we calls +it 'cleavers.'" In my childhood, I never heard it called by any other +name than "robin-run-the-hedge," and under that name alone am I +attracted by it. "Cleavers" is too reminiscent of a butcher's yard or +of some dull tool. "Goose-grass" at least fills the imagination with +the picture of a bird. But "robin-run-the-hedge" is better, for it is +an image of wild adventure. It will be a pity if the tradition of +picturesque names for flowers is allowed to die. The kidney-vetch, a +long yellow claw of a flower that looks withered even at birth, may +not deserve a prettier name, but at least it is possible to give it an +ugly name with more interesting associations. "Staunch" is an older +name that reminds us that the flower was, a few generations ago, used +to staunch wounds. The other name, it is suggested, had its origin in +the supposed excellence of the plant in curing diseases of the kidney. + +But there seem to be no grounds for believing this. There are, +unfortunately, some beautiful flowers for which no beautiful or even +expressive name has ever been invented. Who is there who, coming on +the blue scabious on a hill near the sea, is not conscious of the +gross failure of the human race in never having found anything but +this name out of a dustbin for one of the most charming of flowers? +Matthew Arnold, appalled by some of the names of human beings that +still flourished in the days of Victoria, and may for all I know be +flourishing to-day, once hoped to turn us into Hellenists by declaring +that there was "no Wragg on the Ilissus." Was there no "scabious" on +the Ilissus either, I wonder? Were I a flower of the field, I should +prefer to be called "nose-bleed" or "sow-thistle." On the whole, +however, the plants have little to complain of in the matter of names. +The milkwort that has been scattering its fine, delicate colours among +the short grasses of the bare hills deserves its beautiful name, +"grace of God." We think of it as the sprigging of a divine mantle +cast over the June world. The greater plantain, that after the recent +rain has come out on the hills, with a ruff of purple feathers round +its brown cone, neither deserves nor possesses a name connoting +sacredness. It is interesting mainly as a plant that somehow became +associated with the voyages and travels of Englishmen, and is known in +America as "Englishman's foot," because, wherever the Englishman goes, +the plant follows him. + +The riot of the spring flowers is already passing, however. As we walk +along the path through the corn, we find the wild mustard, that a few +weeks ago made a steep field blaze like a precinct of the sun, already +withering into a mass of green pods; and the hay in the valley has +been cut down with all its crimson clover. The smell of the tossed +hay, as we pass, sends back the memory into an older world. How is it +that sweet smells do not please us so much for what they are as for +the things of which they remind us? At the smell of hay newly stacked +we cease to be our present age; we are in a world as distant as that +of Theocritus. There is no ambition in it, no tears or taxes, no men +and women pretending, nothing that is not happy. Every scent is sweet, +every sound is a laugh or a bird's song. Every man and woman and +animal we behold is more interesting than if they had come out of a +Noah's Ark. Smell has been described as the most sensual of the +senses. It may be so, but it is surely also the sense that is most +closely related to the memory. Old landscapes, old happinesses old +gardens, old people, come to life again--at times, almost unbearably +so--with the smell of wallflower or hay or the sea. It may be, +however, that this is not a universal experience. Some of us, no +doubt, live more in our memories than others: it is our doom. + +Even we, however, are sensualists of the open air, and the spectacle +of the wind foaming among the leaves of the oak and elm can easily +make us forget all but the present. The blue hills in the distance +when rain is about, the grey arras of wet that advances over the +plain, the whitethroat that sings or rather scolds above the hedge as +he dances on the wing, the tree-pipit--or is it another bird?--that +sinks down to the juniper-tip through a honey of music, a rough sea +seen in the distance, half shine, half scowl--any of these things may +easily cut us off from history and from hope and immure us in the +present hour. Or may they? Or do these things too not leave us +home-sick, discontented, gloomy--gloomy if it is only because we are +not nearly so gloomy as we ought to be? + + + + +XIII + + + +ON FEELING GAY + + +Gaiety has come back at least to parts of London. There never were +greater crowds of people eating with bottles at their sides in public +places. On the whole, however, there has been little down-heartedness +at the restaurants during the past four and a half years Even while +the housewife in the red-brick street was wasting her mornings in the +patient vigil of the queue, only to find at the end of it that there +was no butter, no lard, no tea, no jam, no golden syrup, no prunes, no +potatoes, no currants, no olive oil, or whatever it might be she +wanted most, the restaurants never shut their doors as the grocers' +shops and the confectioners' sometimes did. When rationing came, one +could eat the greater part of the week's beef allowance at a single +meal in the home, but in a restaurant one could get four excellent +meat meals--in some restaurants even eight excellent meals--in return +for a week's coupons. There were, no doubt, parts of the country in +which the housewife was hardly more restricted than the diner-out in +restaurants. Travellers came back from places in Dorsetshire, +Gloucestershire, and Scotland, as from Ireland, with gorgeous +narratives of areas in which the King's writ did not run so far as +coupons were concerned and beef was free if only you paid for it. But +in London, and especially in the Home Counties, there was no such +reign of liberty. The housewife went shopping, as it were, on +ticket-of-leave, and even the sleepiest suburbans began to realise +that the arrival of our daily bread is a daily miracle instead of the +commonplace it once seemed to be. Had Dr Faustus come back to life a +modern lady would have invoked the aid of his magic for some food less +romantic than grapes out of season: she would have been content with a +tin of golden syrup. As for butter, it is surprising that no one wrote +a sonnet to butter during the war. I have seen eyes positively moisten +with love at the sight of a small dish of it. Even from the +restaurants it seemed to vanish for a time, and some of them are still +doing their best to help one to deceive oneself with a curl of what is +called butter substitute. The restaurant, however, seem to be better +supplied than the home with the three great aids to gaiety--wine, jam +and currants. I confess I have never been able to understand why +currants should be generally regarded as one of the necessary +ingredients of perfect pleasure. But they unquestionably are The child +on a holiday will eat a bun with only three currants in it with three +times more pleasure than he will eat a frankly plain bun A suet +pudding without currants or raisins is prison fare, barren to the eye +and cheerless: let but an infrequent currant or raisin peep from the +mass and it is a pudding for a birthday. So universal is the passion +for currants as an aid to pleasure that during the past three weeks +the only matter that rivalled in general interest the question whether +the Kaiser was to be hanged was the question whether we should have +currants before Christmas. So profound is the disappointment of the +public at the non-arrival of the currants that explanations have been +put in the papers, calling on us to practise the sublime virtue of +self-sacrifice, happy in the knowledge that all the currants are +needed for invalid soldiers. But if the currants are needed for +soldiers, how comes it that we sometimes find them in the puddings in +restaurants? Those who are concerned for the preservation of home life +in this country cannot but be perturbed by the way in which in this +matter of currants the scales have been weighted in favour of the +restaurant and against the home. As for jam, the diner in the +restaurant rejoices in jam roll while the child in the home labours +its way through tapioca pudding. Is it any wonder if, as the +pessimists believe, the English home decays? + +Whether as a result of the jam roll or the rare currants in the +puddings, it has been unusually difficult to get a table at some of +the restaurants since the signing of the Armistice. No doubt the +signing of the Armistice itself had something to do with it. Christian +men, whenever anything epoch-making happens, must have something to +eat. Marriage, the return of a conquering hero, the visit of a great +statesman, the birth of Christ--we find in all these things a reason +for calling on the cooks to do their damnedest. Even the dyspeptic +forgets his doctor's orders in the general excitement and chases +oysters down the narrow stairway of his throat with thick soup, follow +thick soup with lobster, and lobster with turkey and turkey with a +savoury, and the savoury with a _pêche Melba_, and at the end of it +will not reject cheese and a banana, all of this accompanied with +streams of liquid in the form of wine coffee and brandy. I have often +wondered why a man should feel gay doing violence to his entrails in +this fashion. I have noticed again and again that he loses a little of +his gaiety if the dinner is served slowly enough to give him time to +think. The gay meal, like the farce, must be enacted quickly. The very +spectacle of waiters hurrying to and fro with an air of peril to the +dishes quickens the fancy, and the gastric juices flow to an anapæstic +measure. Who does not know what it is to sit through a slow meal and +digest in spondees? One is given time between the courses to turn +philosopher--to meditate becoming a hermit and dining on a bowl of +rice in a cave. Nothing can prevent one from there and then coming to +a decision on the matter save a waiter with the eye of a psychoanalyst +ready to rush forward at the first sadness of an eyelid and tempt one +either with a new dish or with a glass refilled. "Stay me with +flagons; comfort me with apples." It is a universal cry. Our desire is +for the banqueting-house. Perhaps it is not so much that we feel gay +as that we are afraid of feeling gloomy. We have no force within us +that will enable us to laugh over a lettuce and become wits on water. +There must be an element of riot in our eating and drinking if we are +to drive dull care away. That is the defence of cakes and ale. Cakes, +no doubt, are not what they used to be, and ale is even less so. But +human beings are symbolists, and, if you give them something that +looks like cakes and something that looks like beer, it is surprising +how content they will be. Our eating and drinking is but a game, and +we deceive ourselves at table like children among their toys. Even the +vegetarian lies his food into grandeur not its own. There is a +vegetarian restaurant in London in which one of the dishes on the bill +of fare bears the name "Like chicken." _Splendide mendax!_ + +One of the most amazing features in the appearance of London at the +present time is surely the absence of the signs of widespread +mourning. The windows of the shops are full of all the colours of the +parrot. The hats are as bright as a scrap-book. The confectioners' +shops are making a desperate effort to look as if nothing had +happened. The death of a single monarch would have darkened Christmas +in Regent Street more effectually than the million mournings of the +war. It is as though we were eager to conceal from ourselves the news +of this terrible disaster. After all, to judge by the crowds in the +streets, most people still remain alive. We have sworn we will never +forget those others, but one has only to read some of the election +speeches to see that with many of us our own greed and vindictiveness +are already ousting the ideals for which hundreds of thousands of men +gave up their lives. Can it be that we are feeling gay not only +because we have escaped from the disasters of the war but because we +are escaping from the ideals of the war? It is as though we had +returned from the barren snows of the mountain-tops to the cosy plenty +of the valleys. We are glad to exchange the stars as companions for +the nearer illuminations of the streets. The familiar world is coming +back, and civilian youths have begun once more to sing music-hall +choruses on the way home on the tops of buses:-- + + So I dillied, + And dallied, + And dallied, + And dillied; + But you can't trust a speshul + Like an old-time copper + When you can't find your way home. + +Peace had returned without question when nonsense of this venerable +kind sped into the air from the roof of a late bus. Well, we have +always wanted the world to be "as usual." We were angry with the +Germans for plunging us into the unusualness of war, and we feel +scarcely more friendly to those who would plunge us into the +unusualness of Utopia. We feel at home among neither horrors nor +ideals. We are glad at the prospect of having the old world back +rather than at having to make a new world. Lord Birkenhead, I observe, +declares that it would be an awful thing if the war had left us +unchanged, but we look in vain for signs of any deep change even in +the speeches of Lord Birkenhead. One noticeable change the war has +unquestionably made: more women smoke in the restaurants than +formerly. Sanguine people declare that other changes are impending; +but other people, equally sanguine, are doing their best to prevent +this. The human race is gradually feeling its way back to its +traditional division into those who desire a change and those who +desire to keep things as they are. The Christmas festival appeals to +both equally. It is at once an old custom and the prophecy of a new +earth. On such a day one can rejoice even without currants or the +League of Nations. The world is a good place. Let us eat, drink, and +be merry. + + + + +XIV + + + +IN THE TRAIN + + +It is said that travelling by train is to be made still more +uncomfortable. I doubt if there is a man of sufficient genius in the +Government to accomplish this. Are not the trains already merely +elongated buses without the racing instincts of the bus? Have they not +already learned to crawl past mile after mile of backyard and back +garden at such a snail's pace that we have come to know like an old +friend every disreputable garment hung out on the clothes-lines of a +score of suburbs? Do they not stand still at the most unreasonable +places with the obstinacy of an ass? Stations, the names of which used +to be an indistinguishable blur as we swept past them as on a +swallow's wing, have now become a part of the known world, and have as +much attention paid to them as though they were Paris or Vienna. +Equality has not yet been established among men, but it has been +established among stations. There never was such a democracy of +frightfulness. + +We seldom see a station which has about it the air of permanence. +There are, I believe good historical reasons why there are no Tudor +stations or Queen Anne stations to be found in the country. Still, I +know of no reason why so many stations should look as though they had +been built hurriedly to serve the needs of a month, like a travelling +show in a piece of waste ground. Not that the railway station has any +of the gaudy detail of the travelling show. It resembles it only in +its dusty and haphazard setting. It is more like a builder's or a +tombstone-maker's yard. The very letters in which the name of the +station is printed are often of a deliberate ugliness. No newspaper +would tolerate letters of such an ugliness in its headlines. They +stare at one vacuously, joylessly. It is said that the village of +Amberley is known to the natives as "Amberley, God help us!" How many +stations look at us from their name-plates with that "God help us!" +air! What I should like to see would be a name-plate that would seem +to announce to us in passing: "Glasgow, thank God!" or whatever the +name of the station may be. I have never yet discovered a merry +station. Here and there a station-master has done his best to make the +place attractive by planting geraniums in the form of letters to spell +the name of the place on a neighbouring embankment. But these things +remind one of the flowers on a grave. And the people who walk up and +down the platform, their noses cold in the wind, are hardly more +cheerful than undertakers' men. Even the porters in their green +trousers, who roll the milk-cans along the platform to the luggage-van +with an energy and a clatter that would satisfy the ambition of any +healthy child, do not look merry. There was one cheerful porter who +used to welcome you like a host, and make a jest as he clipped your +railway ticket--"Just to lighten your load, sir!"--but the Government +had him removed and put to mind gates at a crossing where he would not +be able to speak to the passengers. As a rule, however, nobody looks +as if he liked being in a railway station or would stop there if he +could go anywhere else. I trust the Ministry of Reconstruction will +see to it that the railway stations of the country are rebuilt and +vivified. One does not really wish to stop at any station at all +except one's own station. But if one has to do so, let the stations be +made more amusing. + +Unfortunately, it is not only the frequent stops that have made +railway travelling almost ideally uncomfortable. The Government seems +also to have hired a staff of workers to impregnate the seats of the +carriages with dust and to scatter all the dust that can be spared in +these exiguous days on the floors. They have also a gang of old and +wheezy gentlemen who travel up and down the line all day shutting the +windows. This work is sometimes deputed to women. They are forbidden +to say "May I?" or "Do you mind?" or to make use of any civil +expression that might mollify the traveller sitting by the window. It +is part of their instructions to reach past him with an air of +independence and to have the window shut and the book that he is +reading knocked out of his hand before he has time to see what has +happened. Some day someone will write a book about the alteration of +English manners that took place during the Great War. I believe the +alteration is largely due to these Government hirelings whose duty it +is to make railway travel a burden and never to say "Please" or "Thank +you." + +Even now, however, there are compensations. In the morning the shadows +are long, and, as one rattles north among the water-meadows, the +flying plumes of the engine leave a procession of melting silhouettes +on the fields to the west. Rooks oar their way towards their homes +with long twigs in their beaks. Horses go through the last days of +their kingship dragging ploughs and harrows over the fields with slow +and monotonous tread. Here a hill has been ploughed into a sea of +little brown waves. Further on a meadow is already bright with the +green of winter-sown corn. The country has never been so laboured +before. Chalk and sand and brown earth and red are all being turned up +and broken and bathed in the sun and wind. Adam has begun to delve +again. There is the urgency of life in fields long idle. It is not +that the fields have become populous. One sees many laboured fields, +but little labour. The occasional plough-horse, however, brings +strength into the stillness. How noble a figure of energy he makes! + +As for us who sit in the railway train, we do not look at him much. We +are all either reading papers or talking. Two old men, bearded and +greasy-coated, tramps of a bygone era, sit opposite one another and +neither read nor talk. One of them is blear-eyed and coughs, and has +an unclean moustache. All his friend ever says to him is: "Clean your +nose," making an impatient gesture. A young man in a bowler hat and +spectacles, who smokes a pipe in inward-drawn lips, discusses the +Labour situation with some acquaintances. "They would be all right," +he explains, "if it wasn't for the Labour leaders. You know what a +Labour leader is. He's a chap that never did an honest day's work in +his life. He finds it pays better to jaw than to work, and I don't +blame him. After all, it's human nature. Every man's out to do the +best for himself, isn't he?" "Your nose--blow your nose," mumbled the +tramp across the carriage. "Take Australia," continues the young man; +"they've had Labour Governments in Australia. What good did they do +for the working man? Did they satisfy him? Why, there were more +strikes in Australia under the Labour Government than there ever had +been before." "Did you hear that, Johnny?" I heard another voice +saying. "A tame rabbit was sold Sat'day in Guildford market for +twelve-and-sixpence!" "How did they know it was a tame one?" "Ah, now +you're asking!" A man looked up from _The Morning Post_ with interest +in his face. "Why," he said, "is a tame rabbit considered to be better +eating than a wild one?" It was explained to him that wild rabbits +were often kept for a long time after they were killed, and were +therefore regarded as more dangerous. Otherwise, the tame rabbit had +no point of superiority. "What do _you_ say, Johnny?" Johnny had a fat +face and no eyelashes, and wore a muffler instead of a collar. "I say, +give me a wild one." The man with _The Morning Post_ went on to talk +about rabbits and the price at which he had sold them. At intervals, +during everything he said, Johnny kept nodding and saying, with a +smile of relish: "Give me a wild one!" He said it even when the talk +had drifted altogether away from rabbits. He went on repeating it to +himself in lower tones, as though at last he had found a thought that +suited him. "Municipalisation means jobbery," said the young man with +the bowler hat; "look at the County Council tramways." "Give me a wild +one," said Johnny, in a dreamy whisper; "I say, give me a wild one." +"Why, it stands to reason, if you have a friend, and you see a chance +of shovin' him into a job at the public expense, you'll do it, won't +you?" said the young man, addressing the reader of _The Morning Post_, +who merely cleared his throat nervously in answer. "It's human +nature," said the young man. "Give me a wild one" whispered Johnny. +"I'm afraid there's going to be trouble in Ireland," the man with _The +Morning Post_ turned the subject. The young man was ready for him. +"There will always be trouble in Ireland," he said, with what the +novelists describe as a curl of his lip, "so long as Ireland exists." +The tramp continued to mumble about the condition of his friend's +nose, Johnny relapsed into silence, and the young man made the man +with _The Morning Post_ tremble by a horrible picture of what the +country would be like under a Labour Government. "It would be all +U.P.," he said firmly; "all up...." Who would travel in such days if +he could possibly avoid it? + + + + +XV + + + +THE MOST CURIOUS ANIMAL + + +Curiosity is the first of the sins. On the day on which Eve gave way +to her curiosity, man broke off his communion with the angels and +allied himself with the beasts. To-day we usually applaud curiosity; +we think of it as the alternative to stagnation. The tradition of +mankind, however, is against us. The fables never pretend that +curiosity is anything but an evil. Literature is full of tales of +forbidden rooms that cannot be peeped into without disaster. Fatima in +_Bluebeard_ escapes punishment, but her escape is narrow enough to +leave her a warning to the nursery. A version of the Pandora legend +imputes the state of mankind to the curiosity of one disastrous fool +who raised the lid of the sacred box, with the result that the +blessings intended for our race escaped and flew away. We have cursed +the inquisitive person through the centuries. We have instinctively +hated him to the point of persecution. The curious among mankind have +gone about their business at peril of their lives. It is probable that +Athens was a city as much given to curiosity as any city has ever +been, and yet the Athenians put Socrates to death on account of his +curiosity. He was accused of speculating about the heavens above and +inquiring into the earth beneath as well as of corrupting the youth +and making the worse appear the better reason. History may be read as +the story of the magnificent rearguard action fought during several +thousand years by dogma against curiosity. Dogma is always in the +majority and is therefore detestable, but it is also always beaten and +is therefore admirable. It rallies its forces afresh on some new field +in every generation. It fights with its back to the sunrise under a +banner of darkness, but even when we abominate it most we cannot but +marvel at its endurance. The odd thing is that man clings to dogma +from a sense of safety. He can hardly help feeling that he was never +so safe as he is in the present in possession of this little patch his +fathers have bequeathed to him. He felt quite safe without printed +books, without chloroform, without flying machines. He mocked at +Icarus as the last word in human folly. We say nowadays "as safe as +the Bank of England," but he felt safer without the Bank of England. +We are told that when the Bank was founded in 1694 its institution was +warmly opposed by all the dogmatic believers in things as they were. +But it is against curiosity about knowledge that men have fought most +stubbornly. Galileo was forbidden to be curious about the moon. One of +the most difficult things to establish is our right to be curious +about facts. The dogmatists offer to provide us with all the facts a +reasonable man can desire. If we persist in believing that there is a +world of facts yet undiscovered and that it is our duty to set out in +quest of it, in the eyes of the dogmatists we are scorned as heretics +and charlatans. Even at the present day, when the orthodoxies sit on +shaky thrones, dogma still opposes itself to curiosity at many points. +A great deal of the popular dislike of psychical research is due to +hatred of curiosity in a new direction. People who admit the existence +of a world of the dead commonly feel that none the less it ought to be +taboo to the too-curious intellect of man. They feel there is +something uncanny about spirits that makes it unsafe to approach them +with an inquisitive mind. I am not concerned either to attack or +defend Spiritualism. I merely suggest that a rational attack on +Spiritualism must be based on the insufficiency of the evidence put +forward in its behalf, not on the ground that the curiosity which goes +in search of such evidence is in itself wicked. + +It is odd to see how men who take sides with dogma give themselves the +airs of men who live for duty, while they regard the more curious +among their fellows as licentious, trifling, irreverent and +self-indulgent. The truth is, there is no greater luxury than dogma. +It puts an eminence under the most stupid. At the same time I am not +going to deny the pleasures of curiosity. We have only to see a cat +looking up the chimney or examining the nooks of a box-room or looking +over the edge of a trunk to see what is inside in order to realise +that this is a vice, if it is a vice, which we inherit from the +animals. We find a comparable curiosity in children and other simple +creatures. Servants will rummage through drawer after drawer of old, +dull letters out of idle curiosity. There are men who declare that no +woman could be trusted not to read a letter. We persuade ourselves +that man is a higher animal, above curiosity and a slave to his sense +of honour. But man, too, likes to spy upon his neighbours when he is +not indifferent to them. No scrupulous person of either sex would read +another person's letter surreptitiously. But that is not to say that +we do not want to know what is in the letter. We can hardly see a +parcel lying unopened in a hall without speculating on what it +contains. We should always feel happier if the owner of the parcel +indulged us to the point of opening it in our presence. I know a man +whose curiosity extends so far as to set him uncorking any +medicine-bottles he sees in a friend's house, sniffing at them, and +even sipping them to see what they taste like. "Oh, I have had that +one," he says, as he lingers over the bitter flavour of strychnine. +"Let me see," he reflects, as he sips another bottle, "there's nux +vomica in that." Half the interesting books of the world were written +by men who had just this sipping kind of curiosity. Curiosity was the +chief pleasure of Montaigne and of Boswell. We cannot read an early +book of science without finding signs of the pleasure of curiosity in +its pages. Theophrastus, we may be sure, was a happy man when he +wrote: + + "However, there is one question which applies to all + perfumes, namely, why it is that they appear to be sweetest + when they come from the wrist; so that perfumers apply the + scent to this part." + +To be curious about such matters would keep many a man entertained for +an evening. Some people are so much in love with their curiosity that +they object even to having it satisfied too quickly with an obvious +explanation. We have an instance of this in a pleasant anecdote about +Democritus, which Montaigne borrowed from Plutarch. Montaigne, who +substitutes figs for cucumbers in the story, relates: + + "Democritus, having eaten figs at his table that tasted of + honey, fell presently to consider within himself whence they + should derive this unusual sweetness; and to be satisfied in + it, was about to rise from the table to see the place whence + the figs had been gathered; which his maid observing, and + having understood the cause, she smilingly told him that he + need not trouble himself about that, for she had put them + into a vessel in which there had been honey. He was vexed + that she had thus deprived him of the occasion of this + inquisition and robbed his curiosity of matter to work upon. + 'Go thy way,' said he, 'thou hast done me wrong; but for all + that I will seek out the cause, as if it were natural'; and + would willingly have found out some true reason for a false + and imaginary effect." + +The novel-reader who becomes furious with someone for letting him into +the secret of the end of the story is of the same mind as Democritus. +"Go thy way," he says in effect, "thou hast done me wrong." The child +protests in the same way to a too-informative elder: "You weren't to +tell me!" He would like to wander in the garden paths of curiosity. He +has no wish to be led off hurriedly into the schoolroom of knowledge. +He instinctively loves to guess. He loves at least to guess at one +moment and to be told the next. + +The greater part of human curiosity has as little to be said for +it--or against it--as a child's whim. It is an affair of the senses, +and an extraordinarily innocent one. It is a vanity of the eye or ear. +It is another form of the hatred of being left out. So many human +beings do not like to miss things. We saw during Saturday's aeroplane +raid how far men and women will go rather than miss things. Thousands +of Londoners stood in the streets and at their windows and gazed at +what seemed to be the approach of one of the plagues of Egypt. No +plague of locusts ever came out of the sky with a greater air of the +will to destruction. It was as though the eastern sky were hung with +these monstrous insects, leisurely hovering over a people they meant +to destroy. They had the cupidity of hawks at one moment. At another +they had the innocence of a school of little fishes. Shell-smoke +opened out among them like a sponge thrown into the water. It swelled +into larger clouds monstrous in shape as the things doctors preserve +in bottles. But the plague did not rest. One saw a little black +aeroplane hurry across them, a mere water beetle of a thing, and one +wondered if a collision would send one of them to earth with broken +wings. But one did not really know whether this was the manoeuvre of +an enemy or the daring of a friend. There was never a more astonishing +spectacle. A desperate battle in the air would have been less of a +surprise. But that there should have been nobody to interfere with +them! ... Yes, it was certainly a curious sight, and London was +justified in putting its head out of its house, like a tortoise under +its shell, till the bombs began to fall. Still, the more often they +come the less curious we shall be about them. A few years ago we +gladly paid five shillings for the pleasure of seeing an aeroplane +float round a big field. There is a limit, however, to our curiosity +even about German aeroplanes. Speaking for myself, I may say my +curiosity is satisfied. I do not care if they never come again. + + + + +XVI + + + +THE OLD INDIFFERENCE + + +It was an old belief of the poets and the common people that nature +was sympathetic towards human beings at certain great crises. Comets +flared and the sun was darkened at the death of a great man. Even the +death of a friend was supposed to bow nature with despair; and Milton +in _Lycidas_ mourned the friend he had lost in what nowadays seems to +us the pasteboard hyperbole: + + The willows and the hazel copses green + Shall now no more be seen + Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. + +It may be contended that Milton was here speaking, not of nature, but +of his vision of nature; and certainly one cannot help reading one's +own joys and sorrows into the face of the earth. When the lover in +_Maud_ affirms: + + A livelier emerald twinkled in the grass, + +he states a fact. He utters a truth of the eye and heart. The wonder +of the world resides in him who sees it. The earth becomes a new place +to a man who has fallen in love or who has just returned to it from +the edge of the grave. It is as though he saw the flowers as a +stranger. Larks ascending make the planet a ball of music for him. He +may well begin to lie about nature, for he has seen it for the first +time. Experience is not long in warning him, however, that it is he +and not the world that has changed. He meets a funeral in the +midsummer of his happiness, and larks sing the same songs above the +fields whether it is the lover or the mourner that goes by. The +continuity of nature is not broken either for our gladness or our +grief. Mr Hardy frequently introduces the mournful drip of rain into +his picture of men and women unhappily mated. But the rain is not at +the beck and call of the unhappy. The unhappy would still be unhappy +though they were in a cherry orchard on the loveliest morning of the +year. The happy would still be happy though St Swithin's Day were +streaming in floods down the window-panes. Who does not know what it +is to be happy watching the rain-drops racing down the glass and +hearing the gutter chattering like a hedgeful of sparrows or tinkling +like a bell? Who is there, on the other hand, who has not found, and +been perplexed to find, the world going on its way in full song and +bloom on a day that has seemed to him to darken all human experience? +Burns's reproach to the indifferent earth has often been quoted as an +expression of this realisation that nature does not mind: + + How can ye sing, ye little birds, + And I sae weary, fu' o' care? + +Nature, we discover, passes us and our sorrows by. We are of little +account to the race of birds. We are of little account, for that +matter, to the race of men. The end of Hamlet is not the end even of a +kingdom. Fortinbras comes upon the scene, and life goes on. Our +mournings are only interruptions. The ranks of the procession close up +and little is changed. Even the funeral of a king is as a rule less an +occasion for grief than a spectacle for the curious. The crowd may +have filled the streets all night, but they did not forget to bring +their sandwiches and whisky-flasks with them. The theatres and the +tea-shops and the public-houses will be as full as ever the next day. +And for the death of a great author not even the sweet-shops will be +closed. The funeral ceremonies over the dead body of Herbert Spencer +drew a smaller crowd than would gather to see a dog that had been run +over in the street. + +We were never before so conscious of the indifference of Nature to +human tragedy as since the outbreak of the war. Here, one would think, +was a tragedy that all but threatened to crack the globe. One would +imagine that the sides of Nature must be in pain with it and the earth +in peril of being hurled out of her accustomed path round the sun. Yet +the sparrows in the Surrey valleys have not heard of it, and the +sea-birds know nothing of it, save that occasionally they are +bewildered to find a submarine rising from the waters instead of the +porpoise for whose presence they had hoped. It is said that the +pheasants in a Sussex wood awoke and screamed on Sunday night during +the barrage fire around London. But this was egotism on the part of +the pheasants. The pheasants of Wiltshire did not have their sleep +broken, and so were not troubled about the sufferings of Londoners. +Wordsworth assured Toussaint L'Ouverture: + + There's not a breathing of the common air + That will forget thee. + +He exaggerated. The common air is more perturbed in the year 1918 by +the passing of a single gnat than by the memory of Toussaint +L'Ouverture. On Sunday I walked along a quiet hill road within thirty +miles of London, and it seemed for an hour or two as though one were +as remote from the war as a man living a century hence. The catkins in +the hazels by the roadside were beautiful as falling rain: they hung +on the branches like notes of music. The country children see them as +lambs' tails, dangling in twos and threes in the gentle air. They have +been growing longer every day since Christmas and the red tips of the +female flowers have now begun to appear. In the hedge there are still +the remains of old man's beard that, in one light, looks like dirty +wool, but, with the sun shining on it, seems at a distance to be +hawthorn in the full glory of blossom. Every now and then a crooked +caterpillar of down is detached from it by the wind and sails off +vaguely over a field. A few weeks ago sparrows were singing choruses +as they gorged themselves upon it, but lately they have been scraping +their beaks busily on the bark of trees as though they had found more +satisfying dishes. At the lower end of the road there is a glow of +crimson among the sallows, which have begun to festoon their straight +rods with silver buds. Chaffinches are beginning to pipe more +solitarily to each other in the tall elms. A few weeks ago they +fluttered everywhere in companies, occupying now a hedge, now a road, +and now a tree. The naturalists tell us that these winter companies of +chaffinches are usually composed of birds of one sex only, the males +consorting together for the time as in a boys' school. The chaffinch, +I think, is the commonest bird in this part of the country. It is so +common that its loveliness has hardly been appreciated as it ought to +be. It is a little world of colour, like a small jay, and nothing +could be more beautiful than its flushed breast as it sits on the top +of a tall tree in the sunset. As for the jay, it hurries away like a +thief before one has time to see its coat of many colours. The jay, +like the cuckoo, is a bird with a guilty conscience. The wood here is +full of jays, uttering their one monotonous shriek, like the ripping +of a skirt. They scuttle among the trees at one's approach, showing +the white feather. Occasionally, however, they too will sit in a tree +and allow the sun to flush their cinnamon-coloured breasts. But we +shall see hundreds of them before we see a single one in the crested +and passive splendour of the jays in the picture-books. As a matter of +fact, nearly all the birds in the picture-books are guesses and +exaggerations. The birds, we discover before long, are a secret +kingdom into which it is given to few to enter. + +The whole of Nature, indeed, is curiously secretive. She does not tell +much about herself save to the importunate. Not many of us can speak +her language or have learned the password to her cave of treasure. She +thrusts upon our notice a few birds, a few insects, a few animals, a +few flowers. But for the most part there is no finding her population +without seeking for it. Hundreds of her flowers are hidden from the +lazy eye, and we may pass a lifetime without seeing so common a bird +as a tree-creeper or so common an animal as a shrew-mouse. How seldom +it is one sees even a rat! There are human beings who will never +discover an early flower, however many miles they cover in their +country walks. They take no pleasure in finding a wild-strawberry +flower in January or a campion blossom in the first week in February. +They are as indifferent to Nature as Nature is to them. The +honeysuckle that breaks out with leaves as with green flames; the +thrust of the leaves of the wild hyacinth under the trees, like the +return of youth; the flowering of the elm; the young moon like a white +bird with spread wings in the afternoon sky; the golden journey of +Orion and his dog across the heavens by night--these things, they +feel, are not interwoven with man's fate. They were before him, and +they will be after him. Therefore, he cares more for his little brick +house in the suburbs, which will at least be changed when he goes. I +do not suggest that anyone consciously adopts a philosophy of this +kind. But most of us are undoubtedly a little offended at some time in +our lives when we realise that Nature has so little regard for our +passions and our tears. She is a consoler, but it is on her own terms. +Matthew Arnold found the secret of life in becoming as resigned to +obedience as the stars and the tide. Who knows but, if we do this, +Nature may be found to care after all? But she does not care in the +way in which most of us want her to care. The religious discovered +that long ago. They found that Nature was guilty of neutrality in +human affairs if they did not go further and suspect her of enmity. It +is only when philosophy has been added to religion that men have been +able to reconcile without gloom the indifference of Nature with the +idea of the love of God. And even the religious and the philosophers +are puzzled by the spectacle of the worm that writhes on the garden +path while the robin pecks at it, triumphant in his fatness and +praising the fine weather. + + + + +XVII + + + +EGGS: AN EASTER HOMILY + + +Having decided to write on Easter, I took out a volume of _The +Encyclopædia Britannica_ in order to make up the subject of eggs, and +the first entry under "Egg" that met my eye was: + +"EGG, AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD (1816-1863), English painter, was born on the +2nd of May, 1816, in London, where his father carried on business as a +gun-maker." + +I wish I had known about Augustus five years ago. I should like to +have celebrated the centenary of an _egg_ somewhere else than in a +London tea-shop. Augustus Leopold Egg seems to have spent a life in +keeping with his name. He was taught drawing by Mr Sass, and in later +years was a devotee of amateur theatricals, making a memorable +appearance, as we should expect of an Egg, in a play called _Not so +Bad as We Seem_. He also appears to have devoted a great part of his +life to painting bad eggs, if we may judge by the titles of his most +famous pictures--_Buckingham Rebuffed, Queen Elizabeth discovers she +is no longer young, Peter the Great sees Catherine for the First +Time_, and _Past and Present, a Triple Picture of a Faithless Wife_. +She was a lady, no doubt, who could not submit to the marriage yolk. +Anyhow, she had a great fall, and Augustus did his best to put her +together again. "Egg," the _Encyclopædia_ tells us finally, "was +rather below the middle height, with dark hair and a handsome, +well-formed face." He seems to have been a man, take him for all in +all: we shall not look upon his like again. + +Even so, Augustus was not the only Egg. He was certainly not the egg +in search of which I opened the _Encyclopædia_. The egg I was looking +for was the Easter egg, and it seemed to be the only egg that was not +mentioned. There were birds' eggs, and reptiles' eggs, and fishes' +eggs, and molluscs' eggs, and crustaceans' eggs, and insects' eggs, +and frogs' eggs, and Augustus Egg, and the eggs of the duck-billed +platypus, which is the only mammal (except the spiny ant-eater) whose +eggs are "provided with a large store of yolk, enclosed within a +shell, and extruded to undergo development apart from the maternal +tissues." I do not know whether it is evidence of the irrelevance of +the workings of the human mind or of our implacable greed of +knowledge, but within five minutes I was deep in the subject of eggs +in general, and had forgotten all about the Easter variety. I found +myself fascinated especially by the eggs of fishes. There are so many +of them that one was impressed as one is on being told the population +of London. "It has been calculated," says the writer of the article, +"that the number laid by the salmon is roughly about 1000 to every +pound weight of the fish, a 15-lb. salmon laying 15,000 eggs. The +sturgeon lays about 7,000,000; the herring 50,000; the turbot +14,311,000; the sole 134,000; the perch 280,000." This is the sort of +sentence I always read over to myself several times. And when I come +to "the turbot, 14,311,000," I pause, and try to picture to myself the +man who counted them. How does one count 14,311,000? How long does it +take? If one lay awake all night, trying to put oneself to sleep by +counting turbots' eggs instead of sheep, one would hardly have done +more than make a fair start by the time the maid came in to draw the +curtains and let in the sun on one's exhausted temples. A person like +myself, ignorant of mathematics, could not easily count more that +10,000 in an hour. This would mean that, even if one lay in bed for +ten hours, which one never does except on one's birthday, one would +have counted only 100,000 out of the 14,311,000 eggs by the time one +had to get up for breakfast. That would leave 14,211,000 still to be +counted At this point, most of us, I think, would give it up in +despair. After one horrible night's experience, we would jump into a +hot bath muttering: "Never again! Never again!" like a statesman who +can't think of anything to say, and send out for a quinine-and-iron +tonic. Our friends meeting us later in the day would say with concern: +"Hullo! you're looking rather cheap. What have you been doing?"; and +when we answered bitterly: "Counting turbots' eggs," they would hurry +off with an apprehensive look on their faces. The naturalist, it is +clear, must be capable of a persistence that is beyond the reach of +most of us. I calculate that, if he were able to work for 14 hours a +day, counting at the rate of 10,000 an hour, even then it would take +him 122-214 days to count the eggs of a single turbot. After that, it +would take a chartered accountant at least 122-214 days to check his +figures. One can gather from this some idea of the enormous industry +of men of science. For myself, I could more easily paint the Sistine +Madonna or compose a Tenth Symphony than be content to loose myself +into this universe of numbers. Pythagoras, I believe, discovered a +sort of philosophy in numbers, but even he did not count beyond seven. + +After the fishes, the reptiles seem fairly modest creatures. The +ordinary snake does not lay more than twenty or thirty eggs, and even +the python is content to stop at a hundred. The crocodile, though a +wicked animal, lays only twenty or thirty; the tortoise as few as two +or four; and the turtle does not exceed two hundred. But I am not +really interested in eggs--not, at least, in any eggs but birds' +eggs--or should not have been, if I had not read _The Encyclopædia +Britannica_. The sight of a fly's egg--if the fly lays an egg--fills +me with disgust--and frogs' eggs attract me only with the fascination +of repulsion. What one likes about the birds is that they lay such +pretty eggs. Even the duck lays a pretty egg The duck is a plain bird, +rather like a char-woman, but it lays an egg which is (or can be) as +lovely as an opal. The flavour, I agree, is not Christian, but, like +other eggs of which this can be said, it does for cooking. Hens' eggs +are less attractive in colour, but more varied. I have always thought +it one of the chief miseries of being a man that, when boiled eggs are +put on the table, one does not get first choice, and that all the +little brown eggs are taken by women and children before one's own +turn comes round. There is one sort of egg with a beautiful sunburnt +look that always reminds me of the seaside, and that I have not tasted +in a private house for above twenty years. To begin the day with such +an egg would put one in a good temper for a couple of hours. But +always one is fobbed off with a large white egg of demonstrative +uncomeliness. It may taste all right, but it does not look all right. +Food should appeal to the eye as well as to the palate, as everyone +recognises when the blancmange that has not set is brought to the +table. At the same time, there is one sort of white egg that is quite +delightful to look at. I do not know its parent, but I think it is a +black hen of the breed called Spanish. Not everything white in Nature +is beautiful. One dislikes instinctively white calves, white horses, +white elephants and white waistcoats. But the particular egg of which +I speak is one of the beautiful white things--like snow, or a breaking +wave, or teeth. So certain am I, however, that neither it nor the +little brown one will ever come my way, while there is a woman or a +child or a guest to prevent it, that when I am asked how I like the +eggs to be done I make it a point to say "poached" or "fried." It +gives me at least a chance of getting one of the sort of eggs I like +by accident. As for poached eggs, I agree. There are nine ways of +poaching eggs, and each of them is worse than the other. Still, there +is one good thing about poached eggs: one is never disappointed. One +accepts a poached egg like fate. There is no sitting on tenterhooks, +watching and waiting and wondering, as there is in regard to boiled +eggs. I admit that most of the difficulties associated with boiled +eggs could be got over by the use of egg-cosies--appurtenances of the +breakfast table that stirred me to the very depths of delight when I +first set eyes on them as a child. It was at a mothers' meeting, where +I was the only male present. Thousands of women sat round me, sewing +and knitting things for a church bazaar. Much might be written about +egg-cosies. Much might be said for and much against. They would be +effective, however only if it were regarded as a point of honour not +to look under the cosy before choosing the egg. And the sense of +honour, they say, is a purely masculine attribute. Children never had +it, and women have lost it. I do not know a single woman whom I would +trust not to look under an egg cosy--not, at least, unless she were +forbidden eggs by the doctor. In that case, any egg would seem +delicious, and she would seize the nearest, irrespective of class or +colour. + +This may not explain the connection between eggs and Easter. But then +neither does _The Encyclopædia Britannica_. I have looked up both the +article on eggs and the article on Easter, and in neither of them can +I find anything more relevant than such remarks as that "the eggs of +the lizard are always white or yellowish, and generally soft-shelled; +but the geckos and the green lizards lay hard-shelled eggs" or +"Gregory of Tours relates that in 577 there was a doubt about Easter." +In order to learn something about Easter eggs one has to turn to some +such work as _The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_, which tells us that +"the practice of presenting eggs to our friends at Easter is Magian or +Persian, and bears allusion to the mundane egg, for which Ormuzd and +Ahriman were to contend till the consummation of all things." The +advantage of reading _Tit-Bits_ is that one gets to know hundreds of +things like that. The advantage of not reading _Tit-Bits_ is that one +is so ignorant of them that a piece of information of this sort is as +fresh and unexpected as the morning's news every Easter Monday. Next +Easter, I feel sure, I shall look it up again. I shall have forgotten +all about the mundane egg, even if Ormuzd and Ahriman have not. I +shall be thinking more about my breakfast egg. What a piece of work is +a man! And yet many profound things might be said about eggs, mundane +or otherwise. I wish I could have thought of them. + + + + +XVIII + + + +ENTER THE SPRING + + +One would imagine from the way in which some people are talking that +this is an early spring. I do not think it is. The daffodils certainly +came before the swallows dared, but they came reluctantly and in less +generous profusion than usual--at least, in one county. As for the +swallow, it may have arrived by Saturday, but it has not arrived on +the day on which I am writing. "About the middle of March," says Mr +Coward, "the first swallows arrive," but I have met no one who has +seen one even in the first week in April. The sky seems empty without +them. This is, no doubt, an illusion. There are plenty of rooks and +pigeons, and there are always starlings desperately hustling from the +chimney-pot across to the plum-tree and back again. But the starling +is most interesting, not when he is in the air, but when he is at +rest--making queer noises in his effulgent, tight-fitting clothes, +sometimes like a baby in a cradle, sometimes like a girl trying to +whistle, always experimenting with sound rather than singing. One +looks forward to the swallows and martins and swifts because they +really do live the life of the air. The sky is their domain, and no +roof or tree or even telegraph wire. Till they arrive the air is an +all but stagnant pool. They transform it into a scene of whirlpools. +They do for the air what the hum of insects does for the garden. They +banish the stillness of winter and lead the year in the movements of a +remembered dance. Spring, however, awakens gradually, and does not +plunge precipitately into an orgy. First, the home birds sing, or +rather redouble their singing, for the wren and the robin hardly ever +left off. This, I think, must be an exceptional year for the chorus of +wrens. Last year the lane that leads to the station was at this time a +lane of chaffinches: this year it is a lane of wrens. Last year the +garden was a garden of thrushes: this year it is a garden of wrens. +That is possibly an exaggeration, but this little Tetrazzini among the +birds has never seemed to me to trill so dominantly and over so wide a +rule. As for the thrushes, I do not know what has happened to them. I +heard plenty of them on the outskirts of London in February, but here, +fifty miles from London, it is as though they were an exterminated +race. Whether gardeners or cats or some other epidemic is to blame, +the trees are silent of them. Even the blackbird is not too common +here this year, but then a country gardener regards a blackbird as a +Turk regards an Armenian. I wish thrushes and blackbirds could read, +so that one could put up a notice offering them sanctuary even at the +expense of one's gooseberries and strawberries. Strange that a +strawberry should appear more delightful to anyone than the song of a +blackbird! I know, I may say, the feeling of helpless rage that wells +up in the human breast at the sight of a blackbird stealing one's +strawberries. Thank God, I am not impervious to moral indignation. If +shouting "Stop thief!" could save the strawberries, my voice would be +for saving them. But I do not believe in capital punishment for petty +theft, and, anyhow, if I must lose either a song or a strawberry, I +had rather lose the strawberry. + +The larks luckily take to the fields and do not trust themselves near +either cats or gardeners. They do not always escape even in the +fields, and the dead bodies of some of them are served in a pudding in +a Fleet Street restaurant. But, on the whole, considering what a +dangerous neighbour man is, they escape fairly lightly. There is a +sort of "live and let live" truce between them and the human race. The +chaffinches, too--the greatest bird multitude there is, perhaps, after +the house-sparrows--are free enough to sing. They have been, during +the past week, sailing out on short voyages from the tops of trees, +like flycatchers, dancing in the air after their victims and then +returning to the spray. The green-finch--that beautiful-winged Mrs +Gummidge among birds--is also abundant, and slips down nervously every +now and then among the groundsel in the unweeded garden. I confess the +greenfinch has all my sympathy, but it rather bores me. What the deuce +is it worrying about? There is no poetry in its lamentation--only a +sort of habitual formula of a poor, lorn woman. If birds could read, I +think I should add to the notices I put up a little board containing +the words: + + "No bottles. + No hawkers, + No greenfinches." + +I should feel really sorry if they took any notice of my notice, but +it might convey a hint to them that it would be good policy on their +part to cheer up for at least five minutes in the day and that, in any +case, there is no need to say the same thing over and over again. +Every bird, it is true, says the same thing over and over again--at +any rate, more or less the same thing. Birds such as the robin and the +thrush vary their song as the chaffinch and the willow-wren do not. +But even the robin and the thrush have a recognisable pattern. +Fortunately, they are not always, like the greenfinch, thinking of the +old 'un and thinking out loud. + +The goldfinches have begun to fly about the garden again with their +little sequins of song, as someone has delightfully described their +music. They have their eyes, I hope, on the pear-tree--now as white as +an Alp--where they built and brought up a large family last year. The +cornflowers in the flower border are already in bud, and I am told +that this is the temptation to which goldfinches most easily yield. I +hope so, at any rate. I should have a garden blue with cornflowers, if +I were sure that this would entice the seven colours of the goldfinch +to make their home in it. Last Saturday, two lesser spotted +woodpeckers invaded the garden. One always imagines a woodpecker as a +bird of more substantial size, and it is surprising to see this little +creature, patterned on the back like something made in the Omega +workshop, no bigger than a sparrow, as it hastily visits apple and fig +tree and even wygelia. As it climbed the wygelia, indeed, a sparrow +stooped down from an upper branch to study it, and then advanced in +the direction of the woodpecker. The woodpecker lay back from the +trunk of the tree--lying on its back in the air, as it were, and +fluttering its wings while holding on with its claws--and seemed to +invite the sparrow to come on. I don't think the sparrow had ever seen +a woodpecker before. Its curiosity rather than its wrath was aroused +by the strange spectacle. It did not want to hurt the foreigner, but +only to look at him. After having looked its fill, it moved off to a +safer tree. Then the woodpecker, whose heart had no doubt been in its +boots for the past five minutes, also loosed its hold on the bark and +made off over the gate for a less exciting garden. + +Outside the garden the spring began on Good Friday. It came in with +the chiffchaff. For three years in succession I have heard the first +chiffchaff in exactly the same place--a clump of nut-trees on the top +of a high bank. At this time of year, too, before the leaves are out, +it is easy to see it. And there are few more charming birds to watch. +With its little beak as slender as a grass-seed, and its body moving +among the branches like a tiny shadow rather than flesh and bones, it +pauses again and again in the midst of its eating to take an upward +glance and utter its mite of music--as monotonous as a Thibetan's +praying wheel. Still lovelier is the willow-wren that follows it. It +is as though the chiffchaff were the first sketch of a willow-wren. +The willow-wren is the perfected work of art, with little shades of +green added and a voice that, small though its range is, is perhaps +the most exquisite that will fill the air till the nightingale +arrives. When I went out on Sunday morning, I prophesied that I would +hear the first willow-wren, and, though I heard only one in a +hill-side copse where the cowslips are just getting their bells ready, +the prophecy came true. Not that I am much of a prophet. I don't know +how often I have prophesied the arrival of the swallow. And, indeed, +it is the surprises in nature, rather than the things that one +foresees, that are the pleasantest--especially if one is easily +surprised, as I am. Whoever ceases to be surprised, for instance, by +the sight of a goldcrested wren? I heard its tiny pinpoint of voice +last Sunday afternoon when I was walking past a plantation where the +bullace was in flower, and, on looking into the trees, saw the little +thimble-sized creature making free with invisible insects--his beak is +hardly big enough to eat a visible one--and performing acrobatics like +a tit. One of the charms of the goldcrest is that he does not look on +a human being as a wild beast. The blackbird regards a man as a +policeman; the greenfinch bolts for it if you so much as look at him, +but the goldcrest feels as secure in your presence as if you were +behind bars in a cage in the Zoological Gardens. One could probably +make him jump if one went up to him and shouted suddenly into his ear, +or even by making a violent gesture. But his first instinct is not to +run. That, for a bird, is a considerable compliment. There can be +nothing more distressing to a man of strictly honourable intentions +than to have to creep about hedges furtively like a criminal in order +to get a good look at a bird. Why he should want to look at birds at +all it is difficult to explain. I suppose it is a sort of disease, +like going to the "movies" or doing exercises. All I know is that, if +you get it, you get it very badly. You would stop Shakespeare himself, +if he were reciting a new sonnet to you, and bid him be quiet and look +half-way up the elm where the nuthatch was beating away--up and down, +like a blacksmith--at a nut or something in a knob of the tree. St +Paul might be reading out to you the first draft of his Epistle to the +Romans; you would quite unscrupulously interrupt him with a "Hush, +man! There's a tree-creeper somewhere about. Listen, there he is! If +you keep quiet, perhaps we'll be able to see him." I assure you, it is +as bad as that. As for a man who takes out a noisy dog, or who whacks +at loose stones with his stick on the road, you would regard him as a +misbehaved and riotous person and would not call him your friend. +Everything has to be subordinated to the hope of catching sight of a +hypothetical bird--which you have probably seen dozens of times +already. Truly, there is no accounting for human vices. There is, +however, at least this to be said in favour of bird-watching, that it +is the pleasantest of the vices, that it is cheaper than golf, and +does not harden the arteries like tea-drinking. And after all, if one +is going to get excited at all, one may as well get excited about the +colours and songs of birds as about most things. + + + + +XIX + + + +THE DAREDEVIL BARBER + + +To roll over Niagara Falls in a barrel is an odd way of courting +death, but it seems that death must be courted somehow. Danger is more +attractive to many men than drink. They prefer gambling with their +lives to gambling with their money. They have the gambler's faith in +their lucky star. They are preoccupied with the vision of victory to +the exclusion of all timid thoughts. They have a dramatic sense that +sets them anticipatorily on a stage, bowing to the applause of the +multitude. It is the applause, I fancy, rather than the peril itself, +that entices them. The average boy who performs a deed of derring-do +performs it before his admiring fellows. Even in so small a thing as +ringing a bell and running away he likes to have spectators. Few boys +ring bells out of mischief when they are alone. Poor Mr Charles +Stephens, the "Daredevil Barber" of Bristol, who lost his life at +Niagara Falls in his six-foot barrel the other Sunday, made sure that +there would be plenty of witnesses of his adventure. Not only had he a +party of sightseers in motors along the road following the cask on its +perilous voyage but he had a cinematograph photographer ready to +immortalise the affair on a film. Two other persons, it is said, had +already accomplished a similar feat. One of them, a woman, "was just +about gone," according to a witness, "when we got her out of the +barrel." The other "was a used-up man for several weeks." This +however, did not deter the daredevil barber. Had he not already on one +occasion put his head into a lion's mouth? Had he not boxed in a +lion's den? Had he not stood up to men with rifles who shot lumps of +sugar from his head? It may seem an extraordinary way to behave in a +world in which there are so many reasonable opportunities for heroism, +but men are extraordinary creatures. There is no adventure so wild +that they will not embark on it. There are men who, if they took it +into their heads that there was one chance in a hundred of reaching +the moon by being precipitated into space in some kind of torpedo, +would volunteer for the adventure. They do these mad things alike for +trivial and noble ends. They love a stunt even (or especially) at the +risk of their lives. Half the aeroplane accidents are due to the fact +that many men prefer risk to safety. To do some things that other +people cannot do seems to them the only way of justifying their +existence. It is an initiation into aristocracy. Every man is the +rival of all other men, and he is not satisfied till he has beaten +them. If he is a great cricketer, or a great poet, or a Cabinet +Minister, or wins the Derby, his ambition as a rule is fulfilled and +he does not feel the need of jumping down Etna or hanging by his toes +from the Eiffel Tower in order to create a sensation. But if a man is +no use at either poetry or football, he must do something. Blondin +became a world-famous figure simply by walking along a tight-rope +along which neither Shakespeare nor Shelley could have walked. It may +be that they would have had no desire to walk along it, but in any +case Blondin was able to feel that he could beat the greatest of men +in at least one game. In his own business he stood above the Apostle +Paul and Michelangelo and Napoleon. He was a king and, even if you did +not envy him his trade, you had to envy him his throne. He was a man +you would have liked to meet at dinner, not for the sake of his +conversation, but for the sake of his uniqueness. One remembers how +one stood with heart in mouth as he set out with his balancing-pole in +his hand on his journey across the rope blindfolded and pretending to +stumble every ten yards. A single false step and he would have fallen +from the height of a tower to certain death, for there was no net to +catch him. Strange that one should have cared whether he fell or not! +But ninety-nine out of a hundred did care. We watched him as +breathlessly as though he were carrying the future of the world in his +hands. He knew that he was interesting us, engrossing us, and that was +his reward. It was a reward, no doubt, that could be measured in gold. +But it is more than greed of gold that sets men courting death in such +ways. The joy of being unique is at least as great as the joy of being +rich. And the surest way of becoming unique is to trail one's coat in +the presence of Death and challenge him to tread on the tail of it. + +Not that even the most daring seeker after uniqueness fails to take +numerous precautions for his safety. No man is mad enough to set out +along a tight-rope in hobnailed boots with out previous practice. No +woman who has not learned to swim has ever tried to swim the English +Channel from Dover to Cape Grisnez. Even the daredevil barber of +Bristol insured himself, so far as he could, against the perils of his +adventure. He had an oxygen tank in the barrel which would have kept +him alive for a time if the barrel had not been swept under the Falls, +and he had friends patrolling the waters to recover the barrel. Like +the schoolboy who takes risks, he did not feel that he was going to +get caught. "I have the greatest confidence," he said, "that I shall +come through all right." His previous escapes must have given him the +assurance that he was not born to die of danger. Not only had he +served through the war, but he had once plucked a woman from the +railway line when the express was so near that it tore her skirt. He +must have felt that one man at least could live in perfect safety in +the kingdom of danger. He was probably less nervous as he crept into +his barrel than a schoolgirl would be in getting into the boat on the +chute. He had we may be sure, his thrill, but was it the thrill of +being in peril or the thrill of being conspicuous? Some men, of +course, there are who love danger for danger's sake, and who would run +risks in an empty world. Men of this kind make good spies, and, in +their youth, good burglars. Theirs is the desire of the moth for the +star--or at any rate of the moth that feels it is different from every +other moth and can successfully dare the candle flame. To play with +fire and not to be consumed is a universal pleasure. The child passes +its finger through the gas-flame and glories in the sensation. It is +like playing a game of touch with danger. The triumph of escape gives +one a delicious moment. That is why many men invent dangers for +themselves. It is simply for the pleasure of escaping them. There are +boys who enjoy wrenching knockers off doors, not because knockers are +an interesting kind of bric-à -brac, but because there is just a chance +of being caught in the act by the police. I once knew a youth who had +a drawer filled with knockers. He felt as proud of them as a young +Indian would have been of an equal number of the scalps of his +enemies. They proved that he was a brave. Every man would like to be a +brave, though every man dare not. I confess I never had much ambition +to wrench knockers, but that may have been because I was perfectly +content with the world as it is without making it any more dangerous. +I often think that people who put their heads into lions' mouths do +not realise what a dangerous place the planet is without any +artificial stimulus. + +Did the daredevil barber of Bristol ever realise, I wonder, the danger +he was in every time he raised a fork with a piece of roast beef to +his lips? Either the beef might have choked him or it might have given +him ptomaine poisoning, or, if it failed of either of these, there are +at least half-a-dozen fatal diseases which vegetarians say are caused +by eating it. Even if we take for granted that there is little danger +in plain beef, are there not curries and sausages and pork-pies on +which a lover of risks may exercise his daring in the restaurants? I +know people who are afraid to eat fish on a Monday lest it may have +gone bad over the week-end. Others live in terror of mackerel and +herrings. I myself have always admired the gallantry of Londoners who +go into a chance restaurant and order lobster or curried prawns. Then +there are all the tinned foods, a spoil for heroes. I have known a +V.C. who was frightened of tinned salmon. And a man's food is not more +beset with perils than his drink. Even if he confines himself to +water, he is in danger at every sip. If the water is too hard, it may +deposit destruction in his arteries. If it is too soft, it may give +his child rickets. Or it may be populous with germs and give him +typhoid fever. If, on the other hand, he is dissatisfied with the +drink of the beasts and takes to beverages the use of which +distinguishes men from oxen, what a nightmare procession of potential +ills lies in wait for him! You may read an account of them in any +temperance tract. The very enumeration of them would drive a weak man +to water, if water itself were not suspect. But, alas, even to breathe +is to put oneself in danger. There are more germs in a bus than there +are stars in the firmament, and one cannot walk along the Strand +without all sorts of bacilli shooting their little arrows at one at +every breath. If men realised these things--truly realised them--they +would see that there is no need to go to the North Pole in order to +live dangerously. A walk from Charing Cross to St Paul's would then be +seen to be as rich in hairbreadth escapes as a voyage to an island of +head-hunters. The man who lives the most thrilling life I know is a +man who rarely stirs beyond his garden. Every time he is pricked by a +thorn or gets a little earth in his finger-nail, he rushes into the +house to bathe his hands in lysol and, for days afterwards, he keeps +feeling his jaw to see whether it is stiffening with the first signs +of tetanus. He lives in a condition of recurrent alarm. He gets more +frights in a week than an ordinary traveller could get in a year. I +have often advised him to give up gardening, seeing that he finds it +so exciting. I have come to the conclusion, however, that he enjoys +those half-hourly rushes to the lysol-bottle--the desperate game of +hide-and-seek with lockjaw. He needs no barrel to roll him over +Niagara in order to gaze into "the bright eyes of danger." He finds +all the danger he wants at the root of the meanest brussels sprout +that blows. + + + + +XX + + + +WEEDS: AN APPRECIATION + + +A weed, says the dictionary, is "any plant that is useless, +troublesome, noxious or grows where it is not wanted." The dictionary +also adds: "_colloq._, a cigar." We may omit for our present purpose +the harmless colloquialism, but the rest of the definition deserves to +be closely examined. Socrates, I imagine, could have found a number of +pointed questions to put to the dictionary maker. He might have begun +with two of the commonest weeds, the nettle and the dandelion. Having +got his opponent--and the opponents of Socrates were all of the same +mental build as Sherlock Holmes's Dr Watson--eagerly to admit that the +nettle was a weed, he would at once put the definition to the test. +"The story goes," he would say, quoting Mrs. Clark Nuttall's admirable +work, _Wild Flowers as They Grow_, "that the Roman soldiers brought +the most venomous of the stinging nettles to England to flagellate +themselves with when they were benumbed with the cold of this--to +them--terribly inclement isle. It is certain," he would add from the +same source, "that physicians at one time employed nettles to sting +paralysed limbs into vigour again, also to cure rheumatism. In view of +all this," he would ask, "does it not follow either that the nettle is +not a weed or that your definition of a weed is mistaken?" And his +opponent would be certain to answer: "It does follow, O Socrates." A +second opponent, however, would rashly take up the argument. He would +point out that even if the Romans had a mistaken notion that +nettle-stings were useful as a preventive of cold feet, and if our +superstitious ancestors made use of them to cure rheumatism, as our +superstitious contemporaries resort to bee-stings for the same +purpose, the nettle was at all times probably useless and is certainly +useless to-day. Socrates would turn to him with a quiet smile and ask: +"When we say that a plant is useless, do we mean merely that we as a +matter of fact make no use of it, or that it would be of no use even +if we did make use of it?" And the reply would leap out: "Undoubtedly +the latter, O Socrates." Socrates would then remember his Mrs. Nuttall +again, and refer to an old herbal which claimed that "excessive +corpulency may be reduced" by taking a few nettle-seeds daily. He +would admit that he had never made a trial of this cure, as he had no +desire to get rid of the corpulency with which the gods had seen fit +to endow him. He would claim, however, that the usefulness of the +nettle had been proved as an article of diet, that it was once a +favourite vegetable in Scotland, that it had helped to keep people +alive at the time of the Irish famine, and that even during the recent +war it had been recommended as an excellent substitute for spinach. +"May we not put it in this way," he would ask, "that you call a nettle +useless merely because you yourself do not make use of it?" "It seems +that you are right, O Socrates." "And would you call an aeroplane +useless, merely because you yourself have never made use of an +aeroplane? Or a pig useless, merely because you yourself do not eat +pork?" There would be a great wagging of heads among the opponents, +after which a third would pluck up courage to say: "But, surely, +Socrates, nettles as we know them to-day are simply noxious plants +that fulfil no function but to sting our children?" Socrates would +say, after a moment's pause: "That certainly is an argument that +deserves serious consideration. A weed, then, is to be condemned, you +think, not for its uselessness, but for its noxiousness?" This would +be agreed to. "Then," he would pursue his questions, "you would +probably call monkshood a weed, seeing that it has been the cause not +merely of pain but even of death itself to many children." His +opponent would grow angry at this, and exclaim: "Why, I cultivate +monkshood in my own garden. It is one of the most beautiful of the +flowers." Then there would be some wrangling as to whether ugliness +was the test of weeds, till Socrates would make it clear that this +would involve omitting speedwell and the scarlet pimpernel from the +list. Someone else would contend that the essence of a weed was its +troublesomeness, but Socrates would counter this by asking them +whether horseradish was not a far more troublesome thing in a garden +than foxgloves. "Oh," one of the disputants would cry in desperation, +"let us simply say that a weed is any plant that is not wanted in the +place where it is growing." "You would call groundsel a weed in the +garden of a man who does not keep a canary, but not a weed in the +garden of a man who does?" "I would." Socrates would burst out +laughing at this, and say: "It seems to me that a weed is more +difficult to define even than justice. I think we had better change +the subject and talk about the immortality of the soul." The only part +of the definition of a weed, indeed, that bears a moment's +investigation is contained in the three words: "_colloq._, a cigar." + +In my opinion, the safest course is to include among weeds all plants +that grow wild. It is also important to get rid of the notion that +weeds are necessarily evil things that should be exterminated like +rats. I remember some years ago seeing an appalling suggestion that +farmers should be compelled by law to clear their land of weeds. The +writer, if I remember correctly, even looked forward to the day when a +farmer would be fined if a daisy were found growing in one of his +fields. Utilitarianism of this kind terrifies the imagination. There +are some people who are aghast at the prospect of a world of +simplified spelling. But a world of simplified spelling would be +Arcadia itself compared to a world without wild flowers. According to +certain writers in _The Times_, however, we are faced with the +possibility of a world without wild flowers, even if the Board of +Agriculture takes no hand in the business. These writers tell us that +the reckless plucking of wild flowers has already led to a great +diminution in their numbers. Daffodils grow wild in many parts of +England, but, as soon as they appear, hordes of holiday-makers rush to +the scene and gather them in such numbers as to injure the life of the +plants. I am not enough of a botanist to know whether it is possible +in this way to discourage flowers that grow from bulbs. If it is, it +seems likely enough that, with the increasing popularity of country +walks, there will after a time be no daffodils or orchises left in +England. If one were sure of it, one would never pluck a bee-orchis +again. One does not know why one plucks it, except that the bee-shaped +flower is one of the most exquisite of Nature's toys, and one is +greedy of possessing it. Children try to catch butterflies for the +same reason. If it were possible to catch a sunset or a blue sea, no +doubt we should take them home with us, too. It may be that art is +only the transmuted instinct to seize and make our own all the +beautiful things we see. The collector of birds' eggs and the painter +are both collectors of a beauty that can be known only in hints and +fragments. Still, the painter is justified by the fact that his +borrowings actually add to the number of beautiful things. If the +collector of eggs and the gatherer of flowers can be shown to be +actually anti-social in their greed, we cannot be so enthusiastic +about them. I confess that on these matters I have an open mind. For +all I know, the discussion on wild flowers in _The Times_ may be +merely a scare. At the same time, it seems reasonable to believe that +if flowers that propagate themselves from seed were all gathered as +soon as they appeared, there would before long be no flowers left. I +notice that one suggestion has been made to the effect that +flower-lovers should provide themselves with seeds and should scatter +these in "likely places" during their country walks. I do not like +this plotting on Nature's behalf. Besides, it might lead to some +rather difficult situations. If this general seed-sowing became a +matter of principle, for instance, I should probably sow daisies on my +neighbour's tennis lawn, poppies and fumitory in his cornfield, and +dandelions in his meadow. It is not that I am devoted to the dandelion +as a flower, though it has been praised for its beauty, but at a later +stage a meadow of a million dandelion-clocks seems to me to be one of +the most beautiful of spectacles. But I would go further than this. I +should never see a hill-side cultivated without going out at night and +sowing it with the seeds of gorse and thistle. Not that I should bear +any ill-will to the farmer, but it is said that the diminution of +waste land, with its abundance of gorse and thistles, has led to a +great diminution in the number of linnets and goldfinches. The farmer, +perhaps, can do without linnets and goldfinches, but we who make our +living in other ways cannot. I should sow tares among his wheat, if +necessary, if I believed that tares would tempt a bearded tit or a +golden oriole. + +Still, I cannot easily persuade myself that a Society for the +Protection of Weeds is even now necessary. I have great faith in +weeds. If they are given a fair chance, I should back them against any +cultivated flower or vegetable I know. Anyone who has ever had a +garden knows that, while it is necessary to work hard to keep the +shepherd's purse and the chickweed and the dandelion and the wartwort +and the hawkweed and the valerian from growing, one has to take no +such pains in order to keep the lettuces and the potatoes from +growing. For myself, I should, in the vulgar phrase, back the +shepherd's purse against the lettuces every time. If the weeds in the +garden fail to make us radiantly happy, it is not because they are +weeds, but because they are the wrong weeds. Why not the ground-ivy +instead of the shepherd's purse, that lank intruder that not only is a +weed but looks like one? Why not bee-orchises for wartwort, and +gentians for chickweed? I have no fault to find with the foxgloves +under the apple-tree or with the ivy-leaved toad-flax that hangs with +its elfin flowers from every cranny in the wall. But I protest against +the dandelions and the superfluity of groundsel. I undertake that, if +rest-harrow and scabious and corn-cockle invade the garden, I shall +never use a hoe on them. More than this, if only the right weeds +settled in the garden, I should grow no other flowers. But shepherd's +purse! Compared with it, a cabbage is a posy for a bridesmaid, and +sprouting broccoli a bouquet for a prima donna. After all, one ought +to be allowed to choose the weeds for one's own garden. But then when +one chooses them, one no longer calls them weeds. The periwinkle, the +primrose and the mallow--we spare them with our tongue as with our +hoe. This, perhaps, suggests the only definition of a weed that is +possible. A weed is a plant we hoe up or, rather, that we try to hoe +up. A flower or a vegetable is a plant that the hoe deliberately +misses. But, in spite of the hoe, the weeds have it. They survive and +multiply like a subject race.... Well, perhaps better a weed than a +geranium. + + + + +XXI + + + +A JUROR IN WAITING + + +The train was crowded with jurymen. Every one of them was saying +something like "It's a disgrace," "It's a perfect scandal," "No other +nation would put up with it," and "Here we all are grumbling; and what +are we going to do about it? Nothing. That's the British way." They +were not complaining of any act of injustice perpetrated against a +prisoner. They were complaining of their own treatment. Fifty or sixty +of them had been summoned from the four ends of the county, and kept +packed away all day under a gallery at the back of the court, where +there was not even room for all of them to sit down, and where there +was certainly not room for all of them to breathe. It would have been +an easy thing for the Clerk of the Court to choose a dozen jurymen in +the first ten minutes of the day, and to dismiss the rest on their +business. He might, if necessary, have also picked a reserve jury, and +selected the jury for the next day's cases. The law revels in expense, +however and so a great number of middle-aged men were taken away for +two whole days from their businesses and compelled to sit in filthy +air and on benches that would not be endured in the gallery of a +theatre, with nothing to do but watch the backs of the heads of a +continuous procession of barristers and bigamists. + +Few jurors would have complained, I think if there had been any +rational excuse for detaining them. What they objected to so bitterly +was the fact that no use was made of them, and that they were kept +there for two days, though it must have been obvious to everyone that +the majority of them might as well he at home. It may be, however, +that there is some great purpose underlying the present system of +calling together a crowd of unnecessary jurymen. Perhaps it is a form +of compulsory education for middle-aged men. It shows them the machine +of the law in action, and enables them to some extent to say from +their own observation whether it is being worked in a fair and humane +or in a harsh and vindictive spirit. One cannot sit through one +criminal case after another at the Assizes without gaining a +considerable amount of material for forming a judgment on this matter. +The juror in waiting, as he sees a pregnant woman swooning in the dock +or a man with a high, pumpkin-shaped back to his head led off down the +dark stairs to five years' penal servitude, becomes a keen critic of +the British justice that may have been to him until then merely a +phrase. How does British justice emerge from the test? Well, it may be +that this judge was a particularly kind judge and that the policemen +of this county are particularly kindly policemen, but I confess that, +much as I detest other people's boasting, I came away with the +impression that the boast about British justice is justified. I do not +believe that it is by any means always justified in the mouths of +statesmen who use it as an excuse for their own injustice, and I would +not trust every judge or every jury to give a verdict free from +political bias in a case that involved political issues. But in the +ordinary case--"as between," in the words of the oath, "our sovereign +lord the King and the prisoner at the bar"--it seems to me, if my two +days' experience can be taken as typical, that British justice is not +only just but merciful. + +The evidence is, perhaps, insufficient, as, in most cases, the +sentences were deferred. But what pleased one was the general lack of +vindictiveness in the prosecution or in the police evidence. Hardly a +bigamist climbed into the dock--and there was an apparently endless +stream of them--to whom the local police did not give a glowing +certificate of character. The chief constable of the county went into +the witness-box to testify that one bigamist was "reliable," "a, good +worker," etc. "His general conduct," a policeman would say of another, +"as regards both the women, was good." The barristers, as was natural, +dwelt on the Army record of most of the men, and, even when a client +had pleaded guilty, would appeal to the judge to remember that he had +before him a man with a stainless past. "But wait, wait," the judge +would interrupt; "you know bigamy is a very serious offence." "I quite +agree with your lordship," counsel would reply nervously, "but I beg +of you to take into consideration that the prisoner was carried away +by his love for this woman--" This was where the judge always grew +indignant. He was a little man with big eyebrows, a big nose, a big +mouth, and white whiskers. His whiskers made him appear a little like +Matthew Arnold in a wig and scarlet, save that he did not look as if +he were sitting above the battle. "You tell me," he declared warmly, +"that he loved this woman, while he admits that he deceived her into +marrying him and falsely described himself in the marriage certificate +as a bachelor." Counsel would again nervously agree with his lordship +that his client had done wrong in deceiving the woman, but in three +sentences he would have found another way round to the portraiture of +the prisoner as all but a model for the young. Certainly, the great +increase in the offence of bigamy proves at least the hollowness of +all the talk about the growing indifference to the marriage tie. +Whatever we may think of bigamists--and there are black sheep in every +flock--the bigamist is manifestly a much-married man. He is a person, +I should say, with the bump of domesticity excessively developed. The +merely immoral man, as most of us know him, does not ask for the +sanction of the law for his immorality. He does not feel the want of +"a home from home," as the bigamist does. The increase in bigamy, it +seems clear enough, is largely due to the war, which not only gave men +opportunities for travel such as they had never had before, but +enabled them to travel in a uniform which was itself a passport to +many an impressionable female heart. Men had never been so much +admired before. Never had they had so wide a choice of female +acquaintances. "I am amazed," said Clive on a famous occasion, "at my +own moderation." Many a bigamist, as he stands in the dock in these +days of the cool fit, could conscientiously put forward the same plea. +But the most that any of them can say is that they thought the first +wife was dead or that she wanted to bring up the children Roman +Catholics. + +The first wife in one of the bigamy cases went into the witness-box, +and I saw what to me was an incredible sight--an Englishwoman of +thirty who could neither read nor write. Red-haired, tearful, weary, +she did not even know the months of the year. She said a telegram had +been sent to her husband saying she was dangerously ill in February. +"Was that this year or last year?" asked counsel. "I don't know, sir," +she said. "Come, come," said the judge, "you must know whether you +were suffering from a dangerous illness this year or last." "No, sir," +she replied shakily; "you see, sir, not bein' a scholar, I couldn't +'ardly tell, sir." Then a bright idea struck her. "My hospital papers +could tell the date, sir." She produced from her pocket a paper saying +that she had undergone an operation in a hospital in September 1919. +That was all that could be got out of her. The counsel on the other +side rose to cross-examine her about the dates. "You had an operation +in September, you say. Were you laid up at any other time during the +past two years?" "No, sir." "But you have sworn that you were ill in +February, when a telegram was sent to your husband?" "Yes, sir." "And +now you say that you weren't ill at any other time except in +September?" "No, sir." "So you weren't ill in February?" "Oh yes, sir; +I had the 'flu, sir." She was as obstinate about it all as the child +in _We are Seven_. But she kept assuring us that she was no scholar. +Her husband said that he had received a letter saying she was dead, +and, though he had lost it, he quoted it at length "as far as he could +remember it." It was a beautiful letter, expressing regret that he had +not been at the side of the deathbed, where, the writer was sure, +whatever faults had been on either side would have been forgiven. "You +never were dead?" the judge asked the woman. "No sir," she replied in +the same tone of _We are Seven_ seriousness. + +A girl was put in the dock, charged with having stolen a Post Office +savings bank book. A policeman, giving evidence, said: "Until the 6th +of December she was in the Wacks." "You say," said the judge, rather +bewildered by the good appearance of the girl, "that she was in the +workhouse!" "In the Wacks, my lord." "I think he means the Royal Air +Force," prosecuting counsel helped the judge out of his perplexity. +And the word "Wraf" went from mouth to mouth round the court. The girl +was guilty, but the judge told her that he was not going to send her +to prison. "I don't think it would do you any good, and I don't think +the interests of society call for it," he said. "What I'm going to do +is to bind you over to come up for judgment if called upon. Now, go +away home, and be a good girl, and, if you are, you won't hear +anything more about it. You have done a very disgraceful thing, but +you can live it down by good conduct in the future." There was another +thief, a boy of eighteen, who had been deserted by his mother at the +age of three, and whom the judge also told, though not in those words, +to go and sin no more. There was also a boy who had forged his +father's consent to his marriage, and he and his girl wife were +lectured like children and sent home to do better in future. As the +judge said to the boy: "This is not a thing you are likely to do +again." His wife, who was expecting a baby, had to be carried fainting +from the dock. Counsel could not bring himself to say that she was +expecting a baby. He said that she was "in a certain condition." The +modesty of the law is marvellous. One of the most interesting of the +prisoners was a little sleek-headed man accused of fraud, who kept +moving his head about like a tortoise's out of its shell. His head was +black and shining where it was not bald and shining. He had +gold-rimmed spectacles and a sallow face. He glided his hands over the +knobs on the front of the dock with a reptilian smoothness. He had +persuaded a number of tradesmen and hotel-keepers that he was an +English peer. He had even complained to one shopkeeper of the +smallness of a wallet, as he needed something larger to hold the +title-deeds relating to the peerage. In another case, a young man, +staying in a house, had stolen, along with other things, his hostess's +false teeth, her best dress and a great quantity of underclothing. A +parcel of clothing had been recovered from a second-hand shop and was +shown to the lady when in the witness-box. She took up one of the +garments and fingered it. "Well," said the prosecuting counsel, +encouragingly, "is that your best dress?" "Naoh," she said +melancholily, "that's me ypron." Then there was a young man who stole +a motor-bicycle by presenting a revolver at the head of the owner. He +denied that he had stolen it, and maintained that, after he had +apologised to the owner "for having treated him so abruptly," they had +become friendly and he had been told to take the bicycle away and pay +for it later. Alas! there is a limit to human credulity. Besides, the +young man had a crooked mouth. After two days in court, one begins to +believe that one can tell an honest man from a liar by looking at him. +Probably one is over-confident. + + + + +XXII + + + +THE THREE-HALFPENNY BIT + + +As a rule, there is nothing that offends us more than a new kind of +money. We felt humiliated in the early days of the war when we were no +longer paid in heavy little discs of gold, and had to accept paper +pounds and ten-shillingses. We even sneered at the design. We always +sneer at the design of new money or a new stamp. But we hated the +paper even more than the design. We could not believe it had any +value. We spent it as though it were paper. One would as soon have +thought of collecting old newspapers as of playing the miser with it. +That is probably the true secret of the fall in the value of money. +Economists explain it in other ways. But it seems likeliest that paper +money lost its value because we did not value it. Shopkeepers took +advantage of our foolish innocence, and the tailor demanded sums in +paper that he would never have dared to ask in gold. I doubt if the +habit of thrift will ever be restored till the gold currency comes +back. Gold is the only metal for which human beings have any lasting +respect. No one but a child would save up pennies. There is something +in gold--the colour, perhaps, reminding us of the sun, the god of our +ancestors--that puts us into the mood of worshippers. The children of +Israel found it impossible not to worship the golden calf. They have +gone on worshipping it ever since. Had the calf been of paper, they +would, I feel confident, have remained good Christians. + +The influence of hatred on the expenditure of money is seen in our +attitude to threepenny bits. Nine out of ten people feel sincerely +indignant when a threepenny bit is given to them in their change. The +shopkeeper who gives you two threepenny bits instead of a sixpence +knows this and, as he hands you the money, says apologetically: "Do +you mind?" You say: "Not at all," but you do. You know that they will +be a constant misery to you till you get rid of them. You know that if +you give one of them to a bus conductor, even if he is able to +restrain himself, he will feel like throwing you off the top of the +bus. When at length you spend one of them in a post office--one never +has the same scruples about Government institutions--you hurry out +with a guilty air, not having dared to look the lady at the counter in +the eye. In the nineteenth century, when people went to church, they +used to get rid of their threepenny bits at the collection. They at +once relieved themselves of a nuisance, and enjoyed the luxury of +flinging the gleam of silver on to the plate. Many a good Baptist has +trusted to his threepenny bit's being mistaken for a sixpence, by the +neighbours, at least--perhaps even by Heaven. He has a notion that the +widow's mite was a threepenny bit, and feels that his gift is in a +great tradition. + +The popular hatred of certain coins, however, goes back to a far +earlier date than the invention of the threepenny bit. Even gold, when +it was first introduced into the English coinage, was met with such a +storm of denunciation that it had to be withdrawn. This was in the +time of Henry III., who issued a golden penny to take the place of the +silver penny that had hitherto been the chief English coin. It was +only in the reign of Edward III. that gold coins became established in +England They may have helped to recommend themselves to the nation by +their intensely anti-French character. They bore the French arms, and +announced that King Edward was King of England and France. France is a +country lying close to the shores of England, and is of great +strategic importance to her. I do not know whether the copper coins +which first came into England in the time of Charles II. raised any +clamour of public protest. The nation, I fancy, was so relieved to get +back to cakes and ale that it was not inclined to be censorious about +the new halfpennies and farthings. In the old days, people had made +their own halfpennies and farthings by the simple process of cutting +pennies into halves and quarters. They also issued private coins on +the same principle on which we nowadays write cheques. Municipalities +and shopkeepers alike issued these tokens, or promises to pay, and +without them there would not have been sufficient currency for the +transaction of business. The copper coins of Charles II. were intended +to put a stop to this unofficial sort of money, but towards the end of +the eighteenth century there was such a scarcity of copper currency +that local shopkeepers and bankers defied the law and again began to +issue their own coins. I have in my possession what looks like a +George III. shilling, with the King's head on one side and, on the +other, inside a wreath of shamrocks, the inscription: "Bank Token, 10 +Pence Irish, 1813." It was turned up by the plough on a Staffordshire +farm a few years ago. Speaking of this reminds me that a separate +Irish coinage continued even after the Union of 1800. It was not till +1817 that English gold and silver became current in Ireland, and Irish +pennies and halfpennies were struck as late as the reign of George IV. +The Scottish coins came to an end more than a century earlier. The +name of one of them, however, the "bawbee," has survived in popular +humour. Some people say that the name is merely a corruption of +"baby," referring to the portrait of Queen Mary as an infant. It seems +to me as unlikely a derivation as could be imagined. + +Of all the English coins, the first appearance of which occasioned +popular anger, none had a worse reception than the two-shilling piece +which appeared in 1849. "This piece," says Miss G.B. Rawlings in +_Coins and How to Know Them_, a book rich in information, "was +unfavourably received, owing to the omission of 'Dei Gratia' after the +Queen's name, and was stigmatised as the godless or graceless florin." +The florin, however, so called after a Florentine coin, had come to +stay, but since 1851 it has been as godly in inscription as any of the +other money in one's pocket. The coin has survived, but hardly the +name. One can with an effort call a spade a spade, but who would think +of calling a florin a florin? The coin itself for a time bore the +inscription: "One Florin, Two Shillings," as though the name called +for translation. Since the introduction of the florin, there have been +many coins that aroused popular hatred. The four-shilling piece, +especially, that was struck in the year of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, +was received with a howl of execration. Men went about in constant +dread of argument with shopkeepers as to whether they had given them a +four-shilling or a five-shilling piece. In the interests of the +national good temper the coin ceased to be struck after 1890 +Englishmen, however, disliked the entire Jubilee coinage. They +disliked the Queen's portrait, and they disliked especially a sixpence +which could be easily gilded to look like a half-sovereign. The +sixpences were hurriedly withdrawn, but schoolboys continued to +treasure them in the belief that they were worth fabulous sums. Like +groats, the delight of one's childhood, they began to be desirable as +soon as they ceased to be common. When King Edward VII. came to the +throne, there was another outburst of hatred of new money. The chief +objection to it was that the King's effigy had been designed by a +German and had not even been designed well. It was at this time, +perhaps, when people began to hate the money in their pockets, that +the reign of modern extravagance began. To get rid of a sovereign +bearing a design by Herr Fuchs seemed a patriotic duty. Thrift and +pro-Germanism were indistinguishable. + +Much as men detest new sorts of money in their own country, however, +many of us take a childish pleasure on our first arrival in France in +handling strange and unfamiliar coins. One of the great pleasures of +travel is changing one's money. There is a certain lavishness about +the coinage of the Continent that appeals to our curiosity. Even in +getting a five-franc piece we never know whether it will bear the +emblem of a republic, a kingdom or an empire. Coins of Greece and +Italy jingle in our pocket with those of the impostor, Louis Napoleon, +and those of the wicked Leopold, King of the Belgians. In Switzerland +I remember even getting a Cretan coin, which I was humiliated by being +unable to pass at a post office. The postal official took down a huge +diagram containing pictures of all the European coins he was allowed +to accept. He studied Greek coins and, for all I know, Jugo-Slav +coins, but nowhere could he find the image of the coin I had proffered +him. Crete for him did not exist. He shook his head solemnly and +handed the coin back. Is there any situation in which a man feels +guiltier than when his money is thrust back on him as of no value? +This happens oftener, perhaps, in France than in any other country. +France has the reputation of being the country of bad money. The +reputation is, I believe, exaggerated, though I have known a Boulogne +tram conductor to refuse even a 50-centime piece as bad. I remember +vividly a warning given to me on this subject during my first visit to +France. I was sitting with a friend in an estaminet in a small village +in the north of France, when an English chauffeur insinuated himself +into the conversation. He was eager to give us advice about France and +the French. "I like the French," he said, "but you can't trust them. +Look out for bad money. They're terrors for bad money. I'd have been +done oftener myself, only that luckily I married a Frenchwoman. She's +in the ticket office at the Maison des Delits--you probably know the +name--it's a dancing-hall in Montmartre. Any time I get a bad 5 franc +piece, I pass it on to her, and she gets rid of it in the change to +some Froggie. My God, they _are_ dishonest! I wouldn't say a word +against the French, but just that one thing. They're dishonest--damned +dishonest." He sat back on the bench, a figure of insular rectitude +but of cosmopolitan broadmindedness. Is it not the perfect compromise? + + + + +XXIII + + + +THE MORALS OF BEANS + + +"Nine bean-rows will I have there," cries Mr Yeats in describing his +Utopia in _The Lake Isle of Innisfree_. I have only two. They run east +to west between the second-early potatoes and the red-currant bushes. +They are broad beans. They are in flower just now, and every flower is +a little black-and-white butterfly. That, however, is the good side of +the account. If you look closer at them, you will see that each of +them appears as if its head had been dipped into coal-dust. There is a +congregation of the blackest of all insects hiding in horrid +congestion among the leaves and flowers at the top. Compared to them, +the green-fly on the roses has almost charm. There is something slummy +and unwashed-looking about the black blight. These insects are as foul +as a stagnant pond. Though they have wings, they seem incapable of +flight. They are microbes of a larger growth--a disease and a +desecration. On the other hand, there is one good point about them: +they are very stupid. Instead of spreading themselves out along the +entire extent of the bean and so lessening their peril, they mass +themselves in hordes in the very tops of the plants as though they had +all some passionate taste for rocking in the wind like the baby on the +tree-top. This is what gives the gardener his opportunity. He has but +to walk along the rows, pinching off the top of each plant, and +filling his flat little basket (called, I believe, a trug) with them, +and lo, the beans are safe, and produce all the finer and fuller pods +as a result of their having been stunted. + +At this point the moral thrusts out its head. There are those who +believe that beans have no morals. To call a man "Old bean" gives him, +it is said, a pleasant feeling that he is something of a dog. Gilbert, +again, in _Patience_ has a reference to "a not-too-French French bean" +that suggests a ribald estimate of this family of plants. The broad +bean, on the other hand, seems to me to exude morality--not least, +when it parts with its head to save its life. There is no better +preacher in the vegetable garden. It is the very Chrysostom of the +gospel of frustration--the gospel that a great loss may be a great +gain--the gospel that through their repressions men may all the more +successfully achieve their ends. + +Nor is this gospel confined to the sect of the beans (which are by a +happy paradox both broad and evangelical). The apple-trees bear the +same message in their unpruned branches--unpruned owing to a long +absence from home during the winter. It is an amazing fact--I speak as +an amateur--but it is an amazing fact, if it is a fact, that an +apple-tree, if it is left to itself, will not grow apples. It has an +entirely selfish purpose in life. Its aim is to be a tree, living to +itself, producing a multitude of shoots and leaves. It succeeds in +living a rich and fruitful life only when the gardener has come with +the abhorred shears and lopped its branches till it must feel like a +frustrate thing. The fruit is the fruit of frustration. Were it not +for this frustration, it would ultimately return to a state of +wildness, and would become a crabbed and barren weed, fit only to be a +perch for birds. + +Thus, it seems to me, the broad bean and the apple-tree are persuasive +defenders of civilisation and of those concomitants of civilisation +morality and the arts. Heretics frequently arise, both in ethics and +in the arts, who say: "No more restraints! Give the bean its head." +There are psycho-analysts who appear to regard frustration as the one +serious evil in life, and the apostles of _vers libre_ denounce metre +and rhyme because these merely serve to frustrate the natural impulses +of the imagination. As a matter of fact, it is this very frustration +that gives poetry much of its depth and vehemence. Great genius +expresses itself, not in the freedom of formlessness, but in the +limitations of form. Shakespeare's passion turned instinctively to the +most frustrative of all poetic forms--that of the sonnet--in order to +express itself in perfection. It is, as a rule, those who have nothing +to say who wish to say it without the terrible frustrations of form. +Obviously, there is a golden mean in the arts as in all things, and +there comes a point at which form passes into formalism. Genius +requires just enough frustration to increase its vehemence, and so to +transmute nature into art. It is possible that some frustration of a +comparable kind is needed in order to transmute nature into morality, +and that the man who would, in Milton's phrase, make of his life a +poem must submit to commandments as difficult as those of metre or +rhyme. It is not merely the Christians and the Stoics who have +maintained this; Epicurus himself was a believer in virtue as a means +to happiness. This, indeed, is a commonplace written all over the face +of nature. There is no great happiness without opposition except for +children. The climber struggles with the hill, the rower with the +water, the digger with the earth. They are all men who live on the +understanding that the pleasures of difficulty are greater even than +the pleasures of ease. + +The biographies of famous men are prolific of examples that support +the theory of frustration. Homer, they say, was blind, and the legend +seems to suggest that his blindness, far from injuring, abetted his +genius. Tyrtæus, being physically unable to fight, became the poet of +fighting, and achieved more with his words than did most men with +their weapons. Demosthenes, again, was an orator frustrated by many +defects. Everyone knows the story of his wretched articulation and how +he shut himself up and practised speaking with pebbles in his mouth in +order to overcome it. Few of the great orators, indeed, seem to have +succeeded in oratory without difficulty. Neither Cicero nor Burke +spoke with the natural ease of many a young man in a Y.M.C.A. debating +society. And the great writers, like the great orators, have been, in +many instances, men doomed in some important respect to lead +frustrated lives. Mr Beerbohm recently said that he has never known a +man of genius whose life was not marred by some obvious defect. People +have talked for two thousand years of the desirability of _mens sana +in corpore sano_, but if everybody possessed this--possessed it from +birth and without effort--there would probably soon be a shortage of +genius. The sanity of genius is not the sanity of the healthy minded +athlete: it is the sanity of the human spirit struggling against +forces that threaten to frustrate it. The greatest love-poetry has not +been written by men who have found easy happiness in love. Donne's +poems are the poems of a frustrated lover. Keats's greatest poetry was +the fruit of unfulfilled love. Thus genius turns poverty into riches. +Few men of genius are enviable save in their genius. Beethoven, a +frustrate lover and ultimately a deaf musician, is a type of genius at +its most sublime. + +Charles Lamb, as we read the _Essays_, seems at times to be one of the +most enviable of men, but that is only because he is supremely +lovable. Who knows how much we owe to the defects of his life? Even +the impediment in his speech seems to have been one of the conditions +of his genius. He tells us that, if he had not stammered, he would +probably have been a clergyman, and, if he had been a clergyman, he +would hardly have been Elia. His life, too, was that of a tragic +bachelor--he whose writings breathe the finest spirit of fireside +comedy. There could be no better example of the truth that genius is, +as a rule, a response to apparently hostile limitations. + +On the whole, then, the common-sense attitude to life is, not to +deplore one's limitations, but to make the best of them. No man need +envy another his good fortune too bitterly. Good fortune has wasted as +many men as it has assisted. George Wyndham was one of the most +fortunate men of his time--strong, handsome, an athlete, an orator, a +statesman, a writer with a sense of style, popular, rich, and with +nine out of ten of the attributes that we envy most. Had achievement +come less easily to him, he might have been a greater man. There have +been ugly men who have been more enviable. There have been weedy men +who were more enviable. There have been poor men who were more +enviable. But the truth is, one does not know whom to envy. It is +probably wise to envy nobody. + +It would be foolish, however, to pretend that frustration is a +desirable thing in itself, apart from all other considerations. The +beans nod their heads to no such gospel. Frustration may easily reach +the point of destruction. One might frustrate one's broad beans +excessively by pulling them up by the roots or cutting them down to +within an inch of the ground. There must still be room left for the +life of the plant to find a new outlet. The beans do not preach a +sermon against liberty, but only against lawlessness. But, for all I +know, they may preach different gospels to different amateur +gardeners. Each of us finds in nature what he wishes to find. I +confess I myself am prejudiced in favour of sermons of a consoling +kind. It is consoling to think that, in a world of defects, a defect +often carries with it its own compensation--that strength, as the +preachers say, may be made perfect in weakness. But, when one looks +round and enumerates the miseries of human beings, one wonders how far +this is, after all, true except for men whose gifts are naturally +greater than hog, dog or devil can imperil. + + + + +XXIV + + + +ON SEEING A JOKE + + +Almost any man can make a joke, but it sometimes requires a clever man +to see one. It is said that a Scotsman "jokes wi' deeficulty." What we +really mean is that it is often difficult to see a Scotsman's jokes or +even to know whether he is joking or being serious. As a matter of +fact, the Scots are an unusually humorous race. They make jokes, +however, with the long faces of undertakers, and one is sometimes +afraid to laugh for fear of appearing frivolous on a solemn occasion. +I have in mind one brilliant Scottish professor who, whether he is +jocular or serious, invariably monologises in the tones of a man +condoling with a widow. He half-shuts his eyes and folds his hands, +and, for the first minute or two, takes an evil delight in leaving you +in doubt whether he is launching into a tragic narrative or whether he +will suddenly look up through his spectacles and expect to see you +laughing. His English friends are in a constant state of embarrassment +because they know that he is a humorist of genius, but his humour is +so subtle that they do not trust themselves to see the point when it +comes and laugh at the right place. Now, there are only two things +that can make the professor look sterner than he looks while giving +birth to a joke. One is, if you laugh too early: the other is, if the +great moment comes and you don't laugh at all. He makes no complaint, +but he sits back in his chair, looking like an embittered owl. And +everybody else in the room has a sense of ghastly failure--his own +failure, not the professor's. To miss seeing a joke is, in some +circumstances, far worse than to miss making the point of a joke +visible. If one were in the position of a Queen Victoria, one might, +of course, quench the professor by merely saying: "We are not amused." +But even Queen Victoria, when she said this, did not mean that she had +not seen the joke but that she had seen it and didn't like it. It is +not only the subtle and Scottish jokes, however, that are at times +difficult to see with the naked eye. There is also the joke that hits +you in the eye like a blow and blinds you. Captain Wedgwood Benn +referred to a joke of this kind in the House of Commons on the +authority of Mr Stephen Gwynn. A judge of the Irish High Court, he +related, was recently travelling on a tram which was held up by +Black-and-Tans. The Black-and-Tans, who, like the Most High, are no +respecters of persons, called on the judge to descend, using the +quaint colloquial formula: "Come down, you Irish bastard; put up your +hands." Captain Wedgwood Benn does not unfortunately possess a +twentieth-century sense of humour, and he did not see this particular +joke. The comedy of a judge's being addressed as an Irish bastard did +not strike him. I doubt if half-a-dozen members of the House of +Commons realised the beauty of the joke till Sir Hamar Greenwood got +up and explained it. "I happen to know the judge," said the twinkling +Chief Secretary. "He told the story himself with great glee, and here +it is. Mr Justice Wylie, the last, and one of the best judges +appointed in Ireland, was riding on a tramcar to a hunting meet. When +he got to the end of his ride, there were some policemen on duty, and +they did use a word which, I trust, no hon. Member of this House will +ever use in calling him down from the tram. They did him no harm. He +treated it as a joke, and he would be the man most surprised to find +it quoted in the House and in the _Observer_ as an example of the +decadence of the Irish police." I agree with Sir Hamar. A joke is a +joke, and many Irishmen, unlike Mr Justice Wylie, are unduly +thin-skinned. The only criticism I would make on Sir Hamar Greenwood's +idea of a joke is that he appears to suggest that it would have been +less funny if the Black-and-Tans had done the judge some harm. I +should have expected him rather to dilate on the attractions of life +in the Irish police force for men with a sense of humour. Suppose the +judge had been robbed of his watch, or had had his front teeth broken +with the muzzle of a revolver like the University Professor at Cork, +would not that have made the incident still funnier? Suppose he had +been carried round as a hostage on a motor-lorry, or shot with a +bucket over his head, as has happened to other innocent men, would it +not have been a theme for Aristophanes, who got so much fun out of the +idea of one person's being beaten in mistake for another? + +I am confident that distinguished Englishmen will behave in the spirit +of Mr Justice Wylie, when there is an outbreak of humour among the +English police. Mr Justice Darling will, no doubt, enjoy himself +hugely on the day on which an armed policeman first holds up his +motor-car, and addresses him: "'Ullo, you blasted old Bolshevik, come +off the perch, and quick about it, and put up the 'Idden 'And!" There +are some judges who would complain to the Home Office, if such a thing +happened to them. Mr Justice Darling, however, has a keen sense of +humour. I feel certain that on arriving in Court after his experiences +he would tell the story with great glee. He would turn up his face +sideways, as he does when he is amused, and say to the jury: "A most +amusing thing happened to me this morning, by the way ..." There is no +end, indeed, to the directions in which a police force saturated with +the Greenwoodian sense of fun might add to the gaiety of nations. They +might arm themselves with squirts, and laughing Cabinet ministers +would have to duck as they passed down Whitehall in order to avoid a +drenching. Pluffing peas at the bishops on their way to the House of +Lords would also be good sport, so long as they did not really hurt +any of them. To bash the Lord Chancellor's hat over his eyes would be +going too far, as it involves a money loss, but a harmless blow on the +crown with a bladder would be rather amusing. It would also be amusing +if a number of policemen were told off to greet Mr Lloyd George with +cries of "Welsh attorney," and to chaff him with genial scurrilities +on his arrival at the House. If these things happened, there are +killjoys, I know, who would immediately set up a clamour for the +restoration of discipline in the police force. Mr Lloyd George, +however, has always been a man who can not only make a joke but take +one, and I am sure that he at least would defend the democratic right +of the policeman to a bit of chaff. + +Nor would I confine the right of chaff to the police force. I would +make it universal. I should like to see it introduced into the Church +itself. Even the dullest sermon would become entertaining if the +verger had the right and the habit of interpolating such remarks as: +"Cheese it, Pussyfoot!" or "Ring off, you bleedin' old bore, ring +off!" There has been too little of this sort of popular raillery in +recent years. The bus-drivers used to be past masters at it, poking +their quiet fun impartially at their fellow-drivers and ordinary +citizens. Whether it is that the drivers of motor-buses realise that +no joke could be heard above the din, or whether it is that they feel +as ill-tempered as they look, their arrival has made fatal inroads on +the geniality of London. An artist with uncut hair can still awaken a +spark of the old wit if he goes down a back street, and women and +children will revive for his benefit the venerable witticism: "Get +your hair cut!" But, generally speaking, there has been a notable +decline in the humours of insult within living memory. The Germans, +always fond of a joke, made an effort to revive it during the war. It +was a common thing for them, we are told, on capturing a prisoner, to +address him as "Schweinhund" or "Verdammte Engländer," or by some +other good-humoured phrase of the same kind. I regret to say that some +Englishmen were so deficient in the sense of humour that, instead of +taking this in the spirit in which it was offered, they bitterly +resented it. I cannot, indeed, recall a single instance of an +Englishman who properly appreciated the joke of being called a +"Schweinhund" by a man he had never seen before. You will seek in vain +through the literature of prisoners of war for a returned soldier who +tells the story of the names he was called with the glee that it +deserves. And yet, no doubt, the Germans enjoyed the joke thoroughly, +and would have been surprised to find it quoted in the _Observer_ as +an example of the decadence of the German Army. + +Perhaps, however, the "Schweinhund" joke does not afford an entirely +fair comparison. It is a simple joke, whereas in the Greenwood joke +there are two elements. There is the element of insult, and there is +the element of mistaken identity. It is not merely that somebody or +other was called "You Irish bastard," but that the wrong person was +called "You Irish bastard." Thus, if a policeman addressed a woman in +Oxford Street in the words: "'Op it, you old bitch," it would be only +mildly funny, if the woman were a poor woman. But it would be +immensely funny if she turned out to be a marchioness. The +marchioness, no doubt, would be enchanted, and would tell the story +with great glee. If she were a sentimentalist, she might say to +herself: + + "Is this really the way in which ordinary human beings are + treated by the police? This is a hideous state of affairs in + which bullies in uniform are allowed to address foul insults + to whom they please. Thank heaven, it has happened to + someone like me. Now, I can tell the Home Secretary, and he + will put an end to the whole system." + +One never knows what a modern Home Secretary might do, but I doubt if +one could be found who would reply to the marchioness: "Well, he did +you no harm. You know, to me it all seems rather funny." And yet most +things have their funny side if you look on them in the right spirit. +It would have been a funny thing if the hangman had executed the wrong +prisoner instead of Crippen. The hanged man would not have seen the +joke, but impartial onlookers would have seen it, and Crippen would +have seen it. Similarly, if a drunken man threw a brick at his wife +and hit the missionary by mistake, who could help laughing? Even the +wife, if she had a sense of humour, would have to join in. +Over-sensitive souls, such as Shelley was might view the incident with +pain and mourn over a world in which human beings treated each other +in such a way. But life is a hard school, and it is not well to be +over-sensitive. After all, if we all became angels, there would be no +jokes left. We should have no clowns in the music-halls--no comic +boxing-turns with glorious thumpings on unexpecting noses. Heaven is a +place without laughter because there is no cruelty in it--no insults +and no accidents. As for us, we are children of earth, and may as well +enjoy the advantages of our position. So let us laugh, "Ha, ha!"--let +us laugh, "Ho, ho!" + + The world is so full of a number of things, + I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. + +And never was it so full of a number of things as since a Coalition +Government came into power--queer, delightful things, for instance, +like policemen who call judges "bastard," as who should say: "Cheerio, +old thing!" Our grandfathers would not have seen that joke. That is +one of the things that convince me of the reality of progress. + + + + +XXV + + + +GOING TO THE DERBY + + +"Do they have as much fun at the Derby as they used to?" I heard an +old gentleman in a white hat, canary gloves, and buttoned boots asking +a fellow-passenger in a London train. Fun? No; one would hardly call +it that. Looking back on it after forty years one will no doubt call +it fun. But it is certainly not fun while it lasts. + +The two most important features of the Derby are getting there and +getting away again. Getting there is harder work than bricklaying or +journalism. You may ride in a motor-car, but your motor will be as +useless to you as a submarine in a swimming bath. From Sutton to Epsom +and from Epsom to the Downs a long procession of motor-cars, buses, +waggonettes, greengrocers' carts, lorries, school carts, drays, and +human beings stretches like a serpent of infinite length--a serpent +that is apparently too sick to move. One thinks of it as an old +serpent that has made itself very ill by swallowing machinery. + +Every few minutes it gives the machinery in its inward parts a shake, +and makes one more effort to crawl. A queer rattle, shiver, and groan +run through it from tip to tail. But the effort is too much for it. It +immediately subsides on a lame and impotent stomach, and hour after +hour passes with no other diversion except the antics of an occasional +nervous horse that rises on his hind legs and waves his forefeet in +the back of your neck over the hood of the motor. + +There is a common belief that the crowd that goes to the Derby is a +cheerful crowd--that it sings and plays concertinas and changes hats. +There could not be a greater delusion. It is as quiet and determined +as a procession of men and women going to hear Dr Horton preaching at +Hampstead. Not a song--well, one song. Not a joke--well, one joke, +when a fat man saw a poor brown lop-eared ass in a field of daisies, +and called out: "There's the winner o' the Durby!" He apparently felt +it was a very good joke, for he repeated it to parties on the tops of +buses and parties on greengrocers' carts and parties in furniture +vans. + +The sun, however, was unpropitious for jokes. Even the East Ender, who +had worked an edging of red and white wool into his pony's mane and +hung rosettes of red, white, and blue at its ears, was too busy +perspiring and hating his hundred thousand neighbours to smile. He was +also busy weighing his chances of getting to Epsom Downs before +Judgment Day. I admired his spirit in waving a whip with a knot of +coloured ribbons. There was little other colour to be seen. We were a +procession of victims--red as beef, steaming like the window of a +fried-fish shop, dusty, swollen-veined--and we could only sink back +helpless and gasping in the grip of the monstrous procession of +wheeled things that advanced more slowly than any snail that was ever +known on this side of the Ural Mountains. + +I doubt if that procession ever reached Epsom Downs. I did so only +because I got out and walked; and even then the first two races were +over. Half England seemed already to have arrived on the hills, and to +have pitched its wigwams there. The other half was blocking up the +road for ten miles back, and could not possibly arrive in time for the +Derby; but the half who had arrived had already set up a city of +booths and flags on hill after hill as far as the eye could see. + +There may have been encampments of this vastness in the days of +Xerxes, but surely never since. It was oppressive, overwhelming. There +were so many people there that there was no room for anybody. There +was no room, so far as I could see, for the man who plays the +three-card trick on the top of an open umbrella, or for the man with +the tape and pencil, and even the beggars who prayed by the roadside +for your success were few. There was simply a crush--an enormous, +sweltering, and appallingly silent crush. Even the bookmakers seemed +to be awed by it. They stood on their stands beside blackboards full +of horses' names and mystical figures, but they did not yell at you +hoarsely, bullyingly, as bookmakers ought to do. If, having looked at +the elephantine portrait advertisement of one of them, you wished to +bet with him, he would consent in a listless way, and say wearily to +his clerk: "Nine-nine-one, seventy shillings to a dollar Polumetis," +as he handed you a blue, red, and green card. + +I do not blame him for not being enthusiastic. I am myself no longer +enthusiastic about Polumetis. Still, one wished for a little violence +besides the violence of the sun and of the man who tried to sell you a +shilling's worth of sausage and who said he was "the only firm, the +only firm in the place." Camden Town on a Saturday night could give +points to Derby Day for colour and uproar. Derby Day is so big, +perhaps, that it is frightened of itself. But I forgot. There was one +violent man. He was fat, hatless, and sweating, and he was hoarse with +shouting superlatives about his tips to a circle of poor old men, +"dunchers" in caps, small boys in jerseys, and tired-looking country +girls. + +"If only I could tell you where I got my information," he declared, +"you'd--you'd be s'prised. If any of you has got twenty-five pahnd +abaht him--if you've got even a tenner--why, you've only got ten +bob--well, you can't exactly have a gamble for ten bob, but you can +'ave a bit o' fun, anyway. If you take my advice--it's 'ere on this +bit o' paper--you can 'ave it for a bob--I can give you three 'orses +that'll turn your ten bob into a tenner see? Some people tell you +Tetratema's going to win." + +He made a face of disgust, popularly known as giving Tetratema the +raspberry, "Don't you believe it. Didn't I tell you Tagrag? Didn't I +tell you Arion? 'Ere, take my tip, and you'll dance all the w'y 'ome +with joy tonight. Dance? Why, you'll go 'ome jazzin' all the w'y." + +And he spread out his fat hands and threw out his fat stomach, and +danced on the grass, just to show one how one ought to behave if one +backed a Derby winner. + +Meanwhile, his partner, dressed as a red and white jockey, in a peaked +cap and incongruous puttees, moved round the circle thrusting his +slips of tips almost angrily on us. "Go on," he ordered us. "What's a +bob to a gambler? You people read the papers and believe what you see +in 'em. The papers! I tell you stryte--the worst pack of rogues and +bookmakers in England." A simple old man of ninety, who had lost his +teeth, beckoned to him and paid him a shilling for his tip. The jockey +took him aside and whispered impressively into his ear. Then he said, +in a loud voice: "Are you satisfied, sir?" "Quite satisfied," quavered +the old man. I wish I could have stayed near him. I should like to +have seen him jazzing later in the evening. + +Sausages, lemonade, fried fish, chewing gum, bets, ladies standing on +the roofs of taxis, a try-your-strength machine, extemporised +conveniences of civilisation, with youths standing by them and yelling +"Commodytion!" hills of humanity in all attitudes of dazedness and +despair, the thunder and the shouting of the distant bookmakers under +the stands, the quiet of the ten thousand free-lance bookmakers who +were, I suppose, breaking the law in the open spaces; the dust, the +sun, the smell, faces smeary with fruit, the cunning tinker in an old +khaki hat with striped ribbon, who was selling some twopenny +instrument that was supposed to imitate either the bark of a dog or +the song of a nightingale--one could not tell which from the noise he +made with it; stand after stand packed to the sky with what are called +serried ranks of human beings, who looked like immense banks of +many-coloured shingle, and who, as they raised a million pairs of +field-glasses to two million eyes, scintillated in the distance like a +bank of shingle after a wave has broken on it on a tropical noon--it +was certainly an amazing medley of spectacle and odour. + +It is said that an important horse-race took place. It is even said +that Polumetis ran in it. I looked for him everywhere--over people's +heads, under people's heads, through motor-buses, round the corners of +refreshment tents, in the sky above, and on the earth beneath. But no +Polumetis was to be seen anywhere--except on my race-card, where I +read about his lilac-coloured jockey. A jockey in lilac--how +beautiful, how Japanese! And, indeed, all the jockeys as they paraded +down the field before the race seemed to have robbed a rainbow. + +They brought meaning and beauty into an otherwise bald and +unconvincing mob. I assure you I love horse-racing--if I could see it. +But of all the people who congregated the little crooked hills of +Epsom, I doubt if ten people in a hundred saw it. You knew that the +horses had started only because, as you lay dreaming, the million +people on the stands suddenly made you jump with a loud, sharp, and +terrifying bark, which said: "They're off!" in one syllable. + +Then there was deep silence, and somebody near me said: "The favourite +can't be leading, or they would be shouting." Then from the stands +came a murmur like bees, a muttering as of a man talking in his sleep, +a growling as of wind in a cave. This only served to intensify the +silence of a defeated people. One knew that something awful must be +happening. Perhaps even Polumetis was winning. + +Above the heads of the crowd the heads of jockeys began to be visible. +A fool cried out: "The favourite wins." Another: "Allenby has it." +Then one had a glimpse of three horses close--well, fairly close--on +each other's tails, and none of them the grey Tetratema. I noticed +that on one of them crouched a jockey in exquisite grass-green. He +passed like a fine phrase out of a poem of which one does not know the +rest. But I did not really know who had won till the numbers were put +up on the board. Then a badly shaven man in a bowler cried: "Spion Kop +has won! Bravo!" and clapped his friend on the back. The rest of us +looked at him with contempt. The tinker-nosed man who played the +instrument that sang like a dog or barked like a nightingale began to +squeak it into people's ears. + +The crowd began pouring itself through itself, and the dust from its +feet rose like a cloud till it was difficult to see across the course. + +And the motor-car broke down on the way home. + +And Polumetis didn't win. + +And I'm as tired as a dog.... + +And so say all of us. + + + + +XXVI + + + +THIS BLASTED WORLD + + +Everything has begun to have a blasted look till the sun shines. The +ferns have been beaten down by the wind and the rain, and lie withered +and broken-backed among the brambles, waiting till some poor man +thinks it worth his while to go off with a load of them on his back +for bedding. The brambles, too, all hoops and arches, have the air of +dying things, though white blossoms still continue to appear, and the +fruit is not yet all ripened and many of the leaves are as red and +bright as flowers. The edges of most of the leaves have began to +crumple: they are victims of a creeping sickness that eats into them +and dirties them, and makes bramble and fern together an inextricable +wilderness of refuse. + +This, however, is only if one looks too closely. The hill that loses +itself among the rocks on the sea-shore is capped and patched with +just such refuse as this, but how happily the rust-colour of dying +things is broken by the grey of the loose stone walls--"hedges," they +call them in Cornwall--that seem to totter up the hill like old men! +The mist of rain that leaves each individual plant bedraggled seems to +make the red and green and grey pattern of the patched hill only more +beautiful and mysterious. The truth is, winter speaks with two voices +even in these early days. She has one voice that sends cold shivers +down our backs. She has another voice that is refreshment like water +from a spring. She speaks with the first voice in the crooked trees. +In the summer they were cloaked and glorious. Now, when their cloaks +seem so much more necessary, they are left naked, poor creatures, +their backs to the sea-wind, with the air of runaways unable to +escape. They seem bent and poised for flight, but when a blast of wind +comes and tugs at them they are as the stump of a tooth that will not +move, and the leaves (such of them as are left), which in summer made +a music as pleasant as that of windbells, rattle in their branches +like the laughter of a skeleton. The oak and the thorn-bush could +scarcely writhe more if they were crippled by rheumatism. Every leaf +on the sycamore is spotted as if with some foul black acid. + +Here, too, however, as soon as the leaves have fallen, the world is +restored to cheerfulness. The withering tree seems a sufferer. The +fallen leaf is an imp, an adventurer. As the wind sweeps round a bend +in the road, leaf after leaf is up and performing cart-wheels down the +road as if Christmas Day had come. Thousands of them, borne along in a +dance of this kind, advance with the beflustered, orderly air of a +procession of starlings. The world ceases to be a universal grave. It +is at the very least a dance and a dust-storm. + +There are some days, no doubt, on which the chill damp in the air +seems to terrify almost every living thing into hiding, and the +stillness of the dead world is not disturbed by any bird or insect. +Even the jackdaws have mysteriously disappeared like melted snow. But +no sooner does the storm in the sky break up into floating islands of +cloud and the sun shine than all the world begins to glitter again, +bramble and ivy and stone, and a host of tiny and coloured creatures +resume their game of an infinite general post in the bright air. The +ivy especially is a little continent of life where-ever it grows. +Clambering over a wall or climbing up among the sloes in a blackthorn +it attracts bee and wasp and fly, blue fly and grey fly and green fly, +to graze on the pollen of its late flowers. The ivy is the last of the +plants to flower, and insects come to it as from the ends of the earth +in rejoicing myriads. Among the berries in the hedges the birds, too, +rejoice. The robin, though for the most part, I believe, a meat-eater, +becomes unambiguously happy at this time of year. He has usurped the +morning, and, while one is lying in bed, he is boasting in the trees +outside where the thrush and the blackbird will in a few months be +boasting with their scarcely more beautiful voices. I am half +persuaded that his song becomes different at this season. As he sits +and sways on the top of a cypress and looks down on a rich and eatable +world, he seems to have cast every note of pensive sadness out of his +being and to sing aloud the rapture of a happy stomach. He is no +longer the singer of elegy but of ecstasy. He is as unlike his old +simple, friendly, appealing, pathetic self as a beggar who has come +into a fortune. He actually swaggers, and, as he does so, he can fill +a garden or a wood at the end of October with the pleasure of spring. + +The large titmouse in its dark cap, and the blue-tit, almost too +pretty for an English winter in its blue and yellow coat, also hasten +to the feast of the berries. I do not know whether, under the iron +reign of high prices, people have ceased to hang out coco-nuts in +their gardens for the blue-tits; at present, fortunately, the berries +are abundant, and it is pleasant to see a tit venture to the edge of +the road in quest of one and then fly off into hiding, like a thief, +with a red ball in his beak. A scarcely less pretty bird that one sees +flying across the road now and then with cries of alarm is the grey +wagtail. The grey wagtail, you probably know, is the wagtail that is +not grey. As it struggles and shrills through the sunny air, it seems +a delight mainly of yellow. Both its cries and its flight make one +think that it lives in constant terror of falling. It proceeds through +the air in a series of efforts and ups-and-downs, and its long tail +seems perpetually to threaten to misguide it into collapse. Down among +the rocks and in the fields near them, the real grey wagtails +abound--the pied wagtails, as they are called--with their white cheeks +and their less hysterical voices that greet one in passing with a +pleasant little "Cheerio!" As they alight from the air beside a +puddle, they indulge in a little prance as though they were trying to +cut a figure of eight on nothing or were essaying in some manner to +sweep their tails out of way. Their whole existence, however, is a +dance. Whether they pick their food from the rocks or in a field of +cows, the alert head and jerking tail are never still, but are +nervously ready for flight almost before the hint of danger. And they +have usually with them as nervous companions the rock-pipits, charming +little tight-skinned, low-crowned birds that hurry off wavily through +the air, reiterating their solitary note of fear as they fly. The +starlings, which seemed to disappear for a time, have now returned to +the fields near the sea. They have left their wonderful sheen +somewhere behind them, and are mottled and plebeian. Still, to see a +cloud of them alighting in a field at the end of a swift circle of +flight is a pretty enough spectacle. + +The evolutions of cavalry and still more of aeroplanes are elementary +compared to this. Close-packed as they are, a thousand of them will +wheel in order without an accident and alight each on his own patch of +ground with the easy grace of acrobats. It is only when they have +found their feet that the disorder begins. Whether it is worms or +insects or verdure they seek among the grazing cows, there is +evidently little enough to go round, and starling fights starling with +peck and protest all over the field. It is a scene of civil war, save +that the birds do not form themselves into sides but each wrestles +with its neighbour at random. But, after all, they are very hungry. +They cluster ravenously on the green patches, even on the sides of the +old stone walls. They have evidently not had the economic question +settled for them as the cows have. + +Luckily, other birds are either less desperate or more pacific by +nature. The stone-chat as he flits from bramble to bramble in his +black cap, white collar, and red bib is a bird of charming behaviour +as well as of charming colour. There is nothing in him at discord with +these rainbow days. For stormy as they are, the days are rainbow days +to an astonishing extent. Seldom have I seen such a violence of +rainbows. The colours almost startle one, like a courting ape's. Every +passing shower builds an arch of the seven colours like a palace on +the sea. Then it draws near till the foot of the rainbow stands a few +yards below over the breaking waves. Sea-birds sail through it, and, +if a pot of gold is really to be found at the end of it, I must often +lately have been within touching distance of a fortune.... At night, +Jupiter--it is Jupiter, is it not? that hangs in the V of Aldebaran +about eight or nine in the evening just now--stills the world to +wonder as the rainbow does by day. He is so splendid a fire as to seem +almost solitary, even when the moon is shining. A few evenings ago, he +shed a path of light over the sea as the moon does, and seemed to +light up the sands on the far side of the bay.... It is undoubtedly a +blasted world, but what a beautiful blasted world! It is a pity that +we and the starlings are so belly-driven that we cannot settle down to +enjoy it. Peck, peck. My worm, I think. Peck, peck, peck. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Pleasures of Ignorance, by Robert Lynd + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13448 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..295fee8 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13448 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13448) diff --git a/old/13448.txt b/old/13448.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4753381 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13448.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5017 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pleasures of Ignorance, by Robert Lynd + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Pleasures of Ignorance + +Author: Robert Lynd + +Release Date: September 12, 2004 [EBook #13448] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Project Manager, Keith M. Eckrich, +Post-Processor and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed +Proofreaders Team + + + + + + + + +THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE + + +BY ROBERT LYND + + + +LONDON + +GRANT RICHARDS LTD. + +ST MARTIN'S STREET + +1921 + +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED + +EDINBURGH + + + +TO JAMES WINDER GOOD + + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE 11 + + II. THE HERRING FLEET 19 + + III. THE BETTING MAN 29 + + IV. THE HUM OF INSECTS 40 + + V. CATS 51 + + VI. MAY 61 + + VII. NEW YEAR PROPHECIES 70 + + VIII. ON KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE 82 + + IX. THE INTELLECTUAL SIDE OF HORSE-RACING 91 + + X. WHY WE HATE INSECTS 102 + + XI. VIRTUE 114 + + XII. JUNE 123 + + XIII. ON FEELING GAY 132 + + XIV. IN THE TRAIN 141 + + XV. THE MOST CURIOUS ANIMAL 149 + + XVI. THE OLD INDIFFERENCE 158 + + XVII. EGGS: AN EASTER HOMILY 167 + +XVIII. ENTER THE SPRING 176 + + XIX. THE DAREDEVIL BARBER 186 + + XX. WEEDS: AN APPRECIATION 195 + + XXI. A JUROR IN WAITING 205 + + XXII. THE THREE-HALFPENNY BIT 215 + +XXIII. THE MORALS OF BEANS 224 + + XXIV. ON SEEING A JOKE 233 + + XXV. GOING TO THE DERBY 243 + + XXVI. THIS BLASTED WORLD 253 + + + +_Acknowledgments are due to "The New Statesman," in which all but one +of these essays appeared. "Going to the Derby" appeared in "The Daily +News."--R.L._ + + + + +I + + + +THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE + +It is impossible to take a walk in the country with an average +townsman--especially, perhaps, in April or May--without being amazed +at the vast continent of his ignorance. It is impossible to take a +walk in the country oneself without being amazed at the vast continent +of one's own ignorance. Thousands of men and women live and die +without knowing the difference between a beech and an elm, between the +song of a thrush and the song of a blackbird. Probably in a modern +city the man who can distinguish between a thrush's and a blackbird's +song is the exception. It is not that we have not seen the birds. It +is simply that we have not noticed them. We have been surrounded by +birds all our lives, yet so feeble is our observation that many of us +could not tell whether or not the chaffinch sings, or the colour of +the cuckoo. We argue like small boys as to whether the cuckoo always +sings as he flies or sometimes in the branches of a tree--whether +Chapman drew on his fancy or his knowledge of nature in the lines: + + When in the oak's green arms the cuckoo sings, + And first delights men in the lovely springs. + +This ignorance, however, is not altogether miserable. Out of it we get +the constant pleasure of discovery. Every fact of nature comes to us +each spring, if only we are sufficiently ignorant, with the dew still +on it. If we have lived half a lifetime without having ever even seen +a cuckoo, and know it only as a wandering voice, we are all the more +delighted at the spectacle of its runaway flight as it hurries from +wood to wood conscious of its crimes, and at the way in which it halts +hawk-like in the wind, its long tail quivering, before it dares +descend on a hill-side of fir-trees where avenging presences may lurk. +It would be absurd to pretend that the naturalist does not also find +pleasure in observing the life of the birds, but his is a steady +pleasure, almost a sober and plodding occupation, compared to the +morning enthusiasm of the man who sees a cuckoo for the first time, +and, behold, the world is made new. + +And, as to that, the happiness even of the naturalist depends in some +measure upon his ignorance, which still leaves him new worlds of this +kind to conquer. He may have reached the very Z of knowledge in the +books, but he still feels half ignorant until he has confirmed each +bright particular with his eyes. He wishes with his own eyes to see +the female cuckoo--rare spectacle!--as she lays her egg on the ground +and takes it in her bill to the nest in which it is destined to breed +infanticide. He would sit day after day with a field-glass against his +eyes in order personally to endorse or refute the evidence suggesting +that the cuckoo _does_ lay on the ground and not in a nest. And, if he +is so far fortunate as to discover this most secretive of birds in the +very act of laying, there still remain for him other fields to conquer +in a multitude of such disputed questions as whether the cuckoo's egg +is always of the same colour as the other eggs in the nest in which +she abandons it. Assuredly the men of science have no reason as yet to +weep over their lost ignorance. If they seem to know everything, it is +only because you and I know almost nothing. There will always be a +fortune of ignorance waiting for them under every fact they turn up. +They will never know what song the Sirens sang to Ulysses any more +than Sir Thomas Browne did. + +If I have called in the cuckoo to illustrate the ordinary man's +ignorance, it is not because I can speak with authority on that bird. +It is simply because, passing the spring in a parish that seemed to +have been invaded by all the cuckoos of Africa, I realised how +exceedingly little I, or anybody else I met, knew about them. But your +and my ignorance is not confined to cuckoos. It dabbles in all created +things, from the sun and moon down to the names of the flowers. I once +heard a clever lady asking whether the new moon always appears on the +same day of the week. She added that perhaps it is better not to know, +because, if one does not know when or in what part of the sky to +expect it, its appearance is always a pleasant surprise. I fancy, +however, the new moon always comes as a surprise even to those who are +familiar with her time-tables. And it is the same with the coming in +of spring and the waves of the flowers. We are not the less delighted +to find an early primrose because we are sufficiently learned in the +services of the year to look for it in March or April rather than in +October. We know, again, that the blossom precedes and not succeeds +the fruit of the apple-tree, but this does not lessen our amazement at +the beautiful holiday of a May orchard. + +At the same time there is, perhaps, a special pleasure in re-learning +the names of many of the flowers every spring. It is like re-reading a +book that one has almost forgotten. Montaigne tells us that he had so +bad a memory that he could always read an old book as though he had +never read it before. I have myself a capricious and leaking memory. I +can read _Hamlet_ itself and _The Pickwick Papers_ as though they were +the work of new authors and had come wet from the press, so much of +them fades between one reading and another. There are occasions on +which a memory of this kind is an affliction, especially if one has a +passion for accuracy. But this is only when life has an object beyond +entertainment. In respect of mere luxury, it may be doubted whether +there is not as much to be said for a bad memory as for a good one. +With a bad memory one can go on reading Plutarch and _The Arabian +Nights_ all one's life. Little shreds and tags, it is probable, will +stick even in the worst memory, just as a succession of sheep cannot +leap through a gap in a hedge without leaving a few wisps of wool on +the thorns. But the sheep themselves escape, and the great authors +leap in the same way out of an idle memory and leave little enough +behind. + +And, if we can forget books, it is as easy to forget the months and +what they showed us, when once they are gone. Just for the moment I +tell myself that I know May like the multiplication table and could +pass an examination on its flowers, their appearance and their order. +To-day I can affirm confidently that the buttercup has five petals. +(Or is it six? I knew for certain last week.) But next year I shall +probably have forgotten my arithmetic, and may have to learn once more +not to confuse the buttercup with the celandine. Once more I shall see +the world as a garden through the eyes of a stranger, my breath taken +away with surprise by the painted fields. I shall find myself +wondering whether it is science or ignorance which affirms that the +swift (that black exaggeration of the swallow and yet a kinsman of the +humming-bird) never settles even on a nest, but disappears at night +into the heights of the air. I shall learn with fresh astonishment +that it is the male, and not the female, cuckoo that sings. I may have +to learn again not to call the campion a wild geranium, and to +rediscover whether the ash comes early or late in the etiquette of the +trees. A contemporary English novelist was once asked by a foreigner +what was the most important crop in England. He answered without a +moment's hesitation: "Rye." Ignorance so complete as this seems to me +to be touched with magnificence; but the ignorance even of illiterate +persons is enormous. The average man who uses a telephone could not +explain how a telephone works. He takes for granted the telephone, the +railway train, the linotype, the aeroplane, as our grandfathers took +for granted the miracles of the gospels. He neither questions nor +understands them. It is as though each of us investigated and made his +own only a tiny circle of facts. Knowledge outside the day's work is +regarded by most men as a gewgaw. Still we are constantly in reaction +against our ignorance. We rouse ourselves at intervals and speculate. +We revel in speculations about anything at all--about life after death +or about such questions as that which is said to have puzzled +Aristotle, "why sneezing from noon to midnight was good, but from +night to noon unlucky." One of the greatest joys known to man is to +take such a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge. The great +pleasure of ignorance is, after all, the pleasure of asking questions. +The man who has lost this pleasure or exchanged it for the pleasure of +dogma, which is the pleasure of answering, is already beginning to +stiffen. One envies so inquisitive a man as Jowett, who sat down to +the study of physiology in his sixties. Most of us have lost the sense +of our ignorance long before that age. We even become vain of our +squirrel's hoard of knowledge and regard increasing age itself as a +school of omniscience. We forget that Socrates was famed for wisdom +not because he was omniscient but because he realised at the age of +seventy that he still knew nothing. + + + + +II + + + +THE HERRING FLEET + +The last spectacle of which Christian men are likely to grow tired is +a harbour. Centuries hence there may be jumping-off places for the +stars, and our children's children's and so forth children may regard +a ship as a creeping thing scarcely more adventurous than a worm. +Meanwhile, every harbour gives us a sense of being in touch, if not +with the ends of the universe, with the ends of the earth. This, more +than the entrance to a wood or the source of a river or the top of a +bald hill, is the beginning of infinity. Even the dirtiest coal-boat +that lies beached in the harbour, a mere hulk of utilities that are +taken away by dirty men in dirty carts, will in a day or two lift +itself from the mud on a full tide and float away like a spirit into +the sunset or curtsy to the image of the North Star. Mystery lies over +the sea. Every ship is bound for Thule. That, perhaps, is why men are +content day after day to stand on the pier-head and to gaze at the +water and the ships and sailors running up and down the decks and +pulling the ropes of sails. + +We may have no reason for pretending to ourselves that the +fishing-boats are ships of dreams setting out on infinite voyages. +But, none the less, even in a fishing village there is always a +congregation of watching men and women on the pier. Every day the +crowd collects to see the harbour awake into life with the bustle of +men about to set out among the nations of the fishes. By day the boats +lie side by side in the harbour--stand side by side, rather, like +horses in a stable. There are two rows of them, making a camp of masts +on the shallow water. In other parts of the harbour white gigs are +bottomed on the sand in companies of two and three. As the tide slowly +rises, the masts which have been lying over on one side in a sleepy +stillness begin to stir, then to sway, until with each new impulse of +the sea all the boats are dancing, and soon the whole harbour is awake +and merry as if every mast were a steeple with a peal of bells. It is +not long till the fishermen arrive. One meets them in every cobbled +lane. How magnificent the noise made by a man in sea-boots on the +stones! Surely, he strikes sparks from the road. He thumps the ground +as with a hammer. The earth rings. One has seen those boots in the +morning hanging outside the door of his house while he slept. They +have been oiled, and left there to dry. They have kept the shape of +his limb and the crook of his knee in an uncanny way. They look as +though he had taken off his legs before going into the house and hung +them on the wall. But the fisherman is a hero not only in his boots. +His sea-coat is no less magnificent. This may be of oil-skin yellow or +of maroon or of stained white or of blue, with a blue jersey showing +under it, and, perhaps, a red woollen muffler or a scarf with green +spots on a red ground round his throat. He has not learned to be timid +of colour. Even out of the mouths of his boots you may see the ends of +red knitted leggings protruding. His yellow or black sou'-wester +roofing the back of his neck, he comes down to harbour, as splendid as +a figure at a fair. And always, when he arrives, he is smoking a pipe. +As one watches him, one wonders if anybody except a fisherman, as he +looks out over the harbour, knows how to smoke. He has made tobacco +part of himself, like breathing. + +If the tide is already full the fishermen are taken off in small +rowing-boats, most of them standing, and the place is busy with a +criss-cross of travelling crews till the fishing-boats are all manned. +If the water is not yet deep, however, most of the men walk to their +boats, lumbering through the waves, and occasionally jumping like a +wading girl as a larger wave threatens the tops of their boots. Many +of them carry their supper in a basket or a handkerchief. The first of +the boats begins to move out of its stall. It is tugged into the clear +water, and the fishermen put out long oars and row it laboriously to +the mouth of the harbour and the wind. It is followed by a motor-boat, +and another, and another. There are forty putting up their sails like +one. The harbour moves. One has a sense as of things liberated. It is +as though a flock of birds were being loosed into the air--as though +pigeon after pigeon were being set free out of a basket for home. +Lug-sail after lugsail, brown as the underside of a mushroom, hurries +out among the waves. A green little tub of a steamboat follows with +insolent smoke. The motor-boats hasten out like scenting dogs. Every +sort of craft--motor-boat, gig, lugger and steamboat--makes for sea, +higgledy-piggledy in a long line, an irregular procession of black and +blue and green and white and brown. Here, as in the men's clothes, the +paint-pots have been spilled. + +There is nothing more sociable than a fishing-fleet. The boats +overtake each other, like horses in a race. They gallop in rivalry. +But for the most part they keep together, and move like a travelling +town over the sea. As likely as not they will have to come back out of +the storm into the shelter of the bay, and they will ride there till +nightfall, when every boat becomes a lamp and every sail a shadow. In +the darkness they hang like a constellation on the oily water. They +become a company of dancing stars. Every now and then a boat moves off +on a quest of its own. It is as though the firmament were shaken. One +hears the kick-kick-kick of the motor, and a star has become a +will-o'-the-wisp. These lights can no more keep still than a +playground of children. They always make a pattern on the water, but +they never make the same pattern. Sometimes they lengthen themselves +against the sandy shore on the far side of the bay into a golden +river. Sometimes they huddle together into a little procession of +monks carrying tapers.... + +One goes down to the harbour after breakfast the next morning to see +what has been the result of the night's fishing. One does not really +need to go down. One can see it afar off. There is movement as at the +building of a city. On every boat men are busy emptying the nets, +disentangling the fish that have been caught by the gills, tumbling +them in a liquid mass into the bottom of the boat. One can hardly see +the fish separately. They flow into one another. They are a pool of +quick-silver. One is amazed, as the disciples must have been amazed at +the miraculous draught. Everything is covered with their scales. The +fishermen are spotted as if with confetti. Their hands, their brown +coats, their boots are a mass of white-and-blue spots. The labourers +with the gurries--great blue boxes that are carried like Sedan-chairs +between two pairs of handles--come up alongside, and the fish are +ladled into the gurries from tin pans. As each gurry is filled the men +hasten off with it to where the auctioneer is standing. With the help +of a small notebook and a lead pencil he auctions it before an +outsider can wink, and the gurry is taken a few yards further, where +women are pouring herrings into barrels. They, too, are covered with +fish-scales from head to foot. They are dabbled like a painter's +palette. So great is the haul that every cart in the country-side has +come down to lend a hand. The fish are poured into the carts over the +sides of the boats like water. Old fishermen stand aside and look on +with a sense of having wasted their youth. They recall the time when +they went fishing in the North Sea and had to be content to sell their +catch at a shilling and sixpence a cran--a cran being equal to four +gurries, or about a thousand herrings. Who is there now who would sell +even a hundred herrings for one and sixpence? Who is there who would +sell a hundred herrings for ten and sixpence? Yet one gig alone this +morning has brought in fourteen thousand herrings. No wonder that +there is an atmosphere of excitement in the harbour. No wonder that +the carts almost run over you as they make journey after journey +between boat and barrel. No wonder that three different sorts of +sea-gulls--the herring gull, the lesser black-headed gull, and the +black-backed gull--have gathered about us in screaming multitudes and +fill the air like a snowstorm. Every child in the town seems to be +making for home with its finger in a fish's mouth, or in two fishes' +mouths, or in three fishes' mouths. Artists have hurried down to the +harbour, and have set up their easels on every spot that is not +already occupied by a fish barrel or an auctioneer or a man with a +knife in his teeth preparing to gut a dogfish. The town has lost its +head. It has become Midas for the day. Every time it opens its mouth a +herring comes out. A doom of herrings has come upon us. The smell +rises to heaven. It is as though we were breathing fish-scales. Even +the pretty blue overalls of the children have become spotted. +Everywhere barrels and boxes have been piled high. We are hoisting +them on to carts--farm carts, grocers' carts, coal carts, any sort of +carts. We must get rid of the stuff at all costs. Anything to get it +up the hill to the railway station. The very horses are frenzied. They +stick their toes into the hill and groan. The drivers, excited with +cupidity as they think of all the journeys they will be able to make +before evening, bully them and beat them with the end of the reins. +Their eyes are excited, their gestures impatient. They fill the town +with clamour and smell. It is an occasion on which, as the vulgar say, +they wouldn't call the Queen their aunt.... + +This, I fancy, is where all the romance of the sea began--in the story +of a greedy man and a fresh herring. The ship was a symbol of man's +questing stomach long before it was a symbol of his questing soul. He +was a hungry man, not a poet, when he built the first harbour. +Luckily, the harbour made a poet of him. Sails gave him wings. He +learned to traffic for wonders. He became a traveller. He told tales. +He discovered the illusion of horizons. Perhaps, however, it is less +the sailor than the ship that attracts our imagination. The ship seems +to convey to us more than anything else a sense at once of perfect +freedom and perfect adventure. + +That is why we are content to stand on the harbour stones all day and +watch anything with sails. We ourselves want to live in some such +freedom and adventure as this. We are feeding our appetite for liberty +as we gaze hungrily after the ships making their way out of harbour +into the sea. + + + + +III + + + +THE BETTING MAN + +If The Panther wins the Derby,[He didn't] as most people apparently +expect him to do, his victory will carry more weight among frequenters +of race-courses as an argument for Socialism than any that has yet +been invented. For The Panther is a Government-bred horse, born and +brought up in defiance of the _laissez-faire_ principles of Mr Harold +Cox. He will therefore carry the colours of a great principle at Epsom +as well as those of his present lessee. Who would have thought five +years ago that the Derby favourite of 1919 would start under so grave +a responsibility? + +Not that racing men have much time to spare for thoughts about social +problems, even when these are related to a horse. Theirs is a busy +life. They enjoy little of the leisure that falls to the lot of +statesmen and haberdashers. + +Their anxieties are a serial story continued from one edition of the +day's papers to another Nor does the last edition of the evening paper +make an end of their anxieties. It is not an epilogue to one day so +much as a prologue to the next. The programme of races for the +following day suggests more problems than the Peace Conference itself +could settle in a month. The racing man, having studied the names of +the horses entered, goes out to buy some tobacco. As he takes his +change from the tobacconist, he asks: "Have you heard anything for +to-morrow?" The tobacconist says: "I heard Green Cloak for the first +race," The racing man nods. "You didn't hear anything for the big +race?" he asks. "No. Somebody was saying Holy Saint." "I heard Oily +Hair," says the racing man gravely. "Good-night." And he goes out. His +brow becomes knitted with thought as he moves off along the pavement. +He tells himself that Holy Saint certainly does offer difficulties. +Holy Saint is a notoriously bad starter. If he could be trusted to get +away, he would be one of the finest horses of his year in +long-distance races. But he is continually being left at the post. To +back him would be pure gambling. He could win if he liked, but would +he like? On the whole, Oily Hair is a safer horse to back. He has +already beaten Holy Saint in the Chiswick Cup, and only lost the +Scotch Plate to Disaster by a neck. As the racing man allows his +memory to dwell on the achievements of Oily Hair his confidence rises. +"I see nothing to beat him," he says to himself. He has just decided +to put "a fiver" on him when he meets an acquaintance, who suggests a +drink. As they drink, the talk turns on horses. "What are you backing +in the big race to-morrow?" "Have you heard anything?" "I heard Oily +Hair." "I think not. I'll tell you why. Tommy Fitzgibbon's youngest +sister is at school with two sisters of Willie Soames, who's going to +ride Peace on Earth to-morrow, and one of them told her that Willie +had written to her to put every halfpenny she has on Peace on Earth." +"I'm sick, sore and tired of backing Peace on Earth. He's a +cantankerous beast that seems to take a positive pleasure in losing +races." "Well, remember what I told you...." + +On arriving home our sportsman goes to his shelves and takes down the +last annual volume of _M'Call's Racing Chronicle and Pocket Turf +Calendar_, and looks up Peace on Earth in the index. He turns up the +record of one race after another, and finds that the horse has a +better past than he had remembered. He cannot make up his mind what to +do. He looks over several weekly papers to see if any of them can +throw light on his difficulties. Each of them names a different winner +for the big race. When he puts on his pyjamas that night, all he knows +is that he has decided to decide nothing till the next day. + +Next day he once more reads the names of the horses entered for the +various races, and glances down the list of winners selected by the +racing prophet in the morning paper. Having breakfasted late, he finds +he has only about an hour to waste before catching a train for the +races, and he resolves to pay a call at the "Bird of Paradise," where +a friend of his who has an unusual gift for picking up information is +usually to be found about noon. He learns from the landlord that his +friend has been in and gone away, but the landlord tells him that he +hears Pudding is a certainty. + +"Have you any reason for thinking so?" + +"Well, there was a man in here who has a son a policeman close by +Jobson's stables, and he tells me that everybody in the neighbourhood +has been backing Pudding down to their last spoon. That looks as if +word had been passed round that it was going to win." The racing man +passes out and looks in at the "Pink Elephant" to see if his friend is +there. He is seated at a little table in an upstairs parlour with four +others, all drinking whisky and exchanging tips. They belong to the +most credulous race of men alive. They are all believers in what is +called information, and information is simply the betting man's name +for gossip. The friend is speaking in a low but excited voice to his +companions, who crouch over towards him in order to catch information +not meant for the rest of the room. He tells how he had just been in +to buy a paper at his newsagent's, and how his newsagent had been +calling on his solicitor that morning, and the solicitor told him that +the caller who had just left as he came in was Gordon, the owner of +Cutandrun, and Gordon said that Cutandrun was the biggest thing that +had ever come into his hands. The buzz-buzz of talk in the +smoke-filled room and the clatter of passing carts makes it difficult +to hear him, but the others lean over the table with red, intent +faces, like men among whom an apostle has come. They do not stay long +over their drinks, as they have not much time for social pleasures. +They swallow their whisky with a quick gesture look at their watches, +stand up hurriedly and part with handshakes. + +Then comes a drive to the railway station where race-cards are being +sold. The racing-man buys a "card" and several papers. He looks down +the lists of the horses again in the train, and tries to make up his +mind whether to take the tobacconist's tip and back Green Cloak for +the first race. He believes greatly in breeding, and by far the +best-bred horse in the race is Liberal, who has three Derby winners in +his pedigree. Then there is Red Rose, who created a sensation a month +ago by winning two races in a day. He decides to do nothing till he +sees the horses themselves. He pays thirty shillings at the turnstile +of the race-course and is admitted to the grand stand. Already one or +two bookmakers are shouting from their stands, and some of them have +chalked up on blackboards the odds they are willing to give in the big +race. He looks at the board and sees that he can get twenties against +Cutandrun. A five-pound note might bring him a hundred pounds. On the +other hand, if Oily Hair was going to win, he wouldn't like to miss +it. The bookmakers are offering fives against it. Holy Saint is hot +favourite at two to one. That alone makes him impatient of it, for he +dislikes backing favourites. He prefers the big risks, with great +scoops if he wins. However, he will make up his mind later. Meanwhile, +he will go to the paddock and have a look at the horses for the first +race. Half-a-dozen horses are already out, and men with numbers on +their arms are walking them round and round in a ring. He consults his +card and sees that No. 7 is Brighton Beauty, and No. 2 (a slender, +glossy, black beast with a white star in his forehead) Green Cloak. +Liberal has not appeared. The numbers of the starters, with the names +of the jockeys, are now being hoisted. He makes a pencil-mark opposite +the name of each starter on his racing-card, and jots down the name of +the jockey. Raff, he sees, is riding Green Cloak. That is in its +favour. + +When he gets back to the betting-ring, the bookmakers are shouting +hoarsely against each other. Liberal is a very hot favourite. They are +shouting: "I'll take two to one. I'll take two to one. Five to one bar +one. A hundred to eight Green Cloak." He feels almost sure Liberal +will win, but Green Cloak--he wishes he had asked the tobacconist +where he got his information from. Anyhow, half-a-sovereign doesn't +matter much. He goes up to a bookmaker, and says: "Ten shillings Green +Cloak." The bookmaker turns to his clerk and says: "Six pound five to +ten shillings Green Cloak," gives a red-white-and-blue card with his +name and a number on it; the other takes the card, writes on the back +of it the name of the horse and the amount of the bet, and makes for +the stand to see the race. The horses have now come out, and are off +one after another to the starting-post. Green Cloak would be hard to +miss because of his jockey's colours--old gold, scarlet sleeves, and +green and black quartered cap. The bell has hardly rung to announce +that the race has begun when men in the crowd begin to dogmatise about +the result. One man keeps saying: "Green Cloak wins this race. Green +Cloak wins this race." Another says: "Liberal leads." Another says: +"No; that's Jumping Frog." To the unaccustomed eye the horses seem as +close to each other as a swarm of bees. Suddenly, however, a bay horse +springs forward and seems to put a length between itself and the +others at every stride. The people in the stand shout: "Liberal! +Liberal!" It wins by about ten lengths. Green Cloak is second, but a +bad second. The crowd begins to pour down from the stand again. Those +who have won wait near the bookmakers till the winner has been to the +unsaddling enclosure and the announcement "All right" is made. Then +the bookmakers begin to pay out, and the crowd moves off to the +paddock again to see the horses for the next race. + +Friends stop each other and exchange information in low voices. Others +do their best to listen in the hope of overhearing information: "I +hear Tomsk," "Johnnie says lay your last penny on Glasgow Pet," "I'm +going to back Submarine." And the parade of the horses, the hoisting +of the names of the starters and jockeys, the laying of the bets, and +the climbing of the grand stand are all gone through over and over +again. The betting man has no time even for a drink. To the casual +onlooker a day's horse-racing has the appearance of a day's holiday. +But the racing man knows better. He is collecting information, coming +to decisions, wandering among the bookies in the hope of getting a +good price, climbing into the grand stand and descending from it, +studying the points of the horses all the time with as little chance +of leisure as though he were a stockbroker during a financial crisis +or a sailor on a sinking ship. + +Perhaps, in the train on the way home from the races, he may relax a +little. Certainly, if he has backed Cutandrun, he will. For Cutandrun +won at ten to one, and his pocket is full of five-pound notes. He +feels quite jocular now that the strain is over. He makes puns on the +names of the defeated horses. "Lie Low lay low all right," he +announces to the compartment, indifferent to the scowls of the man in +the corner who had backed it. "Hopscotch didn't hop quite fast +enough." Were he tipsy, he could not jest more fluently. His jokes are +small, but be not too severe on him. The man has had a hard day. Wait +but an hour, and care will descend on him again. He will not have sat +down to dinner in his hotel for three minutes till someone will be +saying to him: "Have you heard anything for the Cup to-morrow?" There +is no six-hours day for the betting man. He is the drudge of chance +for every waking hour. He is enviable only for one thing. He knows +what to talk about to barbers. + + + + +IV + + + +THE HUM OF INSECTS + + +It makes all the difference whether you hear an insect in the bedroom +or in the garden. In the garden the voice of the insect soothes; in +the bedroom it irritates. In the garden it is the hum of spring; in +the bedroom it seems to belong to the same school of music as the bizz +of the dentist's drill or the saw-mill. It may be that it is not the +right sort of insect that invades the bedroom. Even in the garden we +wave away a mosquito. Either its note is in itself offensive or we +dislike it as the voice of an unscrupulous enemy. By an unscrupulous +enemy I mean an enemy that attacks without waiting to be attacked. The +mosquito is a beast of prey; it is out for blood, whether one is as +gentle as Tom Pinch or uses violence. The bee and the wasp are in +comparison noble creatures. They will, so it is said, never injure a +human being unless a human being has injured them. The worst of it is +they do not discriminate between one human being and another, and the +bee that floats over the wall into our garden may turn out to have +been exasperated by the behaviour of a retired policeman five miles +away who struck at it with a spade and roused in it a blind passion +for reprisals. That or something like it is, probably, the explanation +of the stings perfectly innocent persons receive from an insect that +is said never to touch you if you leave it alone. As a matter of fact, +when a bee loses its head, it does not even wait for a human being in +order to relieve its feelings, I have seen a dog racing round a field +in terror as a result of a sting from an angry bee. I have seen a +turkey racing round a farmyard in terror as a result of the same +thing. All the trouble arose from a human being's having very properly +removed a large quantity of honey from a row of hives. I do not admit +that the bee would have been justified in stinging even the human +being--who, after all, is master on this partially civilised planet. +It had certainly no right to sting the dog or the turkey, which had as +little to do with stealing the honey as the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford +University. Yet in spite of such things, and of the fact that some +breeds of bees are notorious for their crossness, especially when +there is thunder in the air, the bee is morally far higher in the +scale than the mosquito. Not only does it give you honey instead of +malaria, and help your apples and strawberries to multiply, but it +aims at living a quiet, inoffensive life, at peace with everybody, +except when it is annoyed. The mosquito does what it does in cold +blood. That is why it is so unwelcome a bedroom visitor. + +But even a bee or a wasp, I fancy, would seem tedious company at two +in the morning, especially if it came and buzzed near the pillow. It +is not so much that you would be frightened: if the wasp alighted on +your cheek, you could always lie still and hold your breath till it +had finished trying to sting--that is an infallible preventive. But +there is a limit to the amount of your night's rest that you are +willing to sacrifice in this way. You cannot hold your breath while +you are asleep, and yet you dare not cease holding your breath while a +wasp is walking over your face. Besides, it might crawl into your ear, +and what would you do then? Luckily, the question does not often arise +in practice owing to the fact that the wasp and the bee are more like +human beings than mosquitoes and have more or less the same habits of +nocturnal rest. As we sit in the garden, however, the mind is bound to +speculate, and to revolve such questions as whether this hum of +insects that delights us is in itself delightful, whether its +delightfulness depends on its surroundings, or whether it depends on +its associations with past springs. + +Certainly in a garden the noise of insects seems as essentially +beautiful a thing as the noise of birds or the noise of the sea. Even +these have been criticised, especially by persons who suffer from +sleeplessness, but their beauty is affirmed by the general voice of +mankind. These three noises appear to have an infinite capacity for +giving us pleasure--a capacity, probably, beyond that of any music of +instruments. It may be that on hearing them we become a part of some +universal music, and that the rhythm of wave, bird and insect echoes +in some way the rhythm of our own breath and blood. Man is in love +with life and these are the millionfold chorus of life--the magnified +echo of his own pleasure in being alive. At the same time, our +pleasure in the hum of insects is also, I think, a pleasure of +reminiscence. It reminds us of other springs and summers in other +gardens. It reminds us of the infinite peace of childhood when on a +fine day the world hardly existed beyond the garden-gate. We can smell +moss-roses--how we loved them as children!--as a bee swings by. Insect +after insect dances through the air, each dying away like a note of +music, and we see again the border of pinks and the strawberries, and +the garden paths edged with box, and the old dilapidated wooden seat +under the tree, and an apple-tree in the long grass, and a stream +beyond the apple-tree, and all those things that made us infinitely +happy as children when we were in the country--happier than we were +ever made by toys, for we do not remember any toys so intensely as we +remember the garden and the farm. We had the illusion in those days +that it was going to last for ever. There was no past or future. There +was nothing real except the present in which we lived--a present in +which all the human beings were kind, in which a dim-sighted +grandfather sang songs (especially a song in which the chorus began +"Free and easy"), in which aunts brought us animal biscuits out of +town, in which there was neither man-servant nor maid-servant, neither +ox nor ass, that did not seem to go about with a bright face. It was a +present that overflowed with kindness, though everybody except the ox +and the ass believed that it was only by the skin of our teeth that +any of us would escape being burnt alive for eternity. Perhaps we +thought little enough about it except on Sundays or at prayers. +Certainly no one was gloomy about it before children. William John +McNabb, the huge labourer who looked after the horses, greeted us all +as cheerfully as if we had been saved and ready for paradise. + +It would be unfair to human beings, however, to suggest that they are +less lavish with their smiles than they were thirty years or so ago. +Everybody--or almost everybody--still smiles. We can hardly stop to +talk to a man in the street without a duet of smiles. The Prince of +Wales smiles across the world from left to right, and the Crown Prince +of Japan smiles across the world from right to left. We cannot open an +illustrated paper without seeing smiling statesmen, cricketers, +jockeys, oarsmen, bridegrooms, clergymen, actresses and +undergraduates. Yet somehow we are no longer made happy by a smile. We +no longer take it, as we used to take it, as evidence that the person +smiling is either happy or kind. It then seemed to come from the +heart. It now seems a formula. It is, we may admit, a pleasant and +useful formula. But a man might easily be a burglar or a murderer or a +Cabinet Minister and smile. Some people are supposed to smile merely +in order to show what good teeth they have. William John McNabb, I am +sure, never did that. + +We need not grumble at our contemporaries, however, for not being so +fine as William John McNabb. To children, for all we know, the world +may still seem to be full of people who laugh because they are happy +and smile because they are kind. The world will always remain to a +child the chief of toys, and the hum of insects as enchanting as the +hum of a musical top. Even those of us who are grown up can recover +this enchantment, not only through the pleasures of memory but through +the endless pleasures of watching the things that inhabit the earth. +The world is always waiting to be discovered in full, and yet no life +is long enough to discover the whole of a single county, or even the +whole of a single parish. Who alive, for instance, knows all the moles +of Sussex? I confess I got my first sight of one a few days ago, and, +though I had seen dead moles hanging from trees and had read +descriptions of moles, the living creature was as unexpected as if one +had come on it silent upon a peak in Darien. I had never expected it +to look so black and glossy in the midday sun or to have that little +pink snout that made me think of it as a small underground pig. I had +always been told, too, that the sound of a footstep would frighten a +mole, but this mole only began to show fright at the sound of voices. +Then it began to tear its way into the undergrowth with paws and snout +ever trying to overtake each other. Mr Blunden has described how + + The lost mole tries to pierce the mattocked clay + In agony and terror of the sun. + +I got much the same impression of agony and terror as this poor +creature dug its way into the grass and ferns and, coming out at the +far end of the clump, bolted under a tree like a frightened pig. And +yet, they say, this poor little coward is a fierce animal enough. He +is, we are told, impelled by so cruel a hunger that he would die of it +were it to go unsatisfied for even twenty-four hours. If he can find +nothing else to eat, he will kill and eat a fellow-mole. So the +authorities tell us, but I wonder how many of the authorities have +even seen a mole in the very act of cannibalism. How many of them have +followed him on his long journeys through the bowels of the earth? He +certainly looked no South Sea monster on the Sunday morning on which +for a few seconds I watched him. Nor would John Clare have written +affectionately about him had he been entirely bloody-minded. + +Then there was the hedgehog. The charm of hedgehogs is that we do not +see them every day--that their appearance is a secret and an accident. +They are a part of the busy life that goes on all about us as +mysteriously as the movements of spirits. Consequently, when I was +looking over a sloping field the other evening and, hearing a +crackling as of sticks being trodden on, turned my eyes and saw a +living creature making its way out of a wood into the grass, I was +delighted to find that it was a hedgehog and not a man or a rat. I +could see it only dimly in the twilight, and it was difficult to +believe that so small an animal had made so great a noise. The +pleasure of recognition, unfortunately, was not mutual. No sooner did +the hedgehog hear a foot pressing on the road than it gave up all +thoughts of its supper of insects and hobbled back into the thicket. I +regretted only that I had not made a greater noise, and scared it into +rolling itself into a ball, as everybody says it does when alarmed. +But it is perhaps just as well that the hedgehog did not merely repeat +itself in this way. We like a certain variety of behaviour in +animals--some element of the unexpected that always keeps our +curiosity alive and looking forward. + +But we must not exaggerate the pleasure to be got from moles and +hedgehogs. They make a part of our being happy, but they do not +delight the whole of our being, as a child is delighted by the world +every spring. It is probably the child in us that responds most +wholeheartedly to such pleasures. They, like the hum of insects, help +to restore the illusion of a world that is perfectly happy because it +is such a Noah's Ark of a spectacle and everybody is kind. But, even +as we submit to the illusion in the garden, we become restive in our +deck-chairs and remember the telephone or the daily paper or a letter +that has to be written. And reality weighs on us, like a hand laid on +a top, making an end of the spinning, making an end of the music. The +world is no longer a toy dancing round and round. It is a problem, a +run-down machine, a stuffy room full of little stabbing creatures that +make an irritating noise. + + + + +V + + + +CATS + + +The Champion Cat Show has been held at the Crystal Palace, but the +champion cat was not there. One could not possibly allow him to appear +in public. He is for show, but not in a cage. He does not compete, +because he is above competition. You know this as well as I. Probably +you possess him. I certainly do. That is the supreme test of a cat's +excellence--the test of possession. One does not say: "You should see +Brailsford's cat" or "You should see Adcock's cat" or "You should see +Sharp's cat," but "You should see our cat." There is nothing we are +more egoistic about--not even children--than about cats. I have heard +a man, for lack of anything better to boast about, boasting that his +cat eats cheese. In anyone else's cat it would have seemed an inferior +habit and only worth mentioning to the servant as a warning. But +because the cat happens to be his cat, this man talks about its vice +excitedly among women as though it were an accomplishment. It is +seldom that we hear a cat publicly reproached with guilt by anyone +above a cook. He is not permitted to steal from our own larder. But if +he visits the next-door house by stealth and returns over the wall +with a Dover sole in his jaws, we really cannot help laughing. We are +a little nervous at first, and our mirth is tinged with pity at the +thought of the probably elderly and dyspeptic gentleman who has had +his luncheon filched away almost from under his nose. If we were quite +sure that it was from No. 14, and not from No. 9 or No. 11, that the +fish had been stolen, we might--conceivably--call round and offer to +pay for it. But with a cat one is never quite sure. And we cannot call +round on all the neighbours and make a general announcement that our +cat is a thief. In any case the next move lies with the wronged +neighbour. As day follows day, and there is no sign of his irate and +murder-bent figure advancing up the path, we recover our mental +balance and begin to see the cat's exploit in a new light. We do not +yet extol it on moral grounds, but undoubtedly, the more we think of +it, the deeper becomes our admiration. Of the two great heroes of the +Greeks we admire one for his valour and one for his cunning. The epic +of the cat is the epic of Odysseus. The old gentleman with the Dover +sole gradually assumes the aspect of a Polyphemus outwitted--outwitted +and humiliated to the point of not even being able to throw things +after his tormentor. Clever cat! Nobody else's cat could have done +such a thing. We should like to celebrate the Rape of the Dover Sole +in Latin verse. + +As for the Achillean sort of prowess, we do not demand it of a cat, +but we are proud of it when it exists. There is a pleasure in seeing +strange cats fly at his approach, either in single file over the wall +or in the scattered aimlessness of a bursting bomb. Theoretically, we +hate him to fight, but, if he does fight and comes home with a torn +ear, we have to summon up all the resources of our finer nature in +order not to rejoice on noticing that the cat next door looks as +though it had been through a railway accident. I am sorry for the cat +next door. I hate him so, and it must be horrible to be hated. But he +should not sit on my wall and look at me with yellow eyes. If his eyes +were any other colour--even the blue that is now said to be the mark +of the runaway husband--I feel certain I could just manage to endure +him. But they are the sort of yellow eyes that you expect to see +looking out at you from a hole in the panelling in a novel by Mr Sax +Rohmer. The only reason why I am not frightened of them is that the +cat is so obviously frightened of me. I never did him any injury +unless to hate is to injure. But he lowers his head when I appear as +though he expected to be guillotined. He does not run away: he merely +crouches like a guilty thing. Perhaps he remembers how often he has +stepped delicately over my seed-beds, but not so delicately as to +leave no mark of ruin among the infant lettuces and the +less-than-infant autumn-sprouting broccoli. These things I could +forgive him, but it is not easy to forgive him the look in his eyes +when he watches a bird at its song. They are ablaze with evil. He +becomes a sort of Jack the Ripper at the opera. People tell us that we +should not blame cats for this sort of thing--that it is their nature +and so forth. They even suggest that a cat is no more cruel in eating +robin than we are cruel ourselves in eating chicken. This seems to me +to be quibbling. In the first place, there is an immense difference +between a robin and a chicken. In the second place, we are willing to +share our chicken with the cat--at least, we are willing to share the +skin and such of the bones as are not required for soup. Besides, a +cat has not the same need of delicacies as a human being. It can eat, +and even digest, anything. It can eat the black skin of filleted +plaice. It can eat the bits of gristle that people leave on the side +of their plates. It can eat boiled cod. It can eat New Zealand mutton. +There is no reason why an animal with so undiscriminating a palate +should demand song-birds for its food, when even human beings, who are +fairly unscrupulous eaters, have agreed in some measure to abstain +from them. On reflection, however, I doubt if it is his appetite for +birds that makes the cat with the yellow eyes feel guilty. If you were +able to talk to him in his own language, and formulate your +accusations against him as a bird-eater, he would probably be merely +puzzled and look on you as a crank. If you pursued the argument and +compelled him to moralise his position, he would, I fancy, explain +that the birds were very wicked creatures and that their cruelties to +the worms and the insects were more than flesh and blood could stand. +He would work himself up into a generous idealisation of himself as +the guardian of law and order amid the bloody strife of the +cabbage-patch--the preserver of the balance of nature. If cats were as +clever as we, they would compile an atrocities blue-book about worms. +Alas, poor thrush, with how bedraggled a reputation you would come +through such an exposure! With how Hunnish a tread you would be +depicted treading the lawn, sparing neither age nor sex, seizing the +infant worm as it puts out its head to take its first bewildered peep +at the rolling sun! Cats could write sonnets on such a theme.... Then +there is that other beautiful potential poem, _The Cry of the +Snail_.... How tender-hearted cats are! Their sympathy seems to be all +but universal, always on the look out for an object, ready to extend +itself anywhere where it is needed, except, as is but human, to their +victims. Yellow eyes or not, I begin to be persuaded that the cat next +door is a noble fellow. It may well be that his look as I pass is a +look not of fear but of repulsion. He has seen me going out among the +worms with a sharp--no, not a very sharp--spade, and regards me as no +better than an ogre. If I could only explain to him! But I shall never +be able to do so. He could no more appreciate my point of view about +worms than I can appreciate his about robins. Luckily, we both eat +chicken. This may ultimately help us to understand one another. + +On the other hand, part of the fascination of cats may be due to the +fact that it is so difficult to come to an understanding with them. A +man talks to a horse or a dog as to an equal. To a cat he has to be +deferential as though it had some Sphinx-like quality that baffled +him. He cannot order a cat about with the certainty of being obeyed. +He cannot be sure that, if he speaks to it, it will even raise its +eyes. If it is perfectly comfortable, it will not. A cat is obedient +only when it is hungry or when it takes the fancy. It may be a +parasite, but it is never a servant. The dog does your bidding, but +you do the cat's. At the same time, the contrast between the cat and +the dog has often been exaggerated by dog-lovers. They tell you +stories of dogs that remained with their dead masters, as though there +were no fidelity in cats. It was only the other day, however, that the +newspapers gave an account of a cat that remained with the body of its +murdered mistress in the most faithful tradition of the dogs. I know, +again, of cats that will go out for a walk with a human +fellow-creature, as dogs do. I have frequently seen a lady walking +across Hampstead Heath with a cat in train. When you go for a walk +with a dog, however, the dog protects you: when you go for a walk with +a cat, you feel that you are protecting the cat. It is strange that +the cat should have imposed the myth of its helplessness on us. It is +an animal with an almost boundless capacity for self-help. It can jump +up walls. It can climb trees. It can run, as the proverb says, like +"greased lightning." It is armed like an African chief. Yet it has +contrived to make itself a pampered pet, so that we are alarmed if it +attempts to follow us out of the gate into a world of dogs, and only +feel happy when it is purring--rolling on its back and purring as we +rub its Adam's apple--by the fireside. There is nothing that gives a +greater sense of comfort than the purring of a cat. It is the most +flattering music in nature. One feels, as one listens, like a humble +lover in a bad novel, who says: "You do, then, like me--a +little--after all?" The fact that a cat is not utterly miserable in +our presence always comes with the freshness and delight of a +surprise. The happiness of a crowing baby, newly introduced to us, may +be still more flattering, but a cat will get round people who cannot +tolerate babies. + +It is all the more to be wondered at that a cat, which is such a +master of this conversational sort of music, should ever attempt any +other. There never was an animal less fit to be a singer. Someone--was +it Cowper?---has said that there are no really ugly voices in nature, +and that he could imagine that there was something to be said even for +the donkey's bray. I should have thought that the beautiful voices in +nature were few, and that most of them could be defended only on the +ground of some pleasant association. Humanity, at least, has been +unanimous in its condemnation of the cat as part of nature's chorus. +Poems have been written in praise of the corncrake as a singer, but +never of the cat. All the associations we have with cats have not +accustomed us to that discordant howl. It converts love itself into a +torment such as can be found only in the pages of a twentieth-century +novel. In it we hear the jungle decadent--the beast in dissolution, +but not yet civilised. When it rises at night outside the window, we +always explain to visitors: "No; that's not Peter. That's the cat next +door with the yellow eyes." The man who will not defend the honour of +his cat cannot be trusted to defend anything. + + + + +VI + + + +MAY + + +May is chiefly remarkable for being the only month in which one does +not like cats. June, too, perhaps; but, after that, one does not mind +if the garden is full of cats. One likes to have a wild beast whose +movements, lazy as those of Satan, will terrify the childish birds out +of the gooseberry bushes and the raspberries and strawberries. He will +not, we know, have much chance of catching them as late as that. They +will be as cunning as he, and the robin will wind his alarum-clock, +the starling in the plum-tree will cry out like a hysterical drake, +and the blackbird will make as much noise as a farmyard. The cat can +but blink at the clamour of such a host of cunning sentinels and, +pretending that he had come out only to take the air, return +majestically to his dinner of leavings in the kitchen. In May and +June, however, one does not wish the birds to be frightened. One would +like one's garden to be an Alsatia for all their wings and all their +songs. There is no hope of this in a garden full of cats. Even a +Tetrazzini would cease to be able to produce her best trills if every +time she opened her mouth, a tiger padded in her direction down a path +of currant bushes. There are, it may be admitted, heroic exceptions. +The chaffinch sits in the plum and blusters out his music, cat or no +cat. To be sure, he only sings, a flush of all the colours, in order +to distract our attention. He is not an artist but a watchman. If you +look into the buddleia-tree beside him, you will see his hen moving +about in silence, creeping, dancing, fluttering, as she gorges herself +with insects. She is a fly-catcher at this season, leaping into the +air and pirouetting as she seizes her prey and returns to the bough. +She is restless and is not content with the spoil of a single tree. +She flings herself gracefully, like a ballet-dancer, into the plum, +and takes up a caterpillar in her beak. She does not eat it at once, +but stands still, eyeing you as though awaiting your applause. Her +husband, sitting on the topmost spray, goes on singing his version of +_The Roast Beef of Old England_. She does not even now eat the +caterpillar, but hurries along the paths of the branches with the +obvious purpose of finding a tasty insect to eat long with it. It may +be that there are insects that play the part of mustard or +Worcestershire sauce in the chaffinch world. What a meal she is making +in any case before she hurries back to her nest! It seems that among +the chaffinches the male is the more spiritual of the sexes. But then +he has so little to do compared with the female. He is still in that +state of savagery in which the male dresses finely and idles. + +The thrush cannot carry on with the same indifference to cats. He is +the most nervous of parents, and spends half his time calling on his +children to be careful. The young thrush hopping about on the lawn +knows nothing of cats and refuses to believe that they are dangerous. +He is not afraid even of human beings. His parent becomes +argumentative to the point of tears, but the young one stays where he +is and looks at you with a sideways jerk of his head as much as to +say: "Listen to the old 'un." You, too, begin to be alarmed at such +boldness. You know, like the pitiful parent, that the world is a very +dangerous place, and that your neighbour's cat goes about like a +roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. It has been contended by some +men of science that all birds are born fearless after the manner of +the young thrush, and that fear is a lesson that has to be taught to +each new generation by the more experienced parents. Fear, they say, +is not an inherited instinct, but a racial tradition that has to be +communicated like the morality of civilised people. The young thrush +on the lawn is certainly a witness on behalf of this theory. He hops +towards you instead of away from you. He moves his gaping beak as +though he were trying to say something. If there were no cats in the +world, you would encourage his confidences, but you feel that, much as +you would like to make friends with him, you must, for his own sake, +give him his first lesson in fear. You try to give yourself the +appearance of a grim giant: it has no effect on him. You make a quick +movement to chase him away: he runs a few yards and then stops and +looks round at you as though you were playing a game. It is too much +to expect of you that you will actually throw stones at a bird for its +good, and so you give up his education as a bad job. Alas, in two +days, your worst fears are justified. His dead body is found, torn and +ruffled, among the bushes. Some cat has murdered him--murdered him, +evidently, not in hunger, but just for fun. Two indignant children, +one gold, one brown, discover the dead body and bring in the tale. +They prepare the funeral rites of one whose only sin was his +innocence. This is not the first burial in the garden. There is +already a cemetery marked with half-a-dozen crosses and heaped with +flowers under the pear-tree on the south wall. Here is where the mouse +was buried; here where the starling; and here the rabbit's skull. They +all lie there under the earth in boxes, as you and I will lie, +expecting the Last Trump. The robins are not kinder to the "friendless +bodies of unburied men" than are children to the bodies of mice and +birds. Here the ghost of no creature haunts reproaching us with the +absence of a tomb, as the dead sailor washed up on an alien shore +reproaches us so often in the pages of _The Greek Anthology_. There is +a procession to the grave and all due ceremony. There is even a +funeral service. Over the starling, perhaps, it lacked something in +appropriateness. The buriers meant well however. Their favourite in +verse at the time was _Lars Porsena of Clusium_, and they gave the +starling the best they knew--gave it to him from beginning to end. +What he made of it, there is no telling: he is, it is said an +impressionable bird, though something of a satirist. Someone, +overhearing them, recommended a briefer and more fitting service for +the future. The young thrush had the benefit of the advice. He was +laid to his last rest with the recitation of that noblest of +valedictories: "Fear no more the heat o' the sun," over his tomb. He +is now gone where there is no cat or parent to disturb. The priests +who buried him declare that he has been turned into a golden +nightingale, and that there must be no noise or romping in the garden +for three days, as not till then will he have arrived safely at the +Appleiades. That is the name they give to the Pleiades--the seven +golden islands whither pass the souls of dead mice and birds and dolls +and where Scarlatti lives and where you, too, may expect to go if you +please them. Even the black cat will probably go there--one's own +black cat. But not the neighbour's cat--the reddish-brown one--thief, +murderer and beast. It is the neighbour's cat that makes one believe +there is a hell. + +Short is the memory of man, however. Shorter the memory of children. +There is no gloom that can withstand May pouring itself out in the +deep blue of anchusa and the paler blue of lupin, gushing out in the +yellow of laburnum, tossing like the tides in the wind. One is gloomy, +perhaps, when one looks at the lettuces and sees how slow is their +growth. Watching a plant grow is like watching a kettle boil. It seems +to take æons. The patience of gardeners always astonishes me. Were +gardening my profession, I should spend half my time inventing schemes +for making plants grow up in a night like Jonah's gourd. I should not +mind about parsnips. A parsnip might mature as slowly as an oak and +live as long for all I care. There is something, it may be, to be said +for parsnips, as there is something, it may be, to be said for Mr +Bonar Law. But I do not know it. They do not even tempt the slugs and +the leather-jackets away from the lettuces. There is nothing that +puzzles one more in a friend than if he confesses to a taste for +parsnips. Immediately, a gulf yawns deeper than could be caused by any +confession of religious or moral eccentricity. One's sympathies +instinctively close up like a sea-anemone touched by a child's finger. +Yet people eat them. All that you and I know about them is that kind +words do not butter them; but, if you go to Covent Garden at the right +time of the year, you will undoubtedly find them being sold for food. +Why should they make one gloomy, however, seeing that one has +successfully excluded them from one's garden? Perhaps one is gloomy +because of the reflection that there must be many other gardens in +which they are growing. Gloom of this kind, however, is mere +philanthropy. Turn your eyes, instead, to the strawberry-flowers and +think of June. Consider the broad beans and the young peas safe amid +their tall stakes. Consider even the spring onions. Is it any wonder +that the chaffinch sings and the wren is operatic on the thither side +of the garden wall? High in the air the swifts scream, as they rush +here and there after their prey, like polo teams galloping, pulling +up, scrimmaging, turning, and off on the gallop again. The swift is an +evil-looking bird, but playful. He has none of the grace of the +swallow, for he cannot fold his wings, and he is black as a +devil-worshipper. Still, he knows more of sport than most of the +birds. I suspect that those rushing companions are not merely bent on +food but have chosen out one individual insect for their pursuit like +a ball in a game. Otherwise, why such excitement? There are billions +of insects to be had for the mere asking. The fly-catcher knows this. +He can spend an hour at a meal without ever flying more than ten yards +from his bough. Still, one rejoices in the energy of the swift. One +wishes the greenfinch had a little of it. The yellow splashes on his +wings are undoubtedly delightful, but why will he perch so long in the +acacia wailing like a sick cricket? And why did Wordsworth write a +poem in praise of him? Probably he mistook some other bird for him. +Poets are like that. Or perhaps he liked a noise like the voice of a +sick cricket. One can never tell with Wordsworth. He had a +cuckoo-clock. + + + + +VII + + + +NEW YEAR PROPHECIES + + +Some people are surprised at the daring with which compilers of +prophetic almanacs forecast the details of the future. The most +astonishing thing of all is that nearly everybody still regards the +future as a mystery. As a matter of fact, we know a great deal about +the future. We know that next year will contain 365 days. We know--and +this is rather a tribute to our cleverness--that the year 1924 will +contain 366 days, and even the exact point at which the extra day will +slip in. Ask a savage to point you out the extra day in Leap Year, and +he will be more hopelessly at a loss than a man looking for a needle +in a haystack, but even the most ignorant Christian will pick it out +at the right end of February as neatly and inevitably as a love-bird +on a barrel-organ picking out a fortune. The art of prophecy has grown +with civilisation. Prophets were regarded as almost divine persons in +the old days, but now every man is his own Isaiah. I am the most +modest of the prophets, but even I venture to foretell that there will +be an annular eclipse of the sun in the coming year on the 8th of +April, that it will begin at twenty-two minutes to 8 A.M. at +Liverpool, and that it will be visible at Greenwich. What clairvoyant +could go further? Test my mantic gifts at any other point and I doubt +not I can satisfy you. Do you want to know at what time there will be +high water at Aberdeen on the afternoon of the 21th January? The +answer is: "Thirteen minutes past one." Do you want to know when +partridge shooting will begin? I do not even need to reflect before +giving the answer: "The 1st of September." And so I could go on, +almost _ad infinitum_, filling in the details of the year in advance. +On the 1st of March, for instance, being St David's Day, there will be +a banquet at which Mr Lloyd George will make a reference to hills, +mists, God, and a country called Wales. On the 28th of March, being +Easter Monday, there will be a Bank Holiday. On the 24th of May, being +Empire Day, the majority of shops in Regent Street will hang out Union +Jacks, and school children will salute the flag at Abinger Hammer, +Communists in various parts of London gnashing their teeth the while. +On the 15th of June the anniversary of Magna Charta will fall and will +pass without any disturbance. On the 12th of July Orangemen will dress +im in sashes and listen to orators whose speeches will prove the +hollowness of the old adage that you cannot serve both God and Mammon. +On the same day, Lord Birkenhead will celebrate his forty-ninth +birthday, showing that Gallopers are born not made. Need I continue, +however? The year is obviously going to be a crowded one. It will, as +I have said, contain 365 days and will come to an end at 12 P.M. on St +Silvester's Day at the time of the new moon. + +I have said enough, I think, to prove that one knows a great deal more +about the future than is generally realised. There may be sceptics who +doubt the virtue of my prophecies. If there be such, all I ask is that +they should mark them well and verify each of them as its fulfilment +falls due. The expense will be small. The most serious item will be +the journey to Aberdeen to see the tide coming in on the 24th of +January; but, by taking up a collection in Aberdeen, it should be +possible to reduce one's net outlay by the better part of a shilling. +On the whole, there never were prophecies easier to verify. I +confidently challenge comparison between them and any prophecy made by +any Cabinet Minister during the last five years. I even challenge +comparison with the much more respectable prophecies contained in +_Raphael's Prophetic Messenger_. Raphael at times strains our +credulity. When he tells us, for instance, that on the 27th of April +it is going to be "cold and frosty" and that on the 29th of April we +shall see "high winds, storms and thunder," we feel that he is giving +a free rein to his imagination and treating prophecy not as a science +but as an art. That the 30th of April will be "showery" I agree, but +how does he know that there will be "high wind and lightning" on the +21st of December? I am also somewhat puzzled as to the means by which +he arrives at the conclusions set forth in his "every-day" guide for +each day in the year. I can myself prophesy what you will do on each +day, but I cannot, as he does, prophesy what you ought to do. This +introduces an ethical element which is beyond my scope or horoscope. +We need not quarrel with him when he dismisses the 1st of January as +"an unimportant day," but when he bids us on the 2nd of January +"court, marry, and deal with females," we may reasonably ask: "Why?" +His advice for the 3rd is more acceptable. "Be careful," he says, +"until 1 P.M. then seek work and push thy business." That is about the +time of day one prefers to begin to "seek work"; would there were more +days in the calendar like the 3rd of January. Some saint must have it +in his keeping. On the 7th, however, it will be safer to abstain from +work altogether. Raphael says: "A very unfortunate P.M. and evening +for most purposes. Court and deal with females." Sunday, the 9th, is +better. "Ask favours," he says, "in the P.M., and court." Though +January is less than half gone, I confess I am getting a little +breathless with so much courting. Raphael probably recognises this, +and a note of caution creeps into his advice on the 13th, on which he +bids us "court and marry in the morning, then be careful." By the +18th, however, he is his old self again. "Court," he says cheerfully, +"marry and ask favours and push ahead." Then come one rather careful +day and two unfortunate ones, till on the 22nd, in a burst of +exuberance, he offers us the day of our lives. "Deal with others," he +exhorts us, "and push thy business, seek work, travel, court, marry, +buy and speculate." I doubt if all this can be crowded into +twenty-four hours outside _The Arabian Nights_. Besides, as a result +of following Raphael's advice, we are already bigamists several times +over, and have become sick of the sight of a Registry Office. By the +end of the month even Raphael shows signs of being a little weary of +his scarcely veiled incitements to Bluebeardism. For the 29th he +advises: "Avoid females and be very careful," and for the 30th, which +is a Sunday: "Avoid females and superiors." I should just about think +so. + +We need not follow Raphael through the rest of the year. It is enough +to say that he keeps us busy courting, marrying, seeking work, being +careful, travelling, speculating, pushing ahead, and avoiding females +right down till the end of December. He occasionally varies his +formula, as when on the 6th of April he bids us: "Do not quarrel. Be +quiet," and when, on the 23rd of June, he advises: "Ask favours of +females, and travel." On the whole however, his recommendations leave +us with a sense of the desperate monotony of human existence. It is no +wonder the novelists find it so difficult to invent an original plot. +Nothing seems to happen--even in the future--except the same old +thing. It is all as monotonous as North, South, East and West. We turn +with relief to the page on which Raphael tells us what are the best +days on which to hire maidservants and to set turkeys. Our interest +redoubles when we come on his advice to those about to kill pigs. "Do +this," he says, "between eight and ten in the morning, and between the +first quarter and full of the Moon; the pigs will weigh more, and the +flavour of the pork be improved." Then there are "Legal and Commercial +Notes," one of which--"A bailiff must not break into a house, but he +may enter by the chimney "--suggests a subject for a drawing by Mr +George Morrow. The medical notes are equally worthy of consideration. +On one page we are given a list of herbal remedies, and we are told +how one disease can be cured by pouring boiling water on hay (upland +hay being better than meadow hay) and applying it to the stomach. But +Raphael is no crank, as we see in his suggestion for the treatment of +influenza: + + "If you think you have got an attack of influenza slip off + to bed at once and take the whisky or brandy bottle with + you, and don't be afraid of it, for alcohol is the best + medicine you can take as it kills the germs in the blood. Do + not wait until you are half dead--remember that a stitch in + time saves nine, even with health." + +Even on the subject of the care of children's teeth he makes it clear +that, whoever may have come under the blight of Pussyfoot, it is not +he: + + "I believe a Committee is to be appointed to inquire into + the failing eyesight and decaying teeth in children. I think + I have already stated that these troubles were due to the + excessive amount of sugar or sweetstuffs consumed. All sweet + things cause an excessive exudation of saliva from the gums, + which affect and impair both the teeth and the eyesight for, + despite of what dentist and doctor may say, there is an + intimate relation between the two. Dr Sims Wallace, the + eminent lecturer on Dental Surgery, recommends _Beer_ or dry + _Champagne_ as an excellent mouth wash. They are also + pleasant to the throat and stomach!" + +The reader is now in a position to estimate for himself the extent to +which he can rely on Raphael's judgment, and to decide how far he will +accept the horoscope Raphael has cast for Mr Lloyd George. On this he +writes: + + "This gentleman has figured so prominently in our national + affairs for the last few years, that it may not be out of + place if I give a few remarks on his horoscope. The time of + his birth is stated to have been January 17th, 1863, 8h. + 55m. A.M., but neither myself, nor other Astrologers, are + satisfied with this hour. I think he was born some minutes + sooner. At his birth the Sun was in exact Square to Jupiter, + and also in Square to Mars, and Mars was in Opposition to + Jupiter. These are very ominous and important aspects. The + former denotes great extravagance, and waste of money, and + the latter gives impetuosity, and danger to the person." + +He then proceeds to give a "brief analysis" of Mr Lloyd George's +horoscope: + + "The Sun near Ascendant--self-praise, egotism, + self-satisfaction, fondness for publicity and notoriety. + + "Venus and Mercury on Ascendant--fluency in speech, + agreeableness, desire to please, fondness for Music, Arts, + and Sciences. + + "Mars in 2nd, in Opposition to Jupiter, unfavourable for + financial undertakings, extravagance, carelessness, and + losses in speculation. + + "Uranus in 4th, trouble at end of life. + + "Jupiter in the 8th, benefit or help from marriage partner. + + "Moon near cusp of the 11th, many friends, especially females. + + "The Aspects denote--Sun Square Jupiter and Mars, + recklessness in expenditure, public disapprobation, and an + unfavourable and sudden ending to life. + + "Venus in Trine to Saturn, and Moon in Sextile to + Jupiter--domestic relations of the happiest description, and + the wife a great help." + +I frankly doubt if any man can foretell the future of Mr Lloyd George. +No one knows what he will say or do to-morrow. We know what phrases he +will use, but we do not know on what side he will use them, or what he +will mean by them. All we know is that Sir William Sutherland will say +ditto. + +Let us, then, return to safer fields of prophecy. What, really, is +going to happen in 1921? I think I know. Human beings will behave like +bewildered sheep. They will be chiefly notable for their lack of moral +courage. Good men will apologise for the deeds of bad men, and bad men +will do very much as they please. Cruel and selfish faces will be seen +in every railway carriage and in every omnibus, but readers of the +respectable Press will refuse to believe that there are any cruel +people outside Germany and Russia. Not one but all the Ten +Commandments will be broken, and turkeys will be eaten on Christmas +Day. Men will die of disease, violence, famine and old age, and others +will be born to take their place. Intellectuals will be +pretentious--mules solemnly trying to look like Derby winners. There +will be a considerable amount of lying, injustice, and +self-righteousness. Dogs will be fairly decent, but some of them will +bite. Above all, the human conscience will survive. It will survive. +It will continue to be the old still, small voice we know--as still +and as small as it is possible to be without disappearing into silence +and nothingness. And some of us will get a certain amusement out of it +all, and will prefer life rather than death. We shall also go on +puzzling ourselves as to what under the sun it all means. Not even a +murderer will be without a friend or a pet dog or cat or bird. That is +what 1921 will be like. That, at least, is as certain as the time of +the high tide at Aberdeen on the 24th of January. + + + + +VIII + + + +ON KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE + + +It was only the other day that I came upon a full-grown man reading +with something like rapture a little book--_Ships and Seafaring Shown +to Children_. His rapture was modified however, by the bitter +reflection that he had already passed so great a part of his life +without knowing the difference between a ship and a barque; and, as +for sloops, yawls, cutters, ketches, and brigantines, they were simply +the Russian alphabet to him. I sympathise with his regret. It was a +noble day in one's childhood when one had learned the names of +sailing-vessels, and, walking to the point of the harbour beyond the +bathing-boxes, could correct the ignorance of a friend: "That's not a +ship. That's a brig." To the boy from an inland town every vessel that +sails is a ship. He feels he is being shown a new and bewildering +world when he is told that the only ship that has the right to be +called a ship is a vessel with three masts (at least), all of them +square-rigged. When once he has learned his lesson, he finds an +unaccustomed delight in wandering along the dirtiest coal-quay, and +recognising the barques by the fact that only two of their three masts +are square-rigged, and the brigs by the fact that they are +square-rigged throughout--a sort of two-masted ships. Vessels have +suddenly become as real to him in their differences as the different +sorts of common birds. As for his feelings on the day on which he can +tell for certain the upper fore topsail from the upper fore +top-gallant sail, and either of these from the fore skysail, the +crossjack, or the mizzen-royal, they are those of a man who has +mastered a language and discovers himself, to his surprise, talking it +fluently. The world of shipping has become articulate poetry to him +instead of a monotonous abracadabra. + +It is as though we can know nothing of a thing until we know its name. +Can we be said to know what a pigeon is unless we know that it is a +pigeon? We may have seen it again and again, with its bottle-shoulders +and shining neck, sitting on the edge of a chimney-pot, and noted it +as a bird with a full bosom and swift wings. But if we are not able to +name it except vaguely as a "bird," we seem to be separated from it by +an immense distance of ignorance. Learn that it is a pigeon however, +and immediately it rushes towards us across the distance, like +something seen through a telescope. No doubt to the pigeon-fancier +this would seem but the first lisping of knowledge, and he would not +think much of our acquaintance with pigeons if we could not tell a +carrier from a pouter. That is the charm of knowledge--it is merely a +door into another sort of ignorance. There are always new differences +to be discovered, new names to be learned, new individualities to be +known, new classifications to be made. The world is so full of a +number of things that no man with a grain of either poetry or the +scientific spirit in him has any right to be bored, though he lived +for a thousand years. Terror or tragedy may overwhelm him, but boredom +never. The infinity of things forbids it. I once heard of a tipsy +young artist who, on his way home on a beautiful night, had his +attention called by a maudlin friend to the stars, where they twinkled +like a million larks. He raised his eyes to the heavens, then shook +his head. "There are too many of them," he complained wearily. It +should be remembered, however, that he was drunk, and that he did not +know astronomy. There could be too many stars only if they were all +turned out on the same pattern, and made the same pattern on the sky. +Fortunately, the universe is the creation not of a manufacturer but of +an artist. + +There is scarcely a subject that does not contain sufficient Asias of +differences to keep an explorer happy for a lifetime. It would be easy +to do nothing but chase butterflies all one's days. It is said that +thirteen thousand species of butterflies have been already discovered, +and it is suggested that there may be nearly twice as many that have +so far escaped the naturalists. After so monstrous a figure, we are +not surprised to learn that there are sixty-eight species of +butterflies in Great Britain and Ireland. We should be astonished, +however, had we not already expended our astonishment on the larger +number. How many of us are there who could name even half-a-dozen +varieties? We all know the tortoiseshell and the white and the +blue--the little blue butterflies that flutter over the gold and red +of the cornfields. But the average man does not even know by name such +varieties as the Camberwell Beauty, the Dingy Skipper, the +Pearl-bordered Fritillary, and the White-letter Hairstreak. As for the +moth, are there not as many sorts of moths as there are words in a +dictionary? Many men give all the pleasant hours of their lives to +learning how to know the difference between one of them and another. +One used to see these moth-hunters on windless nights in a Hampstead +lane pursuing their quarry fantastically with nets in the light of the +lamps. In pursuing moths, they pursue knowledge. This, they feel, is +life at its most exciting, its most intense. They regard a man who +does not know and is not interested in the difference between one moth +and another as a man not yet thoroughly awakened from his pre-natal +sleep. And, indeed, one could not conceive a more appalling sort of +blank idiocy than the condition of a man who could not tell one thing +from another in any department of life whatever. We would rather +change lives with a jelly-fish than with such a man. This luxury of +variety was not meant to be ignored. We throw ourselves into it with +exhilaration as a swimmer plunges into the sea. There are few forms of +happiness I know which are more enviable than that of those who have +eyes for birds and flowers. How they rejoice on learning that, +according to one theory, there are a hundred and three different +species of brambles to be found in these islands! They would not have +them fewer by a single one. It is extraordinarily pleasant even for +one who is mainly ignorant of the flowers and their families to come +on two or three varieties of one flower in the course of a country +walk. As a boy, he is excited by the difference between the pin-headed +and the thrum-headed primrose. As he grows older, he scans the +roadside for little peeping things that to a lazy eye seem as like +each other as two peas--the dove's foot geranium, the round-leaved +geranium and the lesser wild geranium. "As like each other as two +peas," we have said: but _are_ two peas like each other? Who knows +whether the peas have not the same differences of feature among +themselves that Englishmen have? Half the similarities we notice are +only the results of our ignorance and idleness. The townsman passing a +field of sheep finds it difficult to believe that the shepherd can +distinguish between one and another of them with as much certainty as +if they were his children. And do not most of us think of foreigners +as beings who are all turned out as if on a pattern, like sheep? The +further removed the foreigners are from us in race the more they seem +to us to be like each other. When we speak of negroes, we think of +millions of people most of whom look exactly alike. We feel much the +same about Chinamen and even Turks. Probably to a Chinaman all English +children look exactly alike, and it may be that all Europeans seem to +him to be as indistinguishable as sticks of barley-sugar. How many +people think of Jews in this way! I have heard an Englishman +expressing his wonder that Jewish parents should be able to pick out +their own children in a crowd of Jewish boys and girls. + +Thus our first generalisations spring from ignorance rather than from +knowledge. They are true, so long as we know that they are not +entirely true. As soon as we begin to accept them as absolute truths, +they become lies. One of the perils of a great war is that it revives +the passionate faith of the common man in generalisations. He begins +to think that all Germans are much the same, or that all Americans are +much the same, or that all Conscientious Objectors are much the same. +In each case he imagines a lay figure rather than a human being. He +may hate his lay figure or he may like it; but, if he is in search of +truth, he had better throw the thing out of the window and try to +think about a human being instead. I do not wish to deny the +importance of generalisations. It is not possible to think or even to +act without them. The generalisation that is founded on a knowledge of +and a delight in the variety of things is the end of all science and +poetry. Keats said that he sought the principle of beauty in all +things, and poems are in a sense simply beautiful generalisations. +They subject the unclassified and chaotic facts of life to the order +of beauty. The mystic, meditating on the One and the Many, is also in +pursuit of a generalisation--the perfect generalisation of the +universe. And what is science but the attempt to arrange in a series +of generalisations the facts of what we are vain enough to call the +known world? To know the resemblances of things is even more important +than to know the differences of things. Indeed, if we are not +interested in the former, our pleasure in the latter is a mere +scrap-book pleasure. If we are not interested in the latter, on the +other hand, our sense of the former is apt to degenerate into +guesswork and assertion and empty phrases. Shakespeare is greater than +all the other poets because he, more than anybody else, knew how very +like human beings are to each other and because he, more than anybody +else, knew how very unlike human beings are to each other. He was +master of the particular as well as of the universal. How much poorer +the world would have been if he had not been so in regard not only to +human beings but to the very flowers--if he had not been able to tell +the difference between fennel and fumitory, between the violet and the +gillyflower! + + + + +IX + + + +THE INTELLECTUAL SIDE OF HORSE-RACING + + +Horse-racing--or, at least, betting--is one of the few crafts that are +looked down on by practically everybody who does not take part in it. +"It's a mug's game," people say. Even betting men talk like this. +There is a street called Mug's Row in a north of England town: it is +so called because the houses in it were built by a bookmaker. Whether +it was the bookmaker or his victims that gave the street its name I do +not know. To call a bookmaker a mug would seem to most people an abuse +of language. Yet the only bookmaker I have ever really known used to +confess himself a mug in the most penitent fashion. He was a mug, +however, not because he could not make money, but because he could not +keep it. The poor of his suburb, when in difficulties, he declared, +used always to come to him instead of going to the clergy, and he was +unable to refuse them. But then he was bitter against the clergy. As a +young man, he had been a Sunday school teacher, and so far as I could +gather, he might have gone on being a Sunday school teacher till the +present day if he had not suddenly been assailed with doubts one +Sabbath afternoon as he expounded the story of David and Goliath. +Whether it was that he looked on David as having taken an +unsportsmanlike advantage of the giant or whether he doubted that so +much could be done with such little stones, he did not make quite +clear. Anyhow, from that day on, he never believed in revealed +religion. He quarrelled with his clergyman. He broke the Sabbath. He +began to drink beer and to go to race-meetings. He rapidly rose from +the position of carpenter to that of bookmaker, and, were it not for +his infernal gift of charity, he would probably now be driving his own +car and be hall-marked with a Coalition title. Even as it was, he was +much more prosperous than any carpenter. Whenever he produced money, +it was in pocketfuls and handfuls. Strange that a bookmaker, who by +his trade must be accustomed to miracles, should find it difficult to +believe in David and Goliath. He was possibly a man who betted on +form, and on form Goliath should undoubtedly have won. David was an +outsider. He had no breeding. He would have been surprised if he could +have foreseen how his victory would rankle some thousands of years +later in the soul of an honest English bookmaker. + +It is, however, just these matters of form and breeding that raise +horse-racing and betting above the intellectual level of a game of +nap. Betting men who ignore these things are as unintellectual as the +average novelist. There are some, for instance, who shut their eyes +and bring down a pin or a pencil on a list of names of the horses, in +the hope that in this way they may discover a winner. No doubt they +may. It is perhaps as good a way as any other. But there is something +trivial in such methods. This is mere gambling for the sake of +excitement. There is no more fundamental brainwork in it than in a +game I saw being played in a railway carriage the other day, when a +man drew a handful of coins from his pocket and bet his friend +half-a-sovereign that there would be more heads than tails lying +uppermost. This is a game at which it is possible to lose five pounds +in two minutes. It is the sort of game to which a betting man will +resort when _in extremis_, but only then. The ruling passion is +strong, however. I have a friend who on one occasion went into retreat +in a Catholic monastery. Two well-known bookmakers had also gone into +temporary retreat for the good of their souls. My friend told me that +even during the religious services the bookmakers used to bet as to +which of the monks would stand up first at the conclusion of a prayer, +and that in the solemn hush of the worship he would suddenly hear a +hoarse whisper: "Two to one on Brownie"--a brother with hair of that +colour--and the answer: "I take you, Joe." I have even heard of men +betting as to which of two raindrops on a window-pane will reach the +bottom first. It is possible to bet on cats, rats or flies. Calvinists +do not bet, because they believe that everything that happens is a +certainty. The extreme betting man is no Calvinist, however. He +believes that most things are accidents, and the rest catastrophes. +Hence his philosophy is almost always that of Epicurus. To him every +day is a new day, at the end of which it is his aim to be able to say, +like Horace, _Vixi_, or, as the text ought perhaps to read, _Vici_. + +The intellectual betting man, on the other hand, has a position +somewhere between the extremes of Calvinism and Epicureanism. He +worships neither certainty nor chance. He reckons up probabilities. +When Mr Asquith picked out Spion Kop as the winner of the Derby, he +did so because he went about the business of selection not with a pin +or a pencil, but with one of the best brains in England. In the course +of his long conflicts with the House of Lords he had probably +interested himself somewhat profoundly in questions of heredity and +pedigree, and he was thus well equipped for an investigation into the +records of the parentage and grandparentage of the various Derby +horses. All that the ordinary casual better knows about Spion Kop is +that he is the son of Spearmint, which won the Derby in 1906. This, +however, would not alone make him an obviously better horse than +Orpheus, whose sire, Orby, won the Derby in 1907. The student of +breeding must be a feminist, who pays as much attention to the female +as to the male line. It was by the study of the female line that the +most cunning of the sporting journalists were able to eliminate +Tetratema from the list of probable winners. Tetratema, as son of the +Tetrarch, was excellently fathered for staying the mile-and-a-half +course at Epsom. More than this, as a writer in _The Sportsman_ +pointed out: "The Tetrarch himself is by Roi Herode, a fine stayer, +and his maternal grand-dam was by Hagioscope, who rarely failed to +transmit stamina." It is when we turn to Tetratema's mother, Scotch +Gift--or is it his grandmother something else?--apparently, that we +discover his hereditary vice. This mare our journalist exposed to +scathing and searching criticism, and concluded that "there can be +nothing unreasonable in the inference, based on the records of this +family, that the chances are against a Derby winner having descended +from the least distinguished of ... four sisters." Even so, however, +the writer a few sentences later abjures Calvinism, and denies that +there is anything certain in what he calls breeding problems. "It +seemed," he writes, "wildly improbable at one time that Flying Duchess +would produce a Derby winner, for I believe it is correct that two of +Galopin's elder brothers ran in a bus, and there were two others quite +useless So, on the face of it, the chances were against Galopin, the +youngest brother." I quote these passages as evidence of the immense +demand the serious pursuit of horse-racing puts on the intellect. The +betting man must be as well versed in precedents as a lawyer and in +genealogical trees as a historian. At school, I always found the +genealogical trees the most difficult and bewildering part of history. +Yet the genealogical tree of a king is a simple matter compared to +that of a horse. All you have to learn about a king is the names of +his relations: regarding a horse, however, you must know not only the +names but the character, staying power and domestic virtues of every +male and female with whom he is connected during several generations. +If a man spent as much labour in disentangling the cousinship of the +royal families of ancient Egypt, he would be venerated as a scholar in +five continents. Oxford and Cambridge would shower degrees on him. Sir +William Sutherland would get him a place on the Civil List. Hence it +seems to me that tipping the winners is not, as is too often regarded, +"anybody's job": it is work that should be undertaken only by men of +powerful mind. No man should be allowed to qualify as a tipster unless +he has taken a degree at one of the Universities. The ideal tipster +would at once be a great historian a great antiquary, a great +zoologist, a great mathematician, and a man of profound common-sense. +It is no accident that an ex-Prime Minister was one of the few +Englishmen to spot the winner of the Derby of 1920. Mr Asquith must +have gone patiently through all Spion Kop's relations, weighing up the +chances whether it was an accident or owing to the weather that such +an one fifteen years ago was beaten by a neck in a six-furlong race, +studying incidents in every one of their careers, seeing that none of +them had ever had a great-uncle a bus-horse, bringing out a table of +logarithms to decide difficult points.... We need not be surprised +that there are fewer great tipsters than great poets. Shakespeare +alone has given us a portrait of the perfect tipster--"looking before +and after ... in apprehension how like a god!" + +It is perhaps, however, when we leave questions of breeding and come +to those of form, that we realise most fully the amazing +intellectualism of the betting life. In the study of form we are faced +by problems that can be solved only by the higher algebra. Thus, if +Jehoshaphat, carrying 7 st., ran third to Jezebel, carrying 8 st. 4 +lb., in a mile race, and Jezebel, carrying 8 st. 4 lb., was beaten by +a neck by Woman and Wine, carrying 7 st. 9 lb., over a mile and a +quarter, and Woman and Wine, carrying 8 st. 1 lb., was beaten by Tom +Thumb, carrying 9 st. in a mile 120 yds., and Tom Thumb, carrying 9 +st. 7 lb., was beaten by Jehoshaphat over seven furlongs, we have to +calculate what chance Tom Thumb has of beating Jezebel in a race of a +mile and a half on a wet day. There are men to whom such calculations +may come easy. To Mr Asquith they are probably child's play. For +myself, I shrink from them and, if I were a betting man, would no +doubt in sheer desperation be driven back on the method of pin and +pencil. But it is obvious that the sincere betting man has to make +such calculations daily. Every morning the student of form finds his +sporting page full of such lists as the following:-- + + 0 0 0 CONCLUSIVE (7-5), Kroonstad-Conclusion. 8th of 9 to + Poltava (gave 17lb.) Gatwick May (6f) and 7th of 19 to + Orby's Pride (rec 4lb) Kempton May (5f). + + 3 3 3 RAPIERE (7-4), Sunder--Gourouli. Lost 3-4 length and 3 + lengths to Bantry (gave 2lb) and Marcia (rec 7lb) Newmarket + May (1m), GOLDEN GUINEA (gave 20lb) not in first 9. See + BLACK JESS. + + 0 0 4 ROYAL BLUE (7-0), Prince Palatine--China Blue. See + NORTHERN LIGHT. + + 0 2 0 BLACK JESS (6-11), Black Jester--Diving Bell. Not in + first 4 to St Corentin (gave 121b) Lingfield last week (7f). + Here Ap. (7f) lost 3 lengths to Victory Speech (rec 1lb), + RAPIERE (gave 13lb, favourite) ½ length off. + + 0 LLAMA (6-11), Isard II.--Laughing Mirror. Nowhere to + Silver Jug (gave 15lb) Newbury Ap. (7f). + +Is not a page of Thucydides simpler? Is Persius himself more succinct +or obscure? Our teachers used to apologise for teaching us Latin +grammar and mathematics by telling us that they were good mental +gymnastics. If education is only a matter of mental gymnastics, +however, I should recommend horse-racing as an ideal study for young +boys and girls. The sole objection to it is that it is so engrossing; +it might absorb the whole energies of the child. The safety of Latin +grammar lies in its dullness. No child is tempted by it into +forgetting that there are other duties in life besides mental +gymnastics. Horse-racing, on the other hand, comes into our lives with +the effect of a religious conversion. It is the greatest monopolist +among the pleasures. It affects men's conversation. It affects their +entire outlook. The betting man's is a dedicated life. Even books have +a new meaning for him. _The Ring and the Book_--it is his one and only +epic. And it is the most intellectual of epics. That is my point. + + + + +X + + + +WHY WE HATE INSECTS + + +It has been said that the characteristic sound of summer is the hum of +insects, as the characteristic sound of spring is the singing of +birds. It is all the more curious that the word "insect" conveys to us +an implication of ugliness. We think of spiders, of which many people +are more afraid than of Germans. We think of bugs and fleas, which +seem so indecent in their lives that they are made a jest by the +vulgar and the nice people do their best to avoid mentioning them. We +think of blackbeetles scurrying into safety as the kitchen light is +suddenly turned on--blackbeetles which (so we are told) in the first +place are not beetles, and in the second place are not black. There +are some women who will make a face at the mere name of any of these +creatures. Those of us who have never felt this repulsion--at least, +against spiders and blackbeetles--cannot but wonder how far it is +natural. Is it born in certain people, or is it acquired like the +old-fashioned habit of swooning and the fear of mice? The nearest I +have come to it is a feeling of disgust when I have seen a cat +retrieving a blackbeetle just about to escape under a wall and making +a dish of it. There are also certain crawling creatures which are so +notoriously the children of filth and so threatening in their touch +that we naturally shrink from them. Burns may make merry over a louse +crawling in a lady's hair, but few of us can regard its kind with +equanimity even on the backs of swine. Men of science deny that the +louse is actually engendered by dirt, but it undoubtedly thrives on +it. Our anger against the flea also arises from the fact that we +associate it with dirt. Donne once wrote a poem to a lady who had been +bitten by the same flea as himself, arguing that this was a good +reason why she should allow him to make love to her. It is, and was +bound to be, a dirty poem. Love, even of the wandering and polygynous +kind, does not express itself in such images. Only while under the +dominion of the youthful heresy of ugliness could a poet pretend that +it did. The flea, according to the authorities, is "remarkable for its +powers of leaping, and nearly cosmopolitan." Even so, it has found no +place in the heart or fancy of man. There have been men who were +indifferent to fleas, but there have been none who loved them, though +if my memory does not betray me there was a famous French prisoner +some years ago who beguiled the tedium of his cell by making a pet and +a performer of a flea. For the world at large, the flea represents +merely hateful irritation. Mr W.B. Yeats has introduced it into poetry +in this sense in an epigram addressed "to a poet who would have me +praise certain bad poets, imitators of his and of mine": + + You say as I have often given tongue + In praise of what another's said or sung, + 'Twere politic to do the like by these, + But where's the wild dog that has praised his fleas? + +When we think of the sufferings of human beings and animals at the +hands--if that is the right word--of insects, we feel that it is +pardonable enough to make faces at creatures so inconsiderate. But +what strikes one as remarkable is that the insects that do man most +harm are not those that horrify him most. A lady who will sit bravely +while a wasp hangs in the air and inspects first her right and then +her left temple will run a mile from a harmless spider. Another will +remain collected (though murderous) in presence of a horse-fly, but +will shudder at sight of a moth that is innocent of blood. Our fears, +it is evident, do not march in all respects with our sense of physical +danger. There are insects that make us feel that we are in presence of +the uncanny. Many of us have this feeling about moths. Moths are the +ghosts of the insect world. It may be the manner in which they flutter +in unheralded out of the night that terrifies us. They seem to tap +against our lighted windows as though the outer darkness had a message +for us. And their persistence helps to terrify. They are more +troublesome than a subject nation. They are more importunate than the +importunate widow. But they are most terrifying of all if one suddenly +sees their eyes blazing crimson as they catch the light. One thinks of +nocturnal rites in an African forest temple and of terrible jewels +blazing in the head of an evil goddess--jewels to be stolen, we +realise, by a foolish white man, thereafter to be the object of a +vendetta in a sensational novel. One feels that one's hair would be +justified in standing on end, only that hair does not do such things. +The sight of a moth's eye is, I fancy, a rare one for most people. It +is a sight one can no more forget than a house on fire. Our feelings +towards moths being what they are, it is all the more surprising that +superstition should connect the moth so much less than the butterfly +with the world of the dead. Who save a cabbage-grower has any feeling +against butterflies? And yet in folk-lore it is to the butterfly +rather than to the moth that is assigned the ghostly part. In Ireland +they have a legend about a priest who had not believed that men had +souls, but, on being converted, announced that a living thing would be +seen soaring up from his body when he died--in proof that his earlier +scepticism had been wrong. Sure enough, when he lay dead, a beautiful +creature "with four snow-white wings" rose from his body and fluttered +round his head. "And this," we are told, "was the first butterfly that +was ever seen in Ireland; and now all men know that the butterflies +are the souls of the dead waiting for the moment when they may enter +Purgatory." In the Solomon Islands, they say, it used to be the +custom, when a man was about to die, for him to announce that he was +about to transmigrate into a butterfly or some other creature. The +members of his family, on meeting a butterfly afterwards, would +exclaim: "This is papa," and offer him a coco-nut. The members of an +English family in like circumstances would probably say: "Have a +banana." In certain tribes of Assam the dead are believed to return in +the shape of butterflies or house-flies, and for this reason no one +will kill them. On the other hand, in Westphalia the butterfly plays +the part given to the scapegoat in other countries, and on St Peter's +Day, in February, it is publicly expelled with rhyme and ritual. +Elsewhere, as in Samoa--I do not know where I found all these +facts--probably in _The Golden Bough_--the butterfly has been feared +as a god, and to catch a butterfly was to run the risk of being struck +dead. The moth, for all I know, may be the centre of as many legends +but I have not met them. It may be, however, that in many of the +legends the moth and the butterfly are not very clearly distinguished. +To most of us it seems easy enough to distinguish between them; the +English butterfly can always be known, for instance, by his clubbed +horns. But this distinction does not hold with regard to the entire +world of butterflies--a world so populous and varied that thirteen +thousand species have already been discovered, and entomologists hope +one day to classify twice as many more. Even in these islands, indeed, +most of us do not judge a moth chiefly by its lack of clubbed horns. +It is for us the thing that flies by night and eats holes in our +clothes. We are not even afraid of it in all circumstances. Our terror +is an indoors terror. We are on good terms with it in poetry, and play +with the thought of + + The desire of the moth for the star. + +We remember that it is for the moths that the pallid jasmine smells so +sweetly by night. There is no shudder in our minds when we read: + + And when white moths were on the wing, + And moth-like stars were flickering out, + I dropped the berry in a stream, + And caught a little silver trout. + +No man has ever sung of spiders or earwigs or any other of our pet +antipathies among the insects like that. The moth is the only one of +the insects that fascinates us with both its beauty and its terror. + +I doubt if there have ever been greater hordes of insects in this +country than during the past spring. It is the only complaint one has +to make against the sun. He is a desperate breeder of insects. And he +breeds them not in families like a Christian but in plagues. The +thought of the insects alone keeps us from envying the tropics their +blue skies and hot suns. Better the North Pole than a plague of +locusts. We fear the tarantula and have no love for the tse-tse fly. +The insects of our own climate are bad enough in all conscience. The +grasshopper, they say, is a murderer, and, though the earwig is a +perfect mother, other insects, such as the burying-beetle, have the +reputation of parricides, But, dangerous or not, the insects are for +the most part teasers and destroyers. The greenfly makes its colonies +in the rose, a purple fellow swarms under the leaves of the apples, +and another scoundrel, black as the night, swarms over the beans. +There are scarcely more diseases in the human body than there are +kinds of insects in a single fruit tree. The apple that is rotten +before it is ripe is an insect's victim, and, if the plums fall green +and untimely in scores upon the ground, once more it is an insect that +has been at work among them. Talk about German spies! Had German spies +gone to the insect world for a lesson, they might not have been the +inefficient bunglers they showed themselves to be. At the same time, +most of us hate spies and insects for the same reason. We regard them +as noxious creatures intruding where they have no right to be, preying +upon us and giving us nothing but evil in return. Hence our +ruthlessness. We say: "Vermin," and destroy them. To regard a human +being as an insect is always the first step in treating him without +remorse. It is a perilous attitude and in general is more likely to +beget crime than justice. There has never, I believe, been an empire +built in which, at some stage or other, a massacre of children among a +revolting population has not been excused on the ground that "nits +make lice." "Swat that Bolshevik," no doubt, seems to many +reactionaries as sanitary a counsel as "Swat that fly." Even in regard +to flies, however, most of us can only swat with scruple. Hate flies +as we may, and wish them in perdition as we may, we could not slowly +pull them to pieces, wing after wing and leg after leg, as thoughtless +children are said to do. Many of us cannot endure to see them slowly +done to death on those long strips of sticky paper on which the flies +drag their legs and their lives out--as it seems to me, a vile +cruelty. A distinguished novelist has said that to watch flies trying +to tug their legs off the paper one after another till they are twice +their natural length is one of his favourite amusements. I have never +found any difficulty in believing it of him. It is an odd fact that +considerateness, if not actually kindness, to flies has been made one +of the tests of gentleness in popular speech. How often has one heard +it said in praise of a dead man: "He wouldn't have hurt a fly!" As for +those who do hurt flies, we pillory them in history. We have never +forgotten the cruelty of Domitian. "At the beginning of his reign," +Suetonius tells us "he used to spend hours in seclusion every day, +doing nothing but catch flies and stab them with a keenly sharpened +stylus. Consequently, when someone once asked whether anyone was in +there with Cæsar, Vibius Crispus made the witty reply: 'Not even a +fly.'" And just as most of us are on the side of the fly against +Domitian, so are most of us on the side of the fly against the spider. +We pity the fly as (if the image is permissible) the underdog. One of +the most agonising of the minor dilemmas in which a too sensitive +humanitarian ever finds himself is whether he should destroy a +spider's web, and so, perhaps, starve the spider to death, or whether +he should leave the web, and so connive at the death of a multitude of +flies. I have long been content to leave Nature to her own ways in +such matters. I cannot say that I like her in all her processes, but I +am content to believe that this may be owing to my ignorance of some +of the facts of the case. There are, on the other hand, two acts of +destruction in Nature which leave me unprotesting and pleased. One of +these occurs when a thrush eats a snail, banging the shell repeatedly +against a stone. I have never thought of the incident from the snail's +point of view. I find myself listening to the tap-tap of the shell on +the stone as though it were music. I felt the same sort of mild thrill +of pleasure the other day when I found a beautiful spotted ladybird +squeezing itself between two apples and settling down to feed on some +kind of aphides that were eating into the fruit. The ladybird, the +butterfly, and the bee--who would put chains upon such creatures? +These are insects that must have been in Eden before the snake. +Beelzebub, the god of the other insects, had not yet any engendering +power on the earth in those days, when all the flowers were as strange +as insects and all the insects were as beautiful as flowers. + + + + +XI + + + +VIRTUE + + +There is grave danger of a revival of virtue in this country. There +are, I know, two kinds of virtue, and only one of them is a vice +Unfortunately, it is the latter a revival of which is threatened +to-day. This is the virtue of the virtuously indignant. It is virtue +that is not content merely to be virtuous to the glory of God. It has +no patience with the simple beauty and goodness of the saints. Virtue, +in the eyes of the virtuously indignant, is hardly worthy to be called +virtue unless it goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom it may +devour. Virtue, according to this view, is a detective, inquisitor, +and flagellator of the vices--especially of the vices that are so +unpopular that the mob may be easily persuaded to attack them. One of +the chief differences between the two kinds of virtue, I fancy, is +that while true virtue regards the mob-spirit as an enemy, simular +virtue (if we may adopt the Shakespearean phrase) looks to the mob as +its cousin and its ally. To be virtuous in the latter sense is +obviously as easy as hunting rats or cats. Virtue of this kind is +simply the eternal huntsman in man's breast with eyes aglint for a +victim. It is Mr Murdstone's virtue--the persecutor's virtue. It is +the virtue that warms the bosom of every man who is more furious with +his neighbour's sins than with his own. If virtue is merely an +inflammation against our neighbour's sins, what man on earth is so +mean as to be incapable of it? To be virtuous in this fashion is as +easy as lying. Those who abstain from it do so not out of lack of +heart, but from choice. We have read of the popularity of the +ducking-stool in former days for women taken in adultery. Savage mobs +may have thought that by putting their hearts into this amusement they +were making up to virtue for the long years of neglect to which, as +individuals, they had subjected her. They might not have been virtue's +lovers, but at least they could be virtue's bullies. After all, virtue +itself is no bad sport, when chasing, kicking, thumping, and yelling +are made the chief part of the game. Sending dogs coursing after a +hare is nothing to it. Man's enjoyment of the chase never rises to the +finest point of ecstasy save when his victim is a human being. Man's +inhumanity to man, says the poet, makes countless thousands mourn. But +think also of the countless thousands that it makes rejoice! We should +always remember that the Crucifixion was an exceedingly popular event, +and in no quarter more so than among the virtuously indignant. It +would probably never have taken place had it not been for the close +alliance between the virtuously indignant and the mob. + +To be fair to the virtuously indignant and the mob, they do not insist +beyond reason that their victim shall be a bad man. Good hunting may +be had even among the saints, and who does not enjoy the spectacle of +a citizen distinguished mainly for his unblemished character being +dragged down into the dust? We have no reason to believe that the +people who were burned during the Inquisition were worse than their +neighbours, yet the mob, we are told, used to gather enthusiastically +and dance round the flames. The destructive instincts of the mob are +such that in certain moods it is ready to destroy any kind of man, +just as the destructive instincts of a puppy are such that in certain +moods it is ready to destroy any sort of book--whether Smiles's +_Self-Help_ or _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ is a matter of perfect +indifference. The virtuously indignant maintain their power by +constantly inciting and feeding this appetite for destruction. Hence, +when we feel virtuously indignant, we would do well to inquire of +ourselves if that is the limit and Z of our virtue. Have we no sins of +our own to amend that we have all this time for barking and biting at +the vices of our neighbours? And if we must attack the sins of our +fellows, would it not be the more heroic course to begin with those we +are most tempted by, instead of those to which we have no mind? Do not +let the drunkard feel virtuous because he is able with an undivided +heart to denounce simony, and do not let the forger, who happens to be +a teetotaller because of the weakness of his stomach, be too +virtuously indignant at the red-nosed patron of the four-ale bar. Any +of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of +the vices that do not attract us. Most of us can boast than we have +never been cruel to a hippopotamus or had dealings with a succubus or +taken a bribe of a million pounds to betray a friend. On these points +we can look forward with perfect confidence to the scrutiny of the Day +of Judgment. I fear, however, the Recording Angel is likely to devote +such little space as he can afford to each of us to the vices we have +rather than to the vices we have not. Even Charles Peace would have +been acquitted if he had been accused of brawling in church instead of +murder. Hence it is to be hoped that passengers in railway trains will +not remain content with gloating down upon the unappetising sins of +which the forty-seven thousand are accused by Mr Pemberton Billing. +Steep and perilous is the ascent of virtue, and the British public may +well be grateful to Mr Billing and Mr Bottomley if they help it with +voice or outstretched hand to climb to the snowy summits. So far as +can be seen, however, all that Mr Billing and Mr Bottomley do is to +interrupt the British public in its upward climb and orate to it on +the monstrous vices of the Cities of the Plain. This may be an +agreeable diversion for weary men, but it obviously involves the +neglect of virtue, not the pursuit of it. Most people imagine that to +pursue vice is to pursue virtue. But the wisdom of the ages tells us +that the only thing to do to vice is to fly from it. Lot's wife was a +lady who looked round once too often to see what was happening to the +forty-seven thousand. Let Mr Billing and Mr Bottomley beware. Their +interest in the Cities of the Plain will turn them into pillars of +salt a thousand years before it turns them into pillars of society. + +As for virtue, then, how is it to be achieved? Merely by blackening +the rest of the world, we cannot hope to make ourselves white. Modern +writers tell us that we cannot make ourselves white even by blackening +ourselves. They denounce the sense of sin as a sin, and tell us that +there is nothing of which we should repent except repentance. We need +not stay to discuss this point. We know well enough that, so long as +the human intellect (to leave the human conscience out of the +question) survives, men will be burdened with the sense of +imperfection and think enviously of the nobility of Epaminondas or +Julius Cæsar or St Francis of Assisi. For we have to count even Julius +Cæsar among the virtuous, though the scandalmongers would not have it +so. His vices may have made him bald and brought about his +assassination. But he had the heroic virtues--courage and generosity +and freedom from vindictiveness. When we read how he wept at the death +of his great enemy, and how "from the man who brought him Pompey's +head he turned away with loathing, as from an assassin," we bow before +the nobility of his character and realise that he was something more +than a stern man and an adulterer. Pompey, too, had this gift of +virtue--this capacity for turning away from foul means of besting his +enemies. When he had captured Perpenna in Spain, the latter offered +him a magnificent story of a plot, the knowledge of which would have +put the lives of many leading Romans in his power. "Perpenna, who had +come into possession of the papers of Sertorius, offered," says +Plutarch, "to produce letters from the chief men of Rome, who had +desired to subvert the existing order and change the form of +government, and had therefore invited Sertorius into Italy. Pompey, +therefore, fearing that this might stir up greater wars than those now +ended, put Perpenna to death and burned the letters without even +reading them." It was hard on Perpenna, but in burning the letters at +least Pompey gave us an example of virtue. It is Plutarch's feeling +for the beauty of such noble actions that has made his biographies a +primer of virtue for all time. None of his heroes are primarily "good" +men. There is scarcely one of them who could have been canonised by +any Church. They have enough of the weaknesses of flesh and blood to +satisfy even the most exacting novelist of these days. On the other +hand, they nearly all had that capacity for grandeur of conduct which +distinguishes the noble man from the base. Plutarch never pretends +that mean and filthy motives and generous motives do not jostle one +another strangely in the same breast, but his portraits of great men +give us the feeling that we are in presence of men redeemed by their +virtues rather than utterly destroyed by their vices. Suetonius, on +the other hand, is the historian of the forty-seven thousand. His book +may be recommended as scandalmongering--hardly as an aid to virtue. +Here we have the servants' evidence of Roman history, the plots and +the secret vices. Suetonius, fortunately, has the grace not to write +as though in narrating his story of vice he were performing a virtuous +act. If we are to have stories of fashionable sinners, let us at least +have them naked and not dressed up in the language of outraged virtue. +Scandal is sufficiently entertaining by itself. There is no need to +lace it with self-righteousness. + + + + +XII + + + +JUNE + + +There is always a cuckoo that stays out later than the other +cuckoos.... + +Two goldfinches came and sang in the catalpa-tree in the garden.... + +It is difficult to decide with which sentence to begin. There are so +many pleasures. The goldfinches have not come back again, however. +They and the faint blue flowers of the catalpa turned a sinister +growth for an interval into a small Paradise of colour and song. Then +the flowers fell. They had no more life than snow in May. Coming as +they did at the end of years of barrenness, they astonished one like +the blossoming of the Rose of Sharon. But now the bough is dark and +sinister and melancholy again. Sparrows squabble over their love +affairs in it. The, cuckoo that stays out later than the other cuckoos +is the triumphant survivor. + +Not that there is much to be said even for him as a model of +continuance. His note will soon change. He will become hoarse and only +half-articulate. He will cease to be the flying echo of the mystery of +skies and wood at dawn and in the still evening. The disreputable bat, +whose little wings flutter half visibly like waves of heat rising +above a stove, will outlast him. + +There is no getting beyond the old image of things in general as a +stream that disappears. The flowers and the birds come in tides that +sweep over the world and in a moment are lost like a broken wave. The +lilacs filled with purple; laburnum followed, and in a few days all +the gold ebbed, and nothing was left but a drift of withered blossoms +on the ground; then came the acacia-flowers, white as the morning +among the cool green plumage of the tree, and now they, too, have been +turned into dirtiness and deserted foam. And in the hedges change has +been as swift, as merciless--change so imperceptible in what it is +doing, so manifest in what it has done. The white blossoms of the sloe +gave place to the foam of the hawthorn and the flat clusters of the +wayfaring-tree; now in its turn has come the flood of the +elder-flowers, a flood of commonness, and June on the roads would +hardly be beautiful were it not for the roses that settle, delicate +and fleeting as butterflies, on the long and crooked briers. Perhaps +one has not the right to say of any flower or any bird that it is not +beautiful Even elder-flowers, seen at a distance, can give +cheerfulness to a roadside. But, if we have to pick and choose among +flowers, there are many who will give the lowest prize to the flowers +that have been compared to umbrellas--elder-flowers, cow's parsley, +hemlock, and the rest. These are the plebeians of the hedges and +ditches. They have the air of something useful. One would imagine they +were intended to be cooked and eaten in cheap restaurants. We +experience no lifting of the heart at sight of them. We should be +surprised to hear the abrupt ecstasy of a wren issuing from among +their leaves. And yet it is hardly a week since, walking in a Sussex +lane, I saw a long procession of cow's parsley on the top of a high +bank silhouetted against the twilight sky. There seemed never to have +been more exquisite flowers. They had captured the silver of evening +as in a net. + +There are many flowers that seem ugly to an indifferent eye. Even the +red valerian, that sprouts so boldly in bushes of coral from the top +of the wall, is regarded by some people as a weed and an impudent +intruder. For myself, I love the spectacle of stone walls breaking out +into flower with red valerian and ivy-leaved toad-flax. The country +people have greeted these flowers with comic and friendly names. +Valerian they call "drunken sailor," and the ivy-leaved toad-flax that +blossoms in a thousand tiny blue butterflies from the stones has (so +prolific it is) been given the nickname of "mother of thousands." I +doubt, however, whether the country people have as many fanciful names +for the flowers as they are represented as having in the books. When +Mr W.H. Hudson first came on winter heliotrope in Cornwall, and was +attracted by its meadow-sweet smell at a season when there were few +other flowers, he was told by a countryman that it was called simply +"weed." Countrymen, if they are asked the name of a flower, will often +say that they do not know, but that they call it so-and-so. A small +boy who was gathering green-stuffs for his rabbits came up and walked +beside me the other day, and, on being shown some goose-grass, and +asked what name he knew it by, said: "I don't know its name; we calls +it 'cleavers.'" In my childhood, I never heard it called by any other +name than "robin-run-the-hedge," and under that name alone am I +attracted by it. "Cleavers" is too reminiscent of a butcher's yard or +of some dull tool. "Goose-grass" at least fills the imagination with +the picture of a bird. But "robin-run-the-hedge" is better, for it is +an image of wild adventure. It will be a pity if the tradition of +picturesque names for flowers is allowed to die. The kidney-vetch, a +long yellow claw of a flower that looks withered even at birth, may +not deserve a prettier name, but at least it is possible to give it an +ugly name with more interesting associations. "Staunch" is an older +name that reminds us that the flower was, a few generations ago, used +to staunch wounds. The other name, it is suggested, had its origin in +the supposed excellence of the plant in curing diseases of the kidney. + +But there seem to be no grounds for believing this. There are, +unfortunately, some beautiful flowers for which no beautiful or even +expressive name has ever been invented. Who is there who, coming on +the blue scabious on a hill near the sea, is not conscious of the +gross failure of the human race in never having found anything but +this name out of a dustbin for one of the most charming of flowers? +Matthew Arnold, appalled by some of the names of human beings that +still flourished in the days of Victoria, and may for all I know be +flourishing to-day, once hoped to turn us into Hellenists by declaring +that there was "no Wragg on the Ilissus." Was there no "scabious" on +the Ilissus either, I wonder? Were I a flower of the field, I should +prefer to be called "nose-bleed" or "sow-thistle." On the whole, +however, the plants have little to complain of in the matter of names. +The milkwort that has been scattering its fine, delicate colours among +the short grasses of the bare hills deserves its beautiful name, +"grace of God." We think of it as the sprigging of a divine mantle +cast over the June world. The greater plantain, that after the recent +rain has come out on the hills, with a ruff of purple feathers round +its brown cone, neither deserves nor possesses a name connoting +sacredness. It is interesting mainly as a plant that somehow became +associated with the voyages and travels of Englishmen, and is known in +America as "Englishman's foot," because, wherever the Englishman goes, +the plant follows him. + +The riot of the spring flowers is already passing, however. As we walk +along the path through the corn, we find the wild mustard, that a few +weeks ago made a steep field blaze like a precinct of the sun, already +withering into a mass of green pods; and the hay in the valley has +been cut down with all its crimson clover. The smell of the tossed +hay, as we pass, sends back the memory into an older world. How is it +that sweet smells do not please us so much for what they are as for +the things of which they remind us? At the smell of hay newly stacked +we cease to be our present age; we are in a world as distant as that +of Theocritus. There is no ambition in it, no tears or taxes, no men +and women pretending, nothing that is not happy. Every scent is sweet, +every sound is a laugh or a bird's song. Every man and woman and +animal we behold is more interesting than if they had come out of a +Noah's Ark. Smell has been described as the most sensual of the +senses. It may be so, but it is surely also the sense that is most +closely related to the memory. Old landscapes, old happinesses old +gardens, old people, come to life again--at times, almost unbearably +so--with the smell of wallflower or hay or the sea. It may be, +however, that this is not a universal experience. Some of us, no +doubt, live more in our memories than others: it is our doom. + +Even we, however, are sensualists of the open air, and the spectacle +of the wind foaming among the leaves of the oak and elm can easily +make us forget all but the present. The blue hills in the distance +when rain is about, the grey arras of wet that advances over the +plain, the whitethroat that sings or rather scolds above the hedge as +he dances on the wing, the tree-pipit--or is it another bird?--that +sinks down to the juniper-tip through a honey of music, a rough sea +seen in the distance, half shine, half scowl--any of these things may +easily cut us off from history and from hope and immure us in the +present hour. Or may they? Or do these things too not leave us +home-sick, discontented, gloomy--gloomy if it is only because we are +not nearly so gloomy as we ought to be? + + + + +XIII + + + +ON FEELING GAY + + +Gaiety has come back at least to parts of London. There never were +greater crowds of people eating with bottles at their sides in public +places. On the whole, however, there has been little down-heartedness +at the restaurants during the past four and a half years Even while +the housewife in the red-brick street was wasting her mornings in the +patient vigil of the queue, only to find at the end of it that there +was no butter, no lard, no tea, no jam, no golden syrup, no prunes, no +potatoes, no currants, no olive oil, or whatever it might be she +wanted most, the restaurants never shut their doors as the grocers' +shops and the confectioners' sometimes did. When rationing came, one +could eat the greater part of the week's beef allowance at a single +meal in the home, but in a restaurant one could get four excellent +meat meals--in some restaurants even eight excellent meals--in return +for a week's coupons. There were, no doubt, parts of the country in +which the housewife was hardly more restricted than the diner-out in +restaurants. Travellers came back from places in Dorsetshire, +Gloucestershire, and Scotland, as from Ireland, with gorgeous +narratives of areas in which the King's writ did not run so far as +coupons were concerned and beef was free if only you paid for it. But +in London, and especially in the Home Counties, there was no such +reign of liberty. The housewife went shopping, as it were, on +ticket-of-leave, and even the sleepiest suburbans began to realise +that the arrival of our daily bread is a daily miracle instead of the +commonplace it once seemed to be. Had Dr Faustus come back to life a +modern lady would have invoked the aid of his magic for some food less +romantic than grapes out of season: she would have been content with a +tin of golden syrup. As for butter, it is surprising that no one wrote +a sonnet to butter during the war. I have seen eyes positively moisten +with love at the sight of a small dish of it. Even from the +restaurants it seemed to vanish for a time, and some of them are still +doing their best to help one to deceive oneself with a curl of what is +called butter substitute. The restaurant, however, seem to be better +supplied than the home with the three great aids to gaiety--wine, jam +and currants. I confess I have never been able to understand why +currants should be generally regarded as one of the necessary +ingredients of perfect pleasure. But they unquestionably are The child +on a holiday will eat a bun with only three currants in it with three +times more pleasure than he will eat a frankly plain bun A suet +pudding without currants or raisins is prison fare, barren to the eye +and cheerless: let but an infrequent currant or raisin peep from the +mass and it is a pudding for a birthday. So universal is the passion +for currants as an aid to pleasure that during the past three weeks +the only matter that rivalled in general interest the question whether +the Kaiser was to be hanged was the question whether we should have +currants before Christmas. So profound is the disappointment of the +public at the non-arrival of the currants that explanations have been +put in the papers, calling on us to practise the sublime virtue of +self-sacrifice, happy in the knowledge that all the currants are +needed for invalid soldiers. But if the currants are needed for +soldiers, how comes it that we sometimes find them in the puddings in +restaurants? Those who are concerned for the preservation of home life +in this country cannot but be perturbed by the way in which in this +matter of currants the scales have been weighted in favour of the +restaurant and against the home. As for jam, the diner in the +restaurant rejoices in jam roll while the child in the home labours +its way through tapioca pudding. Is it any wonder if, as the +pessimists believe, the English home decays? + +Whether as a result of the jam roll or the rare currants in the +puddings, it has been unusually difficult to get a table at some of +the restaurants since the signing of the Armistice. No doubt the +signing of the Armistice itself had something to do with it. Christian +men, whenever anything epoch-making happens, must have something to +eat. Marriage, the return of a conquering hero, the visit of a great +statesman, the birth of Christ--we find in all these things a reason +for calling on the cooks to do their damnedest. Even the dyspeptic +forgets his doctor's orders in the general excitement and chases +oysters down the narrow stairway of his throat with thick soup, follow +thick soup with lobster, and lobster with turkey and turkey with a +savoury, and the savoury with a _pêche Melba_, and at the end of it +will not reject cheese and a banana, all of this accompanied with +streams of liquid in the form of wine coffee and brandy. I have often +wondered why a man should feel gay doing violence to his entrails in +this fashion. I have noticed again and again that he loses a little of +his gaiety if the dinner is served slowly enough to give him time to +think. The gay meal, like the farce, must be enacted quickly. The very +spectacle of waiters hurrying to and fro with an air of peril to the +dishes quickens the fancy, and the gastric juices flow to an anapæstic +measure. Who does not know what it is to sit through a slow meal and +digest in spondees? One is given time between the courses to turn +philosopher--to meditate becoming a hermit and dining on a bowl of +rice in a cave. Nothing can prevent one from there and then coming to +a decision on the matter save a waiter with the eye of a psychoanalyst +ready to rush forward at the first sadness of an eyelid and tempt one +either with a new dish or with a glass refilled. "Stay me with +flagons; comfort me with apples." It is a universal cry. Our desire is +for the banqueting-house. Perhaps it is not so much that we feel gay +as that we are afraid of feeling gloomy. We have no force within us +that will enable us to laugh over a lettuce and become wits on water. +There must be an element of riot in our eating and drinking if we are +to drive dull care away. That is the defence of cakes and ale. Cakes, +no doubt, are not what they used to be, and ale is even less so. But +human beings are symbolists, and, if you give them something that +looks like cakes and something that looks like beer, it is surprising +how content they will be. Our eating and drinking is but a game, and +we deceive ourselves at table like children among their toys. Even the +vegetarian lies his food into grandeur not its own. There is a +vegetarian restaurant in London in which one of the dishes on the bill +of fare bears the name "Like chicken." _Splendide mendax!_ + +One of the most amazing features in the appearance of London at the +present time is surely the absence of the signs of widespread +mourning. The windows of the shops are full of all the colours of the +parrot. The hats are as bright as a scrap-book. The confectioners' +shops are making a desperate effort to look as if nothing had +happened. The death of a single monarch would have darkened Christmas +in Regent Street more effectually than the million mournings of the +war. It is as though we were eager to conceal from ourselves the news +of this terrible disaster. After all, to judge by the crowds in the +streets, most people still remain alive. We have sworn we will never +forget those others, but one has only to read some of the election +speeches to see that with many of us our own greed and vindictiveness +are already ousting the ideals for which hundreds of thousands of men +gave up their lives. Can it be that we are feeling gay not only +because we have escaped from the disasters of the war but because we +are escaping from the ideals of the war? It is as though we had +returned from the barren snows of the mountain-tops to the cosy plenty +of the valleys. We are glad to exchange the stars as companions for +the nearer illuminations of the streets. The familiar world is coming +back, and civilian youths have begun once more to sing music-hall +choruses on the way home on the tops of buses:-- + + So I dillied, + And dallied, + And dallied, + And dillied; + But you can't trust a speshul + Like an old-time copper + When you can't find your way home. + +Peace had returned without question when nonsense of this venerable +kind sped into the air from the roof of a late bus. Well, we have +always wanted the world to be "as usual." We were angry with the +Germans for plunging us into the unusualness of war, and we feel +scarcely more friendly to those who would plunge us into the +unusualness of Utopia. We feel at home among neither horrors nor +ideals. We are glad at the prospect of having the old world back +rather than at having to make a new world. Lord Birkenhead, I observe, +declares that it would be an awful thing if the war had left us +unchanged, but we look in vain for signs of any deep change even in +the speeches of Lord Birkenhead. One noticeable change the war has +unquestionably made: more women smoke in the restaurants than +formerly. Sanguine people declare that other changes are impending; +but other people, equally sanguine, are doing their best to prevent +this. The human race is gradually feeling its way back to its +traditional division into those who desire a change and those who +desire to keep things as they are. The Christmas festival appeals to +both equally. It is at once an old custom and the prophecy of a new +earth. On such a day one can rejoice even without currants or the +League of Nations. The world is a good place. Let us eat, drink, and +be merry. + + + + +XIV + + + +IN THE TRAIN + + +It is said that travelling by train is to be made still more +uncomfortable. I doubt if there is a man of sufficient genius in the +Government to accomplish this. Are not the trains already merely +elongated buses without the racing instincts of the bus? Have they not +already learned to crawl past mile after mile of backyard and back +garden at such a snail's pace that we have come to know like an old +friend every disreputable garment hung out on the clothes-lines of a +score of suburbs? Do they not stand still at the most unreasonable +places with the obstinacy of an ass? Stations, the names of which used +to be an indistinguishable blur as we swept past them as on a +swallow's wing, have now become a part of the known world, and have as +much attention paid to them as though they were Paris or Vienna. +Equality has not yet been established among men, but it has been +established among stations. There never was such a democracy of +frightfulness. + +We seldom see a station which has about it the air of permanence. +There are, I believe good historical reasons why there are no Tudor +stations or Queen Anne stations to be found in the country. Still, I +know of no reason why so many stations should look as though they had +been built hurriedly to serve the needs of a month, like a travelling +show in a piece of waste ground. Not that the railway station has any +of the gaudy detail of the travelling show. It resembles it only in +its dusty and haphazard setting. It is more like a builder's or a +tombstone-maker's yard. The very letters in which the name of the +station is printed are often of a deliberate ugliness. No newspaper +would tolerate letters of such an ugliness in its headlines. They +stare at one vacuously, joylessly. It is said that the village of +Amberley is known to the natives as "Amberley, God help us!" How many +stations look at us from their name-plates with that "God help us!" +air! What I should like to see would be a name-plate that would seem +to announce to us in passing: "Glasgow, thank God!" or whatever the +name of the station may be. I have never yet discovered a merry +station. Here and there a station-master has done his best to make the +place attractive by planting geraniums in the form of letters to spell +the name of the place on a neighbouring embankment. But these things +remind one of the flowers on a grave. And the people who walk up and +down the platform, their noses cold in the wind, are hardly more +cheerful than undertakers' men. Even the porters in their green +trousers, who roll the milk-cans along the platform to the luggage-van +with an energy and a clatter that would satisfy the ambition of any +healthy child, do not look merry. There was one cheerful porter who +used to welcome you like a host, and make a jest as he clipped your +railway ticket--"Just to lighten your load, sir!"--but the Government +had him removed and put to mind gates at a crossing where he would not +be able to speak to the passengers. As a rule, however, nobody looks +as if he liked being in a railway station or would stop there if he +could go anywhere else. I trust the Ministry of Reconstruction will +see to it that the railway stations of the country are rebuilt and +vivified. One does not really wish to stop at any station at all +except one's own station. But if one has to do so, let the stations be +made more amusing. + +Unfortunately, it is not only the frequent stops that have made +railway travelling almost ideally uncomfortable. The Government seems +also to have hired a staff of workers to impregnate the seats of the +carriages with dust and to scatter all the dust that can be spared in +these exiguous days on the floors. They have also a gang of old and +wheezy gentlemen who travel up and down the line all day shutting the +windows. This work is sometimes deputed to women. They are forbidden +to say "May I?" or "Do you mind?" or to make use of any civil +expression that might mollify the traveller sitting by the window. It +is part of their instructions to reach past him with an air of +independence and to have the window shut and the book that he is +reading knocked out of his hand before he has time to see what has +happened. Some day someone will write a book about the alteration of +English manners that took place during the Great War. I believe the +alteration is largely due to these Government hirelings whose duty it +is to make railway travel a burden and never to say "Please" or "Thank +you." + +Even now, however, there are compensations. In the morning the shadows +are long, and, as one rattles north among the water-meadows, the +flying plumes of the engine leave a procession of melting silhouettes +on the fields to the west. Rooks oar their way towards their homes +with long twigs in their beaks. Horses go through the last days of +their kingship dragging ploughs and harrows over the fields with slow +and monotonous tread. Here a hill has been ploughed into a sea of +little brown waves. Further on a meadow is already bright with the +green of winter-sown corn. The country has never been so laboured +before. Chalk and sand and brown earth and red are all being turned up +and broken and bathed in the sun and wind. Adam has begun to delve +again. There is the urgency of life in fields long idle. It is not +that the fields have become populous. One sees many laboured fields, +but little labour. The occasional plough-horse, however, brings +strength into the stillness. How noble a figure of energy he makes! + +As for us who sit in the railway train, we do not look at him much. We +are all either reading papers or talking. Two old men, bearded and +greasy-coated, tramps of a bygone era, sit opposite one another and +neither read nor talk. One of them is blear-eyed and coughs, and has +an unclean moustache. All his friend ever says to him is: "Clean your +nose," making an impatient gesture. A young man in a bowler hat and +spectacles, who smokes a pipe in inward-drawn lips, discusses the +Labour situation with some acquaintances. "They would be all right," +he explains, "if it wasn't for the Labour leaders. You know what a +Labour leader is. He's a chap that never did an honest day's work in +his life. He finds it pays better to jaw than to work, and I don't +blame him. After all, it's human nature. Every man's out to do the +best for himself, isn't he?" "Your nose--blow your nose," mumbled the +tramp across the carriage. "Take Australia," continues the young man; +"they've had Labour Governments in Australia. What good did they do +for the working man? Did they satisfy him? Why, there were more +strikes in Australia under the Labour Government than there ever had +been before." "Did you hear that, Johnny?" I heard another voice +saying. "A tame rabbit was sold Sat'day in Guildford market for +twelve-and-sixpence!" "How did they know it was a tame one?" "Ah, now +you're asking!" A man looked up from _The Morning Post_ with interest +in his face. "Why," he said, "is a tame rabbit considered to be better +eating than a wild one?" It was explained to him that wild rabbits +were often kept for a long time after they were killed, and were +therefore regarded as more dangerous. Otherwise, the tame rabbit had +no point of superiority. "What do _you_ say, Johnny?" Johnny had a fat +face and no eyelashes, and wore a muffler instead of a collar. "I say, +give me a wild one." The man with _The Morning Post_ went on to talk +about rabbits and the price at which he had sold them. At intervals, +during everything he said, Johnny kept nodding and saying, with a +smile of relish: "Give me a wild one!" He said it even when the talk +had drifted altogether away from rabbits. He went on repeating it to +himself in lower tones, as though at last he had found a thought that +suited him. "Municipalisation means jobbery," said the young man with +the bowler hat; "look at the County Council tramways." "Give me a wild +one," said Johnny, in a dreamy whisper; "I say, give me a wild one." +"Why, it stands to reason, if you have a friend, and you see a chance +of shovin' him into a job at the public expense, you'll do it, won't +you?" said the young man, addressing the reader of _The Morning Post_, +who merely cleared his throat nervously in answer. "It's human +nature," said the young man. "Give me a wild one" whispered Johnny. +"I'm afraid there's going to be trouble in Ireland," the man with _The +Morning Post_ turned the subject. The young man was ready for him. +"There will always be trouble in Ireland," he said, with what the +novelists describe as a curl of his lip, "so long as Ireland exists." +The tramp continued to mumble about the condition of his friend's +nose, Johnny relapsed into silence, and the young man made the man +with _The Morning Post_ tremble by a horrible picture of what the +country would be like under a Labour Government. "It would be all +U.P.," he said firmly; "all up...." Who would travel in such days if +he could possibly avoid it? + + + + +XV + + + +THE MOST CURIOUS ANIMAL + + +Curiosity is the first of the sins. On the day on which Eve gave way +to her curiosity, man broke off his communion with the angels and +allied himself with the beasts. To-day we usually applaud curiosity; +we think of it as the alternative to stagnation. The tradition of +mankind, however, is against us. The fables never pretend that +curiosity is anything but an evil. Literature is full of tales of +forbidden rooms that cannot be peeped into without disaster. Fatima in +_Bluebeard_ escapes punishment, but her escape is narrow enough to +leave her a warning to the nursery. A version of the Pandora legend +imputes the state of mankind to the curiosity of one disastrous fool +who raised the lid of the sacred box, with the result that the +blessings intended for our race escaped and flew away. We have cursed +the inquisitive person through the centuries. We have instinctively +hated him to the point of persecution. The curious among mankind have +gone about their business at peril of their lives. It is probable that +Athens was a city as much given to curiosity as any city has ever +been, and yet the Athenians put Socrates to death on account of his +curiosity. He was accused of speculating about the heavens above and +inquiring into the earth beneath as well as of corrupting the youth +and making the worse appear the better reason. History may be read as +the story of the magnificent rearguard action fought during several +thousand years by dogma against curiosity. Dogma is always in the +majority and is therefore detestable, but it is also always beaten and +is therefore admirable. It rallies its forces afresh on some new field +in every generation. It fights with its back to the sunrise under a +banner of darkness, but even when we abominate it most we cannot but +marvel at its endurance. The odd thing is that man clings to dogma +from a sense of safety. He can hardly help feeling that he was never +so safe as he is in the present in possession of this little patch his +fathers have bequeathed to him. He felt quite safe without printed +books, without chloroform, without flying machines. He mocked at +Icarus as the last word in human folly. We say nowadays "as safe as +the Bank of England," but he felt safer without the Bank of England. +We are told that when the Bank was founded in 1694 its institution was +warmly opposed by all the dogmatic believers in things as they were. +But it is against curiosity about knowledge that men have fought most +stubbornly. Galileo was forbidden to be curious about the moon. One of +the most difficult things to establish is our right to be curious +about facts. The dogmatists offer to provide us with all the facts a +reasonable man can desire. If we persist in believing that there is a +world of facts yet undiscovered and that it is our duty to set out in +quest of it, in the eyes of the dogmatists we are scorned as heretics +and charlatans. Even at the present day, when the orthodoxies sit on +shaky thrones, dogma still opposes itself to curiosity at many points. +A great deal of the popular dislike of psychical research is due to +hatred of curiosity in a new direction. People who admit the existence +of a world of the dead commonly feel that none the less it ought to be +taboo to the too-curious intellect of man. They feel there is +something uncanny about spirits that makes it unsafe to approach them +with an inquisitive mind. I am not concerned either to attack or +defend Spiritualism. I merely suggest that a rational attack on +Spiritualism must be based on the insufficiency of the evidence put +forward in its behalf, not on the ground that the curiosity which goes +in search of such evidence is in itself wicked. + +It is odd to see how men who take sides with dogma give themselves the +airs of men who live for duty, while they regard the more curious +among their fellows as licentious, trifling, irreverent and +self-indulgent. The truth is, there is no greater luxury than dogma. +It puts an eminence under the most stupid. At the same time I am not +going to deny the pleasures of curiosity. We have only to see a cat +looking up the chimney or examining the nooks of a box-room or looking +over the edge of a trunk to see what is inside in order to realise +that this is a vice, if it is a vice, which we inherit from the +animals. We find a comparable curiosity in children and other simple +creatures. Servants will rummage through drawer after drawer of old, +dull letters out of idle curiosity. There are men who declare that no +woman could be trusted not to read a letter. We persuade ourselves +that man is a higher animal, above curiosity and a slave to his sense +of honour. But man, too, likes to spy upon his neighbours when he is +not indifferent to them. No scrupulous person of either sex would read +another person's letter surreptitiously. But that is not to say that +we do not want to know what is in the letter. We can hardly see a +parcel lying unopened in a hall without speculating on what it +contains. We should always feel happier if the owner of the parcel +indulged us to the point of opening it in our presence. I know a man +whose curiosity extends so far as to set him uncorking any +medicine-bottles he sees in a friend's house, sniffing at them, and +even sipping them to see what they taste like. "Oh, I have had that +one," he says, as he lingers over the bitter flavour of strychnine. +"Let me see," he reflects, as he sips another bottle, "there's nux +vomica in that." Half the interesting books of the world were written +by men who had just this sipping kind of curiosity. Curiosity was the +chief pleasure of Montaigne and of Boswell. We cannot read an early +book of science without finding signs of the pleasure of curiosity in +its pages. Theophrastus, we may be sure, was a happy man when he +wrote: + + "However, there is one question which applies to all + perfumes, namely, why it is that they appear to be sweetest + when they come from the wrist; so that perfumers apply the + scent to this part." + +To be curious about such matters would keep many a man entertained for +an evening. Some people are so much in love with their curiosity that +they object even to having it satisfied too quickly with an obvious +explanation. We have an instance of this in a pleasant anecdote about +Democritus, which Montaigne borrowed from Plutarch. Montaigne, who +substitutes figs for cucumbers in the story, relates: + + "Democritus, having eaten figs at his table that tasted of + honey, fell presently to consider within himself whence they + should derive this unusual sweetness; and to be satisfied in + it, was about to rise from the table to see the place whence + the figs had been gathered; which his maid observing, and + having understood the cause, she smilingly told him that he + need not trouble himself about that, for she had put them + into a vessel in which there had been honey. He was vexed + that she had thus deprived him of the occasion of this + inquisition and robbed his curiosity of matter to work upon. + 'Go thy way,' said he, 'thou hast done me wrong; but for all + that I will seek out the cause, as if it were natural'; and + would willingly have found out some true reason for a false + and imaginary effect." + +The novel-reader who becomes furious with someone for letting him into +the secret of the end of the story is of the same mind as Democritus. +"Go thy way," he says in effect, "thou hast done me wrong." The child +protests in the same way to a too-informative elder: "You weren't to +tell me!" He would like to wander in the garden paths of curiosity. He +has no wish to be led off hurriedly into the schoolroom of knowledge. +He instinctively loves to guess. He loves at least to guess at one +moment and to be told the next. + +The greater part of human curiosity has as little to be said for +it--or against it--as a child's whim. It is an affair of the senses, +and an extraordinarily innocent one. It is a vanity of the eye or ear. +It is another form of the hatred of being left out. So many human +beings do not like to miss things. We saw during Saturday's aeroplane +raid how far men and women will go rather than miss things. Thousands +of Londoners stood in the streets and at their windows and gazed at +what seemed to be the approach of one of the plagues of Egypt. No +plague of locusts ever came out of the sky with a greater air of the +will to destruction. It was as though the eastern sky were hung with +these monstrous insects, leisurely hovering over a people they meant +to destroy. They had the cupidity of hawks at one moment. At another +they had the innocence of a school of little fishes. Shell-smoke +opened out among them like a sponge thrown into the water. It swelled +into larger clouds monstrous in shape as the things doctors preserve +in bottles. But the plague did not rest. One saw a little black +aeroplane hurry across them, a mere water beetle of a thing, and one +wondered if a collision would send one of them to earth with broken +wings. But one did not really know whether this was the manoeuvre of +an enemy or the daring of a friend. There was never a more astonishing +spectacle. A desperate battle in the air would have been less of a +surprise. But that there should have been nobody to interfere with +them! ... Yes, it was certainly a curious sight, and London was +justified in putting its head out of its house, like a tortoise under +its shell, till the bombs began to fall. Still, the more often they +come the less curious we shall be about them. A few years ago we +gladly paid five shillings for the pleasure of seeing an aeroplane +float round a big field. There is a limit, however, to our curiosity +even about German aeroplanes. Speaking for myself, I may say my +curiosity is satisfied. I do not care if they never come again. + + + + +XVI + + + +THE OLD INDIFFERENCE + + +It was an old belief of the poets and the common people that nature +was sympathetic towards human beings at certain great crises. Comets +flared and the sun was darkened at the death of a great man. Even the +death of a friend was supposed to bow nature with despair; and Milton +in _Lycidas_ mourned the friend he had lost in what nowadays seems to +us the pasteboard hyperbole: + + The willows and the hazel copses green + Shall now no more be seen + Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. + +It may be contended that Milton was here speaking, not of nature, but +of his vision of nature; and certainly one cannot help reading one's +own joys and sorrows into the face of the earth. When the lover in +_Maud_ affirms: + + A livelier emerald twinkled in the grass, + +he states a fact. He utters a truth of the eye and heart. The wonder +of the world resides in him who sees it. The earth becomes a new place +to a man who has fallen in love or who has just returned to it from +the edge of the grave. It is as though he saw the flowers as a +stranger. Larks ascending make the planet a ball of music for him. He +may well begin to lie about nature, for he has seen it for the first +time. Experience is not long in warning him, however, that it is he +and not the world that has changed. He meets a funeral in the +midsummer of his happiness, and larks sing the same songs above the +fields whether it is the lover or the mourner that goes by. The +continuity of nature is not broken either for our gladness or our +grief. Mr Hardy frequently introduces the mournful drip of rain into +his picture of men and women unhappily mated. But the rain is not at +the beck and call of the unhappy. The unhappy would still be unhappy +though they were in a cherry orchard on the loveliest morning of the +year. The happy would still be happy though St Swithin's Day were +streaming in floods down the window-panes. Who does not know what it +is to be happy watching the rain-drops racing down the glass and +hearing the gutter chattering like a hedgeful of sparrows or tinkling +like a bell? Who is there, on the other hand, who has not found, and +been perplexed to find, the world going on its way in full song and +bloom on a day that has seemed to him to darken all human experience? +Burns's reproach to the indifferent earth has often been quoted as an +expression of this realisation that nature does not mind: + + How can ye sing, ye little birds, + And I sae weary, fu' o' care? + +Nature, we discover, passes us and our sorrows by. We are of little +account to the race of birds. We are of little account, for that +matter, to the race of men. The end of Hamlet is not the end even of a +kingdom. Fortinbras comes upon the scene, and life goes on. Our +mournings are only interruptions. The ranks of the procession close up +and little is changed. Even the funeral of a king is as a rule less an +occasion for grief than a spectacle for the curious. The crowd may +have filled the streets all night, but they did not forget to bring +their sandwiches and whisky-flasks with them. The theatres and the +tea-shops and the public-houses will be as full as ever the next day. +And for the death of a great author not even the sweet-shops will be +closed. The funeral ceremonies over the dead body of Herbert Spencer +drew a smaller crowd than would gather to see a dog that had been run +over in the street. + +We were never before so conscious of the indifference of Nature to +human tragedy as since the outbreak of the war. Here, one would think, +was a tragedy that all but threatened to crack the globe. One would +imagine that the sides of Nature must be in pain with it and the earth +in peril of being hurled out of her accustomed path round the sun. Yet +the sparrows in the Surrey valleys have not heard of it, and the +sea-birds know nothing of it, save that occasionally they are +bewildered to find a submarine rising from the waters instead of the +porpoise for whose presence they had hoped. It is said that the +pheasants in a Sussex wood awoke and screamed on Sunday night during +the barrage fire around London. But this was egotism on the part of +the pheasants. The pheasants of Wiltshire did not have their sleep +broken, and so were not troubled about the sufferings of Londoners. +Wordsworth assured Toussaint L'Ouverture: + + There's not a breathing of the common air + That will forget thee. + +He exaggerated. The common air is more perturbed in the year 1918 by +the passing of a single gnat than by the memory of Toussaint +L'Ouverture. On Sunday I walked along a quiet hill road within thirty +miles of London, and it seemed for an hour or two as though one were +as remote from the war as a man living a century hence. The catkins in +the hazels by the roadside were beautiful as falling rain: they hung +on the branches like notes of music. The country children see them as +lambs' tails, dangling in twos and threes in the gentle air. They have +been growing longer every day since Christmas and the red tips of the +female flowers have now begun to appear. In the hedge there are still +the remains of old man's beard that, in one light, looks like dirty +wool, but, with the sun shining on it, seems at a distance to be +hawthorn in the full glory of blossom. Every now and then a crooked +caterpillar of down is detached from it by the wind and sails off +vaguely over a field. A few weeks ago sparrows were singing choruses +as they gorged themselves upon it, but lately they have been scraping +their beaks busily on the bark of trees as though they had found more +satisfying dishes. At the lower end of the road there is a glow of +crimson among the sallows, which have begun to festoon their straight +rods with silver buds. Chaffinches are beginning to pipe more +solitarily to each other in the tall elms. A few weeks ago they +fluttered everywhere in companies, occupying now a hedge, now a road, +and now a tree. The naturalists tell us that these winter companies of +chaffinches are usually composed of birds of one sex only, the males +consorting together for the time as in a boys' school. The chaffinch, +I think, is the commonest bird in this part of the country. It is so +common that its loveliness has hardly been appreciated as it ought to +be. It is a little world of colour, like a small jay, and nothing +could be more beautiful than its flushed breast as it sits on the top +of a tall tree in the sunset. As for the jay, it hurries away like a +thief before one has time to see its coat of many colours. The jay, +like the cuckoo, is a bird with a guilty conscience. The wood here is +full of jays, uttering their one monotonous shriek, like the ripping +of a skirt. They scuttle among the trees at one's approach, showing +the white feather. Occasionally, however, they too will sit in a tree +and allow the sun to flush their cinnamon-coloured breasts. But we +shall see hundreds of them before we see a single one in the crested +and passive splendour of the jays in the picture-books. As a matter of +fact, nearly all the birds in the picture-books are guesses and +exaggerations. The birds, we discover before long, are a secret +kingdom into which it is given to few to enter. + +The whole of Nature, indeed, is curiously secretive. She does not tell +much about herself save to the importunate. Not many of us can speak +her language or have learned the password to her cave of treasure. She +thrusts upon our notice a few birds, a few insects, a few animals, a +few flowers. But for the most part there is no finding her population +without seeking for it. Hundreds of her flowers are hidden from the +lazy eye, and we may pass a lifetime without seeing so common a bird +as a tree-creeper or so common an animal as a shrew-mouse. How seldom +it is one sees even a rat! There are human beings who will never +discover an early flower, however many miles they cover in their +country walks. They take no pleasure in finding a wild-strawberry +flower in January or a campion blossom in the first week in February. +They are as indifferent to Nature as Nature is to them. The +honeysuckle that breaks out with leaves as with green flames; the +thrust of the leaves of the wild hyacinth under the trees, like the +return of youth; the flowering of the elm; the young moon like a white +bird with spread wings in the afternoon sky; the golden journey of +Orion and his dog across the heavens by night--these things, they +feel, are not interwoven with man's fate. They were before him, and +they will be after him. Therefore, he cares more for his little brick +house in the suburbs, which will at least be changed when he goes. I +do not suggest that anyone consciously adopts a philosophy of this +kind. But most of us are undoubtedly a little offended at some time in +our lives when we realise that Nature has so little regard for our +passions and our tears. She is a consoler, but it is on her own terms. +Matthew Arnold found the secret of life in becoming as resigned to +obedience as the stars and the tide. Who knows but, if we do this, +Nature may be found to care after all? But she does not care in the +way in which most of us want her to care. The religious discovered +that long ago. They found that Nature was guilty of neutrality in +human affairs if they did not go further and suspect her of enmity. It +is only when philosophy has been added to religion that men have been +able to reconcile without gloom the indifference of Nature with the +idea of the love of God. And even the religious and the philosophers +are puzzled by the spectacle of the worm that writhes on the garden +path while the robin pecks at it, triumphant in his fatness and +praising the fine weather. + + + + +XVII + + + +EGGS: AN EASTER HOMILY + + +Having decided to write on Easter, I took out a volume of _The +Encyclopædia Britannica_ in order to make up the subject of eggs, and +the first entry under "Egg" that met my eye was: + +"EGG, AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD (1816-1863), English painter, was born on the +2nd of May, 1816, in London, where his father carried on business as a +gun-maker." + +I wish I had known about Augustus five years ago. I should like to +have celebrated the centenary of an _egg_ somewhere else than in a +London tea-shop. Augustus Leopold Egg seems to have spent a life in +keeping with his name. He was taught drawing by Mr Sass, and in later +years was a devotee of amateur theatricals, making a memorable +appearance, as we should expect of an Egg, in a play called _Not so +Bad as We Seem_. He also appears to have devoted a great part of his +life to painting bad eggs, if we may judge by the titles of his most +famous pictures--_Buckingham Rebuffed, Queen Elizabeth discovers she +is no longer young, Peter the Great sees Catherine for the First +Time_, and _Past and Present, a Triple Picture of a Faithless Wife_. +She was a lady, no doubt, who could not submit to the marriage yolk. +Anyhow, she had a great fall, and Augustus did his best to put her +together again. "Egg," the _Encyclopædia_ tells us finally, "was +rather below the middle height, with dark hair and a handsome, +well-formed face." He seems to have been a man, take him for all in +all: we shall not look upon his like again. + +Even so, Augustus was not the only Egg. He was certainly not the egg +in search of which I opened the _Encyclopædia_. The egg I was looking +for was the Easter egg, and it seemed to be the only egg that was not +mentioned. There were birds' eggs, and reptiles' eggs, and fishes' +eggs, and molluscs' eggs, and crustaceans' eggs, and insects' eggs, +and frogs' eggs, and Augustus Egg, and the eggs of the duck-billed +platypus, which is the only mammal (except the spiny ant-eater) whose +eggs are "provided with a large store of yolk, enclosed within a +shell, and extruded to undergo development apart from the maternal +tissues." I do not know whether it is evidence of the irrelevance of +the workings of the human mind or of our implacable greed of +knowledge, but within five minutes I was deep in the subject of eggs +in general, and had forgotten all about the Easter variety. I found +myself fascinated especially by the eggs of fishes. There are so many +of them that one was impressed as one is on being told the population +of London. "It has been calculated," says the writer of the article, +"that the number laid by the salmon is roughly about 1000 to every +pound weight of the fish, a 15-lb. salmon laying 15,000 eggs. The +sturgeon lays about 7,000,000; the herring 50,000; the turbot +14,311,000; the sole 134,000; the perch 280,000." This is the sort of +sentence I always read over to myself several times. And when I come +to "the turbot, 14,311,000," I pause, and try to picture to myself the +man who counted them. How does one count 14,311,000? How long does it +take? If one lay awake all night, trying to put oneself to sleep by +counting turbots' eggs instead of sheep, one would hardly have done +more than make a fair start by the time the maid came in to draw the +curtains and let in the sun on one's exhausted temples. A person like +myself, ignorant of mathematics, could not easily count more that +10,000 in an hour. This would mean that, even if one lay in bed for +ten hours, which one never does except on one's birthday, one would +have counted only 100,000 out of the 14,311,000 eggs by the time one +had to get up for breakfast. That would leave 14,211,000 still to be +counted At this point, most of us, I think, would give it up in +despair. After one horrible night's experience, we would jump into a +hot bath muttering: "Never again! Never again!" like a statesman who +can't think of anything to say, and send out for a quinine-and-iron +tonic. Our friends meeting us later in the day would say with concern: +"Hullo! you're looking rather cheap. What have you been doing?"; and +when we answered bitterly: "Counting turbots' eggs," they would hurry +off with an apprehensive look on their faces. The naturalist, it is +clear, must be capable of a persistence that is beyond the reach of +most of us. I calculate that, if he were able to work for 14 hours a +day, counting at the rate of 10,000 an hour, even then it would take +him 122-214 days to count the eggs of a single turbot. After that, it +would take a chartered accountant at least 122-214 days to check his +figures. One can gather from this some idea of the enormous industry +of men of science. For myself, I could more easily paint the Sistine +Madonna or compose a Tenth Symphony than be content to loose myself +into this universe of numbers. Pythagoras, I believe, discovered a +sort of philosophy in numbers, but even he did not count beyond seven. + +After the fishes, the reptiles seem fairly modest creatures. The +ordinary snake does not lay more than twenty or thirty eggs, and even +the python is content to stop at a hundred. The crocodile, though a +wicked animal, lays only twenty or thirty; the tortoise as few as two +or four; and the turtle does not exceed two hundred. But I am not +really interested in eggs--not, at least, in any eggs but birds' +eggs--or should not have been, if I had not read _The Encyclopædia +Britannica_. The sight of a fly's egg--if the fly lays an egg--fills +me with disgust--and frogs' eggs attract me only with the fascination +of repulsion. What one likes about the birds is that they lay such +pretty eggs. Even the duck lays a pretty egg The duck is a plain bird, +rather like a char-woman, but it lays an egg which is (or can be) as +lovely as an opal. The flavour, I agree, is not Christian, but, like +other eggs of which this can be said, it does for cooking. Hens' eggs +are less attractive in colour, but more varied. I have always thought +it one of the chief miseries of being a man that, when boiled eggs are +put on the table, one does not get first choice, and that all the +little brown eggs are taken by women and children before one's own +turn comes round. There is one sort of egg with a beautiful sunburnt +look that always reminds me of the seaside, and that I have not tasted +in a private house for above twenty years. To begin the day with such +an egg would put one in a good temper for a couple of hours. But +always one is fobbed off with a large white egg of demonstrative +uncomeliness. It may taste all right, but it does not look all right. +Food should appeal to the eye as well as to the palate, as everyone +recognises when the blancmange that has not set is brought to the +table. At the same time, there is one sort of white egg that is quite +delightful to look at. I do not know its parent, but I think it is a +black hen of the breed called Spanish. Not everything white in Nature +is beautiful. One dislikes instinctively white calves, white horses, +white elephants and white waistcoats. But the particular egg of which +I speak is one of the beautiful white things--like snow, or a breaking +wave, or teeth. So certain am I, however, that neither it nor the +little brown one will ever come my way, while there is a woman or a +child or a guest to prevent it, that when I am asked how I like the +eggs to be done I make it a point to say "poached" or "fried." It +gives me at least a chance of getting one of the sort of eggs I like +by accident. As for poached eggs, I agree. There are nine ways of +poaching eggs, and each of them is worse than the other. Still, there +is one good thing about poached eggs: one is never disappointed. One +accepts a poached egg like fate. There is no sitting on tenterhooks, +watching and waiting and wondering, as there is in regard to boiled +eggs. I admit that most of the difficulties associated with boiled +eggs could be got over by the use of egg-cosies--appurtenances of the +breakfast table that stirred me to the very depths of delight when I +first set eyes on them as a child. It was at a mothers' meeting, where +I was the only male present. Thousands of women sat round me, sewing +and knitting things for a church bazaar. Much might be written about +egg-cosies. Much might be said for and much against. They would be +effective, however only if it were regarded as a point of honour not +to look under the cosy before choosing the egg. And the sense of +honour, they say, is a purely masculine attribute. Children never had +it, and women have lost it. I do not know a single woman whom I would +trust not to look under an egg cosy--not, at least, unless she were +forbidden eggs by the doctor. In that case, any egg would seem +delicious, and she would seize the nearest, irrespective of class or +colour. + +This may not explain the connection between eggs and Easter. But then +neither does _The Encyclopædia Britannica_. I have looked up both the +article on eggs and the article on Easter, and in neither of them can +I find anything more relevant than such remarks as that "the eggs of +the lizard are always white or yellowish, and generally soft-shelled; +but the geckos and the green lizards lay hard-shelled eggs" or +"Gregory of Tours relates that in 577 there was a doubt about Easter." +In order to learn something about Easter eggs one has to turn to some +such work as _The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_, which tells us that +"the practice of presenting eggs to our friends at Easter is Magian or +Persian, and bears allusion to the mundane egg, for which Ormuzd and +Ahriman were to contend till the consummation of all things." The +advantage of reading _Tit-Bits_ is that one gets to know hundreds of +things like that. The advantage of not reading _Tit-Bits_ is that one +is so ignorant of them that a piece of information of this sort is as +fresh and unexpected as the morning's news every Easter Monday. Next +Easter, I feel sure, I shall look it up again. I shall have forgotten +all about the mundane egg, even if Ormuzd and Ahriman have not. I +shall be thinking more about my breakfast egg. What a piece of work is +a man! And yet many profound things might be said about eggs, mundane +or otherwise. I wish I could have thought of them. + + + + +XVIII + + + +ENTER THE SPRING + + +One would imagine from the way in which some people are talking that +this is an early spring. I do not think it is. The daffodils certainly +came before the swallows dared, but they came reluctantly and in less +generous profusion than usual--at least, in one county. As for the +swallow, it may have arrived by Saturday, but it has not arrived on +the day on which I am writing. "About the middle of March," says Mr +Coward, "the first swallows arrive," but I have met no one who has +seen one even in the first week in April. The sky seems empty without +them. This is, no doubt, an illusion. There are plenty of rooks and +pigeons, and there are always starlings desperately hustling from the +chimney-pot across to the plum-tree and back again. But the starling +is most interesting, not when he is in the air, but when he is at +rest--making queer noises in his effulgent, tight-fitting clothes, +sometimes like a baby in a cradle, sometimes like a girl trying to +whistle, always experimenting with sound rather than singing. One +looks forward to the swallows and martins and swifts because they +really do live the life of the air. The sky is their domain, and no +roof or tree or even telegraph wire. Till they arrive the air is an +all but stagnant pool. They transform it into a scene of whirlpools. +They do for the air what the hum of insects does for the garden. They +banish the stillness of winter and lead the year in the movements of a +remembered dance. Spring, however, awakens gradually, and does not +plunge precipitately into an orgy. First, the home birds sing, or +rather redouble their singing, for the wren and the robin hardly ever +left off. This, I think, must be an exceptional year for the chorus of +wrens. Last year the lane that leads to the station was at this time a +lane of chaffinches: this year it is a lane of wrens. Last year the +garden was a garden of thrushes: this year it is a garden of wrens. +That is possibly an exaggeration, but this little Tetrazzini among the +birds has never seemed to me to trill so dominantly and over so wide a +rule. As for the thrushes, I do not know what has happened to them. I +heard plenty of them on the outskirts of London in February, but here, +fifty miles from London, it is as though they were an exterminated +race. Whether gardeners or cats or some other epidemic is to blame, +the trees are silent of them. Even the blackbird is not too common +here this year, but then a country gardener regards a blackbird as a +Turk regards an Armenian. I wish thrushes and blackbirds could read, +so that one could put up a notice offering them sanctuary even at the +expense of one's gooseberries and strawberries. Strange that a +strawberry should appear more delightful to anyone than the song of a +blackbird! I know, I may say, the feeling of helpless rage that wells +up in the human breast at the sight of a blackbird stealing one's +strawberries. Thank God, I am not impervious to moral indignation. If +shouting "Stop thief!" could save the strawberries, my voice would be +for saving them. But I do not believe in capital punishment for petty +theft, and, anyhow, if I must lose either a song or a strawberry, I +had rather lose the strawberry. + +The larks luckily take to the fields and do not trust themselves near +either cats or gardeners. They do not always escape even in the +fields, and the dead bodies of some of them are served in a pudding in +a Fleet Street restaurant. But, on the whole, considering what a +dangerous neighbour man is, they escape fairly lightly. There is a +sort of "live and let live" truce between them and the human race. The +chaffinches, too--the greatest bird multitude there is, perhaps, after +the house-sparrows--are free enough to sing. They have been, during +the past week, sailing out on short voyages from the tops of trees, +like flycatchers, dancing in the air after their victims and then +returning to the spray. The green-finch--that beautiful-winged Mrs +Gummidge among birds--is also abundant, and slips down nervously every +now and then among the groundsel in the unweeded garden. I confess the +greenfinch has all my sympathy, but it rather bores me. What the deuce +is it worrying about? There is no poetry in its lamentation--only a +sort of habitual formula of a poor, lorn woman. If birds could read, I +think I should add to the notices I put up a little board containing +the words: + + "No bottles. + No hawkers, + No greenfinches." + +I should feel really sorry if they took any notice of my notice, but +it might convey a hint to them that it would be good policy on their +part to cheer up for at least five minutes in the day and that, in any +case, there is no need to say the same thing over and over again. +Every bird, it is true, says the same thing over and over again--at +any rate, more or less the same thing. Birds such as the robin and the +thrush vary their song as the chaffinch and the willow-wren do not. +But even the robin and the thrush have a recognisable pattern. +Fortunately, they are not always, like the greenfinch, thinking of the +old 'un and thinking out loud. + +The goldfinches have begun to fly about the garden again with their +little sequins of song, as someone has delightfully described their +music. They have their eyes, I hope, on the pear-tree--now as white as +an Alp--where they built and brought up a large family last year. The +cornflowers in the flower border are already in bud, and I am told +that this is the temptation to which goldfinches most easily yield. I +hope so, at any rate. I should have a garden blue with cornflowers, if +I were sure that this would entice the seven colours of the goldfinch +to make their home in it. Last Saturday, two lesser spotted +woodpeckers invaded the garden. One always imagines a woodpecker as a +bird of more substantial size, and it is surprising to see this little +creature, patterned on the back like something made in the Omega +workshop, no bigger than a sparrow, as it hastily visits apple and fig +tree and even wygelia. As it climbed the wygelia, indeed, a sparrow +stooped down from an upper branch to study it, and then advanced in +the direction of the woodpecker. The woodpecker lay back from the +trunk of the tree--lying on its back in the air, as it were, and +fluttering its wings while holding on with its claws--and seemed to +invite the sparrow to come on. I don't think the sparrow had ever seen +a woodpecker before. Its curiosity rather than its wrath was aroused +by the strange spectacle. It did not want to hurt the foreigner, but +only to look at him. After having looked its fill, it moved off to a +safer tree. Then the woodpecker, whose heart had no doubt been in its +boots for the past five minutes, also loosed its hold on the bark and +made off over the gate for a less exciting garden. + +Outside the garden the spring began on Good Friday. It came in with +the chiffchaff. For three years in succession I have heard the first +chiffchaff in exactly the same place--a clump of nut-trees on the top +of a high bank. At this time of year, too, before the leaves are out, +it is easy to see it. And there are few more charming birds to watch. +With its little beak as slender as a grass-seed, and its body moving +among the branches like a tiny shadow rather than flesh and bones, it +pauses again and again in the midst of its eating to take an upward +glance and utter its mite of music--as monotonous as a Thibetan's +praying wheel. Still lovelier is the willow-wren that follows it. It +is as though the chiffchaff were the first sketch of a willow-wren. +The willow-wren is the perfected work of art, with little shades of +green added and a voice that, small though its range is, is perhaps +the most exquisite that will fill the air till the nightingale +arrives. When I went out on Sunday morning, I prophesied that I would +hear the first willow-wren, and, though I heard only one in a +hill-side copse where the cowslips are just getting their bells ready, +the prophecy came true. Not that I am much of a prophet. I don't know +how often I have prophesied the arrival of the swallow. And, indeed, +it is the surprises in nature, rather than the things that one +foresees, that are the pleasantest--especially if one is easily +surprised, as I am. Whoever ceases to be surprised, for instance, by +the sight of a goldcrested wren? I heard its tiny pinpoint of voice +last Sunday afternoon when I was walking past a plantation where the +bullace was in flower, and, on looking into the trees, saw the little +thimble-sized creature making free with invisible insects--his beak is +hardly big enough to eat a visible one--and performing acrobatics like +a tit. One of the charms of the goldcrest is that he does not look on +a human being as a wild beast. The blackbird regards a man as a +policeman; the greenfinch bolts for it if you so much as look at him, +but the goldcrest feels as secure in your presence as if you were +behind bars in a cage in the Zoological Gardens. One could probably +make him jump if one went up to him and shouted suddenly into his ear, +or even by making a violent gesture. But his first instinct is not to +run. That, for a bird, is a considerable compliment. There can be +nothing more distressing to a man of strictly honourable intentions +than to have to creep about hedges furtively like a criminal in order +to get a good look at a bird. Why he should want to look at birds at +all it is difficult to explain. I suppose it is a sort of disease, +like going to the "movies" or doing exercises. All I know is that, if +you get it, you get it very badly. You would stop Shakespeare himself, +if he were reciting a new sonnet to you, and bid him be quiet and look +half-way up the elm where the nuthatch was beating away--up and down, +like a blacksmith--at a nut or something in a knob of the tree. St +Paul might be reading out to you the first draft of his Epistle to the +Romans; you would quite unscrupulously interrupt him with a "Hush, +man! There's a tree-creeper somewhere about. Listen, there he is! If +you keep quiet, perhaps we'll be able to see him." I assure you, it is +as bad as that. As for a man who takes out a noisy dog, or who whacks +at loose stones with his stick on the road, you would regard him as a +misbehaved and riotous person and would not call him your friend. +Everything has to be subordinated to the hope of catching sight of a +hypothetical bird--which you have probably seen dozens of times +already. Truly, there is no accounting for human vices. There is, +however, at least this to be said in favour of bird-watching, that it +is the pleasantest of the vices, that it is cheaper than golf, and +does not harden the arteries like tea-drinking. And after all, if one +is going to get excited at all, one may as well get excited about the +colours and songs of birds as about most things. + + + + +XIX + + + +THE DAREDEVIL BARBER + + +To roll over Niagara Falls in a barrel is an odd way of courting +death, but it seems that death must be courted somehow. Danger is more +attractive to many men than drink. They prefer gambling with their +lives to gambling with their money. They have the gambler's faith in +their lucky star. They are preoccupied with the vision of victory to +the exclusion of all timid thoughts. They have a dramatic sense that +sets them anticipatorily on a stage, bowing to the applause of the +multitude. It is the applause, I fancy, rather than the peril itself, +that entices them. The average boy who performs a deed of derring-do +performs it before his admiring fellows. Even in so small a thing as +ringing a bell and running away he likes to have spectators. Few boys +ring bells out of mischief when they are alone. Poor Mr Charles +Stephens, the "Daredevil Barber" of Bristol, who lost his life at +Niagara Falls in his six-foot barrel the other Sunday, made sure that +there would be plenty of witnesses of his adventure. Not only had he a +party of sightseers in motors along the road following the cask on its +perilous voyage but he had a cinematograph photographer ready to +immortalise the affair on a film. Two other persons, it is said, had +already accomplished a similar feat. One of them, a woman, "was just +about gone," according to a witness, "when we got her out of the +barrel." The other "was a used-up man for several weeks." This +however, did not deter the daredevil barber. Had he not already on one +occasion put his head into a lion's mouth? Had he not boxed in a +lion's den? Had he not stood up to men with rifles who shot lumps of +sugar from his head? It may seem an extraordinary way to behave in a +world in which there are so many reasonable opportunities for heroism, +but men are extraordinary creatures. There is no adventure so wild +that they will not embark on it. There are men who, if they took it +into their heads that there was one chance in a hundred of reaching +the moon by being precipitated into space in some kind of torpedo, +would volunteer for the adventure. They do these mad things alike for +trivial and noble ends. They love a stunt even (or especially) at the +risk of their lives. Half the aeroplane accidents are due to the fact +that many men prefer risk to safety. To do some things that other +people cannot do seems to them the only way of justifying their +existence. It is an initiation into aristocracy. Every man is the +rival of all other men, and he is not satisfied till he has beaten +them. If he is a great cricketer, or a great poet, or a Cabinet +Minister, or wins the Derby, his ambition as a rule is fulfilled and +he does not feel the need of jumping down Etna or hanging by his toes +from the Eiffel Tower in order to create a sensation. But if a man is +no use at either poetry or football, he must do something. Blondin +became a world-famous figure simply by walking along a tight-rope +along which neither Shakespeare nor Shelley could have walked. It may +be that they would have had no desire to walk along it, but in any +case Blondin was able to feel that he could beat the greatest of men +in at least one game. In his own business he stood above the Apostle +Paul and Michelangelo and Napoleon. He was a king and, even if you did +not envy him his trade, you had to envy him his throne. He was a man +you would have liked to meet at dinner, not for the sake of his +conversation, but for the sake of his uniqueness. One remembers how +one stood with heart in mouth as he set out with his balancing-pole in +his hand on his journey across the rope blindfolded and pretending to +stumble every ten yards. A single false step and he would have fallen +from the height of a tower to certain death, for there was no net to +catch him. Strange that one should have cared whether he fell or not! +But ninety-nine out of a hundred did care. We watched him as +breathlessly as though he were carrying the future of the world in his +hands. He knew that he was interesting us, engrossing us, and that was +his reward. It was a reward, no doubt, that could be measured in gold. +But it is more than greed of gold that sets men courting death in such +ways. The joy of being unique is at least as great as the joy of being +rich. And the surest way of becoming unique is to trail one's coat in +the presence of Death and challenge him to tread on the tail of it. + +Not that even the most daring seeker after uniqueness fails to take +numerous precautions for his safety. No man is mad enough to set out +along a tight-rope in hobnailed boots with out previous practice. No +woman who has not learned to swim has ever tried to swim the English +Channel from Dover to Cape Grisnez. Even the daredevil barber of +Bristol insured himself, so far as he could, against the perils of his +adventure. He had an oxygen tank in the barrel which would have kept +him alive for a time if the barrel had not been swept under the Falls, +and he had friends patrolling the waters to recover the barrel. Like +the schoolboy who takes risks, he did not feel that he was going to +get caught. "I have the greatest confidence," he said, "that I shall +come through all right." His previous escapes must have given him the +assurance that he was not born to die of danger. Not only had he +served through the war, but he had once plucked a woman from the +railway line when the express was so near that it tore her skirt. He +must have felt that one man at least could live in perfect safety in +the kingdom of danger. He was probably less nervous as he crept into +his barrel than a schoolgirl would be in getting into the boat on the +chute. He had we may be sure, his thrill, but was it the thrill of +being in peril or the thrill of being conspicuous? Some men, of +course, there are who love danger for danger's sake, and who would run +risks in an empty world. Men of this kind make good spies, and, in +their youth, good burglars. Theirs is the desire of the moth for the +star--or at any rate of the moth that feels it is different from every +other moth and can successfully dare the candle flame. To play with +fire and not to be consumed is a universal pleasure. The child passes +its finger through the gas-flame and glories in the sensation. It is +like playing a game of touch with danger. The triumph of escape gives +one a delicious moment. That is why many men invent dangers for +themselves. It is simply for the pleasure of escaping them. There are +boys who enjoy wrenching knockers off doors, not because knockers are +an interesting kind of bric-à-brac, but because there is just a chance +of being caught in the act by the police. I once knew a youth who had +a drawer filled with knockers. He felt as proud of them as a young +Indian would have been of an equal number of the scalps of his +enemies. They proved that he was a brave. Every man would like to be a +brave, though every man dare not. I confess I never had much ambition +to wrench knockers, but that may have been because I was perfectly +content with the world as it is without making it any more dangerous. +I often think that people who put their heads into lions' mouths do +not realise what a dangerous place the planet is without any +artificial stimulus. + +Did the daredevil barber of Bristol ever realise, I wonder, the danger +he was in every time he raised a fork with a piece of roast beef to +his lips? Either the beef might have choked him or it might have given +him ptomaine poisoning, or, if it failed of either of these, there are +at least half-a-dozen fatal diseases which vegetarians say are caused +by eating it. Even if we take for granted that there is little danger +in plain beef, are there not curries and sausages and pork-pies on +which a lover of risks may exercise his daring in the restaurants? I +know people who are afraid to eat fish on a Monday lest it may have +gone bad over the week-end. Others live in terror of mackerel and +herrings. I myself have always admired the gallantry of Londoners who +go into a chance restaurant and order lobster or curried prawns. Then +there are all the tinned foods, a spoil for heroes. I have known a +V.C. who was frightened of tinned salmon. And a man's food is not more +beset with perils than his drink. Even if he confines himself to +water, he is in danger at every sip. If the water is too hard, it may +deposit destruction in his arteries. If it is too soft, it may give +his child rickets. Or it may be populous with germs and give him +typhoid fever. If, on the other hand, he is dissatisfied with the +drink of the beasts and takes to beverages the use of which +distinguishes men from oxen, what a nightmare procession of potential +ills lies in wait for him! You may read an account of them in any +temperance tract. The very enumeration of them would drive a weak man +to water, if water itself were not suspect. But, alas, even to breathe +is to put oneself in danger. There are more germs in a bus than there +are stars in the firmament, and one cannot walk along the Strand +without all sorts of bacilli shooting their little arrows at one at +every breath. If men realised these things--truly realised them--they +would see that there is no need to go to the North Pole in order to +live dangerously. A walk from Charing Cross to St Paul's would then be +seen to be as rich in hairbreadth escapes as a voyage to an island of +head-hunters. The man who lives the most thrilling life I know is a +man who rarely stirs beyond his garden. Every time he is pricked by a +thorn or gets a little earth in his finger-nail, he rushes into the +house to bathe his hands in lysol and, for days afterwards, he keeps +feeling his jaw to see whether it is stiffening with the first signs +of tetanus. He lives in a condition of recurrent alarm. He gets more +frights in a week than an ordinary traveller could get in a year. I +have often advised him to give up gardening, seeing that he finds it +so exciting. I have come to the conclusion, however, that he enjoys +those half-hourly rushes to the lysol-bottle--the desperate game of +hide-and-seek with lockjaw. He needs no barrel to roll him over +Niagara in order to gaze into "the bright eyes of danger." He finds +all the danger he wants at the root of the meanest brussels sprout +that blows. + + + + +XX + + + +WEEDS: AN APPRECIATION + + +A weed, says the dictionary, is "any plant that is useless, +troublesome, noxious or grows where it is not wanted." The dictionary +also adds: "_colloq._, a cigar." We may omit for our present purpose +the harmless colloquialism, but the rest of the definition deserves to +be closely examined. Socrates, I imagine, could have found a number of +pointed questions to put to the dictionary maker. He might have begun +with two of the commonest weeds, the nettle and the dandelion. Having +got his opponent--and the opponents of Socrates were all of the same +mental build as Sherlock Holmes's Dr Watson--eagerly to admit that the +nettle was a weed, he would at once put the definition to the test. +"The story goes," he would say, quoting Mrs. Clark Nuttall's admirable +work, _Wild Flowers as They Grow_, "that the Roman soldiers brought +the most venomous of the stinging nettles to England to flagellate +themselves with when they were benumbed with the cold of this--to +them--terribly inclement isle. It is certain," he would add from the +same source, "that physicians at one time employed nettles to sting +paralysed limbs into vigour again, also to cure rheumatism. In view of +all this," he would ask, "does it not follow either that the nettle is +not a weed or that your definition of a weed is mistaken?" And his +opponent would be certain to answer: "It does follow, O Socrates." A +second opponent, however, would rashly take up the argument. He would +point out that even if the Romans had a mistaken notion that +nettle-stings were useful as a preventive of cold feet, and if our +superstitious ancestors made use of them to cure rheumatism, as our +superstitious contemporaries resort to bee-stings for the same +purpose, the nettle was at all times probably useless and is certainly +useless to-day. Socrates would turn to him with a quiet smile and ask: +"When we say that a plant is useless, do we mean merely that we as a +matter of fact make no use of it, or that it would be of no use even +if we did make use of it?" And the reply would leap out: "Undoubtedly +the latter, O Socrates." Socrates would then remember his Mrs. Nuttall +again, and refer to an old herbal which claimed that "excessive +corpulency may be reduced" by taking a few nettle-seeds daily. He +would admit that he had never made a trial of this cure, as he had no +desire to get rid of the corpulency with which the gods had seen fit +to endow him. He would claim, however, that the usefulness of the +nettle had been proved as an article of diet, that it was once a +favourite vegetable in Scotland, that it had helped to keep people +alive at the time of the Irish famine, and that even during the recent +war it had been recommended as an excellent substitute for spinach. +"May we not put it in this way," he would ask, "that you call a nettle +useless merely because you yourself do not make use of it?" "It seems +that you are right, O Socrates." "And would you call an aeroplane +useless, merely because you yourself have never made use of an +aeroplane? Or a pig useless, merely because you yourself do not eat +pork?" There would be a great wagging of heads among the opponents, +after which a third would pluck up courage to say: "But, surely, +Socrates, nettles as we know them to-day are simply noxious plants +that fulfil no function but to sting our children?" Socrates would +say, after a moment's pause: "That certainly is an argument that +deserves serious consideration. A weed, then, is to be condemned, you +think, not for its uselessness, but for its noxiousness?" This would +be agreed to. "Then," he would pursue his questions, "you would +probably call monkshood a weed, seeing that it has been the cause not +merely of pain but even of death itself to many children." His +opponent would grow angry at this, and exclaim: "Why, I cultivate +monkshood in my own garden. It is one of the most beautiful of the +flowers." Then there would be some wrangling as to whether ugliness +was the test of weeds, till Socrates would make it clear that this +would involve omitting speedwell and the scarlet pimpernel from the +list. Someone else would contend that the essence of a weed was its +troublesomeness, but Socrates would counter this by asking them +whether horseradish was not a far more troublesome thing in a garden +than foxgloves. "Oh," one of the disputants would cry in desperation, +"let us simply say that a weed is any plant that is not wanted in the +place where it is growing." "You would call groundsel a weed in the +garden of a man who does not keep a canary, but not a weed in the +garden of a man who does?" "I would." Socrates would burst out +laughing at this, and say: "It seems to me that a weed is more +difficult to define even than justice. I think we had better change +the subject and talk about the immortality of the soul." The only part +of the definition of a weed, indeed, that bears a moment's +investigation is contained in the three words: "_colloq._, a cigar." + +In my opinion, the safest course is to include among weeds all plants +that grow wild. It is also important to get rid of the notion that +weeds are necessarily evil things that should be exterminated like +rats. I remember some years ago seeing an appalling suggestion that +farmers should be compelled by law to clear their land of weeds. The +writer, if I remember correctly, even looked forward to the day when a +farmer would be fined if a daisy were found growing in one of his +fields. Utilitarianism of this kind terrifies the imagination. There +are some people who are aghast at the prospect of a world of +simplified spelling. But a world of simplified spelling would be +Arcadia itself compared to a world without wild flowers. According to +certain writers in _The Times_, however, we are faced with the +possibility of a world without wild flowers, even if the Board of +Agriculture takes no hand in the business. These writers tell us that +the reckless plucking of wild flowers has already led to a great +diminution in their numbers. Daffodils grow wild in many parts of +England, but, as soon as they appear, hordes of holiday-makers rush to +the scene and gather them in such numbers as to injure the life of the +plants. I am not enough of a botanist to know whether it is possible +in this way to discourage flowers that grow from bulbs. If it is, it +seems likely enough that, with the increasing popularity of country +walks, there will after a time be no daffodils or orchises left in +England. If one were sure of it, one would never pluck a bee-orchis +again. One does not know why one plucks it, except that the bee-shaped +flower is one of the most exquisite of Nature's toys, and one is +greedy of possessing it. Children try to catch butterflies for the +same reason. If it were possible to catch a sunset or a blue sea, no +doubt we should take them home with us, too. It may be that art is +only the transmuted instinct to seize and make our own all the +beautiful things we see. The collector of birds' eggs and the painter +are both collectors of a beauty that can be known only in hints and +fragments. Still, the painter is justified by the fact that his +borrowings actually add to the number of beautiful things. If the +collector of eggs and the gatherer of flowers can be shown to be +actually anti-social in their greed, we cannot be so enthusiastic +about them. I confess that on these matters I have an open mind. For +all I know, the discussion on wild flowers in _The Times_ may be +merely a scare. At the same time, it seems reasonable to believe that +if flowers that propagate themselves from seed were all gathered as +soon as they appeared, there would before long be no flowers left. I +notice that one suggestion has been made to the effect that +flower-lovers should provide themselves with seeds and should scatter +these in "likely places" during their country walks. I do not like +this plotting on Nature's behalf. Besides, it might lead to some +rather difficult situations. If this general seed-sowing became a +matter of principle, for instance, I should probably sow daisies on my +neighbour's tennis lawn, poppies and fumitory in his cornfield, and +dandelions in his meadow. It is not that I am devoted to the dandelion +as a flower, though it has been praised for its beauty, but at a later +stage a meadow of a million dandelion-clocks seems to me to be one of +the most beautiful of spectacles. But I would go further than this. I +should never see a hill-side cultivated without going out at night and +sowing it with the seeds of gorse and thistle. Not that I should bear +any ill-will to the farmer, but it is said that the diminution of +waste land, with its abundance of gorse and thistles, has led to a +great diminution in the number of linnets and goldfinches. The farmer, +perhaps, can do without linnets and goldfinches, but we who make our +living in other ways cannot. I should sow tares among his wheat, if +necessary, if I believed that tares would tempt a bearded tit or a +golden oriole. + +Still, I cannot easily persuade myself that a Society for the +Protection of Weeds is even now necessary. I have great faith in +weeds. If they are given a fair chance, I should back them against any +cultivated flower or vegetable I know. Anyone who has ever had a +garden knows that, while it is necessary to work hard to keep the +shepherd's purse and the chickweed and the dandelion and the wartwort +and the hawkweed and the valerian from growing, one has to take no +such pains in order to keep the lettuces and the potatoes from +growing. For myself, I should, in the vulgar phrase, back the +shepherd's purse against the lettuces every time. If the weeds in the +garden fail to make us radiantly happy, it is not because they are +weeds, but because they are the wrong weeds. Why not the ground-ivy +instead of the shepherd's purse, that lank intruder that not only is a +weed but looks like one? Why not bee-orchises for wartwort, and +gentians for chickweed? I have no fault to find with the foxgloves +under the apple-tree or with the ivy-leaved toad-flax that hangs with +its elfin flowers from every cranny in the wall. But I protest against +the dandelions and the superfluity of groundsel. I undertake that, if +rest-harrow and scabious and corn-cockle invade the garden, I shall +never use a hoe on them. More than this, if only the right weeds +settled in the garden, I should grow no other flowers. But shepherd's +purse! Compared with it, a cabbage is a posy for a bridesmaid, and +sprouting broccoli a bouquet for a prima donna. After all, one ought +to be allowed to choose the weeds for one's own garden. But then when +one chooses them, one no longer calls them weeds. The periwinkle, the +primrose and the mallow--we spare them with our tongue as with our +hoe. This, perhaps, suggests the only definition of a weed that is +possible. A weed is a plant we hoe up or, rather, that we try to hoe +up. A flower or a vegetable is a plant that the hoe deliberately +misses. But, in spite of the hoe, the weeds have it. They survive and +multiply like a subject race.... Well, perhaps better a weed than a +geranium. + + + + +XXI + + + +A JUROR IN WAITING + + +The train was crowded with jurymen. Every one of them was saying +something like "It's a disgrace," "It's a perfect scandal," "No other +nation would put up with it," and "Here we all are grumbling; and what +are we going to do about it? Nothing. That's the British way." They +were not complaining of any act of injustice perpetrated against a +prisoner. They were complaining of their own treatment. Fifty or sixty +of them had been summoned from the four ends of the county, and kept +packed away all day under a gallery at the back of the court, where +there was not even room for all of them to sit down, and where there +was certainly not room for all of them to breathe. It would have been +an easy thing for the Clerk of the Court to choose a dozen jurymen in +the first ten minutes of the day, and to dismiss the rest on their +business. He might, if necessary, have also picked a reserve jury, and +selected the jury for the next day's cases. The law revels in expense, +however and so a great number of middle-aged men were taken away for +two whole days from their businesses and compelled to sit in filthy +air and on benches that would not be endured in the gallery of a +theatre, with nothing to do but watch the backs of the heads of a +continuous procession of barristers and bigamists. + +Few jurors would have complained, I think if there had been any +rational excuse for detaining them. What they objected to so bitterly +was the fact that no use was made of them, and that they were kept +there for two days, though it must have been obvious to everyone that +the majority of them might as well he at home. It may be, however, +that there is some great purpose underlying the present system of +calling together a crowd of unnecessary jurymen. Perhaps it is a form +of compulsory education for middle-aged men. It shows them the machine +of the law in action, and enables them to some extent to say from +their own observation whether it is being worked in a fair and humane +or in a harsh and vindictive spirit. One cannot sit through one +criminal case after another at the Assizes without gaining a +considerable amount of material for forming a judgment on this matter. +The juror in waiting, as he sees a pregnant woman swooning in the dock +or a man with a high, pumpkin-shaped back to his head led off down the +dark stairs to five years' penal servitude, becomes a keen critic of +the British justice that may have been to him until then merely a +phrase. How does British justice emerge from the test? Well, it may be +that this judge was a particularly kind judge and that the policemen +of this county are particularly kindly policemen, but I confess that, +much as I detest other people's boasting, I came away with the +impression that the boast about British justice is justified. I do not +believe that it is by any means always justified in the mouths of +statesmen who use it as an excuse for their own injustice, and I would +not trust every judge or every jury to give a verdict free from +political bias in a case that involved political issues. But in the +ordinary case--"as between," in the words of the oath, "our sovereign +lord the King and the prisoner at the bar"--it seems to me, if my two +days' experience can be taken as typical, that British justice is not +only just but merciful. + +The evidence is, perhaps, insufficient, as, in most cases, the +sentences were deferred. But what pleased one was the general lack of +vindictiveness in the prosecution or in the police evidence. Hardly a +bigamist climbed into the dock--and there was an apparently endless +stream of them--to whom the local police did not give a glowing +certificate of character. The chief constable of the county went into +the witness-box to testify that one bigamist was "reliable," "a, good +worker," etc. "His general conduct," a policeman would say of another, +"as regards both the women, was good." The barristers, as was natural, +dwelt on the Army record of most of the men, and, even when a client +had pleaded guilty, would appeal to the judge to remember that he had +before him a man with a stainless past. "But wait, wait," the judge +would interrupt; "you know bigamy is a very serious offence." "I quite +agree with your lordship," counsel would reply nervously, "but I beg +of you to take into consideration that the prisoner was carried away +by his love for this woman--" This was where the judge always grew +indignant. He was a little man with big eyebrows, a big nose, a big +mouth, and white whiskers. His whiskers made him appear a little like +Matthew Arnold in a wig and scarlet, save that he did not look as if +he were sitting above the battle. "You tell me," he declared warmly, +"that he loved this woman, while he admits that he deceived her into +marrying him and falsely described himself in the marriage certificate +as a bachelor." Counsel would again nervously agree with his lordship +that his client had done wrong in deceiving the woman, but in three +sentences he would have found another way round to the portraiture of +the prisoner as all but a model for the young. Certainly, the great +increase in the offence of bigamy proves at least the hollowness of +all the talk about the growing indifference to the marriage tie. +Whatever we may think of bigamists--and there are black sheep in every +flock--the bigamist is manifestly a much-married man. He is a person, +I should say, with the bump of domesticity excessively developed. The +merely immoral man, as most of us know him, does not ask for the +sanction of the law for his immorality. He does not feel the want of +"a home from home," as the bigamist does. The increase in bigamy, it +seems clear enough, is largely due to the war, which not only gave men +opportunities for travel such as they had never had before, but +enabled them to travel in a uniform which was itself a passport to +many an impressionable female heart. Men had never been so much +admired before. Never had they had so wide a choice of female +acquaintances. "I am amazed," said Clive on a famous occasion, "at my +own moderation." Many a bigamist, as he stands in the dock in these +days of the cool fit, could conscientiously put forward the same plea. +But the most that any of them can say is that they thought the first +wife was dead or that she wanted to bring up the children Roman +Catholics. + +The first wife in one of the bigamy cases went into the witness-box, +and I saw what to me was an incredible sight--an Englishwoman of +thirty who could neither read nor write. Red-haired, tearful, weary, +she did not even know the months of the year. She said a telegram had +been sent to her husband saying she was dangerously ill in February. +"Was that this year or last year?" asked counsel. "I don't know, sir," +she said. "Come, come," said the judge, "you must know whether you +were suffering from a dangerous illness this year or last." "No, sir," +she replied shakily; "you see, sir, not bein' a scholar, I couldn't +'ardly tell, sir." Then a bright idea struck her. "My hospital papers +could tell the date, sir." She produced from her pocket a paper saying +that she had undergone an operation in a hospital in September 1919. +That was all that could be got out of her. The counsel on the other +side rose to cross-examine her about the dates. "You had an operation +in September, you say. Were you laid up at any other time during the +past two years?" "No, sir." "But you have sworn that you were ill in +February, when a telegram was sent to your husband?" "Yes, sir." "And +now you say that you weren't ill at any other time except in +September?" "No, sir." "So you weren't ill in February?" "Oh yes, sir; +I had the 'flu, sir." She was as obstinate about it all as the child +in _We are Seven_. But she kept assuring us that she was no scholar. +Her husband said that he had received a letter saying she was dead, +and, though he had lost it, he quoted it at length "as far as he could +remember it." It was a beautiful letter, expressing regret that he had +not been at the side of the deathbed, where, the writer was sure, +whatever faults had been on either side would have been forgiven. "You +never were dead?" the judge asked the woman. "No sir," she replied in +the same tone of _We are Seven_ seriousness. + +A girl was put in the dock, charged with having stolen a Post Office +savings bank book. A policeman, giving evidence, said: "Until the 6th +of December she was in the Wacks." "You say," said the judge, rather +bewildered by the good appearance of the girl, "that she was in the +workhouse!" "In the Wacks, my lord." "I think he means the Royal Air +Force," prosecuting counsel helped the judge out of his perplexity. +And the word "Wraf" went from mouth to mouth round the court. The girl +was guilty, but the judge told her that he was not going to send her +to prison. "I don't think it would do you any good, and I don't think +the interests of society call for it," he said. "What I'm going to do +is to bind you over to come up for judgment if called upon. Now, go +away home, and be a good girl, and, if you are, you won't hear +anything more about it. You have done a very disgraceful thing, but +you can live it down by good conduct in the future." There was another +thief, a boy of eighteen, who had been deserted by his mother at the +age of three, and whom the judge also told, though not in those words, +to go and sin no more. There was also a boy who had forged his +father's consent to his marriage, and he and his girl wife were +lectured like children and sent home to do better in future. As the +judge said to the boy: "This is not a thing you are likely to do +again." His wife, who was expecting a baby, had to be carried fainting +from the dock. Counsel could not bring himself to say that she was +expecting a baby. He said that she was "in a certain condition." The +modesty of the law is marvellous. One of the most interesting of the +prisoners was a little sleek-headed man accused of fraud, who kept +moving his head about like a tortoise's out of its shell. His head was +black and shining where it was not bald and shining. He had +gold-rimmed spectacles and a sallow face. He glided his hands over the +knobs on the front of the dock with a reptilian smoothness. He had +persuaded a number of tradesmen and hotel-keepers that he was an +English peer. He had even complained to one shopkeeper of the +smallness of a wallet, as he needed something larger to hold the +title-deeds relating to the peerage. In another case, a young man, +staying in a house, had stolen, along with other things, his hostess's +false teeth, her best dress and a great quantity of underclothing. A +parcel of clothing had been recovered from a second-hand shop and was +shown to the lady when in the witness-box. She took up one of the +garments and fingered it. "Well," said the prosecuting counsel, +encouragingly, "is that your best dress?" "Naoh," she said +melancholily, "that's me ypron." Then there was a young man who stole +a motor-bicycle by presenting a revolver at the head of the owner. He +denied that he had stolen it, and maintained that, after he had +apologised to the owner "for having treated him so abruptly," they had +become friendly and he had been told to take the bicycle away and pay +for it later. Alas! there is a limit to human credulity. Besides, the +young man had a crooked mouth. After two days in court, one begins to +believe that one can tell an honest man from a liar by looking at him. +Probably one is over-confident. + + + + +XXII + + + +THE THREE-HALFPENNY BIT + + +As a rule, there is nothing that offends us more than a new kind of +money. We felt humiliated in the early days of the war when we were no +longer paid in heavy little discs of gold, and had to accept paper +pounds and ten-shillingses. We even sneered at the design. We always +sneer at the design of new money or a new stamp. But we hated the +paper even more than the design. We could not believe it had any +value. We spent it as though it were paper. One would as soon have +thought of collecting old newspapers as of playing the miser with it. +That is probably the true secret of the fall in the value of money. +Economists explain it in other ways. But it seems likeliest that paper +money lost its value because we did not value it. Shopkeepers took +advantage of our foolish innocence, and the tailor demanded sums in +paper that he would never have dared to ask in gold. I doubt if the +habit of thrift will ever be restored till the gold currency comes +back. Gold is the only metal for which human beings have any lasting +respect. No one but a child would save up pennies. There is something +in gold--the colour, perhaps, reminding us of the sun, the god of our +ancestors--that puts us into the mood of worshippers. The children of +Israel found it impossible not to worship the golden calf. They have +gone on worshipping it ever since. Had the calf been of paper, they +would, I feel confident, have remained good Christians. + +The influence of hatred on the expenditure of money is seen in our +attitude to threepenny bits. Nine out of ten people feel sincerely +indignant when a threepenny bit is given to them in their change. The +shopkeeper who gives you two threepenny bits instead of a sixpence +knows this and, as he hands you the money, says apologetically: "Do +you mind?" You say: "Not at all," but you do. You know that they will +be a constant misery to you till you get rid of them. You know that if +you give one of them to a bus conductor, even if he is able to +restrain himself, he will feel like throwing you off the top of the +bus. When at length you spend one of them in a post office--one never +has the same scruples about Government institutions--you hurry out +with a guilty air, not having dared to look the lady at the counter in +the eye. In the nineteenth century, when people went to church, they +used to get rid of their threepenny bits at the collection. They at +once relieved themselves of a nuisance, and enjoyed the luxury of +flinging the gleam of silver on to the plate. Many a good Baptist has +trusted to his threepenny bit's being mistaken for a sixpence, by the +neighbours, at least--perhaps even by Heaven. He has a notion that the +widow's mite was a threepenny bit, and feels that his gift is in a +great tradition. + +The popular hatred of certain coins, however, goes back to a far +earlier date than the invention of the threepenny bit. Even gold, when +it was first introduced into the English coinage, was met with such a +storm of denunciation that it had to be withdrawn. This was in the +time of Henry III., who issued a golden penny to take the place of the +silver penny that had hitherto been the chief English coin. It was +only in the reign of Edward III. that gold coins became established in +England They may have helped to recommend themselves to the nation by +their intensely anti-French character. They bore the French arms, and +announced that King Edward was King of England and France. France is a +country lying close to the shores of England, and is of great +strategic importance to her. I do not know whether the copper coins +which first came into England in the time of Charles II. raised any +clamour of public protest. The nation, I fancy, was so relieved to get +back to cakes and ale that it was not inclined to be censorious about +the new halfpennies and farthings. In the old days, people had made +their own halfpennies and farthings by the simple process of cutting +pennies into halves and quarters. They also issued private coins on +the same principle on which we nowadays write cheques. Municipalities +and shopkeepers alike issued these tokens, or promises to pay, and +without them there would not have been sufficient currency for the +transaction of business. The copper coins of Charles II. were intended +to put a stop to this unofficial sort of money, but towards the end of +the eighteenth century there was such a scarcity of copper currency +that local shopkeepers and bankers defied the law and again began to +issue their own coins. I have in my possession what looks like a +George III. shilling, with the King's head on one side and, on the +other, inside a wreath of shamrocks, the inscription: "Bank Token, 10 +Pence Irish, 1813." It was turned up by the plough on a Staffordshire +farm a few years ago. Speaking of this reminds me that a separate +Irish coinage continued even after the Union of 1800. It was not till +1817 that English gold and silver became current in Ireland, and Irish +pennies and halfpennies were struck as late as the reign of George IV. +The Scottish coins came to an end more than a century earlier. The +name of one of them, however, the "bawbee," has survived in popular +humour. Some people say that the name is merely a corruption of +"baby," referring to the portrait of Queen Mary as an infant. It seems +to me as unlikely a derivation as could be imagined. + +Of all the English coins, the first appearance of which occasioned +popular anger, none had a worse reception than the two-shilling piece +which appeared in 1849. "This piece," says Miss G.B. Rawlings in +_Coins and How to Know Them_, a book rich in information, "was +unfavourably received, owing to the omission of 'Dei Gratia' after the +Queen's name, and was stigmatised as the godless or graceless florin." +The florin, however, so called after a Florentine coin, had come to +stay, but since 1851 it has been as godly in inscription as any of the +other money in one's pocket. The coin has survived, but hardly the +name. One can with an effort call a spade a spade, but who would think +of calling a florin a florin? The coin itself for a time bore the +inscription: "One Florin, Two Shillings," as though the name called +for translation. Since the introduction of the florin, there have been +many coins that aroused popular hatred. The four-shilling piece, +especially, that was struck in the year of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, +was received with a howl of execration. Men went about in constant +dread of argument with shopkeepers as to whether they had given them a +four-shilling or a five-shilling piece. In the interests of the +national good temper the coin ceased to be struck after 1890 +Englishmen, however, disliked the entire Jubilee coinage. They +disliked the Queen's portrait, and they disliked especially a sixpence +which could be easily gilded to look like a half-sovereign. The +sixpences were hurriedly withdrawn, but schoolboys continued to +treasure them in the belief that they were worth fabulous sums. Like +groats, the delight of one's childhood, they began to be desirable as +soon as they ceased to be common. When King Edward VII. came to the +throne, there was another outburst of hatred of new money. The chief +objection to it was that the King's effigy had been designed by a +German and had not even been designed well. It was at this time, +perhaps, when people began to hate the money in their pockets, that +the reign of modern extravagance began. To get rid of a sovereign +bearing a design by Herr Fuchs seemed a patriotic duty. Thrift and +pro-Germanism were indistinguishable. + +Much as men detest new sorts of money in their own country, however, +many of us take a childish pleasure on our first arrival in France in +handling strange and unfamiliar coins. One of the great pleasures of +travel is changing one's money. There is a certain lavishness about +the coinage of the Continent that appeals to our curiosity. Even in +getting a five-franc piece we never know whether it will bear the +emblem of a republic, a kingdom or an empire. Coins of Greece and +Italy jingle in our pocket with those of the impostor, Louis Napoleon, +and those of the wicked Leopold, King of the Belgians. In Switzerland +I remember even getting a Cretan coin, which I was humiliated by being +unable to pass at a post office. The postal official took down a huge +diagram containing pictures of all the European coins he was allowed +to accept. He studied Greek coins and, for all I know, Jugo-Slav +coins, but nowhere could he find the image of the coin I had proffered +him. Crete for him did not exist. He shook his head solemnly and +handed the coin back. Is there any situation in which a man feels +guiltier than when his money is thrust back on him as of no value? +This happens oftener, perhaps, in France than in any other country. +France has the reputation of being the country of bad money. The +reputation is, I believe, exaggerated, though I have known a Boulogne +tram conductor to refuse even a 50-centime piece as bad. I remember +vividly a warning given to me on this subject during my first visit to +France. I was sitting with a friend in an estaminet in a small village +in the north of France, when an English chauffeur insinuated himself +into the conversation. He was eager to give us advice about France and +the French. "I like the French," he said, "but you can't trust them. +Look out for bad money. They're terrors for bad money. I'd have been +done oftener myself, only that luckily I married a Frenchwoman. She's +in the ticket office at the Maison des Delits--you probably know the +name--it's a dancing-hall in Montmartre. Any time I get a bad 5 franc +piece, I pass it on to her, and she gets rid of it in the change to +some Froggie. My God, they _are_ dishonest! I wouldn't say a word +against the French, but just that one thing. They're dishonest--damned +dishonest." He sat back on the bench, a figure of insular rectitude +but of cosmopolitan broadmindedness. Is it not the perfect compromise? + + + + +XXIII + + + +THE MORALS OF BEANS + + +"Nine bean-rows will I have there," cries Mr Yeats in describing his +Utopia in _The Lake Isle of Innisfree_. I have only two. They run east +to west between the second-early potatoes and the red-currant bushes. +They are broad beans. They are in flower just now, and every flower is +a little black-and-white butterfly. That, however, is the good side of +the account. If you look closer at them, you will see that each of +them appears as if its head had been dipped into coal-dust. There is a +congregation of the blackest of all insects hiding in horrid +congestion among the leaves and flowers at the top. Compared to them, +the green-fly on the roses has almost charm. There is something slummy +and unwashed-looking about the black blight. These insects are as foul +as a stagnant pond. Though they have wings, they seem incapable of +flight. They are microbes of a larger growth--a disease and a +desecration. On the other hand, there is one good point about them: +they are very stupid. Instead of spreading themselves out along the +entire extent of the bean and so lessening their peril, they mass +themselves in hordes in the very tops of the plants as though they had +all some passionate taste for rocking in the wind like the baby on the +tree-top. This is what gives the gardener his opportunity. He has but +to walk along the rows, pinching off the top of each plant, and +filling his flat little basket (called, I believe, a trug) with them, +and lo, the beans are safe, and produce all the finer and fuller pods +as a result of their having been stunted. + +At this point the moral thrusts out its head. There are those who +believe that beans have no morals. To call a man "Old bean" gives him, +it is said, a pleasant feeling that he is something of a dog. Gilbert, +again, in _Patience_ has a reference to "a not-too-French French bean" +that suggests a ribald estimate of this family of plants. The broad +bean, on the other hand, seems to me to exude morality--not least, +when it parts with its head to save its life. There is no better +preacher in the vegetable garden. It is the very Chrysostom of the +gospel of frustration--the gospel that a great loss may be a great +gain--the gospel that through their repressions men may all the more +successfully achieve their ends. + +Nor is this gospel confined to the sect of the beans (which are by a +happy paradox both broad and evangelical). The apple-trees bear the +same message in their unpruned branches--unpruned owing to a long +absence from home during the winter. It is an amazing fact--I speak as +an amateur--but it is an amazing fact, if it is a fact, that an +apple-tree, if it is left to itself, will not grow apples. It has an +entirely selfish purpose in life. Its aim is to be a tree, living to +itself, producing a multitude of shoots and leaves. It succeeds in +living a rich and fruitful life only when the gardener has come with +the abhorred shears and lopped its branches till it must feel like a +frustrate thing. The fruit is the fruit of frustration. Were it not +for this frustration, it would ultimately return to a state of +wildness, and would become a crabbed and barren weed, fit only to be a +perch for birds. + +Thus, it seems to me, the broad bean and the apple-tree are persuasive +defenders of civilisation and of those concomitants of civilisation +morality and the arts. Heretics frequently arise, both in ethics and +in the arts, who say: "No more restraints! Give the bean its head." +There are psycho-analysts who appear to regard frustration as the one +serious evil in life, and the apostles of _vers libre_ denounce metre +and rhyme because these merely serve to frustrate the natural impulses +of the imagination. As a matter of fact, it is this very frustration +that gives poetry much of its depth and vehemence. Great genius +expresses itself, not in the freedom of formlessness, but in the +limitations of form. Shakespeare's passion turned instinctively to the +most frustrative of all poetic forms--that of the sonnet--in order to +express itself in perfection. It is, as a rule, those who have nothing +to say who wish to say it without the terrible frustrations of form. +Obviously, there is a golden mean in the arts as in all things, and +there comes a point at which form passes into formalism. Genius +requires just enough frustration to increase its vehemence, and so to +transmute nature into art. It is possible that some frustration of a +comparable kind is needed in order to transmute nature into morality, +and that the man who would, in Milton's phrase, make of his life a +poem must submit to commandments as difficult as those of metre or +rhyme. It is not merely the Christians and the Stoics who have +maintained this; Epicurus himself was a believer in virtue as a means +to happiness. This, indeed, is a commonplace written all over the face +of nature. There is no great happiness without opposition except for +children. The climber struggles with the hill, the rower with the +water, the digger with the earth. They are all men who live on the +understanding that the pleasures of difficulty are greater even than +the pleasures of ease. + +The biographies of famous men are prolific of examples that support +the theory of frustration. Homer, they say, was blind, and the legend +seems to suggest that his blindness, far from injuring, abetted his +genius. Tyrtæus, being physically unable to fight, became the poet of +fighting, and achieved more with his words than did most men with +their weapons. Demosthenes, again, was an orator frustrated by many +defects. Everyone knows the story of his wretched articulation and how +he shut himself up and practised speaking with pebbles in his mouth in +order to overcome it. Few of the great orators, indeed, seem to have +succeeded in oratory without difficulty. Neither Cicero nor Burke +spoke with the natural ease of many a young man in a Y.M.C.A. debating +society. And the great writers, like the great orators, have been, in +many instances, men doomed in some important respect to lead +frustrated lives. Mr Beerbohm recently said that he has never known a +man of genius whose life was not marred by some obvious defect. People +have talked for two thousand years of the desirability of _mens sana +in corpore sano_, but if everybody possessed this--possessed it from +birth and without effort--there would probably soon be a shortage of +genius. The sanity of genius is not the sanity of the healthy minded +athlete: it is the sanity of the human spirit struggling against +forces that threaten to frustrate it. The greatest love-poetry has not +been written by men who have found easy happiness in love. Donne's +poems are the poems of a frustrated lover. Keats's greatest poetry was +the fruit of unfulfilled love. Thus genius turns poverty into riches. +Few men of genius are enviable save in their genius. Beethoven, a +frustrate lover and ultimately a deaf musician, is a type of genius at +its most sublime. + +Charles Lamb, as we read the _Essays_, seems at times to be one of the +most enviable of men, but that is only because he is supremely +lovable. Who knows how much we owe to the defects of his life? Even +the impediment in his speech seems to have been one of the conditions +of his genius. He tells us that, if he had not stammered, he would +probably have been a clergyman, and, if he had been a clergyman, he +would hardly have been Elia. His life, too, was that of a tragic +bachelor--he whose writings breathe the finest spirit of fireside +comedy. There could be no better example of the truth that genius is, +as a rule, a response to apparently hostile limitations. + +On the whole, then, the common-sense attitude to life is, not to +deplore one's limitations, but to make the best of them. No man need +envy another his good fortune too bitterly. Good fortune has wasted as +many men as it has assisted. George Wyndham was one of the most +fortunate men of his time--strong, handsome, an athlete, an orator, a +statesman, a writer with a sense of style, popular, rich, and with +nine out of ten of the attributes that we envy most. Had achievement +come less easily to him, he might have been a greater man. There have +been ugly men who have been more enviable. There have been weedy men +who were more enviable. There have been poor men who were more +enviable. But the truth is, one does not know whom to envy. It is +probably wise to envy nobody. + +It would be foolish, however, to pretend that frustration is a +desirable thing in itself, apart from all other considerations. The +beans nod their heads to no such gospel. Frustration may easily reach +the point of destruction. One might frustrate one's broad beans +excessively by pulling them up by the roots or cutting them down to +within an inch of the ground. There must still be room left for the +life of the plant to find a new outlet. The beans do not preach a +sermon against liberty, but only against lawlessness. But, for all I +know, they may preach different gospels to different amateur +gardeners. Each of us finds in nature what he wishes to find. I +confess I myself am prejudiced in favour of sermons of a consoling +kind. It is consoling to think that, in a world of defects, a defect +often carries with it its own compensation--that strength, as the +preachers say, may be made perfect in weakness. But, when one looks +round and enumerates the miseries of human beings, one wonders how far +this is, after all, true except for men whose gifts are naturally +greater than hog, dog or devil can imperil. + + + + +XXIV + + + +ON SEEING A JOKE + + +Almost any man can make a joke, but it sometimes requires a clever man +to see one. It is said that a Scotsman "jokes wi' deeficulty." What we +really mean is that it is often difficult to see a Scotsman's jokes or +even to know whether he is joking or being serious. As a matter of +fact, the Scots are an unusually humorous race. They make jokes, +however, with the long faces of undertakers, and one is sometimes +afraid to laugh for fear of appearing frivolous on a solemn occasion. +I have in mind one brilliant Scottish professor who, whether he is +jocular or serious, invariably monologises in the tones of a man +condoling with a widow. He half-shuts his eyes and folds his hands, +and, for the first minute or two, takes an evil delight in leaving you +in doubt whether he is launching into a tragic narrative or whether he +will suddenly look up through his spectacles and expect to see you +laughing. His English friends are in a constant state of embarrassment +because they know that he is a humorist of genius, but his humour is +so subtle that they do not trust themselves to see the point when it +comes and laugh at the right place. Now, there are only two things +that can make the professor look sterner than he looks while giving +birth to a joke. One is, if you laugh too early: the other is, if the +great moment comes and you don't laugh at all. He makes no complaint, +but he sits back in his chair, looking like an embittered owl. And +everybody else in the room has a sense of ghastly failure--his own +failure, not the professor's. To miss seeing a joke is, in some +circumstances, far worse than to miss making the point of a joke +visible. If one were in the position of a Queen Victoria, one might, +of course, quench the professor by merely saying: "We are not amused." +But even Queen Victoria, when she said this, did not mean that she had +not seen the joke but that she had seen it and didn't like it. It is +not only the subtle and Scottish jokes, however, that are at times +difficult to see with the naked eye. There is also the joke that hits +you in the eye like a blow and blinds you. Captain Wedgwood Benn +referred to a joke of this kind in the House of Commons on the +authority of Mr Stephen Gwynn. A judge of the Irish High Court, he +related, was recently travelling on a tram which was held up by +Black-and-Tans. The Black-and-Tans, who, like the Most High, are no +respecters of persons, called on the judge to descend, using the +quaint colloquial formula: "Come down, you Irish bastard; put up your +hands." Captain Wedgwood Benn does not unfortunately possess a +twentieth-century sense of humour, and he did not see this particular +joke. The comedy of a judge's being addressed as an Irish bastard did +not strike him. I doubt if half-a-dozen members of the House of +Commons realised the beauty of the joke till Sir Hamar Greenwood got +up and explained it. "I happen to know the judge," said the twinkling +Chief Secretary. "He told the story himself with great glee, and here +it is. Mr Justice Wylie, the last, and one of the best judges +appointed in Ireland, was riding on a tramcar to a hunting meet. When +he got to the end of his ride, there were some policemen on duty, and +they did use a word which, I trust, no hon. Member of this House will +ever use in calling him down from the tram. They did him no harm. He +treated it as a joke, and he would be the man most surprised to find +it quoted in the House and in the _Observer_ as an example of the +decadence of the Irish police." I agree with Sir Hamar. A joke is a +joke, and many Irishmen, unlike Mr Justice Wylie, are unduly +thin-skinned. The only criticism I would make on Sir Hamar Greenwood's +idea of a joke is that he appears to suggest that it would have been +less funny if the Black-and-Tans had done the judge some harm. I +should have expected him rather to dilate on the attractions of life +in the Irish police force for men with a sense of humour. Suppose the +judge had been robbed of his watch, or had had his front teeth broken +with the muzzle of a revolver like the University Professor at Cork, +would not that have made the incident still funnier? Suppose he had +been carried round as a hostage on a motor-lorry, or shot with a +bucket over his head, as has happened to other innocent men, would it +not have been a theme for Aristophanes, who got so much fun out of the +idea of one person's being beaten in mistake for another? + +I am confident that distinguished Englishmen will behave in the spirit +of Mr Justice Wylie, when there is an outbreak of humour among the +English police. Mr Justice Darling will, no doubt, enjoy himself +hugely on the day on which an armed policeman first holds up his +motor-car, and addresses him: "'Ullo, you blasted old Bolshevik, come +off the perch, and quick about it, and put up the 'Idden 'And!" There +are some judges who would complain to the Home Office, if such a thing +happened to them. Mr Justice Darling, however, has a keen sense of +humour. I feel certain that on arriving in Court after his experiences +he would tell the story with great glee. He would turn up his face +sideways, as he does when he is amused, and say to the jury: "A most +amusing thing happened to me this morning, by the way ..." There is no +end, indeed, to the directions in which a police force saturated with +the Greenwoodian sense of fun might add to the gaiety of nations. They +might arm themselves with squirts, and laughing Cabinet ministers +would have to duck as they passed down Whitehall in order to avoid a +drenching. Pluffing peas at the bishops on their way to the House of +Lords would also be good sport, so long as they did not really hurt +any of them. To bash the Lord Chancellor's hat over his eyes would be +going too far, as it involves a money loss, but a harmless blow on the +crown with a bladder would be rather amusing. It would also be amusing +if a number of policemen were told off to greet Mr Lloyd George with +cries of "Welsh attorney," and to chaff him with genial scurrilities +on his arrival at the House. If these things happened, there are +killjoys, I know, who would immediately set up a clamour for the +restoration of discipline in the police force. Mr Lloyd George, +however, has always been a man who can not only make a joke but take +one, and I am sure that he at least would defend the democratic right +of the policeman to a bit of chaff. + +Nor would I confine the right of chaff to the police force. I would +make it universal. I should like to see it introduced into the Church +itself. Even the dullest sermon would become entertaining if the +verger had the right and the habit of interpolating such remarks as: +"Cheese it, Pussyfoot!" or "Ring off, you bleedin' old bore, ring +off!" There has been too little of this sort of popular raillery in +recent years. The bus-drivers used to be past masters at it, poking +their quiet fun impartially at their fellow-drivers and ordinary +citizens. Whether it is that the drivers of motor-buses realise that +no joke could be heard above the din, or whether it is that they feel +as ill-tempered as they look, their arrival has made fatal inroads on +the geniality of London. An artist with uncut hair can still awaken a +spark of the old wit if he goes down a back street, and women and +children will revive for his benefit the venerable witticism: "Get +your hair cut!" But, generally speaking, there has been a notable +decline in the humours of insult within living memory. The Germans, +always fond of a joke, made an effort to revive it during the war. It +was a common thing for them, we are told, on capturing a prisoner, to +address him as "Schweinhund" or "Verdammte Engländer," or by some +other good-humoured phrase of the same kind. I regret to say that some +Englishmen were so deficient in the sense of humour that, instead of +taking this in the spirit in which it was offered, they bitterly +resented it. I cannot, indeed, recall a single instance of an +Englishman who properly appreciated the joke of being called a +"Schweinhund" by a man he had never seen before. You will seek in vain +through the literature of prisoners of war for a returned soldier who +tells the story of the names he was called with the glee that it +deserves. And yet, no doubt, the Germans enjoyed the joke thoroughly, +and would have been surprised to find it quoted in the _Observer_ as +an example of the decadence of the German Army. + +Perhaps, however, the "Schweinhund" joke does not afford an entirely +fair comparison. It is a simple joke, whereas in the Greenwood joke +there are two elements. There is the element of insult, and there is +the element of mistaken identity. It is not merely that somebody or +other was called "You Irish bastard," but that the wrong person was +called "You Irish bastard." Thus, if a policeman addressed a woman in +Oxford Street in the words: "'Op it, you old bitch," it would be only +mildly funny, if the woman were a poor woman. But it would be +immensely funny if she turned out to be a marchioness. The +marchioness, no doubt, would be enchanted, and would tell the story +with great glee. If she were a sentimentalist, she might say to +herself: + + "Is this really the way in which ordinary human beings are + treated by the police? This is a hideous state of affairs in + which bullies in uniform are allowed to address foul insults + to whom they please. Thank heaven, it has happened to + someone like me. Now, I can tell the Home Secretary, and he + will put an end to the whole system." + +One never knows what a modern Home Secretary might do, but I doubt if +one could be found who would reply to the marchioness: "Well, he did +you no harm. You know, to me it all seems rather funny." And yet most +things have their funny side if you look on them in the right spirit. +It would have been a funny thing if the hangman had executed the wrong +prisoner instead of Crippen. The hanged man would not have seen the +joke, but impartial onlookers would have seen it, and Crippen would +have seen it. Similarly, if a drunken man threw a brick at his wife +and hit the missionary by mistake, who could help laughing? Even the +wife, if she had a sense of humour, would have to join in. +Over-sensitive souls, such as Shelley was might view the incident with +pain and mourn over a world in which human beings treated each other +in such a way. But life is a hard school, and it is not well to be +over-sensitive. After all, if we all became angels, there would be no +jokes left. We should have no clowns in the music-halls--no comic +boxing-turns with glorious thumpings on unexpecting noses. Heaven is a +place without laughter because there is no cruelty in it--no insults +and no accidents. As for us, we are children of earth, and may as well +enjoy the advantages of our position. So let us laugh, "Ha, ha!"--let +us laugh, "Ho, ho!" + + The world is so full of a number of things, + I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. + +And never was it so full of a number of things as since a Coalition +Government came into power--queer, delightful things, for instance, +like policemen who call judges "bastard," as who should say: "Cheerio, +old thing!" Our grandfathers would not have seen that joke. That is +one of the things that convince me of the reality of progress. + + + + +XXV + + + +GOING TO THE DERBY + + +"Do they have as much fun at the Derby as they used to?" I heard an +old gentleman in a white hat, canary gloves, and buttoned boots asking +a fellow-passenger in a London train. Fun? No; one would hardly call +it that. Looking back on it after forty years one will no doubt call +it fun. But it is certainly not fun while it lasts. + +The two most important features of the Derby are getting there and +getting away again. Getting there is harder work than bricklaying or +journalism. You may ride in a motor-car, but your motor will be as +useless to you as a submarine in a swimming bath. From Sutton to Epsom +and from Epsom to the Downs a long procession of motor-cars, buses, +waggonettes, greengrocers' carts, lorries, school carts, drays, and +human beings stretches like a serpent of infinite length--a serpent +that is apparently too sick to move. One thinks of it as an old +serpent that has made itself very ill by swallowing machinery. + +Every few minutes it gives the machinery in its inward parts a shake, +and makes one more effort to crawl. A queer rattle, shiver, and groan +run through it from tip to tail. But the effort is too much for it. It +immediately subsides on a lame and impotent stomach, and hour after +hour passes with no other diversion except the antics of an occasional +nervous horse that rises on his hind legs and waves his forefeet in +the back of your neck over the hood of the motor. + +There is a common belief that the crowd that goes to the Derby is a +cheerful crowd--that it sings and plays concertinas and changes hats. +There could not be a greater delusion. It is as quiet and determined +as a procession of men and women going to hear Dr Horton preaching at +Hampstead. Not a song--well, one song. Not a joke--well, one joke, +when a fat man saw a poor brown lop-eared ass in a field of daisies, +and called out: "There's the winner o' the Durby!" He apparently felt +it was a very good joke, for he repeated it to parties on the tops of +buses and parties on greengrocers' carts and parties in furniture +vans. + +The sun, however, was unpropitious for jokes. Even the East Ender, who +had worked an edging of red and white wool into his pony's mane and +hung rosettes of red, white, and blue at its ears, was too busy +perspiring and hating his hundred thousand neighbours to smile. He was +also busy weighing his chances of getting to Epsom Downs before +Judgment Day. I admired his spirit in waving a whip with a knot of +coloured ribbons. There was little other colour to be seen. We were a +procession of victims--red as beef, steaming like the window of a +fried-fish shop, dusty, swollen-veined--and we could only sink back +helpless and gasping in the grip of the monstrous procession of +wheeled things that advanced more slowly than any snail that was ever +known on this side of the Ural Mountains. + +I doubt if that procession ever reached Epsom Downs. I did so only +because I got out and walked; and even then the first two races were +over. Half England seemed already to have arrived on the hills, and to +have pitched its wigwams there. The other half was blocking up the +road for ten miles back, and could not possibly arrive in time for the +Derby; but the half who had arrived had already set up a city of +booths and flags on hill after hill as far as the eye could see. + +There may have been encampments of this vastness in the days of +Xerxes, but surely never since. It was oppressive, overwhelming. There +were so many people there that there was no room for anybody. There +was no room, so far as I could see, for the man who plays the +three-card trick on the top of an open umbrella, or for the man with +the tape and pencil, and even the beggars who prayed by the roadside +for your success were few. There was simply a crush--an enormous, +sweltering, and appallingly silent crush. Even the bookmakers seemed +to be awed by it. They stood on their stands beside blackboards full +of horses' names and mystical figures, but they did not yell at you +hoarsely, bullyingly, as bookmakers ought to do. If, having looked at +the elephantine portrait advertisement of one of them, you wished to +bet with him, he would consent in a listless way, and say wearily to +his clerk: "Nine-nine-one, seventy shillings to a dollar Polumetis," +as he handed you a blue, red, and green card. + +I do not blame him for not being enthusiastic. I am myself no longer +enthusiastic about Polumetis. Still, one wished for a little violence +besides the violence of the sun and of the man who tried to sell you a +shilling's worth of sausage and who said he was "the only firm, the +only firm in the place." Camden Town on a Saturday night could give +points to Derby Day for colour and uproar. Derby Day is so big, +perhaps, that it is frightened of itself. But I forgot. There was one +violent man. He was fat, hatless, and sweating, and he was hoarse with +shouting superlatives about his tips to a circle of poor old men, +"dunchers" in caps, small boys in jerseys, and tired-looking country +girls. + +"If only I could tell you where I got my information," he declared, +"you'd--you'd be s'prised. If any of you has got twenty-five pahnd +abaht him--if you've got even a tenner--why, you've only got ten +bob--well, you can't exactly have a gamble for ten bob, but you can +'ave a bit o' fun, anyway. If you take my advice--it's 'ere on this +bit o' paper--you can 'ave it for a bob--I can give you three 'orses +that'll turn your ten bob into a tenner see? Some people tell you +Tetratema's going to win." + +He made a face of disgust, popularly known as giving Tetratema the +raspberry, "Don't you believe it. Didn't I tell you Tagrag? Didn't I +tell you Arion? 'Ere, take my tip, and you'll dance all the w'y 'ome +with joy tonight. Dance? Why, you'll go 'ome jazzin' all the w'y." + +And he spread out his fat hands and threw out his fat stomach, and +danced on the grass, just to show one how one ought to behave if one +backed a Derby winner. + +Meanwhile, his partner, dressed as a red and white jockey, in a peaked +cap and incongruous puttees, moved round the circle thrusting his +slips of tips almost angrily on us. "Go on," he ordered us. "What's a +bob to a gambler? You people read the papers and believe what you see +in 'em. The papers! I tell you stryte--the worst pack of rogues and +bookmakers in England." A simple old man of ninety, who had lost his +teeth, beckoned to him and paid him a shilling for his tip. The jockey +took him aside and whispered impressively into his ear. Then he said, +in a loud voice: "Are you satisfied, sir?" "Quite satisfied," quavered +the old man. I wish I could have stayed near him. I should like to +have seen him jazzing later in the evening. + +Sausages, lemonade, fried fish, chewing gum, bets, ladies standing on +the roofs of taxis, a try-your-strength machine, extemporised +conveniences of civilisation, with youths standing by them and yelling +"Commodytion!" hills of humanity in all attitudes of dazedness and +despair, the thunder and the shouting of the distant bookmakers under +the stands, the quiet of the ten thousand free-lance bookmakers who +were, I suppose, breaking the law in the open spaces; the dust, the +sun, the smell, faces smeary with fruit, the cunning tinker in an old +khaki hat with striped ribbon, who was selling some twopenny +instrument that was supposed to imitate either the bark of a dog or +the song of a nightingale--one could not tell which from the noise he +made with it; stand after stand packed to the sky with what are called +serried ranks of human beings, who looked like immense banks of +many-coloured shingle, and who, as they raised a million pairs of +field-glasses to two million eyes, scintillated in the distance like a +bank of shingle after a wave has broken on it on a tropical noon--it +was certainly an amazing medley of spectacle and odour. + +It is said that an important horse-race took place. It is even said +that Polumetis ran in it. I looked for him everywhere--over people's +heads, under people's heads, through motor-buses, round the corners of +refreshment tents, in the sky above, and on the earth beneath. But no +Polumetis was to be seen anywhere--except on my race-card, where I +read about his lilac-coloured jockey. A jockey in lilac--how +beautiful, how Japanese! And, indeed, all the jockeys as they paraded +down the field before the race seemed to have robbed a rainbow. + +They brought meaning and beauty into an otherwise bald and +unconvincing mob. I assure you I love horse-racing--if I could see it. +But of all the people who congregated the little crooked hills of +Epsom, I doubt if ten people in a hundred saw it. You knew that the +horses had started only because, as you lay dreaming, the million +people on the stands suddenly made you jump with a loud, sharp, and +terrifying bark, which said: "They're off!" in one syllable. + +Then there was deep silence, and somebody near me said: "The favourite +can't be leading, or they would be shouting." Then from the stands +came a murmur like bees, a muttering as of a man talking in his sleep, +a growling as of wind in a cave. This only served to intensify the +silence of a defeated people. One knew that something awful must be +happening. Perhaps even Polumetis was winning. + +Above the heads of the crowd the heads of jockeys began to be visible. +A fool cried out: "The favourite wins." Another: "Allenby has it." +Then one had a glimpse of three horses close--well, fairly close--on +each other's tails, and none of them the grey Tetratema. I noticed +that on one of them crouched a jockey in exquisite grass-green. He +passed like a fine phrase out of a poem of which one does not know the +rest. But I did not really know who had won till the numbers were put +up on the board. Then a badly shaven man in a bowler cried: "Spion Kop +has won! Bravo!" and clapped his friend on the back. The rest of us +looked at him with contempt. The tinker-nosed man who played the +instrument that sang like a dog or barked like a nightingale began to +squeak it into people's ears. + +The crowd began pouring itself through itself, and the dust from its +feet rose like a cloud till it was difficult to see across the course. + +And the motor-car broke down on the way home. + +And Polumetis didn't win. + +And I'm as tired as a dog.... + +And so say all of us. + + + + +XXVI + + + +THIS BLASTED WORLD + + +Everything has begun to have a blasted look till the sun shines. The +ferns have been beaten down by the wind and the rain, and lie withered +and broken-backed among the brambles, waiting till some poor man +thinks it worth his while to go off with a load of them on his back +for bedding. The brambles, too, all hoops and arches, have the air of +dying things, though white blossoms still continue to appear, and the +fruit is not yet all ripened and many of the leaves are as red and +bright as flowers. The edges of most of the leaves have began to +crumple: they are victims of a creeping sickness that eats into them +and dirties them, and makes bramble and fern together an inextricable +wilderness of refuse. + +This, however, is only if one looks too closely. The hill that loses +itself among the rocks on the sea-shore is capped and patched with +just such refuse as this, but how happily the rust-colour of dying +things is broken by the grey of the loose stone walls--"hedges," they +call them in Cornwall--that seem to totter up the hill like old men! +The mist of rain that leaves each individual plant bedraggled seems to +make the red and green and grey pattern of the patched hill only more +beautiful and mysterious. The truth is, winter speaks with two voices +even in these early days. She has one voice that sends cold shivers +down our backs. She has another voice that is refreshment like water +from a spring. She speaks with the first voice in the crooked trees. +In the summer they were cloaked and glorious. Now, when their cloaks +seem so much more necessary, they are left naked, poor creatures, +their backs to the sea-wind, with the air of runaways unable to +escape. They seem bent and poised for flight, but when a blast of wind +comes and tugs at them they are as the stump of a tooth that will not +move, and the leaves (such of them as are left), which in summer made +a music as pleasant as that of windbells, rattle in their branches +like the laughter of a skeleton. The oak and the thorn-bush could +scarcely writhe more if they were crippled by rheumatism. Every leaf +on the sycamore is spotted as if with some foul black acid. + +Here, too, however, as soon as the leaves have fallen, the world is +restored to cheerfulness. The withering tree seems a sufferer. The +fallen leaf is an imp, an adventurer. As the wind sweeps round a bend +in the road, leaf after leaf is up and performing cart-wheels down the +road as if Christmas Day had come. Thousands of them, borne along in a +dance of this kind, advance with the beflustered, orderly air of a +procession of starlings. The world ceases to be a universal grave. It +is at the very least a dance and a dust-storm. + +There are some days, no doubt, on which the chill damp in the air +seems to terrify almost every living thing into hiding, and the +stillness of the dead world is not disturbed by any bird or insect. +Even the jackdaws have mysteriously disappeared like melted snow. But +no sooner does the storm in the sky break up into floating islands of +cloud and the sun shine than all the world begins to glitter again, +bramble and ivy and stone, and a host of tiny and coloured creatures +resume their game of an infinite general post in the bright air. The +ivy especially is a little continent of life where-ever it grows. +Clambering over a wall or climbing up among the sloes in a blackthorn +it attracts bee and wasp and fly, blue fly and grey fly and green fly, +to graze on the pollen of its late flowers. The ivy is the last of the +plants to flower, and insects come to it as from the ends of the earth +in rejoicing myriads. Among the berries in the hedges the birds, too, +rejoice. The robin, though for the most part, I believe, a meat-eater, +becomes unambiguously happy at this time of year. He has usurped the +morning, and, while one is lying in bed, he is boasting in the trees +outside where the thrush and the blackbird will in a few months be +boasting with their scarcely more beautiful voices. I am half +persuaded that his song becomes different at this season. As he sits +and sways on the top of a cypress and looks down on a rich and eatable +world, he seems to have cast every note of pensive sadness out of his +being and to sing aloud the rapture of a happy stomach. He is no +longer the singer of elegy but of ecstasy. He is as unlike his old +simple, friendly, appealing, pathetic self as a beggar who has come +into a fortune. He actually swaggers, and, as he does so, he can fill +a garden or a wood at the end of October with the pleasure of spring. + +The large titmouse in its dark cap, and the blue-tit, almost too +pretty for an English winter in its blue and yellow coat, also hasten +to the feast of the berries. I do not know whether, under the iron +reign of high prices, people have ceased to hang out coco-nuts in +their gardens for the blue-tits; at present, fortunately, the berries +are abundant, and it is pleasant to see a tit venture to the edge of +the road in quest of one and then fly off into hiding, like a thief, +with a red ball in his beak. A scarcely less pretty bird that one sees +flying across the road now and then with cries of alarm is the grey +wagtail. The grey wagtail, you probably know, is the wagtail that is +not grey. As it struggles and shrills through the sunny air, it seems +a delight mainly of yellow. Both its cries and its flight make one +think that it lives in constant terror of falling. It proceeds through +the air in a series of efforts and ups-and-downs, and its long tail +seems perpetually to threaten to misguide it into collapse. Down among +the rocks and in the fields near them, the real grey wagtails +abound--the pied wagtails, as they are called--with their white cheeks +and their less hysterical voices that greet one in passing with a +pleasant little "Cheerio!" As they alight from the air beside a +puddle, they indulge in a little prance as though they were trying to +cut a figure of eight on nothing or were essaying in some manner to +sweep their tails out of way. Their whole existence, however, is a +dance. Whether they pick their food from the rocks or in a field of +cows, the alert head and jerking tail are never still, but are +nervously ready for flight almost before the hint of danger. And they +have usually with them as nervous companions the rock-pipits, charming +little tight-skinned, low-crowned birds that hurry off wavily through +the air, reiterating their solitary note of fear as they fly. The +starlings, which seemed to disappear for a time, have now returned to +the fields near the sea. They have left their wonderful sheen +somewhere behind them, and are mottled and plebeian. Still, to see a +cloud of them alighting in a field at the end of a swift circle of +flight is a pretty enough spectacle. + +The evolutions of cavalry and still more of aeroplanes are elementary +compared to this. Close-packed as they are, a thousand of them will +wheel in order without an accident and alight each on his own patch of +ground with the easy grace of acrobats. It is only when they have +found their feet that the disorder begins. Whether it is worms or +insects or verdure they seek among the grazing cows, there is +evidently little enough to go round, and starling fights starling with +peck and protest all over the field. It is a scene of civil war, save +that the birds do not form themselves into sides but each wrestles +with its neighbour at random. But, after all, they are very hungry. +They cluster ravenously on the green patches, even on the sides of the +old stone walls. They have evidently not had the economic question +settled for them as the cows have. + +Luckily, other birds are either less desperate or more pacific by +nature. The stone-chat as he flits from bramble to bramble in his +black cap, white collar, and red bib is a bird of charming behaviour +as well as of charming colour. There is nothing in him at discord with +these rainbow days. For stormy as they are, the days are rainbow days +to an astonishing extent. Seldom have I seen such a violence of +rainbows. The colours almost startle one, like a courting ape's. Every +passing shower builds an arch of the seven colours like a palace on +the sea. Then it draws near till the foot of the rainbow stands a few +yards below over the breaking waves. Sea-birds sail through it, and, +if a pot of gold is really to be found at the end of it, I must often +lately have been within touching distance of a fortune.... At night, +Jupiter--it is Jupiter, is it not? that hangs in the V of Aldebaran +about eight or nine in the evening just now--stills the world to +wonder as the rainbow does by day. He is so splendid a fire as to seem +almost solitary, even when the moon is shining. A few evenings ago, he +shed a path of light over the sea as the moon does, and seemed to +light up the sands on the far side of the bay.... It is undoubtedly a +blasted world, but what a beautiful blasted world! It is a pity that +we and the starlings are so belly-driven that we cannot settle down to +enjoy it. Peck, peck. My worm, I think. Peck, peck, peck. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Pleasures of Ignorance, by Robert Lynd + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLEASURES OF IGNORANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 13448.txt or 13448.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/4/13448/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Project Manager, Keith M. Eckrich, +Post-Processor and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed +Proofreaders Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/13448.zip b/old/13448.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..58d08c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13448.zip |