For their after-luncheon coffee the party generally adjourned to the
library. Its windows looked east, and at this hour of the day it was the
coolest place in the whole house. It was a large room, fitted, during
the eighteenth century, with white painted shelves of an elegant design.
In the middle of one wall a door, ingeniously upholstered with rows
of dummy books, gave access to a deep cupboard, where, among a pile of
letter-files and old newspapers, the mummy-case of an Egyptian lady,
brought back by the second Sir Ferdinando on his return from the Grand
Tour, mouldered in the darkness. From ten yards away and at a first
glance, one might almost have mistaken this secret door for a section of
shelving filled with genuine books. Coffee-cup in hand, Mr. Scogan
was standing in front of the dummy book-shelf. Between the sips he
discoursed.
“The bottom shelf,” he was saying, “is taken up by an Encyclopaedia in
fourteen volumes. Useful, but a little dull, as is also Caprimulge’s
‘Dictionary of the Finnish Language’. The ‘Biographical Dictionary’
looks more promising. ‘Biography of Men who were Born Great’, ‘Biography
of Men who Achieved Greatness’, ‘Biography of Men who had Greatness
Thrust upon Them’, and ‘Biography of Men who were Never Great at All’.
Then there are ten volumes of ‘Thom’s Works and Wanderings’, while the
‘Wild Goose Chase, a Novel’, by an anonymous author, fills no less
than six. But what’s this, what’s this?” Mr. Scogan stood on tiptoe and
peered up. “Seven volumes of the ‘Tales of Knockespotch’. The ‘Tales
of Knockespotch’,” he repeated. “Ah, my dear Henry,” he said, turning
round, “these are your best books. I would willingly give all the rest
of your library for them.”
The happy possessor of a multitude of first editions, Mr. Wimbush could
afford to smile indulgently.
“Is it possible,” Mr. Scogan went on, “that they possess nothing more
than a back and a title?” He opened the cupboard door and peeped inside,
as though he hoped to find the rest of the books behind it. “Phooh!”
he said, and shut the door again. “It smells of dust and mildew. How
symbolical! One comes to the great masterpieces of the past, expecting
some miraculous illumination, and one finds, on opening them, only
darkness and dust and a faint smell of decay. After all, what is
reading but a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive
self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one’s mind; one
reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking. Still--the ‘Tales of
Knockespotch’...”
He paused, and thoughtfully drummed with his fingers on the backs of the
non-existent, unattainable books.
“But I disagree with you about reading,” said Mary. “About serious
reading, I mean.”
“Quite right, Mary, quite right,” Mr. Scogan answered. “I had forgotten
there were any serious people in the room.”
“I like the idea of the Biographies,” said Denis. “There’s room for us
all within the scheme; it’s comprehensive.”
“Yes, the Biographies are good, the Biographies are excellent,” Mr
Scogan agreed. “I imagine them written in a very elegant Regency
style--Brighton Pavilion in words--perhaps by the great Dr. Lempriere
himself. You know his classical dictionary? Ah!” Mr. Scogan raised his
hand and let it limply fall again in a gesture which implied that words
failed him. “Read his biography of Helen; read how Jupiter, disguised
as a swan, was ‘enabled to avail himself of his situation’ vis-a-vis to
Leda. And to think that he may have, must have written these biographies
of the Great! What a work, Henry! And, owing to the idiotic arrangement
of your library, it can’t be read.”
“I prefer the ‘Wild Goose Chase’,” said Anne. “A novel in six
volumes--it must be restful.”
“Restful,” Mr. Scogan repeated. “You’ve hit on the right word. A ‘Wild
Goose Chase’ is sound, but a bit old-fashioned--pictures of clerical
life in the fifties, you know; specimens of the landed gentry; peasants
for pathos and comedy; and in the background, always the picturesque
beauties of nature soberly described. All very good and solid, but, like
certain puddings, just a little dull. Personally, I like much better
the notion of ‘Thom’s Works and Wanderings’. The eccentric Mr. Thom of
Thom’s Hill. Old Tom Thom, as his intimates used to call him. He spent
ten years in Thibet organising the clarified butter industry on modern
European lines, and was able to retire at thirty-six with a handsome
fortune. The rest of his life he devoted to travel and ratiocination;
here is the result.” Mr. Scogan tapped the dummy books. “And now we come
to the ‘Tales of Knockespotch’. What a masterpiece and what a great man!
Knockespotch knew how to write fiction. Ah, Denis, if you could only
read Knockespotch you wouldn’t be writing a novel about the wearisome
development of a young man’s character, you wouldn’t be describing in
endless, fastidious detail, cultured life in Chelsea and Bloomsbury and
Hampstead. You would be trying to write a readable book. But then, alas!
owing to the peculiar arrangement of our host’s library, you never will
read Knockespotch.”
“Nobody could regret the fact more than I do,” said Denis.
“It was Knockespotch,” Mr. Scogan continued, “the great Knockespotch,
who delivered us from the dreary tyranny of the realistic novel. My
life, Knockespotch said, is not so long that I can afford to spend
precious hours writing or reading descriptions of middle-class
interiors. He said again, ‘I am tired of seeing the human mind bogged in
a social plenum; I prefer to paint it in a vacuum, freely and sportively
bombinating.’”
“I say,” said Gombauld, “Knockespotch was a little obscure sometimes,
wasn’t he?”
“He was,” Mr. Scogan replied, “and with intention. It made him seem even
profounder than he actually was. But it was only in his aphorisms that
he was so dark and oracular. In his Tales he was always luminous. Oh,
those Tales--those Tales! How shall I describe them? Fabulous characters
shoot across his pages like gaily dressed performers on the trapeze.
There are extraordinary adventures and still more extraordinary
speculations. Intelligences and emotions, relieved of all the imbecile
preoccupations of civilised life, move in intricate and subtle dances,
crossing and recrossing, advancing, retreating, impinging. An immense
erudition and an immense fancy go hand in hand. All the ideas of the
present and of the past, on every possible subject, bob up among
the Tales, smile gravely or grimace a caricature of themselves, then
disappear to make place for something new. The verbal surface of his
writing is rich and fantastically diversified. The wit is incessant.
The...”
“But couldn’t you give us a specimen,” Denis broke in--“a concrete
example?”
“Alas!” Mr. Scogan replied, “Knockespotch’s great book is like the sword
Excalibur. It remains struck fast in this door, awaiting the coming of a
writer with genius enough to draw it forth. I am not even a writer, I
am not so much as qualified to attempt the task. The extraction of
Knockespotch from his wooden prison I leave, my dear Denis, to you.”
“Thank you,” said Denis.