Sunday: Off on my annual holiday today, to the United States for the first time since 1958. Crossed the St. Lawrence on a ferry, in company with fifteen million fuzzy insects; asked a man with a gla.s.s 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 att.i.tude toward antiques, and we all are richer than we ever imagined.
Monday: 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 gla.s.s, s.n.a.t.c.h it back again, and run like h.e.l.l 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.
Tuesday: 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.
Wednesday: 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 n.o.body ever gets too much of it. . . And the charm of this city is that when one is tired it is possible to get a gla.s.s of beer without resorting to a stinking pest-hole called a Beverage Room.
Thursday: Wandered about the streets, enjoying whatever sights came my way. Looked into the Temple Emanu-El, the princ.i.p.al 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 lackl.u.s.tre 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.
Friday: 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 pa.s.sion for Chinese food he whisked me to 21 Mott Street, an unimpressive establishment in Chinatown where I ate such food as only the G.o.ds 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 ma.s.s 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.
Sat.u.r.day: Left New York today. Pa.s.sed 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.
- XXVIII -.
Sunday: 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 s.p.a.ce? 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.
Monday: Cut my gra.s.s 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.
Tuesday: 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, n.o.body ever writes to me. Of course I get 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 somewhere and give my life in the cause of somebody"s 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 investigate 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.
Wednesday: 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 roistering Toms rush through the streets, curling their silky moustaches and luring innocent little p.u.s.s.ies 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.
Thursday: Answer to my advertis.e.m.e.nt 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."
Friday: 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 grat.i.tude. 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.
Sat.u.r.day: 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 pa.s.sed 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. . . Pa.s.sed 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.
- XXIX -.
Sunday: 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.
Monday: 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 pa.s.senger, either, for I am no good at shoving the boat away from the sh.o.r.e, or s.n.a.t.c.hing at ropes when we return to the dock. True, I come of a sea-going race, but not very recently; when Caesar approached the sh.o.r.es 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.
Tuesday: Greatly relieved that the Dominion Government does not mean to make teacup-reading a punishable offence. I have been a teacup reader for some time. A group of children of my acquaintance get tea only once a week, on Sunday evening, and they invariably ask me to read their cups. This I do, on a somewhat sneaky principle, foreseeing treats which I know about and they don"t; predicting success in school tests of one sort and another; prognosticating dire reprisals if they do not amend certain bad habits. Nor is my practice entirely on this humble level. I once told fortunes for charity at a church bazaar, and did a roaring trade. The things a good fortuneteller must always bear in mind are: (1) everybody is worried about a boy, a girl or a child, according to age; (2) everybody is short of money, regardless of income, and likes to be told that they will find money worries decreasing as they grow older, which is likely to prove true; (3) a stroke of good fortune is likely to come to everybody within three months, and may confidently be predicted; (4) n.o.body believes utterly in fortune-tellers, and very few people utterly disbelieve in them.
Wednesday: 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 baseb.a.l.l.s to Percheron stallions, may safely take liberties with Tiger, but I am not in his cla.s.s as a beast-tamer, and I know it. "A cat is no fool, and she may resent this," he said: I knew that, too.
Thursday: 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 Chast.i.ty, and how she that has that is clothed in complete steel, but he did not seem to put as much faith in Chast.i.ty 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.
Friday: I have for many years cherished an unfashionable admiration for that unpopular man Prince Albert, Victoria"s Prince Consort. Not only did he devise the Prince Albert coat, which was one of the best garments of modern times for style and comfort, but he had several other good ideas. He was, for instance, a founder and patron of the Society for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrial Cla.s.ses; he thought that it was a shame that a lot of people lived in poky, dark, nasty little houses, and he tried to do something about it. Albert, thou shouldst be living at this hour! Not only the Industrial Cla.s.ses but virtually everybody nowadays who builds a house or buys one built during the last twenty-five years, is living in a house which, though it may not be dark, is unquestionably poky. Perhaps never, since the era of the Mud Hut, has domestic architectural design been at a lower level, or building costs at a higher one. The more civilized we become, the smaller our houses are. They may be convenient in some ways, but they are too small to live in without sitting in everybody else"s lap and spitting in everyone else"s hair. And why should s.p.a.ce be so dear in a country as big as this?
Sat.u.r.day: 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 a.s.segai, 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 princ.i.p.al military outfitters, I am told.
- x.x.x -.
Sunday: 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.
Monday: 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 princ.i.p.al. 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.
Tuesday: Business took me to Toronto today, and I was amazed by the number of dead animals I pa.s.sed 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 p.r.o.ne 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 n.o.bly 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 a.s.saults 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.
Wednesday: My garden is a failure again this year. My morning-glory is not more than an inch above ground; my cas...o...b..ans (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.
Thursday: 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 princ.i.p.ally 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.
Friday: The Orange Walk today. I had to go to Toronto again and missed it, but all the way along the road I pa.s.sed 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.
Sat.u.r.day: 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.
- x.x.xI -.
Sunday: I do not like showerbaths. I am a Wallower, a p.r.o.ne Cleanser. Still, I admit that showers save time. When I have climbed into the tub with a few books I have withdrawn from life for at least an hour, and in the morning I have not an hour to spare, so I take showers. But as soon as I have put myself under the spray, violent hydraulic activity breaks out everywhere in the Towers; laundry-tubs are filled, toilets are flushed, teeth are cleaned, drinks are drawn, hoses are set to work and everything that can possibly be done with water is done immediately. First my shower becomes freezing cold, and as I scream and dance it becomes boiling hot again; parboiled, I work the taps feverishly, and instead of improvement, all water ceases to flow; I put my head around the curtain and roar like a sergeant-major; other voices roar back at me, but the sound of the distant Niagara makes it impossible to hear what they are saying. At some point in this struggle with the elements I manage to step on the soap, and I am thinking of hanging a strap from the ceiling of the shower, as in a street-car, or possibly getting a lineman"s safety-harness from the Bell Telephone Company. Showers will be the death of me.
Monday: When I was a lad naughty boys used to shout an offensive rhyme at Chinese citizens, accusing them of eating rats -- of chewing them up like ginger-snaps, in fact. Today I read that Captain C. L. Cameron, the explorer, ate rats not merely from necessity, but because they were excellent food. He made a dressing of breadcrumbs, herbs, and the liver and heart of the animal, and then roasted his rat for a few minutes in a hot oven; he declared the flavour to be delicious and said it was not unlike snipe. Which just shows that we are missing a good thing through a foolish prejudice. There are constant complaints about the number and destructiveness of rats. We have merely to declare the rat a table delicacy and it will immediately become hard to raise, like turkey, and will only eat expensive special fodder, like mink. I have always said that the way to get rid of dandelions is to declare them a rare and costly flower; they would then become as fragile as orchids; the same technique would work with rats.
Tuesday: While looking for some other information in a book this afternoon, I stumbled upon an account of the early history of coffee, which apparently first invaded Europe in the guise of a valuable medicine. In 1652 it was advertised as being a certain cure for "consumption, dropsy, gout, scurvy, the King"s Evil and Hypochondriac Winds." Furthermore, it was said that "It so incloseth the orifice of the stomach and fortifies the heat within, that it is very good to help digestion. . . it much quickens the spirits and makes the heart lightsome." I can only conclude that they made better coffee in England in 1652 than they make today, for the present English brew is a certain provoker of hypochondriac winds and makes the heart heavy. I do not suppose that anyone will ever discover why the English cannot make coffee, while the Americans cannot make tea. It is one of those mysteries of racial const.i.tution, like the fact that a Frenchman kissing a woman"s hand looks like a gentleman, and a Canadian doing so looks like a jacka.s.s.
Wednesday: The faces of several politicians appeared prominently in the paper this morning, as they are important men in UN and probably saviours of society. A depressing blank lot of mugs they had, too. In Victorian times a statesman might look like anything at all except an ordinary man; strange collars, fantastic heads of hair, whiskers of extravagant growth and cut, monstrous noses -- all marked them as creatures of a vaster world than that of the ordinary citizen. But the characteristic UN face of today is a large, fleshy surface, like a watermelon, with peepy, withdrawn eyes and a mouth like a post-operative scar. It is to these that the fate of the world is confided. They look like men engaged in some difficult, shady branch of accountancy. Which, of course, is precisely what they are.
Thursday: Had to write a letter in a great hurry today, and as I was far from any supply of the paper I am accustomed to I had to borrow some from a very young woman who was nearby. My senses reeled when she brought me a box of tiny sheets folded in the middle and decorated with highly coloured pictures of dogs and cats playing with b.a.l.l.s of wool. I suppose I move in a very restricted circle, and am not abreast of modern fashions in these matters, but I very rarely write anything which looks right on such paper. My whole mode of living and thinking is Anti-Cute. However, I gritted my teeth and wrote my note, but when I sealed the envelope my restraint was completely broken down; the glue on the flap had been impregnated with an extremely sweet flavour which my benefactress told me was Cherry; she a.s.sured me that envelope glue now comes in several delicious flavours. If this is really true, it is clear that the country needs a special stamp to put on such letters; something bearing a picture of the Postmaster General, got up as Cupid, and surrounded by jolly doggies and romping p.u.s.s.ies would be just the thing. The glue on the stamps would necessarily be maple sugar, and this would begin a whole new field in philately.
Friday: My ignorance often appals me. It appears that since 1934 there has been a science called Sociometry, of which I have not heard until today. Sociometry is the study of how you get along with people. It decides your Sociometric Status, which is "the extent to which you are accepted by the group" (What group? Oh, any group of mutts among whom you may find yourself at the time you have your status taken) and also your Sociometric Relationships, meaning whom-you-like and who-likes-you. Usually Sociometry is practised on children, as adults do not readily put up with such nonsense. For myself, I could cheerfully endure the news that my Sociometric Status was a low one, for I do not consider popularity to be important, and the base trade at which I earn my bread makes popularity a hopeless goal for me, anyway. As for my Sociometric Relationships, I generally like people who like me, and do the rest all the harm I can without getting caught. Life is a matter of running warfare to a greater degree than the pract.i.tioners of Sociometrics care to admit, and that is what gives it salt.
Sat.u.r.day: Took part in a sing-song, and in the middle was struck by the thought that the less meaning the words of a song have, the more popular it is likely to be. This is especially the case with Spirituals; I sang about the Big Wheel going by faith, and the Little Wheel going by the Grace of G.o.d, and I sang about Bones, Dry Bones, and I sang endlessly that I wasn"t goin" to grieve my Lord no more, no more, and as I sang I reflected that in all of this hok.u.m there was none of the sinewy theology on which I was brought up, and which has been the mainspring of my life. But I can see that a Spiritual which attempted to deal adequately with Original Sin, the Fall of Man, or Predestinate Grace, would probably not be very catchy.
- x.x.xII -.
Sunday: 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 have 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.
Monday: Visited some people today who had just moved into a new house. They were leading a circ.u.mscribed 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.
Tuesday: For nearly twelve years the Towers has been visited once a week by a man who has a cunning way with hens, and who brings me eggs. During all that time I can only recall receiving one egg which was not a beauty; it was a freak egg which any hen might lay if her mind was disturbed, or if she were suffering from cold roosts, or felt the pip coming on. But I find that I am very much a junior among his customers; he has supplied eggs to some lucky families for nearly a quarter of a century. I find such relationships comforting and even inspiring; they supply a stability to life which it sadly needs. I know that, short of the falling of an atomic bomb (which a hen would certainly resent), the eggs will arrive, and they will be good. This is no trifling matter, for eggs are basic; no eggs, no cooking. n.o.body has ever found a way to fake an egg, or do without eggs, or produce something by machinery which is better than what the hen produces by trudging patiently around the fowl-yard, pecking short-sightedly at the ground. It was no accident that in the early history of mankind the egg was chosen as a symbol of resurrection and immortality.
Wednesday: Found myself among a group of painters, all of whom were keenly interested in what they called Abstracts. An Abstract, I was surprised to find, is simply a picture of something which does not represent it as it appears to be in Nature, but presents certain forms and colours which are inherent in it but which are not apparent to the casual glance. The reason for my surprise is that I have been drawing pictures of this sort for many years, but I have always called them Abjects, because they look so miserable. I am not one of your la-di-dah sketchers, who fusses about catching a likeness; I am content to capture the soul of my subject in the fewest lines possible. When the sketch is finished I know what it means, if no one else does. I draw Abjects all day, but particularly during telephone conversations; I like to dash off an impression of the person on the other end of the line. I never exhibit my stuff; my Abjects are a purely personal form of art.
Thursday: Circ.u.mstances have made a movie fan out of me this week. On the Late Movie tonight saw 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.
Friday: 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 n.o.ble 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?
Sat.u.r.day: Painted a fence today. Pa.s.sersby 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.
- x.x.xIII -.
Sunday: 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.
Monday: 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 G.o.ddess (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 G.o.d 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 television.
Tuesday: 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 Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly 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 n.o.bleman 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.
Wednesday: 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 aesthetic inadequacy is the sartorial thralldom in which men are held. Women -- the fattest, oldest and most repulsive -- strip for the heat; men -- however emanc.i.p.ated 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.
Thursday: 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 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 G.o.d 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.
Friday: Papers full of the British election. For the first time, so far as I know, mention is made of the new Prime Minister"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 embarra.s.sed 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 than the wives of eminent men are composed of equal parts of Venus and Juno.
Sat.u.r.day: 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 G.o.d-like; he shouts to the skies, and a great voice returns from the distant hills. But do men ever shout G.o.d-like remarks at echoes? No! They shout "Phooey!" and "b.o.o.b!" 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 La.s.so, dating from the 16th century, and which consisted wholly of one part of the choir shouting Italian equivalents of Phooey and b.o.o.b 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 television; 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 b.o.o.b 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 b.o.o.b, and throw our whole Universe down some cosmic drain.
- x.x.xIV -.
Sunday: 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, G.o.d wot! but not unless it has proper plumbing. I am no lover of those old and picturesque privies which have a.s.sumed 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.
Monday: 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.
Tuesday: Even hotter today, a fact which was drawn to my attention by several b.o.o.bs 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.
Wednesday: 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 plat.i.tudes again. This characteristic is particularly noticeable in Parliament.
Thursday: Did some painting this afternoon; this is one household ch.o.r.e 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 house-painter and a pa.s.sion 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 gla.s.s 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.
Friday: 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.
Sat.u.r.day: As I was cutting my gra.s.s today, a pa.s.ser-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 gra.s.sless, 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 Portuguese 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."
- x.x.xV -.
Sunday: 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.
Monday: Since the war the mortality among animals, domestic and wild, has surely doubled. Last Friday and Sat.u.r.day I pa.s.sed 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.
Tuesday: 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 character, 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.
Wednesday: A hullabaloo has arisen because a Cabinet Minister told some union representatives to get the h.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.l, 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.
Thursday: A devout fellow of my acquaintance confided to me this morning that he had foolishly left a holy medal, which he always carries, in the pocket of a shirt which he had sent to the laundry, and had traced it just in time to prevent his talisman from getting into the machinery. What, I wonder, would happen to a man whose carelessness condemned St. Anthony of Padua, or St. Theresa of Lisieux, or St. Christopher, to a rough half-hour of whirling, swilling, and flapping in the bowels of a Bendix? The charity of the saints is extensive, but there must be insults which even a saint is not called upon to endure in the line of duty. . . Pondered that the Middle Ages found a saint for virtually every trade and profession, but none for the way in which I earn my livelihood. I have never heard of a patron saint of writers. Doctors are under the protection of St. Luke, and lawyers are taken care of by St. Benedict or St. Jerome -- I can"t remember which -- but writers are without friends in the courts of Heaven. The Press Club in h.e.l.l must have a remarkably distinguished enrollment.
Friday: 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 so expensive, 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 gla.s.s, 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 gla.s.s, 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 cutting out the sugar which decays the teeth. Marchbanks" Peach Pickle is guaranteed to add zest to the simplest meal; it is also the quickest pickle you ever had.
Sat.u.r.day: 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 the screen, 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 the film heroine, who was young, beautiful, clothed, right side up, and apparently in excellent health.
- x.x.xVI -.
Sunday: Pa.s.sed a large part of the day eating grapes. There are people who say that our Canadian blue grapes are harsh and p.r.i.c.k 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?
Monday: I see an advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 quant.i.ty of good dry sherry.
Tuesday: After many years of amateur photography I have decided that henceforth I shall keep my art to myself; it is fatal to show people pictures that one has taken of them, for the aim of the photographer and the aim of the sitter cannot be reconciled. The photographer yearns for a striking picture. "Look at the skin texture in that one!" I burble, showing a prized print. "You"ve made me look like an elephant with enlarged pores," says the subject, crossly. "How"s that for stopped action?" I shriek, dancing with delight. "I"m all bottom," says the subject, who has been snapped while scrambling over a fence. Men are worse than women. Women simply want to look beautiful in pictures; men want to look strong and n.o.ble, and when you catch them in a characteristic pose (mouth open, bald spot well lighted, and one hand scratching meditatively) they are cross, and become bellicose if you say that they held that pose for more than two hours without a variation. I am not a candid camera fiend; I do not try to make people look worse than they are. But I am not a wizard, and I cannot make a man in a dirty shirt look like one of the Ten Best Dressed. Henceforth I shall take pictures for no eye but my own.
Wednesday: A lecturer on health was somewhat embarra.s.sed recently when a member of his audience rose and said: "What will become of the health of Canada with the coming generation of mothers dr