I put down my morning paper as I left the train for the golf club. It
contained the interesting news that the Parliamentary Golf Handicap had
been postponed lest fiery politicians should run amok with their clubs. I
sighed, for the spectacle of BONAR v. BOGEY (The CHANCELLOR) would have
beaten the MITCHELL-CARPENTIER fight. Then it came home to me that I, a
golfer, a citizen, a voter, was taking no part in the great political
struggle of the day. I had not even declined to deal with my butcher
because he was a Conservative, or closed my wife's draper's account because
he was a Liberal. It is a curious fact, worthy the serious attention of
political philosophers, that butchers are always Conservative and drapers
always Liberal.
I reached the club-house, and the first man I saw was Redford. Now Redford
is a scratch player and a vice-president of a Liberal Association. He has a
portrait of LLOYD GEORGE in his dining-room.
"Play you a round, old man, and give you ten," he said cheerfully.
I had to do something for my country. "Never," I replied sternly. "I do not
play with homicides."
"What are you talking about?" asked Redford, who is an estate agent when he
isn't golfing.
"I merely say," I replied, "that I will play with no man who deliberately
connives at the slaughter of his fellow-citizens. Every Liberal vote is a
vote for civil war."
"Man, this is a golf links, not Hyde Park."
"I regret the course I have to take, but my conscience is imperative. Away!
your clubs are blood-stained."
Redford shrugged his shoulders and went off to get the professional to go
round with him.
The next man to drop in was Pobson. He is a Grand Knight Imperial (or
something similar) of the Primrose League, and makes speeches between the
ventriloquist and the step-dancer at their meetings. He has signed the
Covenant, and reads every column Mr. GARVIN writes. In fact, I attribute it
entirely to Mr. GARVIN'S effect on the nerves that his handicap has been
increased from plus two to scratch.
"Want a round? Give you eight strokes," he began.
"No, Sir; not with a man, who tampers with the Army."
"You're either mad," said Pobson, "or else you've been reading _The Daily
News_."
I will say this for Pobson--he seemed inclined to believe in my madness as
the more credible alternative.
"Enough of this. Do you think I will be seen playing with a man who ruins
our noble Army to gratify petty political spite? Every Conservative vote
means an Army mutineer."
"Mad," said Pobson, still charitable, as he left me.
Then there entered a dear old stranger and my heart opened to him at once.
"I don't know whether you're waiting for a game, Sir," he began.
"Certainly," I said. "I'm an awfully rotten player. Ashamed to mention my
handicap."
"Can't be worse than I am, Sir. There'll be a pair of us. What shall we
play for? I like to have something on it."
"What you like," I replied. "Box of balls if you wish."
"Right."
And away we went. I beat him by eight up and seven to play and was marching
triumphantly up to the club-house when Redford intercepted me.
"What's your game?" he said. "You wouldn't play with me and now you've
played a round with our Candidate."
"Redford," I said, "when that dear old gentleman came along I felt that I
had acted improperly in introducing political acerbity on the links. I was
wrong, and as a proof of it I am willing to play level with any politician
in the club for the same stakes--providing that his handicap is over
twenty."
* * * * *
"_PEREANT QUI ANTE NOS...._"
["Before the Love of Letters, overdone,
Had swamped the sacred poets with themselves."--TENNYSON.]
"The poets of an older time,"
Grumbled ROSSETTI JONES one day,
"Have used up every blessed rhyme
And collared every thought sublime,
Leaving us nothing new to say.
"They've sung the Game of War as played
By gods and men, heroic peers;
They've sung the love of man and maid,
To Life their laughing tribute paid,
Nor grudged grim Death his toll of tears.
"What _can_ a modern poet sing,
Describe, imagine or invent?
They've been before, they've tapped the spring,
They've laid their hands on everything,
Staked out the spacious firmament.
"Last week, a line that did me proud
Flashed on me, strolling down the Strand:--
'I wandered lonely as a cloud;'
Then conscience suddenly avowed
The simile was second-hand.
"Take birds, for instance. No remark
Of mine on birds could but be stale;
SHELLEY and WORDSWORTH own the lark
(Which SHAKSPEARE too had bid us hark),
While KEATS has bagged the nightingale.
"With rose and lily surfeited,
BURNS sang the daisy. Here's a fraud
Of TENNYSON'S: _I_ might have said
How daisies crimson 'neath the tread
Of more attractive girls than _Maud_!
"You think you've something up to date?
You'll find it's been already done;
I'd like to clean the blooming slate;
Their footprints I'd obliterate;
I want my corner in the sun."
He ceased. "Yet your revenge," I said,
Taking a classic from his shelves,
"Is ample, surely"; there I read
How moderns vex the sacred dead,
Swamping old poets with themselves.
* * * * *