I HEARD SOMEBODY use the expression “gracious living” today. Until now I have only seen it in print. It is a phrase I dislike. To my mind it suggests a horrible daintiness—salads made of cream cheese and pineapple, doilies scattered over everything and plaster book-ends supporting five books bound in imitation suede. People who go in for “gracious living” call beer “ale,” when it isn’t ale, because they think “ale” sounds more refined than “beer”; they are the people who never want more food—they always “wish” it. “Do you wish further prunes?” they say, looking as though no one who was not a gormandizer could possibly want anything more to eat. “How warm I’ve grown,” they say, when they are drenched in sweat. They never go to bed—they “retire.” They spend their whole lives trying to be like characters in The Ladies’ Home Journal. In my opinion, anyone who finds the expression “gracious living” creeping into his mind, is in mortal danger of becoming a pantywaist or a stuffed shirt. Good manners, decent hospitality and comfort are the reality; “gracious living” is a shoddy, sugar-coated substitute.
I SEE THAT Princess Elizabeth and Barbara Ann Scott have both been included among the “Six Most Wholesome Women of the Year” by the Women’s Research Guild of New York. A dubious compliment, if ever I heard one. In my callow youth, I was badly scratched several times before I learned that if there is one thing no girl wants to be called, it is wholesome. This word suggests that a girl eats a lot of turnips, laughs too loudly at clean jokes, wears too much underclothing of the wrong kind, and has not heard about depilatories. Wholesome is what one calls girls whom one cannot call beautiful, or witty, or charming without hurrying straight to the bathroom to wash one’s mouth out with brown soap. Even a girl who takes a lot of outdoor exercise, like Miss Scott, need not be wholesome because of it: even a princess, with the eyes of the world upon her, can avoid the curse of wholesomeness. What girl would be a slice of bread, when she can be a piece of cake? I think that both these maligned young women are thoroughly unwholesome, so there!
TODAY I SAW a baker wearing a pair of plastic pants over his ordinary trousers, and pondered idly on the purpose of this strange garment. A baby-sitter might advantageously wear plastic pants; I have known babies who themselves wore plastic pants; but why does a baker need plastic pants? Some modern mystery, beyond my comprehension, no doubt, for I am a poor creature, bound by chains of habit. The first butcher I saw as a child had a wooden leg, and to this day I have an unreasonable feeling that butchers with two genuine legs are impostors. Such is the strength of an early impression on a mind ill-suited to the giddy changes of modern life.
I READ WITH INTEREST that agents of the R.C.M.P. have been searching the offices of a Canadian magazine in search of a manuscript. “They searched the safe,” says one report, “but found nothing in it except a stock of stationery.” This shocks me. The R.C.M.P. must really be very badly trained, or they would know that nobody keeps anything valuable in a safe any more, nor has anyone done so since 1910. The vault, or safe of most business offices contains all or some of the following:
(1) The accountant’s rubbers
(2) Some disused ledgers
(3) The stick with a hook on it which is used for opening the windows.
(4) Two or three tarnished cups won by the firm’s bowling team back in the days when it had a bowling team.
(5) A bottle of ink which has congealed but is too good to throw away.
(6) Vases in which the secretaries put flowers on the rare occasions when anybody gives them flowers. Valuables are kept in banks. Manuscripts are kept in confused heaps on desks.
I PONDERED AT LUNCH today on the fact that all waiters in good hotels are clean-shaven. Is this a reminiscence of the time—about a century ago—when all men-servants wore powder in their hair on great occasions (although their masters had long given it up) and were forbidden to grow their whiskers as a mark of their servitude? At the turn of the century the only clean-shaven men to be seen in the streets were actors, clergymen, servants and a few lawyers.… A women’s luncheon was going on near me. It looked deadly dull. Gatherings at which only one sex is represented are rarely enlivening. The only thing drearier than a pack of men eating together is a pack of women doing the same.… I quite agree with you, madam; the sexes are only tolerable when mingled.
I WAS AT A GATHERING last night where I ate cookies made by one man, discussed the chemistry of cooking with another, and examined a gingerbread house made by a third. The gingerbread house was particularly fancy and appeared to me to carry the pastrycook’s art to considerable lengths.… More men can cook than is commonly thought, and I think that these male cooks are more concerned with the philosophy and mystery of cooking than are women. Women say, of course, that if men had all the cooking to do they would not like it so much. This is comparable to the frequent feminine comment that if men had to have babies there would soon be no babies in the world. Both remarks are equally untrue.… I have sometimes wished that some clever man would actually have a baby in a new, labour-saving way; then all men could take it up, and one of the oldest taunts in the world would be stilled forever.… I see that Shirley Temple has had a baby. Dear me, how time flies! Next thing we know that sweet little Mickey Rooney will be getting married.
I WAS EATING AN excellent slice of bread at lunch today, when I sensed a foreign substance in my mouth, and after some fishing and digging I found that it was a bit of paper. After I had cleaned it (by washing it in my tea, if you must know) I found that it was a union label, proclaiming that my bread had been made by organized bakers. I think, frankly, that I would rather have this information conveyed to me by other means than a label which I suspect had been licked by an organized tongue.… Many years ago I knew a cook whose father and brothers were bakers, and she told me that they always kneaded their dough with their feet, prancing rhythmically in the large wooden mixing tub, with their trousers’ legs rolled up.… Is there really any progress? A generation ago it was feet; today it is spit. I have a good notion to begin baking my own bread.
IWENT TO A SCHOOL play last night and enjoyed it greatly. But I am always fascinated by the false whiskers with which young actors love to adorn themselves. They apply crêpe hair in quantities which could never, by any freak of nature, grow upon the human face, until they look like the Hairy Ainus who inhabit the northern reaches of Japan.… The play was What Every Woman Knows and the secret which every woman is supposed to know is that every successful man owes his success to a woman. I am not convinced of the truth of this, and would like to take a poll on it in the national capital. There are, I should think, quite a few men who have achieved a high degree of success in spite of the silly, inconsequent, pin-headed women they married in some unguarded, youthful moment. The Marchbanks Masculinist Party (of which I am the leader or Great Bear) seeks to undo the damage which has been done by such fellows as J. M. Barrie, who flattered women, basely, for money.… No, madam, I do not wish to qualify anything I have said.
I SEE A STRANGE gadget advertised—a special pair of circular scissors to remove hair from the nose and ears. Personally I regard hair in the ears as a sign of wisdom; the Chinese greatly esteem an elongated earlobe, and it seems to me that when such a lobe is allied with a splendidly hirsute ear, perfection has been reached, and should not be tampered with. As for hair in the nose, it is picturesque, and with a little practice it can be made to quiver, like the antennæ of one of the more intelligent and sensitive insects. Anything which gives interest to the gloomy, immobile pan of the average Canadian citizen should be cherished and not extirpated with circular scissors.
A SMALL PLAY-READING group of which I am one met last night and had a very good time with Goldsmith’s She Stoops To Conquer. Reading plays can be anything from the pleasantest to the most penitential of pastimes. I was reading in Thomas Davies’ Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Esq. a few days ago about one of King George the Second’s exploits in this direction. The King had reached the age of seventy-seven and had ceased to go to the theatre, but he was keen to hear Macklin’s farce Love à la Mode, and Macklin had some hope that he might be asked to read his play to the King—presumably acting it out with great spirit. But, as Davies tells us, Love à la Mode was read to his Majesty by an old Hanoverian gentleman, who spent eleven weeks in the misrepresentation of the author’s meaning; the German was totally void of humour and was, besides, not well acquainted with the English language; the King, however, expressed great satisfaction at the Irishman’s getting the better of his rivals, and gaining the young lady. I have myself been present at play readings which were not much livelier than this.
I WAS PLAYING some gramophone records last night, and one of them stuck in a groove, and before I could reach it, played the same passage at least ten times. I can remember the days when this happened quite often, and records with two or three such faults in them were prized. The owners would put them on again and again and howl delightedly when the repeats came. I recall one man who had a Harry Lauder record which did this at three separate points, and he never tired of it. But some of his friends did.… I visited my doctor, who has been gazing into the crystal ball and informs me that I have strabismus of the epithalamium, and must undergo treatment for it. I passed a window on the way home which contained packages of Fowl Conditioner, and the wild thought struck me that I might cure myself with that, making a name for myself in the medical histories.
DRIVING NEAR a railway siding this morning I beheld a sight of grim beauty—a gondola loaded with bones on their way to a glue factory. The load was heaped high and the rib-cages, spines and skulls of horses and cattle were seen in silhouette against a winter sky. Skeletons of all kinds have a beauty of their own; to me a house half-built, or a tall building which is still in the steel-structure stage, is a more pleasing object than the same building completed. Why skeletons are considered frightening objects I have no idea; most people would be far handsomer without their flesh than with it and I think this holds true of animals, as well.… And yet I will admit that there was an air of austerity about this load for the bone-yard. It was a gigantic reminder of our mortality, and if Sir Thomas Browne had been riding in the car with me he would no doubt have favoured me with a few rolling periods on the subject. And although the bones in themselves were beautiful there was something depressing about the thought that they would end, in all probability, as ten-cent bottles of mucilage, and that vile substance which bookbinders use so freely in their trade.
AS I SAT ON A siding today I reflected upon the extraordinary slowness of our Canadian trains. There are, I know, fast trains in this country, but they never go anywhere that I want to go. The trains which I am forced to take dawdle through the countryside, squatting every now and then to cool their bellies in the snow, while I yawn and try to read, a diversion which the lumpiness of the roadbed makes impossible. I was roused from a doze this afternoon by a fear that the train was on fire. There was no smoke, and I decided that someone must have left a pair of rubbers, or possibly a soiled baby, against the heating apparatus. But later I discovered that a man across the aisle had lit a pipe, at which he sucked with obvious enjoyment. There was a smoking section of the car, but he did not choose to go to it. Instead he blew his fetid exhalations everywhere, causing old ladies and expectant mothers to seek refuge between the cars, while men like myself, apparently in the best of health, turned grey in the face and wished for death to end our sufferings. I don’t mind pipes; I smoke a pipe myself; but this was such a pipe as the damned must smoke in Hell.
A SCIENTIST WHOM I know was telling me this evening that ants and spiders sing quite loudly for their size, that flies scream and that weevils make noises like rivetters as they bore into wheat grains, yet none of these cries is audible to us, being far above the sound level of our ears. As he explained, the notion struck me that possibly our prayers and entreaties are not audible to God’s ear. Perhaps as I walk in my garden ants and spiders send up the most terrific outcries to me for rain, or peace; maybe they think that I am being hard upon them when I do not answer their prayers, when the plain fact is that I do not hear them. Obviously they should lower their voices; and perhaps if we want to catch the ear of the Ancient of Days, we should moderate the eager shrillness with which we address Him.
I WAS CORNERED before dinner by that solemn man over there who took me to task for my attitude toward dogs; who are, he tells me, noble creatures. This grieves me, for the quarrel between me and the canine world was begun by the dogs themselves. I am the sort of man at whom dogs bark, rush wildly, and jump up. People who think that dogs are wonderful judges of character insist that this means that I have the soul of a burglar, or possibly a cat. If dogs think so poorly of me is it any wonder that I am distant in my attitude toward dogs? I get on well with horses, I mix freely with cows, cats are affable in my presence, and goats consider me one of themselves. Babies (also considered infallible judges of character) gurgle with fascination when I go near them. Old ladies ask me to help them across the street. But dogs dislike me. By a process of reasoning too complicated to go into here, this leads me to dislike dogs, and to regard them as idiotic and dangerous, or both. My household pet is the cat, which was man’s friend while the dog was still unable to distinguish itself from a wolf.
THIS MORNING I had a brief chat with a gum-chewer, whose technique, I was interested to observe, was very poor. She chomped vigorously, with much wasteful jaw-movement and audible squelching. If I had had the time, I would have given her a lesson. The experienced chewer wastes no motion; he keeps his teeth together, merely nudging his quid from time to time with a single molar; he does not seek to produce the maximum of saliva, but is content with enough to keep his palate gently afloat; he does not work at his gum—rather let us say that he cherishes it; his technique is that of the cow, rather than the cement-mixer.
A LITTLE GIRL was showing me some of her piano exercises today. They were simple things with fanciful names, and she seemed to like them. When I was a child piano lessons involved an intimate acquaintance with the exercises of a fiend named Carl Czerny, all of which were intended to be performed at incredible speed. The pupil of those days began with a variety of Czerny, and soon passed on to thick books called The School of Velocity, The School of Finger Dexterity and so forth until he approached a work of blood-chilling difficulty called The Virtuoso Pianist. I never scaled this awful eminence (I broke down and was flung aside in Finger Dexterity) but I heard other students playing it, and such swoops, crashes and wrist-paralyzing convulsions of sound were never heard. The object of learning all this, I was told, was so that if, in later life, one broke down in the performance of a concerto, one could always fill in with a few spasms of Czerny; the musically ignorant in the audience would never notice the difference, and the musically élite would understand that the pianist was perfectly capable of playing anything.
THERE’LL ALWAYS BE an England while there is a U.S.A. I looked through a quantity of American magazines this afternoon and was amazed by the number of shaving creams, foods, leather goods and types of booze which are advertised with pictures of Windsor Castle, London clubs, Scotsmen in native dress and similar phenomena, suggestive of Ye Merrie Olde Englande. The more fiercely the socialists hack at Englysshe Tradition the more avidly do their American cousins embrace it, fake it, and attach it to their consumer goods. In Britain the stately homes are turned into hostels for Labour Youth Cycling Clubs, and the velvet lawns of noble lords are ripped up by miners pretending to search for coal; meanwhile in Akron, Ohio, Antonio Spigoni shaves himself with a soap which he thinks gives him an Old Etonian appearance, and in South Bend, Indiana, Mrs. Brunnhilde Klotz stuffs her friends with Olde Nell Gwynne Tea Biscuits (made in St. Louis, Mo.). A mad world, my masters, and one half of it doesn’t know how the other half lives!
I WAS BROUGHT UP to believe that it was dangerous, if not downright suicidal, to eat onions. From time to time, just out of perversity, I would eat a few in a restaurant, and they always gave me pains, but they were so delicious that I could not resist them. Now, after deep thought, I have decided to conquer onions, and so yesterday I bought a very small bottle of pickled onions, and consumed two of them at lunch. I felt no ill effects during the afternoon, and so I ate two more with my evening meal. I still live, and unless I drop dead I shall continue this homeopathic approach to onions, increasing the dose each day until I am able to pick up a big, red Spanish onion and eat it like an apple.… The chief objection to onions, of course, is that they make one smell like an onion oneself. The breath of an onion-eater is a powerful weapon of offence. I am told that a glass of milk kills the smell of onions on the breath, but this must be a well-guarded secret or a lie, for I never see any onion-eaters drinking milk, and their blow-torch breaths can be felt at forty feet.
THE PAPERS ARE full of news this morning about a gravedigger who killed a girl for love. Indeed, for several weeks I have been reading about murderers and suicides who are all described as “love-crazed.” I wonder how many love-crazed people there really are? As I walk through the streets, what portion of the people I meet are in this distressing and dangerous condition? Quite a few, it appears. But from my newspaper reading I can make a few deductions about them. Most love-crazed people appear to live in boarding-houses, and a majority of them earn less than $2,000 a year. They are not extensively educated, as a usual thing, and none of them toil under the burden of a mighty intellect. But they are great lovers, and very handy with knives, pistols and blunt instruments. Very few of them have steady jobs, and not many of them belong to the skilled trades. They do not eat regularly. (It is a curious fact that most of them have been grabbing a snack—a hamburger and a soft drink or something of that kind—within three hours before they commit murder.) Their physical health is good, but they tend to be puny above the eyebrows. They are under 35. They need a good hobby and a larger circle of female acquaintance.
I WAS TALKING TO a man before dinner who had recently returned from England, and was full of information about the harm which he thought the socialist government had done there. For one thing, he said, the dog-boxes have disappeared from English trains. This rattled me, I confess. Not long ago there used to be special holes between the carriages of English trains, in which dogs rode; they were happy in there, and they passed their journey in sleeping and trying to look out of a small window which other dogs had licked and blown their noses upon. But such dog-boxes are no more and dogs ride in the carriages with the people, whether Labour supporters or not. This man said that he had ridden fifty miles in a carriage with a dog as big as a calf, which stood on his feet, stuck its nose into his pockets, and beat noisily upon his newspaper with its tail.… This suggests to me that the Labour Government depends heavily upon the dog-lover vote, a very powerful political group in England where dogs are regarded as semi-sacred, along with such totems as crumpets, Brussels sprouts and umbrellas. “The voice of the people is the voice of Dog,” say these zealots.
WITH HEAVY HEART I went last evening to see a movie called Bel Ami, based on Maupassant’s story. I had read several criticisms of it, all of which said it was bad. But I was in that mood which sometimes overtakes the true movie-enthusiast; I had to see a movie, however poor it might be. I was delighted to discover that the critics were wrong. It was an excellent picture, and also one of the dirtiest pictures (using the word “dirty” in its Ontario sense, meaning “with sexual implication”) that I have seen in many years. I can only believe that its suggestions and innuendoes were too recondite for the nice, simple souls who compose our censorship boards.… It concerned a man who was irresistibly attractive to women. I believe that such fellows exist, but I have never met one, though I have met many who thought they belonged in that category. Women who are attractive to most men are common enough; men who are attractive to most women are rarities, in this country, at any rate. I think that it is because a man, to be attractive, must be free to give his whole time to it, and the Canadian male is so hounded by taxes and the rigours of our climate that he is lucky to be alive, without being irresistible as well.
I FOUND MYSELF yesterday by some mysterious chain of circumstances in the Cocktail Lounge of a large Toronto hotel. Although it was full of people, an awesome hush hung over the place, and there were three superior waiters at the door, to make sure that no undesirable guest (the kind of person for instance, who shouts, “Well, here’s looking up your address!” to his female companion whenever he takes a drink) gained admission. I saw three low fellows in their shirtsleeves come to the door and the waiters closed into a solid barrier of indignant flesh and would not let them pass. After some palaver a sub-waiter was sent away, and soon he reappeared with three seersucker jackets; the lowlifers, now thoroughly cowed, put these on, and were shepherded to a table.… I approve of this sort of thing. It is very refined, and if there is one thing about which Ontario is particular, it is refinement. Fastidiousness was apparent everywhere in the Cocktail Lounge; all the men wore their coats, all the women wore gloves, and the only really loud sound was the silvery chinking of the waiters, as they ran to and fro with their pockets full of tips. My drink was not as good as I could have made at home, but it was worth the money to sip it in surroundings of such mortuary restraint.
I WENT TO SEE my doctor today, and while I lay upon his little table, waiting for him to finish off another patient, I passed the time by picking him out in the graduation photographs which hung about the walls. It is always instructive to survey the progress of one’s doctor through the years in this manner. There he was as a young man—a lad, really—when he took his degree in Arts. Here we have him, a few years later, when he became an M. D. Smaller photographs show him with the eminent specialists with whom he did post-graduate work. And in each picture he looks older until the door flies open and the man himself, now gray-haired and with fingers a foot long and made of tempered steel, dashes upon one and begins to probe, pinch and squeeze. I think doctors must get their wonderful finger-development by tearing telephone directories apart.
ISEE THAT A War Assets shop quite near my place of business is selling a lot of interesting things, including several forges. It occurs to me that a forge is just what I need, for I have long wanted a constructive hobby. I could set it up in my cellar, get a few bars of iron, and amuse myself during the long winter evenings by making beautiful and acceptable gifts for my friends. The upper chambers of Marchbanks Towers would resound with the merry ring of my hammer on the anvil, my loud Yo Hoes (is it blacksmiths who cry Yo Ho?), and the hiss as I plunged a white-hot book end or umbrella stand into the water to temper it. I would develop the biceps of a blacksmith, and the jolly greathearted disposition of a blacksmith. The homes of my friends would be enriched with ornaments which I had beaten out at the forge with my own hands—wrought iron garden furniture, wrought iron cocktail sets, wrought iron spitoons—the possibilities are illimitable. And any time anyone wanted a sword beaten into a ploughshare, I would be just the man to do it (though I have often thought that a sword would make a pretty measly ploughshare). I shall ’phone tomorrow, and tell them to wrap up a forge for me.… Do you know that a smith is so called because he smites? … No, I am not sure that that is etymologically correct; I just made it up myself this minute.… Well, if you dislike guesswork, why don’t you do some of the talking yourself.… Nonsense, madam, I am not “hogging” the conversation, as you so disagreeably put it.
A MAN I MET today tells me that frog’s legs are collected by Indians hereabout and sold by the hundredweight to restaurateurs, who put them in cold storage and sell them in the winter-time to the kind of people who simply cannot live without frog’s legs. Let us ponder on the number of frogs which would be required to provide a hundredweight of legs; reckoning ten pairs of legs to a pound, I make it 500 frogs.… I have never eaten frog’s legs, but I am told that they are a great delicacy, much appreciated by the high-livers of Toronto, and similar centres of luxurious abandonment. I have never eaten snails, either. But to prepare snails for the table they must be boiled for several hours to rid them of their slime, and from childhood I have associated snails with puppy dog’s tails—another delicacy which I have hitherto avoided.
A MAN WHOM I had never seen before turned up in my office today and seated himself in the uncomfortable chair which I keep for guests with the air of one who bears a great message. Indeed, he wore the dedicated look which I have learned to associate with magazine salesmen and agents for worthless encyclopædias. “Mr. Marchbanks,” said he, “I saw by a recent article of yours that you have been absent from your work undergoing treatment for an illness; you assured your readers that you were not taking the Gold Cure, but that may have been an attempt to pull the bull over their eyes. Now, Mr. Marchbanks, I represent an organization of which you have doubtless heard—the Nameless Drunks, we call ourselves—and if we can help you, we certainly will. You too, can overcome your habit, Marchbanks! You too may become a Nameless Drunk if you so choose!” I allowed him to talk for an hour or so, during which time he imparted to me the secret sign of the Nameless Drunks: you raise an imaginary glass, but instead of putting it to your lips, you pretend to pour it into your eye; you then make motions as though shaking a drink out of your right ear. By means of this simple, hardly observable sign, Nameless Drunks can recognize each other anywhere.
THIS IS THE SEASON of flowers, and everybody I meet is either boasting about his garden, or groaning because it has not come up to his expectations. I can be philosophical about flowers, and I conduct my own garden on strict philosophic principles; if flowers grow, I am pleased but if they do not grow I will not permit my life to be darkened by their absence. I do not blind myself, as many gardeners do, to the fact that flower gardens are cultivated principally for the pleasure of bees. A bee gets more fun out of a single iris than a human being can get out of a vast herbaceous border. The bee drags its feet in the flower, rolls in it, takes a bath in it, swigs the nectar out of it, and revels in the sound of its own voice while doing so, just as we sing in our resonant bathrooms. Sometimes as many as three or four bees enjoy mixed bathing in the heart of a rose, and The Dear knows what goes on in there when they are all plastered with nectar, and think that they are out of sight. Flowers are just bagnios for bees, and while I take a broad view of these things, I feel no impulsion to wear myself out providing for insects who would not do a thing for me if they could possibly help it.
I SEE THAT QUEBEC is getting worked up over two-piece bathing suits again, and an ardent do-gooder has declared that they threaten all that is best in French-Canadian life. I remember that after the last war it was rolled stockings which were nibbling at the foundations of the universe. What fascinated me at the time was that the evil power lay in the female patella itself, and not in any beauty which it might exhibit. Men’s knees were not harmful, and Scotsmen were, as always, encouraged to show off their gnarled joints. But any female knee, however like a cabbage or the skull of a goat it might be in appearance, was charged with vice, and the male who beheld it was in danger of being turned to stone, as if he had beheld the face of the Gorgon. Since those days knees have become an old song—indeed a weariness of the flesh—and it is that comparatively undistinguished portion of the female anatomy comprising the lower ribs and the diaphragm which is now the focus of holy horror. If women showed their navels, with texts from the Song of Solomon tattooed around them, I might see some sense in all this fuss, but they don’t, and I don’t.
LOOKING THROUGH a catalogue of rare books last evening, I found one written in 1806 by a William Turnbull called Manual Containing General Rules & Instructions to Those of Both Sexes Who Are Afflicted With Ruptures and Prolapsus Ani. This work was published under the auspices of The Society for The Relief of The Ruptured Poor, of which the Archbishop of Canterbury at that time (the Rev. Dr. Charles Manners-Sutton) was honorary patron. I yearned for this fascinating volume, but I am much too poor to buy all the books I want. But a flame of curiosity devours me; does this benevolent body still exist, and does the present Archbishop still visit among the poor, his little basket of trusses upon his arm?
SOME WORK THAT I was doing kept me in a room today which adjoined one in which a service club was meeting. I was thus made privy to their mysteries, and very odd they were, too. For instance, one member was congratulated on a wedding anniversary, and immediately afterward they all sang The Old Gray Mare, She Ain’t What She Used To Be, which I thought was somewhat pointed, under the circumstances. Perhaps nothing was intended except a general reflection upon the flight of time, however. I also suffered the puzzlement which always comes upon a man who is alone in a room when God Save The King is being sung next door: should I stand up and feel foolish, or sit down and feel unpatriotic? The same problem arises when I hear somebody praying on the radio: should I stop flogging my dog, or forging cheques, or whatever I am about, or should I pretend not to notice?
THE DAY OF THE ornamental clock seems to be done. This morning I poked about in an antique shop and saw two: the first had a large brass woman on it, holding a harp which had four uncommonly thick strings; the other had a man in the dress of the early 19th century sitting on its top, holding a pen in one hand and a scroll in the other, and surrounded by globes, papers and mathematical instruments. I cannot guess who he was; some great figure in the horological world, no doubt. Such clocks are rarities now. Even marble clocks with brass lion’s heads poking out of the ends of them are rarely seen. Modern interest centres upon watches, and watches which tell time, date, year, phase of moon, and forecast the weather are not uncommon. But I like strange clocks, and particularly those which have moving figures on them. Most of these are of ancient workmanship, but I think the idea might well be brought up to date. A clock upon which, every hour, a figure identifiable as a taxpayer was pursued by a figure with a pitchfork and a sheaf of Income Tax forms would command a good price at Marchbanks Towers.
I HAD SOME photographs taken today, an experience which always leaves me limp, with my ego quivering and bounding like an uncoiled spring. “Take a natural, easy pose,” says the photographer, and when I do so he winces and says, “Oh, no, not all slumped, like the leavings of a torso-murder.” So then I strike a pose which seems to me to suggest dignity and vast stores of reserve power, and the photographer laughs merrily and says that I’m not to make faces. The fact of the matter is that I cannot be at ease when a man is pointing a machine at me, and jumping and ducking about the room, pulling curtains, flashing lights and looking at my face as though it was something on a butcher’s bargain counter. “I am trying for a characteristic likeness,” says he. But that is just what I do not want. I want a picture which looks the way I should like to be, not the way I am. I can face facts in the mirror whenever I choose. I do not see why I should pay good money to have my nose rubbed in the bitter realities. “You don’t mean to say you want to be flattered?” he asks, and as I nod my head wildly he clicks the shutter. In the picture I shall probably appear to have a broken neck, like the body just before the police cut it down.
I WAS TALKING TO a young person who attends the kindergarten, and she gave me some interesting details about the teaching of music, as it is done at her school. All the children must sing, and are divided by the teacher into canaries (the best singers), robins (fairly good singers), blue birds (definitely not choral material) and pigeons (creatures who croak moodily upon one note). The young canary with whom I spoke expressed deep scorn for pigeons. It seems to me that this name has been well chosen. I once lived in a house which was very popular with pigeons, and their croaking was a great nuisance, and caused me to look up a recipe for pigeon pie. Poets have affected to find a pleasing melancholy in the note of the pigeon, but poets are notoriously heavy sleepers, and are not wakened by these pompous, detestable, strutting birds in the early hours of the morning. I never made the pigeon pie, for the labour of skinning and cleaning enough birds daunted me. But to this day I never see a pigeon waddling in the street, eating something disgusting, without wanting to let it have the toe of my boot. Have you ever kicked a pigeon?
I ATTENDED A GATHERING today at which I met a large number of people for the first time, and all greeted me with a handclasp. Or perhaps handclasp is the wrong word; ninety per cent of them gave me what appeared to be a rubber glove half-filled with cold porridge, and I was expected to do the clasping. Are people with damp, chilly, squelchy hands on the increase, or am I being drawn into circles where they are common? A distressing possibility.… Being introduced to women is always a hazard, for the foolish creatures will not adopt a firm policy in such cases, and stick to it. Some of them shake hands like men; some raise a hand, and then snatch it away in fright; some put their hands behind their backs in a marked manner; still others give me a hand to hold, and then appear to forget about it, leaving me to dispose of the thing by putting it in my pocket or feeding it to a passing dog. There was a day when no woman ever shook hands; I wish they would return to that usage, or else shake hands properly. Their present habit of playing put-and-take with their hands is productive of social unease, if not downright neurosis.… No thank you, madam, I would prefer not to test your grip.
I HAD MEAT BALLS for lunch today. This is a delicacy of which I am very fond. But I insist upon the True Meat Ball—prepared in an open pan and tasting of meat—rather than the False Meat Ball—prepared in a pressure cooker and loathsomely studded with raisins. The pressure cooker is all very well in its way, but there are some dishes with which it cannot cope, and the meat ball is one of them. A meat ball made in a pressure cooker has a mild, acquiescent taste—the sort of taste which I imagine that a particularly forgiving Anglican missionary would have in the mouth of a cannibal. Your True Meat Ball is made of sterner stuff, and if he tastes of missionary at all he tastes like some stern Jesuit, who died dogmatizing.
I TOOK AN OPPORTUNITY which presented itself today to see a film about Princess Elizabeth, which showed her from earliest babyhood to the present day. I found this impressive and moving, for I admire royalty, and am sorry for nations which have none. Scores of my obscure and unmeritable ancestors have shared with the Royal House the task of building Great Britain and its Empire and Commonwealth, though I am the first to admit that the Marchbanks tribe were more active in the South Sea Bubble, the Rebecca Riots and the War of Jenkins’ Ear than in the more spectacular events of history. There were a few bad kings, and many a dubious Marchbanks, but they all wove the tapestry of history together, and will do so, I trust, for many centuries to come.
I THINK SERIOUSLY of launching a crusade against the custom of removing the hat in an elevator. I wear my hat in the lobby of my hotel, and I wear it in the corridors. Nobody expects me to take it off in a streetcar or in an automobile when I ride with a woman. But as soon as a woman comes aboard an elevator all the men in it sweep off their hats as though she were the American Mother of The Year; some extremists even hold the hats over their hearts and assume that colicky look which indicates nobility of feeling in the Canadian male. The elevator operator is a woman, but nobody bothers about her. The whole thing seems to me to be false and foolish.… Frankly, I should like to see a corresponding custom decreeing that women should keep their heads covered in the presence of men, as a gesture of respect toward the Defender, Bread-Winner, Prophet, Sage, Seer and Begetter of the Race. Why should I show respect for any strange woman who flouts my manhood by running about with a bare head? A fig and a resolutely pulled-down fedora for all such hussies! … No, no, madam, it is quite unnecessary for you to cover your head with your fruit-plate. Desist, I beg!
I TOOK TO MY BED last week end, for my bones ached and my tripes felt as though I had swallowed a porcupine. I treated this malady by drinking countless glasses of lukewarm water. I wish it were the fashion to groan when one is ill. I like groaning, and I believe it helps me to bear suffering; what is more, groaning helps to pass the time. But modern sickroom practice is all against groaning. In Victorian times it was different; everybody groaned when they were ill; it was considered the right thing to do. Their roars were an inspiration to their doctors and nurses, urging them on to greater flights of bleeding, purging, leeching and poulticing. Furthermore, groaning has curative powers. A Hindu, when he is ill, repeats the mystic syllable “Om” as loudly and as resonantly as he can until he is well; it is his belief that the resonance provides a gentle and beneficial massage for his suffering insides. And what is “Om,” I ask you, but a stylized groan? There is more to groaning than Western medical science has yet recognized.
I SEE A LETTER to the press complaining that Toronto is terribly abused, and that the jokes about Toronto are the fosterlings of cankered minds. Personally I always think of Toronto as a big fat rich girl who has lots of money, but no idea of how to make herself attractive. She has not learned to drink like a lady, and she has not learned to laugh easily; when she does laugh, she shows the roof of her mouth; she is dowdy and mistakes dowdiness for a guarantee of virtue. She is neither a jolly country girl with hay in her hair, like so many other Ontario cities, nor is she a delicious wanton, like Montreal; she is irritatingly conscious of her own worthiness.… Toronto ought to read the advertisements which explain why girls are unpopular and get themselves whispered about. Maybe she needs more bulk in her diet.
I PASSED SOME TIME today laughing at the crowds of Christmas shoppers. I settled my Christmas problems weeks ago, by buying a lot of magazine subscriptions and allotting them to the various people who expect presents from me. My brother Fairchild gets a year of Wee Wisdom and my nephew Gobemouche will receive The Butter and Cheese Review; my Aunt Prudence Marchbanks is to have The Police Gazette and her sister Salina will get The Canadian Jeweller and Die-Sinker; The International Snail-Watcher’s Journal will go to my Cousin Ghengis, and The Renal and Urological Quarterly will go to my Uncle Gomeril. Some people have criticized my choices, but it is really very difficult to do better. I picked all the magazines which could be had for a dollar a year, or less, and distributed them as best I could. After all, it is the thought that counts.
HAVING A LITTLE spare time this afternoon, I renewed my sketchy acquaintance with the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and was impressed anew with its beauty and utility. In this language, as you probably know, a body is called a “bone-house”; this is the only Anglo-Saxon word I have ever been able to get thoroughly into by head. It has enabled me, however, to make a rather charming translation of one of Bobbie Bums’ best-known verses, thus:
Gin a bone-house meet a bone-house
Comin’ through the rye;
Gin a bone-house greet a bone-house
Need a bone-house cry?
I think that the mingling of Scots and Anglo-Saxon is rather moving. But as I say, I found my old Anglo-Saxon grammar in the attic, where it had been used to mend a leak in the roof, and re-discovered that a boss used to be called a “ring-giver” before the Norman Conquest, and that the language contained no words for “union leader,” “closed shop” or “nationalization.” Would Britain have been wiser not to develop her language to quite the degree of subtlety which distinguishes it today? What a topic for a debating society!
I HAD A LETTER this morning from some association which is agitating for the repeal of the Sales Tax which is, its pamphlet assures me, “a straight violation of the laws of God.” This is fascinating. Not long ago one of the larger Canadian churches notified me of its intention to “prepare a statement of God’s Will concerning marriage.” How lucky we are to live in a country where God’s Will and His Laws are so thoroughly understood, and so zealously publicized!
I TRIED TO READ a book on economics today and got through about thirty pages, of which I remember nothing. This is a recurrent disappointment. For months at a time I read articles in newspapers and magazines which are full of references to the Law of Supply and Demand, to Diminishing Returns, to Undistributed Assets, to Non-perpetuating Wages (I think I understand this, because mine have always been of the non-perpetuating kind) to Good Money Driving Out Bad, and all those things with which the intelligent world seems to be on such easy terms, and I don’t understand any of them. So from time to time I get a book which professes to make economics clear even to lunk-heads like myself, and I read it solemnly, but I can never remember what it says. This is one reason why I shall always be a member of the exploited proletariat. Why, I never even understand what Money is. The books tell me that it is merely a variable medium of exchange, representing a variable amount of goods or services, but I can never remember these discreditable facts about good old money, which is probably my favourite commodity. It’s a terrible thing to be ignorant.
I RECIEVED A LETTER this morning informing me that I had been appointed to a Committee; it did not tell me, however, what the Committee was formed to do, or whether it would ever meet, or whether the members were merely expected to become pen-pals. I am already a member of a vast number of committees, associations, commissions, ginger-groups, pepper sprinklers and mustard pots and they rarely expect me to do anything, so I shall lie low and wait until this new Committee shows its hand; if it reveals any disquieting signs of life I shall send the chairman a letter signed with a false name, saying that I am dead, and that will be the end of that.… I find it very useful to be a member of plenty of committees; I can point to the list whenever I am asked to do anything which might involve real work, and ask how I can be expected to shoulder any new duties? In a few more years I am going to begin collecting Vice Presidencies; they ensure that one’s name will be kept high on the official stationery of several important bodies, and it is only once in a blue moon that a Vice President (like Mr. Truman) is called upon to do anything. Besides, in our North American civilization any man over a certain age is expected to be Vice President of a few organizations, if he is not a moron or one of Nature’s secretaries.
I WAS LOOKING through a pile of books this afternoon, which I had not read since I was a boy. To my astonishment I found that I remembered the stories in some detail. But in those days my mind was young and impressionable, and had not been subjected to the horrible wear and tear of book reviewing; nowadays my poor brain is a sort of incinerator, which seizes upon huge amounts of literary garbage, quickly reduces it to ashes, and spits them out, retaining only a disgusting slime upon its walls.… As I leafed over the pages of these boys’ books, I was delighted by the unambiguous style in which they were written, and particularly the way in which the characters were named. When in a boy’s story, you find a character called “Sir Judas Snake” you can be pretty sure that he is up to no good, and will probably get seriously in the way of the hero, who is quite likely to be called “Justyn Bloodygood” or “Samkin Steelheart.” Indeed, it is amazing how closely these villains resemble one another; they are all fancy dressers, they are all thin, they all talk in a nastily grammatical manner, and they are all cowards at heart. My life has not brought me into close association with many important criminals, but I have known a few very unpleasant types who were fat, sloppy, illiterate and braver than the average Good Citizen. But then, art is always superior to truth.
THE PAPERS tell me that Queen Mary will be eighty next Monday. There is an interesting link between myself and the Queen Mother which I do not think Her Majesty would see any reason to suppress, and of which I am very proud. In the days when I earned my living in the disreputable but amusing profession of an actor I once played the role of Snout the Tinker in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Old Vic in London; Her Majesty brought her granddaughters to a matinee, and in one of the intervals summoned the stars of the play (I was not one of them) to her box. “You know, I once played in The Dream when I was a girl,” she said; “I played Snout.” When this news was told to me, I immediately prepared myself for a summons to the Royal Box, being sure that the Queen would wish to discuss the fine points of the role with me; after all it is not every day that a couple of veteran Snouts get together. But, alas, the summons never came. An oversight, no doubt, or some jealousy of me in Court circles.
I WENT TO A CIRCUS last night and the first thing on the programme was a girl who exhibited some trained goats. My mind immediately flew to Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris, in which the heroine, Esmeralda, had a trained goat which could spell out the name of her lover, Phoebus de Chateaupers, which is no small feat, when you think about it. There are plenty of stenographers who couldn’t do as well. But the circus goats were not nearly so accomplished, and the act retired in disgrace after the star goat fell off a bar on which it was walking, and almost hanged itself in its halter.… There are people who object strongly to performances given by animals. Indeed, I believe that there is an organization called The Jack London Society, the members of which are pledged to rise and leave any place in which a performing animal appears—even if it be only on a movie screen. I think that is carrying humanitarianism to extremes. When I see a dog like Lassie or Rin-Tin-Tin in the films, I realize that it is the pampered darling of the studio, and has more money in the bank than I have, and probably rides to its job in a Dusenberg with special body work.
YES, INDEED it was a beautiful day—the first this summer—and I could do nothing but admire the weather. I strove to write, as usual, but, in Spenser’s lines:
… words came halting forth, wanting invention’s stay;
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet seemed still but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write …
I looked in my heart, but found nothing there save a great longing to be idle.
THE KING HAS MADE Laurence Olivier a knight “in spite of the fact,” says one paper, “that Mr. Olivier was divorced in 1939.” I wonder if this is the first time that a divorced actor has been given such an honour? Usually theatrical knighthoods are distributed for good conduct more than for ability, and I have even heard wicked actors refer to such a knighthood, sneeringly, as The Order of Chastity. The first actor to be knighted was Henry Irving, about whom Queen Victoria had never heard anything bad, and who had in the highest degree the Victorian ability to look noble and spotless; his runnerup in the contest for the title of Most Respectable-Looking Victorian was, of course, Mr. Gladstone, and it is a well-known fact that the heads of the Landseer lions in Trafalgar Square are a composite portrait of Gladstone and Irving.
THE LADY ON MY LEFT was telling me a few minutes ago two “cures” which were highly esteemed in the time of her grandmother (who was born in 1800). The first was a cure for “gathered face” (what we now call an abscessed tooth) and it consisted of digging up the skull of a dead horse and carrying it under the arm for a few days, or until the gathered face ungathered itself. The second was a sure cure for goitre, which was brought about by stroking the goitre six times with the hand of a dead Negro. In spite of occasional evidence to the contrary it seems to me that medicine has advanced a good deal in Ontario during the past 150 years. Hand a horse’s skull to a modern doctor, and he probably wouldn’t recognize it as a valuable medicament at all; very likely he would make an ash tray out of it.… You wish I wouldn’t speak of such things? Very well, eat your sautéed brains in silence, madam.
I WENT TO SEE John Gielgud’s production of Love For Love last evening, and was carried away by the brilliance and artistic completeness with which it was presented. The drama, in its finest flights, gives me a satisfaction, an elation and a re-creation which makes the pleasures of the greatest music seem thin and chilly in comparison. Music is an intellectual extract of life; drama is life itself, raised to the highest pitch. I reflected also that great acting (and there were some rare examples of it in this play) makes heavy physical demands on the actor. To move with grace and vigour, to speak complex prose so as to be heard and understood everywhere in a large theatre, and to look exactly right at every moment of a long part requires no mean athletic equipment and physical stamina. How hard these actors worked, and yet how easy and inevitable seemed everything that they did! How strong an actor has to be, in every muscle, in order to be graceful without seeming affected! It is in this physical aspect of acting, as well as in imaginative grasp that our amateurs are disappointing.… It is not often that we see a play perfectly done in Canada, but when we do we chew the cud on it for months and sometimes for years.
I visited many antique shops by the wayside—not to buy, but to study the pathology of the antique business. I was interested to observe the emergence of the old coal-oil lamp as an antique. Hideous brass contraptions with scrofulous shades were being offered at prices ranging upward from $10. I was staggered also to see that a particularly disagreeable type of lampshade, made apparently from vitrified mucous, which used to be seen hanging over the dining tables of misguided people, had acquired antique status. I nearly bought a marble statue about five feet tall of a girl clothed in the underwear of the ‘nineties (all painstakingly wrought in marble) for the garden at Marchbanks Towers, but did not do so, reflecting that it might inflame the passions of my neighbours, and that they might hurt their fingers attempting to pinch her marble prominences. I could, of course, keep her veiled in sacking except when my guests were those in whom the fires of passion had sunk to a mere clinker; they alone could view her unmoved.
As I left my hotel in Tarry town a boy carried my luggage to my car, making three journeys and puffing and blowing painfully. But when I handed him a tip he shrank back saying, “Oh no, I don’t want anything.” When I recovered my senses I grasped his hand, crying, “My boy, accept this $10 bill from S. Marchbanks, for you are a boy in a million; when you want to go to college, boy, or when you have to have an operation for hernia (which you soon will, if I am any judge) feel free to call upon me for any sum. Farewell, Great and Noble Boy!”… . I bought a paper, paying five coppers for it; two of them were Canadian (which I had not noticed) and the Pilgrim Father at the paper stand rebuked me in a strong Neapolitan accent. “Gimme real-a mon’,” he said; “I do’ want none o’ this.” His complaint was probably just, but his manner nettled me; I earn my living in the coinage he aspersed, and it bore my sovereign’s head upon it. So I snatched my coppers, and gave him back his paper with a remark which was, I fear, too ironical for his blunted intellect to appreciate.… An international coinage might be a good scheme.
The heat was extreme, though no worse than in Canada, and I was happy to be suffering in a city which provided so many pleasant distractions. But in one restaurant where I dined an elderly lady had hauled her skirts to an unseemly elevation above her knees, apparently thinking that no one could see under her table. She was wrong; it was impossible to avoid seeing all. Time had not been kind to her underpinning and, like the confirmed moralist that I am, I reflected sadly that the human leg—so puissant an attraction in youth —can decline so lamentably in later years.
Like melted candle
Sagged to lump and dreg,
So is the horror
Of an aged leg,
I reflected, adapting Joseph Campbell’s poem The Old Woman to my need.
There is no problem about spending Sunday agreeably in New York; hundreds of entertainments and pleasure domes are open—everything offers itself, in fact, which is described in Ontario as “the continental Sabbath.” On Sunday evening, I resorted to Nick’s the famous jazz temple in Greenwich Village, where the “Dixieland Style” is authoritatively exhibited by those Titans of the ’Twenties—Muggsy Spanier and Miff Mole. (Pee Wee Russell, who used to be with them, has gone to an opposition jazz joint.) The place was filled with hepcats, solemnly adoring the great men as they played. No cat was ever less hep than I, but I enjoyed myself, and as he left the hall at interval time Muggsy adressed me personally! (He said, “Hello, there,” if you must know.) This gave me prestige with the rest of the audience, who took me for a foreign jazz expert (I hope). Yay, Muggsy! Yow, Miff!
As I walked along the street to buy some theatre tickets, two ladies of severe countenance commented on my appearance in loud and hostile voices. “Look at the great big Jew!” said one. “Yep, straight from Jew-roosalem,” agreed her companion. Now as I am a Brythonic Celt, and as anthropologists have assured me that this is obvious in every plane and angle of my head, I laughed very heartily at their stupidity, but it occurred to me that if I had really been a Jew, I should have been distressed and hurt by the nasty tone in which they spoke. Later in the day, on the East Side, I heard a young Jew haranguing a crowd through a microphone, asking for money which was to be used to pop off guns at just such Brythonic, Goidelic, Saxon, and Norman British Islanders as myself in Palestine. Thus in a single day I felt two kinds of bitter hatred directed against me, and it has given me a new notion of what a vile and ignoble thing racial hatred is.
From my hotel window I could see a man working inside the iron-work spire of St. Patrick’s; he looked oddly like a bird in a cage.… I went to see Victor Herbert’s Sweethearts, a decrepit musical comedy of the Early Beaded Lampshade Period, which Bobby Clarke had flogged into new and glorious life; he must be one of the funniest men now on the stage, I should think. The whole audience laughed, but behind me sat a Catholic priest whose laugh was as the laughs of ten ordinary men fused into one mighty roar of mirth. His laugh was as the laugh of ten because his heart was pure, I presume. At one point in the proceedings several characters appeared upon the stage dressed as monks and sang a very funny song of an unclerical nature. Would the saintly man laugh, I wondered? Yes; he laughed like a train in a tunnel, or a department store Santa Claus. It did me good to hear such laughter. That man will go far, and will probably die an archbishop, if not a cardinal. The triple tiara, indeed, would not be disgraced by such a laugh.
One day I went to the Museum of Modern Art, and saw a number of interesting things, of which I liked an exhibition of children’s painting best. Then I visited the Museum’s cinema, in which it shows movies which have become the classics of their art; the film today was Mädchen in Uniform made in Germany in 1931. Technically it was terrible, but its story and acting were first-rate. I was particularly interested in the English captions which had been inserted to help those in the audience who knew no German. When the characters spoke quickly, or idiomatically, these aids were absent. But when a character said something crystal-clear, like “Ein Scandal!” a caption saying “A scandal!” was helpfully thrown in. Afterward I sat in the Museum garden, sipping iced tea and observing some of the most beautiful and smartly dressed women that I have ever seen. Why are women who know how to be ornamental so rare in Canada? Who can explain our national passion for dowdy utility?
I went to the Metropolitan Museum to see the Egyptian collection, which is beautifully displayed. But I arrived at four, and by half-past four the attendants were beginning to lock doors, shut gates, tap their feet, squeak their hollow teeth, and in other ways inform me that it was time to get out, although the Museum is open until five. This is the custom of museum attendants everywhere in the world.… I observed that in the Metropolitan the attendants carry large pistols, presumably to blow the head off anyone who tried to run off with the tomb of King Washtup III, or any other such trifle. Gunplay in a place so filled with fragile objects and glass cases would be very good fun, and if it ever happens I hope that I am there to see.
I attended five musical shows (excluding opera) while I was in New York, and each one of them contained a song about a girl who was too good natured to resist men. My Ontario conscience led me to ask, “Does this mark a trend?” But my common sense said, “No such luck.” … Yes, I saw Brigadoon: it was a pleasant fantasy in which all the American singers adopted Scots accents, with varying degrees of success. I was astonished to find that the plot was pinched from a hideously sentimental story called Germelshausen, by Friedrich Ger-stacker, which I struggled with in Junior Matriculation German class. But there was some good sword-dancing and I saw a trick done with bagpipes which ought to be widely copied. Usually, when these things have finished playing, the piper permits them to subside with a noise like the death-rattle of an old cow; but the Brigadoon pipers seized their pipes sharply by the nozzle and hurried off the stage—presumably to exhaust them in the alley outside the theatre. This was both humane and musically effective.
On my last day in New York, I paid a farewell visit to Luchow’s famous and admirable German restaurant, and ordered one of the special dishes of the house—Sauerbraten mit lumpftigen dumpfligen im Dischwasser. As the temperature was about 95 F. this was not what my physician would have ordered (for me— he would certainly have wanted it for himself) but I ate it with appetite, and topped off with Apfelstrudel, coffee and a fitting quantity of excellent beer. Then I trundled myself through the heat to a movie house where a French film, The Well Digger’s Daughter, was showing; it was the last film to be made by that splendid actor Raimu, and I went as much to pay my respects to a great memory as for anything else.… When I emerged a mighty thunderstorm broke, and I saw the towers of Manhattan against the lightnings and green luminosities of an El Greco sky, while rain fell like steel rods. It was a noble and awesome climax to a thoroughly congenial holiday.
HOW OFTEN and how bitterly I regret the fact that my work makes me read so many books. Reading is one of my great delights, but I like to read books by men of letters; I loathe reading books by soldiers, sailors, airmen, engineers, explorers, politicians, economists and other imperfectly literate persons who write like amateurs. The world was better off when there was a recognized clerkly caste, by whom all reading and writing was done.
I ACCOMPANIED MY Uncle Fortunatus to church this morning. It was an exquisite spring day and the sexton, or janitor, or beadle, or whatever he is called, had done his work with a will, so that the temple was very hot—about 80° F; I should judge—and the smell of hot hymnals hung in drowsy benediction over the worshipping throng. In the middle of the service three babies became Continuing Presbyterians, though from the expressions on their faces, I doubt if they understood the full significance of what they were doing. During the sermon my attention wandered to a question which has engaged my attention, from time to time, for many years: why are Bibles and hymnbooks bound in such poor leather? What is wrong with that black, pebbly-grained morocco, that it should decay so quickly? I have two-hundred-years-old books in my library which are still in excellent condition, but a Bible which is twenty years old is already shabby.
I HAD A FRANK talk with my laundry man about starch today. “This degraded eccentric,” said I, kowtowing, “has a contemptible desire to appear well-groomed in the eyes of the world, concealing his manifold deficiencies of mind and heart under a stiffened shirt; your known charity toward the feeble-minded, O venerable one, might possibly bring you to indulge him in this folly?” The laundry man kowtowed and rejoined: “It is scarcely in the realm of likelihood, O celestial Marchbanks, that this abject wretch should dare to add a jot of stiffening to a character so notoriously upright and unbending as your own; if you insist upon such an impiety, it must be committed by other hands than these.” The upshot of this polite exchange is that my shirts will be as limp and rag-like in future as they have been in the past. Steam laundries abhor starch; they say it is unethical. Hand laundries won’t hear of starch; they say it is a nuisance. But I—unreconstructed moss-back that I am—like starch, even in my handkerchiefs. I want to crackle and pop like a plate of breakfast food, but unless I take to doing my own laundry, I shall never gain my desire, which is to be as stiff and white as a wedding cake, all day and every day.… Just feel this thing I have on. Well, madam, what if your husband is looking? Honi soit qui mal y pense is what I always say.… No, my dear lady, I said nothing about pants —don’t you understand French?
I READ AN UNUSUALLY good novel this afternoon, called Herself Surprised, by Joyce Carey; I was particularly struck by the skill with which the principal character was given life; I shall remember her for years. When I laid the book down I reflected for a time on the rarity of such novels; how few of the books which are pushed at us by modern authors contain any really interesting or memorable people. Yet there are books, not of the first quality, which give us such experiences. Consider Lorna Doone, the darling of our grandfathers; how real Lorna seems, and how potent her charm is, compared with the heroines of most modern novels, about whom we are told so much more! We do not know how Lorna looked in bed, or the state of her digestion, or what parts of her tingled when John Ridd kissed her, but we love her still. Magic, not psychology, is the stuff of which great stories are made.
TO BE QUITE frank with you, Madam, I am never quite sure why a little of each new bottle of wine is poured into our host’s glass first, but I think it is to see if there is any cork in it. If there is, it gives him a chance to pretend that it is not so. If a guest found cork in his wine, the host would have to order the whole bottle to be removed, and with wine the price it is that would be a great hardship to him. It is thus that economic pressure alters our social customs. Who can afford to be fussy about a piece of cork or a trifle of sediment nowadays?
I RARELYplay cards, but I was taken to the cleaners this evening by a couple of young women in a spirited game of “Authors.” I reflected as I played upon the appearance of authors, as a class. They are a mangy lot. Shakespeare appears to have been a dapper fellow, but look at James Fenimore Cooper, who kept turning up again and again in the hands I was dealt. And look at Ralph Connor and Sir Gilbert Parker, the two Canadians included in the game. Scarecrows, all of them. Authors should be read, but not seen. Their work unfits them for human society.
BEFORE DINNER that gentleman over there with the cubical head was expressing disappointment that so little attention was paid to the centenary of the birth of August Strindberg, the Swedish dramatist, which occurred on January 22. I have the centenary habit rather badly, but this one escaped my attention. The fact is, I have never been able to admire Strindberg since I made the acquaintance some years ago of a Swedish girl whose grandfather had been his near neighbour. She said that the neighbourhood was made intolerable by the noise of his quarrels with his three wives, and that his hatred of Ibsen bordered on the demoniacal. He invariably referred to Ibsen as “Gammal Snorlje,” meaning “Old Grouchy,” whereas Ibsen spoke of Strindberg, even in his public speeches, as “Gammal Nutsje,” meaning “Old Nutsy,” which was a sly reference to Strindberg’s frequent spells of violent insanity. Coldness between dramatists is not unknown, even in our day, but it seems to me that the affair between Strindberg and Ibsen had got out of hand, and as the younger man, it was Strindberg’s job to patch it up. The girl also told me that Strindberg’s genius defied translation, and I can well believe this.