Off on my annual holiday today, to the United States for the first time since 1938. Crossed the St. Lawrence on a ferry, in company with fifteen million fuzzy insects; asked a man with a glass eye what they were; “Sand fleas,” he replied laconically. Did not believe him.… Stayed tonight in a hotel in the Adirondacks, which is famous because Theodore Roosevelt once changed horses there. Many relics of him were on display, including his raincoat, rucksack, and a horseshoe which was wittily labelled as “not from one of his horses.” Reflected that I have many such relics at Marchbanks Towers, including a bed in which Queen Elizabeth never slept, a pen which was not used to sign the Treaty of Versailles, and a cake which was not burned by King Alfred. Take this negative attitude toward antiques, and we all are richer than we ever imagined.
On the road all day, with pauses for refreshment and to look at dubious antiques. Visited the New York State Capitol at Albany, and saw a drum displayed in its entrance-hall which had been seized from the British in the Revolutionary War. Was filled with a wild impulse to break the glass, snatch it back again, and run like hell for the Canadian border, but as I had just finished lunch I decided that it would not really be a practicable plan. Pressed onward, and gaped in amaze at the magnificent palaces which line the Hudson River. Wanted to visit President Roosevelt’s former home at Hyde Park, but for some reason it was closed. Stopped for dinner at Tarrytown, and in the Florence Hotel there had an adventure so frightful that I shall not even confide it to the private pages of this Diary. Never, since Mr. Pickwick found himself trapped in the bedchamber of the Lady with Curl Papers, has a traveller suffered so acutely and so undeservingly.
Entered New York this morning; it cost me ten cents at the Hendrick Hudson toll-bridge, which I thought rather expensive; I am used to getting into cities for nothing. However, when one is travelling, one must expect to spend a certain amount of money foolishly.… Had lunch in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art, which was about as pleasant as anything could be, for in addition to serving a top-notch lunch these enlightened Americans permit one to have a bottle of their own California wine at meals. In spite of this freedom I did not see anyone who was even slightly drunk, much less in a condition to swoon upon the ground, or hack at the modern statuary.… Afterward rode in Central Park in an open carriage (I am essentially a barouche man, and have never really accepted the motor car) and the driver attempted to cheat me out of a dollar, but was foiled. After some argument I drew myself up: “Shall we submit this to the arbitrament of a constable?” said I. “Aw Cheest!” he said, and drove away. New York, I perceive, contains almost as many rogues as Toronto.
Having heard many travellers’ tales of the dreadful deceptions practised upon strangers in New York, I walked about the city today expecting to be accosted by men who wanted to sell me gold bricks, or possibly the controlling interest in Brooklyn Bridge. However, nothing of the sort happened. Decided that perhaps my appearance was too urbane, so this afternoon I tried chewing a straw and saying, “Wal I swan to thunderation!” every time I looked at a high building. Still no rush of confidence men. Perhaps the perils of New York are exaggerated.… The shops are full of things to buy—possibly too full. At any rate I suffer from a sensation of surfeit, when faced with so much merchandise, and don’t want to buy anything. I am content to stroll about the streets and admire the beauty of the women, which is somewhat standardized, but breathtaking none the less. Strawberry shortcake is standardized, but nobody ever gets too much of it.… And the charm of this city is that when one is tired it is possible to get a glass of beer without resorting to a stinking pest-hole called a Beverage Room.
Wandered about the streets, enjoying whatever sights came my way. Looked into the Temple Emanu-El, the principal synagogue, and thought it vastly more beautiful than St Patrick’s, which, by the way, is having its face washed, and nothing can be seen of the outside of it but scaffolding and irritable, plethoric pigeons.… Saw also a man in sackcloth, with unkempt beard and hair, bearing a sign which read “Indict Senator Bilbo; UNO and World Government.” Recollecting J. S. Mill’s warning that a country where eccentricity is a matter for reproach is in peril, I tried not to stare at him too curiously, though his lacklustre eye and general appearance of madness fascinated me. Was talking to a lady this afternoon who said, “Have you been to the theatre yet, Mr. Marchbanks?” I replied, as politely as I could: “Madam, when I am in a city which possesses a theatre I am on hand whenever it is open to the public. I consider the theatre to be the most rational, enspiriting, rewarding and ecstatic of human entertainments, greatly superior to music and painting. Does that answer your question?” She fled in dismay, poor witling.
Henceforth, when anyone asks me “Were you in ‘Twenty-One’ when you were in New York?” I shall say that I was, but my answer will be disingenuous. This evening a New Yorker took me to dinner, and as we discovered a mutual passion for Chinese food he whisked me to 21 Mott Street, an unimpressive establishment in Chinatown where I ate such food as only the gods and a few particularly favoured mortals are privileged to taste. After a careful inspection of the menu we decided to order the Wedding Banquet For Eighteen, and eat it all ourselves. This we did, augmenting it with many bowls of rice and uncounted cups of delicious Chinese tea. (At least, I stopped counting after my tenth cup.) Together, this congenial soul and I waded through such a mass of fried shrimps, chicken, pork, almonds, bean shoots, bamboo sprouts, ginger, soybean and crisp noodles as I never saw before in my life, while our female companions picked away daintily (in the way of women) at a few poor trifles provided for them. After this we went for a ride on the Staten Island ferry, to enjoy the air and contemplate our inward bliss.
Left New York today. Passed through a ghost town called Piercefield, which contained more derelict houses than inhabited ones. I suppose young ghosts go there to get a little preliminary experience in haunting. I don’t know why they complain of a housing shortage in the U.S.A. when Piercefield is wide open.… Picnic lunch, and tried to open some bottles of root beer with a penknife, with the usual explosive, sticky, messy result. At last drove off in dudgeon to get a decent lunch at an hotel, and had no trouble in finding an excellent one. Why is it, I wonder, that the hotels even in New York State villages are so much pleasanter, better-smelling, and better provided with food than those in quite large Canadian cities? Consumed steak and lemon pie not far below New York standards.… On into the Adirondacks for the night and slept amid scenery that would delight a Welshman or a Scot. Mountains, like the sea, are in the blood.
Some important atomic bomb tests were held today, but no consequences were observable in my part of the world. Half-consciously I had been expecting the end of everything, and had made preparations accordingly. I burned a few letters which I did not wish to have vaporized; when we are all reduced to atoms, who can tell what atoms will read other private atoms, as they hurtle through space? I put a few of my more prized possessions in prominent places so that they would be vaporized as prominently and showily as possible. I threw a few bricks and rocks into my furnace, so that its vaporization might be painful. Then I spent as much time as I could manage lying on a sofa so that if necessary, I might enter Eternity in a relaxed posture. But nothing happened.
Cut my grass today. I neglected it over the weekend, thinking that the atomic bomb might settle all such problems forever. As I plodded back and forth I reflected miserably upon my own political rootlessness, in a world where politics is so important. When I am with Tories I am a violent advocate of reform; when I am with reformers I hold forth on the value of tradition and stability. When I am with communists I become a royalist—almost a Jacobite; when I am with socialists I am an advocate of free trade, private enterprise and laissez-faire. The presence of a person who has strong political convictions always sends me flying off in a directly contrary direction. Inevitably, in the world of today, this will bring me before a firing squad sooner or later. Maybe the fascists will shoot me, and maybe the proletariat, but political contrariness will be the end of me; I feel it in my bones.… Tiger, my kitten has wandered away.
Tiger not back for breakfast; that cat treats its home like an hotel.… No mail this morning. It is a constant source of surprise and indignation to me that, although half my life is spent in writing letters, nobody ever writes to me. Of course I got mail; there were the usual government handouts, addressed to me by chair-warmers at Ottawa and Toronto; there were the usual printed appeals urging me to hasten to Palestine and give my life in the cause of Jewish freedom; there were the usual people who wanted to give me a course in short-story writing, or convert me to the cult of colonic irrigation; there were thick reprints of speeches delivered by the presidents of insurance companies; there was a letter from a woman urging me to take up in this Diary the unsatisfactoriness of modern underpants, in which (she says) electrician’s tape is used instead of elastic. But not a word addressed to me personally—not even a postcard. Disheartening.
Still no Tiger; worried about her. Enquired of some children if they had seen her. “Perhaps she has wandered off with the Toms; two of our kittens did,” said they. This alarmed me greatly. Wandered off with the Toms! What an appalling thought! What a revelation of feline delinquency! Do the Toms engage in a hideous traffic in young cats—White Slavery in the cat world? At night, when all is still and the human world lies wrapped in sleep, do raffish crews of roystering Toms rush through the streets, curling their silky moustaches and luring innocent little pussies to a Fate Worse Than Death? Is Tiger at this very moment living in Guilty Splendour in some underground Haunt? Surrounded by every luxury—fish-skeletons galore, Jersey cream in kegs, catnip unlimited—does she ever think of her simple home and the toads she used to play with in the back garden? I shall advertise for her.
Answer to my advertisement for Tiger. “Did youse lose a cat?” said a voice over the phone. “What kind of cat have you got?” I countered. “Kind of a yalla cat,” said the voice. “My cat was not yellow,” I replied indignantly, and hung up.… I see by the paper that an American gentleman called Mr. Walter Littlefield does not like the expression “the common man” and suggests that we adopt the word made famous by the sixteenth century morality play, and speak of “Everyman.” This is a good idea, but it won’t work. It would be vulgarized out of all recognition in six months. Not merely Everyman, but “Jake Q. Everyman” would appear in print, and on the very first Mother’s Day we would be asked to send carnations to “Everymom.”
A man said today that he supposed I got a lot of free meals on my press-card when I was in New York; apparently he believes that legend that a newspaper writer has only to go into an expensive restaurant, eat himself out of shape, drink the bar dry, and then present his press-card in order to have the proprietor fall on his neck in gratitude. It is not true. When in New York I did have a sandwich in a modest grill, and did present my press-card when the bill arrived, but I had to pay all the same. It was not until I was outside that I realized that I had presented, not my current press-card, but an old one which I had preserved for sentimental reasons from the days when I was the entire editorial staff on the Skunk’s Misery Trombone, a lively little paper with a rather limited circulation. I suppose the restaurant proprietor had never heard of it; he was an uncultivated type, and addressed all his customers familiarly as “Joe.” I did not think that anything would be gained by arguing with him; people who call other people “Joe” are not usually strong in logic.
Tiger is home again! She had not run off with the Toms but had, I suppose, lost her way in one of her tree-climbing expeditions and had passed a comfortable few days with people who fed her and (if I can judge by the condition of her coat) brushed her, as well. Reproached her bitterly for all the anguish of spirit she had caused.… Passed the afternoon cleaning my cellar. Hercules, cleaning the Augean stables, had an easy task in comparison. Ran to and fro with driblets of coal; piled wood which had been lying under coal; resurrected and viewed with dismay bits of linoleum which had lain under coal. Wretched though present-day coal is as a heater, it has one undeniable characteristic—it is dirtier, and gets into more obscure corners, than any coal ever previously sold. Finished the afternoon looking like Old Black Joe, and with a dismaying collection of rubbish which the garbage man will be too haughty to remove. I suppose I shall have to bury it by stealth in the flower beds.
Tiger, my kitten, is suffering from an ailment which is not uncommon among animals and children in hot weather. This is an intolerable nuisance, for when she ran away she was beautifully housebroken, and now she has forgotten her good manners. When a child has this trouble it is able to give a warning shriek when the demon seizes it, and one can then rush it to the proper quarter, strengthening its moral fibre with threats and entreaties as one runs; but Tiger is crafty, and watch her as I will, she always evades me at the critical moment, leaving her little surprise in a corner, or under a chair. I think she likes to see me on my knees, in a prayerful posture, plying the floor-cleaner and disinfectant, and soliloquizing in Old Testament language.
To visit some friends at their summer cottage, and had a very fine ride on the river in a power boat. When speaking to the owners of boats I become tongue-tied, for there are some of them who resent having their property called anything but “craft”, and turn green if one speaks of a “boat-ride.” I am not the ideal passenger, either, for I am no good at shoving the boat away from the shore, or snatching at ropes when we return to the dock. True, I come of a sea-going race, but not very recently; when Cæsar approached the shores of Britain several members of the Marchbanks family painted themselves blue and set out in their coracles to drive him away; owing to some miscalculation they failed to do it. But a coracle is a round affair, more like a soup-plate than a boat, and since the introduction of banana-shaped craft no Marchbanks has ever been anything but a land-lubber.
To the movies tonight to see a film in which Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck played the parts of a female psychiatrist and an amnesia patient respectively. I can feast my eyes on Miss Bergman’s beauty without paying too much attention to what she says or does, but Master Peck is another matter. His notion of acting is directly contrary to that of such exponents of the art as Irving, Coquelin and Stanislavsky; he does not use his head, but casts the full burden upon his face, which he works furiously, breathing meanwhile through his mouth. His resemblance to Buster Keaton is disturbing to me also; I am always expecting him to be hit with a pie, or to fall into a tub of cement. In this piece that brilliant actor, Michael Chekov, acted the pants off Master Peck.
Tiger is not better, so I took her to the veterinary this evening. He diagnosed her case as one of garbage-eating; when she ran away she must have treated herself to a bit of over-ripe fish. He gave me some pills for her, and also demonstrated the proper way to give pills to a cat; you suddenly draw the cat’s head backward, pry open its mouth, shove the pill down into its stomach with a pair of forceps, and whisk the pill briskly around in its insides. Then you let go, and the cat uses language that scorches its whiskers. I decided that I would use the alternative method, which is to powder the pill and slip it slyly into the cat’s food. A man who is accustomed to going right to the seat of the trouble with a sick cow, and giving pills like baseballs to Percheron stallions, may safely take liberties with Tiger, but I am not in his class as a beast-tamer, and I know it. “A cat is no fool, and she may resent this,” he said: I knew that, too.
A man came to me today in a state of great agitation because he thought that there should be more streetlights, and that they should be turned on earlier. “Young people park in cars in those dark places and The Dear knows what goes on,” he said, trembling at the thought. I tried to calm him, telling him about Chastity, and how she that has that is clothed in complete steel, but he did not seem to put as much faith in Chastity as in Electricity.… I wonder why people always think that dreadful things happen in the dark? When I look back over my own past, and examine my police record and my conscience, I find that the peak-hours of Sin in my wild youth were between 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. If I were a Puritan, I would not worry about parked cars, where nothing much happens beyond the conventional slap-and-tickle which is virtually obligatory in youth; but I would creep abroad at mid-day, peeping behind the lace curtains of sober houses on quiet, tree-lined streets. It is there that I would find things to make my mouth go dry and my eyes pop.
To the movies to see Charles Laughton as Captain Kidd. Although the period of the film was supposed to be the reign of William and Mary (1694-1702) we were treated to a panorama of London, in which the principal feature was Tower Bridge, which was built in 1894; Hollywood is particularly prone to such bone-headed errors, even though it does spend large sums on experts and historical research.
I see that a girl who was in the Hamilton beauty contest is complaining that twelve of the sixty-two contestants wore “falsies” to give greater impressiveness to their pectoral development. This reminded me of the fact that before the war the cadets at the Royal Military College wore “falsies” also, concealed in their scarlet tunics, in order to add a few inches to their chests. I have seen many a convex cadet remove his tunic, only to reveal that he was concave. This was standard military practice until the red tunic went out, about the time of the South African war, and many a dashing cavalry officer was saved from death because the Zulu assegai, or hill-tribesman’s snickersnee, had become imbedded in his “falsies.” But now, alas, anything might lurk beneath the blouse of a battledress and the military “falsy” has fallen into disuse. Chest-wigs for the pectorally bald are still sold by the principal military out-fitters, I am told.
Was reading a sermon by an eminent Montreal divine on the subject of frivolity, of which the divine disapproved. Pleasure, he said, was a legitimate indulgence; he would even go so far as to say that people needed pleasure in their lives; but he warned most seriously against frivolity. This interested me so much that I looked up the word in my dictionary, and found that it meant more than I had thought—“trivial, empty, paltry, lacking in character and depth of concentration” were only a few of the scathing comments in the definition.… Sighed heavily, for my schoolmasters used to accuse me of frivolousness; my inclination toward untimely levity annoyed them. And it has grown with the years. If I tended toward frivolity as a boy, I am incorrigibly settled in it now.
Watched a group of children playing school today; it seemed to me to be a depressing game for the holidays, but they enjoyed it hugely. Not many lessons were taught, but there was a great deal of spanking, asking permission to leave the room, and being sent to the principal. The most prized role was that of Teacher; the largest child got that by sheer physical prowess and the smaller ones were reduced to submission by violent threats.… I recall playing school when a child with a group of Roman Catholic children; the oldest was given the prized role of Sister Mary Somebody, who must have been an uncommonly severe disciplinarian. As a mere Protestant, I was only allowed to be the janitor; from time to time I was permitted to say “Is it warm enough for you, Sister?” whereupon Sister Mary Somebody would give me a stately nod of the head. I soon tired of the limited possibilities of the janitor’s part and went off to play by myself, while Sister Mary Somebody went on happily spanking, cuffing and scolding.
Business took me to Toronto today, and I was amazed by the number of dead animals I passed on the highway. Most of them were skunks, though from time to time one saw a defunct rabbit, a squashed squirrel or a jellied groundhog. Why are skunks more prone to die on the highway than other animals? Is it because skunks, for thousands of years, have been used to stopping everything by sheer force of personality, and have not yet accustomed themselves to the automobile age? Certainly it is a lesson in the mutability of all earthly things to see a skunk, once nobly menacing and vainglorious, lying—a poor rag of grizzled fur—by the roadside. But it cannot be said of skunks, as it is of men, that they all smell alike in death.… And speaking of skunks, was it on purpose that the City of Toronto arranged that symphony of vile effluvia which assaults the nostrils on Fleet Street? Gas works, tannery, glue atelier and soap-rendering emporium all unite in a ferocious stench compared with which the bazaars of Calcutta are as morning roses washed with dew.
My garden is a failure again this year. My morning-glory is not more than an inch above ground; my castorbeans (which should be like trees by now) are sickly shoots; a cow appears to have nested in the remains of my peony bed. The only things that are doing well are my runner beans, and some gourds, which are growing like Jack’s beanstalk and seem likely to push down a wall.… And do I care? No! If Nature doesn’t want to co-operate with me she knows what she can do.
Because there is to be an Orange Walk tomorrow, I was drawn into a discussion of the Battle of the Boyne by two men who regarded it as a matter of the utmost contemporary importance. But I soon found that the Battle of the Boyne they were talking about was not the one I learned about in school; my Boyne was merely one in a series of small battles, and it was fought on July 1, and not on the Glorious Twelfth; and in my battle King William’s forces were principally composed of Dutch, French, Danish and English troops, and not of valiant Ulstermen; and in my battle the victory of King William was thought to have something to do with the fact that he had 35,000 men to his opponent’s 25,000, causing King James to run away, which was wise if not precisely valiant.… But my friends seemed to be talking about an entirely different fight. I quoted them Bernard Shaw’s wise dictum: “Peter the Fisherman did not know everything; neither did Martin Luther.” But they would pay no attention. If we were all robbed of our wrong convictions, how empty our lives would be.
The Orange Walk today. I had to go to Toronto again and missed it, but all the way along the road I passed Orangemen gorgeously arrayed and wearing the set, determined expression of men who might have to fight for their convictions and rather hoped they would. Some of them carried bottles of fife-oil; this is a special lubricator which you drink yourself and then blow into the fife.… Arrived in Toronto, which is the Rome of the Orange Order, too late to see the parade there, though I kept meeting Orangemen and Orangewomen all day long, and even saw an Orangeinfant, so covered in rosettes and ribbons that it could hardly breathe.… It was a hot, exhausting day, and during the afternoon I was forced to refresh myself with a pot of Orange Pekoe tea.
Should have worked in my garden, but lay in a deck-chair and read Damon Runyon instead. It is about this time of year that my gardening enthusiasm, so hot in the Spring, fails me, and I make my annual discovery that a weed is just as pretty as a flower if you look at it the right way.… Sometimes I think I got too much gardening when I was a boy, and I know that many people suffered in the same way. Indeed, a friend of mine tells me that his father won a prize for the finest garden in his home town for two years in succession, and that this triumph was based firmly upon the back-breaking labour of my friend and his brothers and sisters. Thus it is in many families; the father is the planner and overseer; the children are the toilers and fieldhands; and from this uneven division of labour a fine garden springs. Gardening is an undemocratic pursuit. Somebody crawls through the flowerbeds, weeding and grovelling like the beasts that perish; somebody else strolls in the cool of the evening, smelling the flowers. There is the garden-lord and the garden-serf. When we are all socialists gardens will vanish from the earth.
Agog today, preparing for the second instalment of my annual holiday. This year I had difficulty in finding a place to stay; for some reason no place where I have once been is ever able to give me a reservation again, and I had to do a lot of writing and wiring before I finally got a favourable answer from a place called Camp Laffalot, at Skeleton in Muskoka. I have packed my sola topee, my butterfly net, and—as I know Muskoka—my fur coat for wear after sundown. I can hardly contain my impatience until tomorrow. Yo-ho for Camp Laffalot!
On the road at dawn this morning. Stopped at Orillia to see Stephen Leacock’s manuscripts in the Public Library, but the Library was closed for all but a few hours a day; the Little Town is still a Little Town, apparently. Looked at the Champlain Monument in Couchiching Park, which is magnificent; another monument, called Somebody’s Mother, and flanked by four drinking fountains, assaults the vision as one enters and leaves the Park.… Drove on until I came to a sign—“You Are Now Entering Lovely Skeleton.” Appropriately enough this village consists entirely of frame houses. Without difficulty I found Camp Laffalot, and at once my nostrils were assailed by that pleasant and characteristic smell of damp woodwork which is peculiar to summer hotels. Three young females with legs of vivid scarlet and peeling noses mounted the stairs ahead of me; the custom of the burnt human sacrifice still persists in Muskoka, I observe.… This place has tolerable inside plumbing; all will be well.
Woke at four a. m. to find that I was freezing; looked from my windows at Drowned Skeleton Lake, over which lay a heavy mist; pulled the bedside rug over me and shivered till morning.… A bell rang at 7:30, and the first thing I saw from my window as I crawled out of bed was two ample ladies, well advanced in middle life, hiking down to the lake in their bathing suits. Appalled by such hardihood, I huddled into a heavy suit and two sweaters, and went to breakfast; felt better after fruit, porridge, two eggs, a heap of toast, and an imperial gallon of hot coffee. By ten o’clock I was roasting, and had to discard everything that decency would permit; soon I shall be as half-baked as the girls I saw yesterday.… The name Laffalot, which I assumed to be Indian, is a droll contraction of Laugh A Lot, I find, and the invention of the proprietor, who hopes to put his guests in a good mood with it. He explained this to me himself. Ha ha, I thought; and later, after more reflection, tee hee.
Have scraped acquaintance with some of the other denizens of Camp Laffalot. We sat on the lawn this morning, and in the fashion of guests at summer hotels, lied about our importance in our hometowns and hinted that we were richer than we looked. The only reason we were not at the Royal Muskoka or Bigwin Inn, we implied, was that we could not stand the stuffy crowd there, preferring the genial company at Camp Laffalot. We agreed that Drowned Skeleton Lake was the gem of the Muskokas, and that Laffalot had distinction and exclusiveness not granted to other summer hotels. These things settled, some of us went for a drive, to enjoy the scenery. Personally I get all the scenery I can conveniently hold in half an hour; and after a four-hour drive I estimated that I had said, “magnificent!” 422 times, “astounding!” 146 times, and “lovely!” 1066 times. These are the only words I know which apply to scenery, except “redundant”, which I use only in my thoughts.
There is always a good deal of romance at a summer hotel. Was talking today to a pretty girl who told me that a young man was going to canoe 20 miles, portage 5 miles, and motor 60 miles to take her to a dance that night. I said that I wasn’t a bit surprised, and she would have flushed prettily if she had not already been cooked to the colour of underdone beef by the sun. She then pointed out islands in the lake to me, saying that there was a home on this one which cost $20,000, and that the boat-house on another one had cost $12,000, and that a nasty old miser who lived on another had a yacht for which he had had the effrontery to pay a mere $25,000. I was glad that somebody else was taking her to the dance; I am never comfortable with girls who can think higher than $3.50 at one time.
Was talking this evening to a maiden lady of uncertain age who was thrown into a fantod when she discerned that I was a writer. “Don’t you dare to put me in a book, you naughty man,” she trilled. I toyed with the idea of saying that it would be a rare pleasure to press her between the sheets, but decided that there was a hint of indelicacy about such a remark which might be misconstrued. I then thought of saying that it would be a privilege to embalm her in prose, but that was worse. So I kept my mouth shut and tried to look mysterious, which gave me eyestrain. She did not know that I was a very base sort of writer; she probably thought I wrote novels, or perfume advertisements for Vogue. Having failed to extract a compliment from me, she proceeded to entertain me with a long and harrowing account of her dog’s last illness; the emotion generated by this tale made me hungry, but the cook kindly gave me a plate of cereal in the kitchen before I went to bed.
Left Laffalot today; it would be effective, but untrue, to say that my going caused a pall to fall over Skeleton; the emotion, such as it was, was all on my side. In the course of a short week, I had learned to cope with the tropic days and Arctic nights of Drowned Skeleton Lake; I had learned to listen to the astounding tales of personal prowess told by the other guests, and to counter them with a few choice untruths of my own; I had learned to say, “Gad, what a beauty; I never saw such a big fellow” whenever I saw another guest come in from the lake with a fish the size of a minnow. I had learned to eat enormous meals with an appearance of merely picking at my plate. But the time had come to leave, and I left.… Motored to Toronto, and put up at my club, the Junior Deipnosophists, for the night. As usual, I forgot my toothbrush, and may have to go back to Skeleton to get it. I have had it for years, and it has a sentimental value which no new, luxuriantly-bristled, hard toothbrush could equal.
Not long ago a friend of mine opened the door of the garage at her summer cottage, and found a man inside who had hanged himself about two months before; what is more he had been cut down. She is deeply anxious to know (a) why he hanged himself; (b) if he hanged himself or was hanged; (c) who cut him down; (d) what it was about her garage that appealed to his morbid fancy. She will probably never know any of these things. It is thus that life falls short of the movies; in a film she would immediately have been accepted by the detective in the case as a full partner and would have shared his risks of life and limb until the criminal was in the hoosegow, and the full story was in the newspapers. But the real-life detective never even asked her to sit all night in the haunted garage and shoot on sight anyone who came down the ladder from the loft. We deplore this lack of imagination on the part of detectives, who never seem to catch anybody, anyway.
Visited some people today who had just moved into a new house. They were leading a circumscribed life, not walking where the varnish was tacky, not leaning where the paint was wet, and not falling too often into buckets of decorators’ paste. They had moved in, driven by necessity, before the workmen had finished, and the workmen resented it, as they always do. There is nothing a party of painters and decorators likes better than a large house, all to themselves, in which they can lead an ample and gracious life, occasionally doing a little work. The only way to oust them is to move in on top of them, and let the children play with all their more valuable tools after they have gone home at night.… This unhappy couple had only two points at which they could light; one was bed and the other was the verandah. All things concurring, they should have the workmen out before the snow flies.
Received a letter written on Reform School stationery from a little girl who takes me to task because I spoke slightingly of Gregory Peck; she tells me that Photoplay Magazine esteems this Peck highly. I do not care a fig for Photoplay Magazine; I write for a highly exclusive public, subtle and pernickety in its tastes, and they are not to be bamboozled by any such pretentious tripe, nor by the antics of Master Peck, either. She concludes, “you better apologize.” The day I apologize to you, you contumacious mammothrept, there will be two moons in the sky.
To the movies tonight to see The Song Of Bernadette, which opened with these words: “To those who believe, no explanation is necessary; to those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.” This seemed a very fair statement of the case, calculated to please all the Catholics, Orangemen and nullifidians present. The audience seemed to find Bernadette amusing at times. Up in the gallery something stirred; was it a bird, was it a bird? … I wonder what the Church of Rome thinks of Hollywood, its new ally? With so many Catholic films appearing, and a firm hold on the Hays Office, things are looking up for the Propaganda Fide. But I warn the hierarchy that Hollywood is fickle; five years ago it was whooping it up for the Jews; any time I expect a series of films extolling the spiritual grace and mystical fervour of the Continuing Presbyterians, in which Gregory Peck, Bing Crosby, and Jennifer Jones will all be pressed into service as pawky Scots, hooting and skirling the granite pieties of the Auld Lichts.
Circumstances have made a movie fan out of me this week. Tonight was haled to see Gypsy Rose Lee in a drama which told of the reclamation of a crook by a tavern entertainer who held him in lubricious thrall; this palsied theme, handled with pleasant irony, made good entertainment.… I was especially impressed by Gypsy Rose Lee, and hereby publicly announce that she is my movie queen and, in my view, the most lovely and accomplished of all Hollywood’s lallapaloozas. She has elegance, wit and a charming voice, and if I were a younger man I should write to Hollywood and offer her a half-interest in my chicken farm.… It was a similar upsurge of emotion which led my uncle, the Rev. Hengist Marchbanks (author of the popular theological work Scatology and Eschatology) to offer marriage to Miss Lottie Gilson, known professionally as “The Little Magnet” in 1888. Needless to say she refused him, but he kept a picture of her (in red silk tights) pasted in the front of his copy of Cruden’s Concordance until he was called to his long rest in 1902.
I see that the French are abandoning the guillotine as an instrument of execution, and are going to use electric chairs just as soon as they can generate enough electric power to fry a yegg. This depresses me. The guillotine had one great virtue in my eyes; it was picturesque.… As long as we maintain the essentially barbarous custom of capital punishment we might as well perform it in the most barbarous ways. Hanging is disgusting enough for anybody; the guillotine is deliciously messy: these methods of public vengeance have a kind of noble savagery about them. But frizzling a man in a chair until he looks like a piece of toast and the fillings in his teeth hum like tiny radios is just modern gadget-worship gone wild. Why not burn a criminal at the stake, if you want to give him a roasting?
Painted a fence today. Passersby greeted me with remarks like, “Doing a little painting, eh?” or “Well, I see you are painting your fence.” A short-tempered man might have replied, “Oh, you’re quite mistaken; I’m making a fretwork watch-cosy for my Aunt Minnie,” but I am not short-tempered. Such remarks, stressing what is obvious, are not meant to be taken literally. They are what psychologists call “phatic communion”—that is to say, talk intended to establish a sense of fellowship rather than to convey any intelligent meaning.… There are a lot of people whose entire conversation is composed of phatic communion; carried to excess it earns them a reputation for phatheadedness.
A sticky dull day; I awoke with the bedclothes sticking to me, my clothes stuck to me all day, and whenever I arose from a varnished chair there was an audible sound as my trousers tore themselves from the seat. Bathing and fanning were futile; the only thing to do was to keep still and suffer, but this palled during the afternoon and I climbed a hill and looked down over the town; steam rose from it and here and there church spires and factories rose shadow-like above the vapour bath.… What I always say about the Canadian climate is that it saves us millions of dollars in travel; we can freeze with the Esquimau, or sweat with the Zulu, or parch with the Arab, or drench with the Briton, and all in our own front gardens. Sometimes we even have some really beautiful weather, but not often enough to spoil us.
To the movies this evening and saw a double feature—the first part of which was good, and the second part so bad as to be hugely entertaining. It contained, among other things, the briefest conversion ever witnessed on stage or screen; a priestess of the Sky Goddess (who performed her religious duties by wriggling her caboose in a provocative manner and tossing gardenias to handsome strangers) was told about the Fatherhood of God by an aged beachcomber in 30 seconds; she immediately rushed to her co-religionists, who were preparing to roast the hero, and shouted “Big Ju-Ju him say no kill”, and at once all the amateur cooks knelt, while a shower of rain fell and put out the sacrificial fire. I laughed myself into a serious state of debility during this exhibition, which involved the services of some of the worst actors to be seen anywhere, even on the screen.
A man was asking me for information about Dr. Guillotin. I know little about him, except that he was a physician; that he was 51 when he came into prominence in 1789, and that he persuaded the French Constituent Assembly to adopt the killing-machine which we connect with the Revolution. “My machine will take off a head in a twinkling, and the victim will feel nothing but a sense of refreshing coolness,” he said to that body. Contrast the humanity of Guillotin with the malignity of the inventor of the electric chair, who causes his victim a sudden sense of intolerable heat; rightly is the chair called “the hot squat.” … Death by the guillotine was not immediate, by the way; several of the bodies struggled and attempted to rise after the knife had fallen, and there is a horrifying and well-authenticated account of the head of one nobleman which was seen to wink as it lay in the basket.… A Russian scientist, I see, has had great success in reviving men who have been dead for some time; this is going to mean a serious revision of our notions about death and the hereafter.
A day of intense heat and demanding work coincided, reducing me to a condition of dripping exhaustion, and furious rebellion against the clothes the male is expected to wear under such circumstances. I am forced to the conclusion that ours is a Lost Age, a period of transition between one great historical epoch and another, and that one of the surest proofs of our moral, spiritual and æsthetic inadequacy is the sartorial thralldom in which men are held. Women—the fattest, oldest and most repulsive—strip for the heat; men—however emancipated they may be in other ways—continue to wear a collection of hot, foolish and ugly garments, designed to bind and chafe at every possible point. These are mad, bad, degenerate days, and no good will come of them, mark my words.
Hullabaloo today about the results of the British General Election, which is interpreted in some circles as a mighty triumph for the Common Man. I suppose it is, for it has turned out of office Winston Churchill, who certainly ranked high among the Uncommon Men of our times. I confess that I find the modern enthusiasm for the Common Man rather hard to follow. I know a lot of Common Men myself, and as works of God they are admittedly wonderful; their hearts beat, their digestions turn pie and beef into blood and bone, and they defy gravity by walking upright instead of going on all fours; these are marvels in themselves, but I have not found that they imply any genius for government or any wisdom which is not given to Uncommon Men.… In fact, I suspect that the talk about the Common Man is popular cant; in order to get anywhere or be anything a man must still possess some qualities above the ordinary. But talk about the Common Man gives the yahoo element in the population a mighty conceit of itself, which may or may not be a good thing for democracy which, by the way, was the result of some uncommon thinking by some very uncommon men.
Papers full of the British election. For the first time, so far as I know, mention is made of Mr. Attlee’s “attractive, blue-eyed, youthful wife.” It is a continual source of astonishment to me that prominent men always seem to be married to exceptional and attractive women. I recall how attractive Mrs. Baldwin seemed to be to the press when Honest Stan went to Downing Street; Mrs. Chamberlain, also, was a woman in a thousand. The charitable conclusion, of course, is that these wonderful women make their husbands great, and keep in the background while the simpleminded fellow enjoys all the fun.… I wonder if the day will ever come when the wife of a new prime minister or president is described thus: “Mrs. Blank is a dumpy, unattractive woman, who dresses in the worst possible taste, and has frequently embarrassed her husband by her inept remarks in public places; it is generally recognized that he would have achieved office years ago if she had not put her foot in it on so many important occasions.” … But no: it is a cherished legend that the wives of eminent men are composed of equal parts of Venus and Juno.
To a picnic this afternoon, and had a lot of fun with an echo. There is nothing to compare with an echo for making a man feel god-like; he shouts to the skies, and a great voice returns from the distant hills. But do men ever shout god-like remarks at echoes? No! They shout “Phooey!” and “Boob!” and such-like vulgarities. Once, when I was a mere youth, I belonged to a choral society which rendered an echo-song by Orlando di Lasso, dating from the 16th century, and which consisted wholly of one part of the choir shouting Italian equivalents of Phooey and Boob at the other, with an occasional Ha Ha thrown in to give an air of gaiety. Man’s treatment of echoes is continued in his treatment of radio; having conquered the air to a point where the precepts of the great prophets, and the music of the supreme musicians, might flow over the whole earth, man devotes his invention to elaborations upon the Phooey and Boob theme, with an occasional mention of breakfast food and soap. I dread the day when the First Cause, disgusted with man, will Itself shout Phooey and Boob, and throw our whole Universe down some cosmic drain.
Visited some people at a summer cottage today and, as often happens on these occasions, arrived just as there was a lot of hard work to be done. This time it was shifting a bathing float from the beach to the water, and we did it by the method used to build the Pyramids—slave power. After an hour of heaving and straining the accursed thing was in the water and I escaped with nothing more than a cut thumb and a great deal of mud on my person; some of the other guests were in far worse condition. We had earned our tea many times over, and the obvious jubilance of our host did little to cheer us.… A summer cottage can be a lovesome thing, God wot! but not unless it has proper plumbing. I am no lover of those old and picturesque privies which have assumed the gravity-defying obliquity of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Employing a special form of Yoga I transcend the physical side of my nature and avoid them utterly.
An extremely hot day, which I spent on the train surrounded by fractious children, prostrate old ladies and all the usual victims of a temperature of 92 degrees. Nature has endowed me with a magnificent cooling system, and if I could go naked in hot weather, I could bear anything; but convention demands that I swathe myself in layer upon layer of cloth, and as a result I feel as though I were in a cold compress which had unaccountably become lukewarm; the sensation is uncomfortable but not unbearable.… Had a two-hour wait at a small junctional point, so I strolled about, viewing the town, and musing idly on the architectural hideousness of Ontario. This town had tried to smarten itself by hacking down most of its trees, giving an indescribable impression of ravagement, like the skull of a woman who has gone bald through a fever.
Even hotter today, a fact which was drawn to my attention by several boobs who asked me if it was hot enough for me? I enjoyed the heat, and took three tepid baths; sometimes I think that I might do well to move to a semi-tropical country; people who do so are said to become lackadaisical, losing their initiative; but I lose my initiative in cold weather, so perhaps it would work the other way for me, and I would become a demon of energy.… Every man I met today was perspiring so grossly that I may risk the indelicacy of using the word “sweaty” to describe their collective condition. But I did not see a single woman who appeared to be suffering in this way. Why? Why are women dry when men are wet? Why don’t women ever sweat? It is this characteristic, more than any other, which led our ancestors to put woman on a pedestal.
Bruce Hutchison, I see, hotly denies the charge which someone has made that Canadians have no sense of humour. Canada, says he, invented the story about the little boy who got his head stuck in a chamber-pot and had to be taken to a tinsmith to get it off. I wonder what makes him think so. I have a book which quotes the story, at great length, from an English work published in the 1860’s and I have seen it in at least one American collection.… But Hutchison may be right about our national sense of humour, for when once we take up a joke, we never let it go. Old, crippled jokes, worn out in the Barren Lands and the outermost stretches of the Antipodes come to Canada at last, sure that they will have a happy home here for at least a century, and will raise a laugh from affectionate familiarity, if for no other reason. “Not Original, But Faithful To Death” is our motto in matters of humour. We like a joke to go off in our faces, like an exploding cigar, and then we can laugh heartily and get back to glum platitudes again. This characteristic is particularly noticeable in Parliament.
Did some painting this afternoon; this is one household chore which I really do well. I admit that I have no skill fixing doors which stick, or repairing the cords of electric irons, or opening choked sewers, but I can paint anything and make a better job of it than most of the greenhorns who are to be found working for professional decorators these days; “No Bubbles Marchbanks” I am called in amateur painting circles. Ability as a housepainter and a passion for musical comedy are two characteristics which I share with the late Adolf Hitler—the only two, I believe.… What is more, I can paint without drinking milk; most professional housepainters seem to live entirely on milk; and I believe that they regard it as a potent charm against painter’s colic. I once painted a whole building (a two-storey henhouse) without consuming any liquid beyond a glass or two of water. But last time I had professional decorators in my house they left 18 milk bottles in it. They were especially fond of chocolate milk and every now and then, in hot weather, a bubble in my paintwork breaks, and emits a long-imprisoned belch of chocolate.
This evening a friend of mine, who has recently become a keen amateur of astrology, attempted to cast my horoscope. According to his calculations, I have missed my vocation; I should either have been a postman or a real-estate agent. He also told me that in order to be in tune with my astrological influence, I should dress in pinks, pale blues and yellows; he warned me against over-indulgence in food and drink and a tendency toward diseases of the digestive machinery; he told me my lucky gem and my lucky flower; he told me that if I worked hard (either as a postman or a real estate agent) I should eventually enjoy a measure of success. I treated him with the derision he deserved.… Although I have no use for people who try to draw up astrological charts with a little knowledge gained from popular books on the subject, I cannot see why astrology should not be given a measure of credence. To believe in it demands an act of faith, but think of all the other things, no less improbable, we believe on acts of faith! If we believe in the findings of astronomers and theologians and physicists, who are always proving each other wrong, I don’t see why we should not believe astrologers, who are quite often right.
As I was cutting my grass today, a passer-by said, “Hullo; are you cleaning up your yard?” By this I knew him to be a Canadian of at least three generations’ standing, for no other English-speaking race uses the word “yard” to describe a lawn, surrounded by flower beds. To me a yard is a small enclosed area, perhaps paved, in which clothes are lined. I looked the word up in my dictionary, and found that the use of yard to describe a garden was labelled as dialect. Presumably it came to Canada many years ago, and took root here. The true Canadian would describe the gardens of Versailles as “Louis XIV’s front yard”, without any sense of insufficiency.… The exact opposite of our national habit may be observed in England where any grassless, desolate, junk-filled bit of vacant ground is called “the garden”.… Another word which persists in Canada and the U.S. is “stoep” for a sitting-out place, although most of us now use the elegant Portugese word “verandah.” Thus a Canadian of the uncompromising old stock sits on his stoep and looks at his yard, whereas his more cosmopolitan children sit on the verandah and look at the garden. If the verandah roof leaks, it may also be called a “loggia.”
Attended a small gathering this evening where one of the guests went frankly and unashamedly to sleep and put in a good two hours on a sofa; I hasten to add that this was not alcoholic stupor, but fatigue, caused by giving aid and comfort at a children’s party earlier in the day. The incident reminded me of a shameful evening in my own life when I went sound asleep while Prof. Ralph Flenley was explaining some obscure aspects of the Napoleonic wars. To contradict a professor is enough to make him hate you, but to go to sleep while he is talking curdles the milk of human kindness in his breast.
Since the war the mortality among animals, domestic and wild, has surely doubled. Last Friday and Saturday I passed a dead hen, two dead cats, a groundhog which had been called home, and a spaniel which was noisily engaged in making its way toward Abraham’s bosom. Today I spied a brown shape on the road which I could not identify, and I asked the lady who was driving me to stop; she did so, and I found that it was a porcupine. I pointed out to her that the animal showed no sign of having died a violent death, and might have had heart-disease; she replied that it looked somewhat run-down to her. I ignored this cheap raillery, and examined the corpse; the porcupine is not a lovely object, and lacks dignity in death.
Was talking to a man tonight who had seen service with the R.A.F. in Africa, in Sierra Leone. He tells me that in that part of the world a young woman’s dowry is likely to be reckoned in sewing-machines, which she buys with the pay which she received in return for special services rendered to the white troops. A girl with six or seven sewing-machines can afford to pick and choose among the eligible young men of her own race. The custom of the dowry has virtually died out among all except the most wealthy, in our Anglo-American civilization. A young man who takes a wife must choose her for her beauty of charracter, or of figure, alone. He stands to get nothing else with her except the expenses inseparable from housekeeping and raising a family. The average Canadian bridegroom cannot even count on six sewing-machines. It’s the man who pays, and pays, and pays.
A hullabaloo has arisen because a Cabinet Minister told some union representatives to get the hell out of his club, where they were pestering him as he tried to eat a sandwich. The heart of many an industrialist has warmed to this man as they have longed to say the same thing themselves on many occasions, but feeling in labour circles is intense.… As a politician myself (leader, secretary and permanent executive of Marchbanks’ Humanist Party) I understand the Minister’s action perfectly. There comes a time in every man’s life when he wants to tell somebody who is pestering him to go to hell, and if he does not indulge the whim he is likely to get psychic strabismus, which, in its turn, leads to spiritual impotence. And spiritual impotence is the curse of our country as it is.
I see that Alfred Hitchcock intends to make a film version of Hamlet, only he will change it about considerably, and will leave out the poetry; Cary Grant is to star in this masterpiece. I can just see it; Hamlet will no longer be a Prince, but a truck-driver in a small American town; he will be ultra-democratic, and everybody will call him “Ham.” His Mom will have bumped off his Pop in order to marry his uncle Claudius who thereby inherits the trucking business. Ham and his pal Horatio, and Ophelia (who is Ham’s sugarpuss), will uncover this dirty work by showing Mom and Claudius some home movies of a similar case. Ophelia will have comic scenes with an undertaker, but will not really die, because she will have to marry Ham in the last reel, and help him with his trucks. Ham and Ophy may even have a screwball sequence in which they both pretend to be crazy, because everybody thinks craziness is so cute these days. It’s a natural! … Of course the Hays Office could never permit a film version of the Shakespearean Hamlet, because its theme is too closely bound up with incest to be tolerable to the pure minds of moviegoers. The movies insist that a good boy must love his dear old Mom, but wisely, and not too well.
This is the time of year when households are shaken to their foundations by the annual Pickle War. There was a time when the only limit on the amount of pickles “done down” each year was that imposed by the physical endurance of the sweating squaws. When women began to faint and fall into the seething cauldrons of Chili Sauce, the time had come to call a halt (unless you happened to like Chile Con Carne, and hired girls happened to be cheap). But with sugar rationed, the problem is now how much of each pickle is to be made? Personally, I favour Marchbanks’ Peach Pickle, which is made thus: put half a fine peach in the bottom of a brandy glass, add two fingers of brandy, two teaspoonfuls of sugar, and fill up with cream; drink at once. A simpler version is this: sugar a peach lightly, put it in a brandy glass, add two fingers of cream, and fill up with brandy; drink at once. Or here is a quick recipe for lazy cooks; eat a peach, and immediately drink a tumblerful of brandy. The last has the advantage of conserving the sugar, and is highly recommended for this reason, I understand. Marchbanks’ Peach Pickle is guaranteed to add zest to the simplest meal; it is also the quickest pickle you ever had.
To the movies tonight, and was given a seat next to a woman who brought a baby, which was certainly not more than eight months old. It was suffering with gas on its stomach, so she had laid it upside down over her knees, and was rolling it to and fro as she watched the picture. The occasional high-pitched belches and moans of the suffering moppet worked upon my sympathies until I could no longer concentrate on Rita Hayworth, and as long experience has taught me that it is dangerous to come between a mother and her child—even when she is treating it cruelly—I moved. The child had been upside down for half an hour, and I began to fear that it might die; it smelled rather dead, though it still wriggled slightly.… Found that I had taken a seat next to an elderly woman who was enjoying the film in her bare feet; she had a pair of shoes, but she held them in her lap—to save them, I suppose. These incidents made me thankful for Rita Hayworth who was young, beautiful, clothed, right side up, and apparently in excellent health.
Passed a large part of the day eating grapes. There are people who say that our Canadian blue grapes are harsh and prick the mouth with tiny barbs. To me, they seem matchless in flavour and colour, and I consume them by the basket, picking, chomping and spitting in a golden autumnal dream.… Once, years ago, I watched a chimpanzee in the London Zoo; the Latin name over his cage was Simia Satyrus, and truly he seemed like some bawdy, happy old satyr from the Golden Age when the world was young, and Rights, and Duties, and Social Problems were still maggots in the womb of time. He lay on his back with his arms folded under his head, and bit great mouthfuls of grapes from a bunch which he held in his toes. Every now and then he looked out at me, spat seeds, and shook with silent laughter, as though to say, “If you had any sense, old boy, you’d join me; this is the life.” I have often regretted that I did not accept his invitation. A nice private cage and plenty of grapes—what more can life offer?
I see an advertisement in the papers for “Pre-Arranged Funerals.” If you want to, you can arrange your own funeral, and pay for it before you die. This scheme combines forethought with a special form of insurance, and I think I shall make arrangements for my own funeral this afternoon. Death has no terrors for me, but sometimes I break out in a cold sweat when I think what a preacher might say about me when I was no longer able to contradict him and check his facts. I shall write my own funeral oration, and I shall also decide what music shall lull my mourners. If strains of Maunder or Stainer were played at my defunctive orgies I should certainly rise from the dead and strangle those responsible.… If I can raise the money to cover expenses I think I shall arrange to have a sin-eater at my funeral, in the manner of my Celtic ancestors, and also a feast for the mourners, with cold meats, Stilton cheese, fruitcake, and plenty of sherry and port. I feel that nothing would make up for my absence so well as a sufficient quantity of good dry sherry.
I see that an English movie studio is going to make a film of the life of Karl Marx. This should be a natural for films. Karl’s poor old Dad is a miner, see? And this rich guy who owns the mine is a so-and-so, see? And Karl’s Mom is the hired help in the mine-owner’s house, and one day the mine-owner throws a rice-pudding at her because it was burned, y’ catch on? And the same day a lump of coal falls on Dad Marx’s foot, and he can’t go down the mine no more. And the Marxes are treated bad because they’re Jews, see? And Karl’s sister is taken away by the rich mine-owner’s son and put in a Boudoir, see? So Karl gets this idea that Manhood is more than Money, and he organizes some kind of an old-time A.F. of L. or I.W.W., and the workers march to the mine-owner’s house and burn it and elect Karl boss of the mine, and his sister gets out of the Boudoir and marries Karl’s best friend, and in the last shot you see Karl as an old man with a bunch o’ whiskers writing this book about Capital. It’s in Technicolour, mostly red.… Of course the real story of Karl Marx would not do for the movies; he was too incorrigible a borrower, and too indifferent a father, to be worthy of the talents of Gregory Peck, or even Paul Muni. Anyway, he lived his whole life in the extreme of bourgeois dullness.
A lecturer on health was somewhat embarrassed recently when a member of his audience rose and said: “What will become of the health of Canada with the coming generation of mothers drinking and smoking as they do?” Dipping into my immense knowledge of social history, I cannot recall any generation of mothers which has not had its own deleterious indulgences. The mothers of yester-year did not smoke and drink rye, but they consumed dangerous quantities of strong tea, and sought oblivion by imbibing freely of Peruna, a nerve tonic which contained about as much alcohol as a bottle of imported Scotch. And their mothers smoked clay pipes and drank the liquor from the bottoms of silos, just to keep off germs. In spite of these things, they lived to ripe ages, and were often very merry and entertaining old parties. We can overdo the health business. Remember the old song—“A little of what you fancy does you good.” A very sound philosophy, clearly expressed.
To the movies tonight to see a highly coloured piece about some people called Frédéric Chopin and George Sand, though any resemblance between them and the historical characters so named was coincidental, and had been avoided pretty carefully. The voluptuous Lady Korda played George Sand, and when she appeared in masculine dress she looked far more like the historical Chopin than the young bruiser who had been given that part. The historical George Sand was so lacking in attraction of the physical kind that Alfred de Musset once described her as a cow, quite dispassionately.… The film had been constructed along the approved lines of Hollywood history: Chopin was insulted and oppressed by the rich (whereas in actual fact he was fawned upon by the nobility and gentry almost from birth); he was a revolutionary, and a great whooper-up for the Common Man (though in fact he never met any common men except occasional piano movers and preferred the company of the most brilliant group of his time); he let George Sand bamboozle him (though in fact they nagged each other tirelessly, and he could not stand the racket made by her swarm of children); he dearly loved his native Poland (though he was actually half-French and took care never to go near Poland once he got away from it). A strange film, brightly coloured, sweet and gassy, like a fruit salad.
I am getting a cold. At present it is in what we medical men call “the period of incubation.” This means that there is nothing specifically wrong with me, but I am conscious of uneasiness in my throat, and my head feels as though somebody had pumped soda water (with pinpoint carbonation, of course) into my brains, causing them to go bubble-bubble-bubble in a ticklish way every now and again. My ears, too, have not their accustomed sharpness, and everybody who talks to me seems to have a mouthful of mashed potatoes.… To me the annoying thing about the cold germ is that it has such a poor sense of timing; when I am in perfect health, but would welcome a chance to stay in bed for two or three days, I could not catch a cold if I slept in a freezing locker; but when I am too busy to fuss over trifles I catch colds with the greatest ease, and have to go on working in spite of them. I know that physicians advise against this, but I have yet to see a physician take a few days in bed because of a cold. They generally keep going as long as they can be carried from patient to patient.
In the night my cold passed from the stage of incubation to the stage of exasperation, and I woke with weeping eyes, a streaming nose, no sense of taste, and very little sense of hearing. Went to work, kicking dogs, swearing at children, and pushing old women under buses. There is a misanthrope in every man, and the cold germ usually brings him well to the fore.… In the afternoon visited some people, all of whom had colds, and we passed an agreeable hour or so exchanging symptoms.… Later at an informal birthday party, and had a slice of cake with real icing on it, a rarity in these times. I haven’t any sympathy with people who do not celebrate their birthdays; I like to see the utmost done in the way of cakes, gifts, and jollifications. To a philosopher the passing of another year is not a melancholy incident; he may be a year older, but if he is worth his salt he is also a year wiser.
Took some photographs today, as I was lucky enough to get a reel of film yesterday. Amateur photography bears the same relation to the real thing that amateur theatricals bear to the productions of London or Broadway. When I take a photograph I usually manage to get at least one object into the picture which taste and delicacy would exclude from it; if I take a baby there is certain to be a puddle under it; if I take a dewy damsel in a winsome pose, she is sure to have a bottle of hair restorer or eradicator protruding from her pocket; let me train my camera upon a fragrant old lady in her lavender gown, and an ill-timed eructation will cause her to come out on the film looking like a bar-fly; nobody ever seems to be properly tucked in, buttoned up, or combed and washed when I take them. There are people who believe that Nature always provides a reverse, or opposite, of everything she creates. I am obviously the opposite of Youssuf Karsh; if I had photographed Churchill it would certainly have been just after a bottle had broken in his pocket.
A letter today from a reader who is in hospital with a broken leg; he tells me that he has at last discovered who I am. I would not be too sure of that; there are at least two men, I know, who pretend that they are Samuel Marchbanks, and as they are my employers I dare not expose them. I have actually seen one of these scoundrels address a meeting at which I was present, pretending to be me! I have also heard the suggestion that Samuel Marchbanks is really a woman.… This gentleman wants to know if I have many readers of his own age (28). I don’t know, to be truthful, though I understand that I am widely read in Old Folks Homes, orphanages, asylums for alcoholics, and Refuges for Gentlewomen in Reduced Circumstances; in poorhouses, too, I am a general favourite. This is because I am always compassionate toward the weak and lowly, and scornful toward the rich, the book-learned and the privileged. Years ago, when I was a mere lad, I discovered that the way to win the hearts of the lowly was to tell them that they were the salt of the earth; this is a lie, but they love it.
In the paper I see a picture of Shirley Temple buying her trousseau. Deary me, how time flies! Surely ‘twas but yesterday that this loveable mite held all the world in chubby thrall. Even the Dionne Quintuplets, five to one, could not get the better of her in the great battle of publicity. And now she is a grown woman, trying to find a few pairs of step-ins with real elastic in the top.… A Hollywood tycoon once explained to me that the whole of Shirley’s grip on the film public began and ended with the way in which she said “Oh my goodness!” This line appeared in all her films, and where the ordinary moppet would say “Oh my goodness!” with perfect, if nasal, articulation, Shirley said “Oh my gooness!” This bit of delicious juvenility reduced strong men to doting tears, and caused fond mothers to smack their young whenever the aforesaid young dared to sound the “d” in “goodness.” When Shirley said “Oh my gooness!” and flashed dimples like Neon signs, she aroused the essential jellyfish in us all; we were at her mercy, even when she sang The Good Ship Lollipop and clumped laboriously through a tap-dance. But Ichabod, Ichabod, the gooness is departed from Shirley.
There are times when I wonder, calmly and dispassionately, whether life is really worth living. Every Autumn there comes a period during which it is impossible to keep warm, though the lighting of the furnace would be rash folly. I have just enough black jelly-beans in my cellar to feed my Monster from October 15 until May 5. Light up now, and I shall freeze in the Spring. But if things go on as they are, I shall be far gone in consumption before October 15; I have a Harry Lauder cough, and when I laugh (which is not often with things the way they are) it sounds like somebody sifting ashes. I should heap my fireplace with wood, and squat upon the flames like a Hindu widow in suttee, but the woodman has not brought my wood yet, and after he does I shall have to rope and tie a buzz-saw entrepreneur before I can burn it. True, I have some stuff which purports to be fireplace coal, but it gives no heat. Indeed, all it does is throw fragments of itself on my carpet, burning large and shameful holes.… I see that somebody is advertising for a “Boy’s Commode.” In my young days those things were Great Levellers, making no distinction of sex.
These are the days when lukewarm gardeners like myself debate earnestly whether they should cut the grass just once more, or not. There is a school of thought which maintains that it is bad for a lawn to be too closely cropped when the first frost comes; there is an opposing school which says that a lawn which is left shaggy in the autumn will be slow and spotty next spring.… Frankly, I have exhausted any pleasure that mowing lawns ever held for me, and I wish I could get a boy to take over the job for a reasonable price.… When I was a lad I mowed an enormous lawn every week for years on end, and was thankful for a dry crust and a glass of polluted water when the job was done. I attribute my present rock-like character to this stern early training.
The world was scheduled to end today, but something must have gone wrong. The Rev. Charles Long of Pasadena, California, said it, and I made a note of it on my memorandum pad. Deciding that Oblivion might as well overtake me when I was busy, I went about my accustomed tasks all day, keeping an eye peeled for any untoward happenings. At about 11:35 a. m. I heard a shrill sound which I thought might be the Trump of Doom, but it proved to be a child outside in the street, who had swallowed his gum and was bewailing the loss. As night drew on I wondered if it were worth while making a fire, but again I reflected that I might as well die warm, and it was well that I did so, for the world did not end at all.… This makes the eighth prediction of general doom that I have survived without harm, and every single one has been made by the shaman, fakir or medicine man of some sect in the U.S.A. I am beginning to question the Divine Inspiration of these creatures.
Went out this afternoon to see if there were any autumn tints yet visible, and had a very good time, sweetened by the knowledge that I should have stayed at home to do a dozen pressing household jobs.… Home, and made a fire and sat by it, eating grapes, and thinking what a fine season autumn is. Chose an apple, and was just about to bite into it when a solemn thought struck me that apples are now 75 cents a basket, and this in turn fathered the sober reflection that some autumns are better than others. Put the apple back in its basket, only slightly tooth-pocked.… Passed the evening looking out clothes for the Europeans, and found that I had more than I imagined, including a great many pairs of socks. Handed these over to an experienced sock-rehabilitator of my acquaintance, who made them as good as new. The thought that some Greek or Dutchman will be wearing my socks this winter gives me a new sense of the brotherhood of man.
In bed, and feel very low; no Calvinist ever approached the Sabbath with a heavier heart or a greater contempt for the flesh than I do today. A neglected cold is wreaking its revenge upon me. I pick up a novel to beguile the leaden-footed hours: in the first chapter is an account of how a man died through neglecting a cold. Oh! … Have just devoured the bread and milk which comprises my dinner. My entrails are now a prehistoric swamp where reptiles and horned monsters romp.
Thought a good deal about death today, and particularly about my own Last Words if I should expire of this grievous malady. The fashion for Last Words has declined during the last century. The most interesting case of Disputed Last Words that I know of concerns William Pitt, the Great Commoner; there are those who say he died exclaiming, “Oh my country! How I leave my country!” though an opposed school of historians claims that what he really said was, “I think I could eat one of Bellamy’s veal pies.”… However, I was unable to concoct a satisfactory dying speech for myself; I am too ill for the strenuous intellectual labour involved. And this gives me a clue to the genesis of many famous Last Words: they are carefully composed, polished and memorized years before death, and then, when the Grim Reaper seems near, they can be spoken with full effect.… But in these degenerate days too many people die in hospitals, and as it is a well-known fact that no nurse ever lets a patient get a word in edgewise, Last Words are an impossibility.
Visited the doctor today at his office; he has a machine there which he wants to use on me. While waiting for him took close cognizance of the picture on his wall. Most doctors content themselves with Sir Luke Fildes’ touching masterwork The Doctor, in which a bearded physician leans over the bed of a sick child, trying to look as though he knew what ailed it.… But this picture showed a young soldier lying on a rough bed, covered with his jacket; his eyes are closed and it is plain that he has gone to that land where “nor physician troubleth nor enema grieveth”, as the Good Book says. At a table by his side sits his superior officer, his eyes moist, looking at the contents of the young man’s wallet; another officer, gazing out of the window, has succumbed to manly tears.… Of course, it may be that I interpret this picture wrongly; maybe the young fellow on the bed is drunk, and his two superior officers are crying because he hasn’t enough money on him to be worth robbing. I don’t know, and, by the time the doctor had finished with me, I didn’t care.
My physician has given me a sedative, swearing by Aesculapius, Panacea and Pharmacopoeia that it will do me good. I read The Great Gatsby until the drug renders me insensible, after which I am a victim of evil dreams, in which I am continually being shot at by ill-disposed persons. I struggle to escape; I try to call for help, but I am powerless. At last I am able to arouse myself, and wonder whether the cure is not worse than the disease. The only perceptible effect of the sedative on me was to parade the disjecta membra of my scrambled ego before my mind’s eye.
Felt better today, and made a mighty effort to get out of bed; could only endure this for half an hour. Retired ungracefully, and passed the time by reading a book about famous murders. I suppose there are dozens of murders done every year which are never discovered; so far as I can judge, the types of murderers who are captured are two: (a) ignoramuses who kill in hot blood, with plenty of witnesses and a profusion of bloody axes, initialed handkerchiefs and whatnot as clues; (b) people who try to be too clever, and who invent subtle schemes of murder, and alibis for themselves. But the woman who pushes her aged husband downstairs, or the man who feeds his wife lobsters and whiskey, is rarely charged with murder, because the method is direct and simple. The best murder, of course, is achieved by driving our victim to murder himself, and this is by no means as difficult as it might seem; indeed, it was done often during the market crash of 1929, when the rain of stockbrokers jumping from upstairs windows made a walk down St. Catherine’s Street quite dangerous.
Got up this afternoon with great success, and this has altered my whole attitude toward life. No wonder invalids are crochety, crabby people. There are, in fact, two approaches to invalidism: (a) You can be a Sickbed Hitler, and insist on running everything and everybody from your Bedroom Chancellery; (b) You can be an Uncomplaining Sufferer, which means that you must tell everybody you had a bad night when you really slept like a horse, and you must do all you can to indicate that you are in continual pain, which you endure with nobility. Both these plans are great fun, but I think the Uncomplaining Sufferer has the best racket of all. He can make his relatives sacrifice to him for years, and feel cheap as they do it. If I ever become chronically ill I shall see what can be done to combine the two methods, producing a monster of valetudinarianism to be known to science as the Tyrannosaurus Marchbankensis, or Nurses’ Nightmare.
During my stay in bed I have done my best to keep up with my work as a book-reviewer, and have waded through a mountain of muck. Every day in every way I agree more and more with the anonymous reviewer who wrote:
And much though each new book keeps lit my light,
Defrauding me of sleep my dubious sleight,
I often wonder what the authors read
One half so rotten as the stuff they write.
Tomorrow I go back into the great world, which has managed to do admirably without me for a week: the strikers have struck just as noisily without me: the international politicians have arranged several deadlocks and disagreements although I was unable to help them; that Mighty Mendicant, the Government, has stretched out its beggar’s hand, whining piteously for a few hundred millions, although I was not by to encourage it. The world does so well without me, that I am moved to wish that I could do equally well without the world.