Produced by Stan Goodman and Curtis Weyant
IF I MAY
A. A. MILNE
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NOT THAT IT MATTERS
Named by _Life_ in its issue of October 28, 1920, as one of the best
six current books.
"No better book for vacation reading." --_Review_
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
* * * * *
IF I MAY
BY
A. A. MILNE
AUTHOR OF "NOT THAT IT MATTERS," ETC.
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
682 FIFTH AVENUE
COPYRIGHT, 1921,
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
All Rights Reserved
_First Edition_, October, 1921
_New Popular Edition_, 1925
Printed in the United States of America
* * * * *
These essays are reprinted, with such alterations and additions as
seemed proper, from _The Sphere_, _The Outlook_, _The Daily News_,
_The Sunday Express_ (London) and _Vanity Fair_ (New York).
A. A. M.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
THE CASE FOR THE ARTIST
A LONDON GARDEN
THE GAME OF KINGS
FIXTURES AND FITTINGS
EXPERTS
THE ROBINSON TRADITION
GETTING THINGS DONE
CHRISTMAS GAMES
THE MATHEMATICAL MIND
GOING OUT TO DINNER
THE ETIQUETTE OF ESCAPE
GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH
CHILDREN'S PLAYS
THE ROAD TO KNOWLEDGE
A MAN OF PROPERTY
AN ORDNANCE MAP
THE LORD MAYOR
THE HOLIDAY PROBLEM
THE BURLINGTON ARCADE
STATE LOTTERIES
THE RECORD LIE
WEDDING BELLS
PUBLIC OPINION
THE HONOUR OF YOUR COUNTRY
A VILLAGE CELEBRATION
A TRAIN OF THOUGHT
MELODRAMA
A LOST MASTERPIECE
A HINT FOR NEXT CHRISTMAS
THE FUTURE
THE LARGEST CIRCULATION
THE WATSON TOUCH
SOME OLD COMPANIONS
A HAUNTED HOUSE
ROUND THE WORLD AND BACK
THE STATE OF THE THEATRE
THE FIRES OF AUTUMN
NOT GUILTY
A DIGRESSION
HIGH FINANCE
SECRET PAPERS
* * * * *
IF I MAY
* * * * *
IF I MAY
The Case for the Artist
By an "artist" I mean Shakespeare and Me and Bach and Myself and
Velasquez and Phidias, and even You if you have ever written four
lines on the sunset in somebody's album, or modelled a Noah's Ark for
your little boy in plasticine. Perhaps we have not quite reached the
heights where Shakespeare stands, but we are on his track. Shakespeare
can be representative of all of us, or Velasquez if you prefer him.
One of them shall be President of our United Artists' Federation. Let
us, then, consider what place in the scheme of things our federation
can claim.
Probably we artists have all been a little modest about ourselves
lately. During the war we asked ourselves gloomily what use we were to
the State compared with the noble digger of coals, the
much-to-be-reverenced maker of boots, and the god-like grower of wheat.
Looking at the pictures in the illustrated papers of brawny, half-dressed
men pushing about blocks of red-hot iron, we have told ourselves that
these heroes were the pillars of society, and that we were just an
incidental decoration. It was a wonder that we were allowed to live.
And now in these days of strikes, when a single union of manual
workers can hold up the rest of the nation, it is a bitter reflection
to us that, if we were to strike, the country would go on its way
quite happily, and nine-tenths of the population would not even know
that we had downed our pens and brushes.
If there is any artist who has been depressed by such thoughts as
these, let him take comfort. _We are all right._
I made the discovery that we were all right by studying the life of
the bee. All that I knew about bees until yesterday was derived from
that great naturalist, Dr. Isaac Watts. In common with every one who
has been a child I knew that the insect in question improved each
shining hour by something honey something something every something
flower. I had also heard that bees could not sting you if you held
your breath, a precaution which would make conversation by the
herbaceous border an affair altogether too spasmodic; and, finally,
that in any case the same bee could only sting you once--though,
apparently, there was no similar provision of Nature's that the same
person could not be stung twice.
Well, that was all that I knew about bees until yesterday. I used to
see them about the place from time to time, busy enough, no doubt, but
really no busier than I was; and as they were not much interested in
me they had no reason to complain that I was not much interested in
them. But since yesterday, when I read a book which dealt fully, not
only with the public life of the bee, but with the most intimate
details of its private life, I have looked at them with a new interest
and a new sympathy. For there is no animal which does not get more out
of life than the pitiable insect which Dr. Watts holds up as an
example to us.
Hitherto, it may be, you have thought of the bee as an admirable and
industrious insect, member of a model community which worked day and
night to but one end--the well-being of the coming race. You knew
perhaps that it fertilized the flowers, but you also knew that the bee
didn't know; you were aware that, it any bee deliberately went about
trying to improve your delphiniums instead of gathering honey for the
State, it would be turned down promptly by the other workers. For
nothing is done in the hive without this one utilitarian purpose. Even
the drones take their place in the scheme of things; a minor place in
the stud; and when the next generation is assured, and the drones
cease to be useful and can now only revert to the ornamental, they are
ruthlessly cast out.
It comes, then, to this. The bee devotes its whole life to preparing
for the next generation. But what is the next generation going to do?
It is going to spend its whole life preparing for the third
generation... and so on for ever.
An admirable community, the moralists tell us. Poor moralists! To miss
so much of the joy of life; to deny oneself the pleasure (to mention
only one among many) of reclining lazily on one's back in a
snap-dragon, watching the little white clouds sail past upon a sea of
blue; to miss these things for no other reason than that the next
generation may also have an opportunity of missing them--is that
admirable? What do the bees think that they are doing? If they live a
life of toil and self-sacrifice merely in order that the next
generation may live a life of equal toil and self-sacrifice, what has
been gained? Ask the next bee you meet what it thinks it is doing in
this world, and the only answer it can give you is, "Keeping up the
supply of bees." Is that an admirable answer? How much more admirable
if it could reply that it was eschewing all pleasure and living the
life of a galley-slave in order that the next generation might have
leisure to paint the poppy a more glorious scarlet. But no. The next
generation is going at it just as hard for the same unproductive end;
it has no wish to leave anything behind it--a new colour, a new scent,
a new idea. It has one object only in this world--more bees. Could any
scheme of life be more sterile?
Having come to this conclusion about the bee, I took fresh courage. I
saw at once that it was the artist in Man which made him less
contemptible than the Bee. That god-like person the grower of wheat
assumed his proper level. Bread may be necessary to existence, but
what is the use of existence if you are merely going to employ it in
making bread? True, the farmer makes bread, not only for himself, but
for the miner; and the miner produces coal--not only for himself, but
for the farmer; and the farmer also produces bread for the maker of
boots, who produces boots, not only for himself, but for the farmer
and the miner. But you are still getting no further. It is the
Life of the Bee over again, with no other object in it but mere
existence. If this were all, there would be nothing to write on our
tombstones but "Born 1800; Died 1880. _He lived till then._"
But it is not all, because--and here I strike my breast
proudly--because of us artists. Not only can we write on Shakespeare's
tomb, "He wrote _Hamlet_" or "He was not for an age, but for all
time," but we can write on a contemporary baker's tomb, "He provided
bread for the man who wrote _Hamlet_," and on a contemporary
butcher's tomb, "He was not only for himself, but for Shakespeare."
We perceive, in fact, that the only matter upon which any worker,
other than the artist, can congratulate himself, whether he be
manual-worker, brain-worker, surgeon, judge, or politician, is that he
is helping to make the world tolerable for the artist. It is only the
artist who will leave anything behind him. He is the fighting-man, the
man who counts; the others are merely the Army Service Corps of
civilization. A world without its artists, a world of bees, would be
as futile and as meaningless a thing as an army composed entirely of
the A.S.C.
Possibly you put in a plea here for the explorer and the scientist.
The explorer perhaps may stand alone. His discovery of a peak in
Darien is something in itself, quite apart from the happy possibility
that Keats may be tempted to bring it into a sonnet. Yes, if a
Beef-Essence-Merchant has only provided sustenance for an Explorer he
has not lived in vain, however much the poets and the painters recoil
from his wares. But of the scientist I am less certain. I fancy that
his invention of the telephone (for instance) can only be counted to
his credit because it has brought the author into closer touch with
his publisher.
So we artists (yes, and explorers) may be of good faith. They may try
to pretend, these others, in their little times of stress, that we are
nothing--decorative, inessential; that it is they who make the world
go round. This will not upset us. We could not live without them;
true. But (a much more bitter thought) they would have no reason for
living at all, were it not for us.
A London Garden
I have always wanted a garden of my own. Other people's gardens are
all very well, but the visitor never sees them at their best. He comes
down in June, perhaps, and says something polite about the roses. "You
ought to have seen them last year," says his host disparagingly, and
the visitor represses with difficulty the retort, "You ought to have
asked me down to see them last year." Or, perhaps, he comes down in
August, and lingers for a moment beneath the fig-tree. "Poor show of
figs," says the host, "I don't know what's happened to them. Now we
had a record crop of raspberries. Never seen them so plentiful
before." And the visitor has to console himself with the thought of
the raspberries which he has never seen, and will probably miss again
next year. It is not very comforting.
Give me, therefore, a garden of my own. Let me grow my own flowers,
and watch over them from seedhood to senility. Then shall I miss
nothing of their glory, and when visitors come I can impress them with
my stories of the wonderful show of groundsel which we had last year.
For the moment I am contenting myself with groundsel. To judge by the
present state of the garden, the last owner must have prided himself
chiefly on his splendid show of canaries. Indeed, it would not
surprise me to hear that he referred to his garden as "the
back-yard." This would take the heart out of anything which was
trying to flower there, and it is only natural that, with the
exception of the three groundsel beds, the garden is now a wilderness.
Perhaps "wilderness" gives you a misleading impression of space, the
actual size of the pleasaunce being about two hollyhocks by one, but
it is the correct word to describe the air of neglect which hangs over
the place. However, I am going to alter that.
With a garden of this size, though, one has to be careful. One cannot
decide lightly upon a croquet-lawn here, an orchard there, and a
rockery in the corner; one has to go all out for the one particular
thing, whether it is the last hoop and the stick of a croquet-lawn, a
mulberry-tree, or an herbaceous border. Which do we want most--a fruit
garden, a flower garden, or a water garden? Sometimes I think fondly
of a water garden, with a few perennial gold-fish flashing swiftly
across it, and ourselves walking idly by the margin and pointing them
out to our visitors; and then I realize sadly that, by the time an
adequate margin has been provided for ourselves and our visitors,
there will be no room left for the gold-fish.
At the back of my garden I have a high brick wall. To whom the bricks
actually belong I cannot say, but at any rate I own the surface rights
on this side of it. One of my ideas is to treat it as the back cloth
of a stage, and paint a vista on it. A long avenue of immemorial elms,
leading up to a gardener's lodge at the top of the wall--I mean at the
end of the avenue--might create a pleasing impression. My workroom
leads out into the garden, and I have a feeling that, if the door of
this room were opened, and then hastily closed again on the plea that
I mustn't be disturbed, a visitor might obtain such a glimpse of the
avenue and the gardener's lodge as would convince him that I had come
into property. He might even make an offer for the estate, if he were
set upon a country house in the heart of London.
But you have probably guessed already the difficulty in the way of my
vista. The back wall extends into the gardens of the householders on
each side of me. They might refuse to co-operate with me; they might
insist on retaining the blank ugliness of theirs walls, or
endeavouring (as they endeavour now, I believe) to grow some
unenterprising creeper up them; with the result that my vista would
fail to create the necessary illusion when looked at from the side.
This would mean that our guests would have to remain in one position,
and that even in this position they would have to stand to
attention--a state of things which might mar their enjoyment of our
hospitality. Until, then, our neighbours give me a free hand with
their segments of the wall, the vista must remain a beautiful dream.
However, there are other possibilities. Since there is no room in the
garden for a watchdog and a garden, it might be a good idea to paint a
phosphorescent and terrifying watchdog on the wall. Perhaps a
watchlion would be even more terrifying--and, presumably, just as easy
to paint. Any burglar would be deterred if he came across a lion
suddenly in the back garden. One way or another, it should be possible
to have something a little more interesting than mere bricks at the
end of the estate.
And if the worst comes to the worst--if it is found that no flowers
(other than groundsel) will flourish in my garden, owing to lack of
soil or lack of sun--then the flowers must be painted on the walls.
This would have its advantages, for we should waste no time over the
early and uninteresting stages of the plant, but depict it at once in
its full glory. And we should keep our garden up to date. When
delphiniums went out of season, we should rub them out and give you
chrysanthemums; and if an untimely storm uprooted the chrysanthemums,
in an hour or two we should have a wonderful show of dahlias to take
their place. And we should still have the floor-space free for a
sundial, or--if you insist on exercise--for the last hoop and the
stick of a full-sized croquet-lawn.
The Game of Kings
I do not claim to be an authority on either the history or the
practice of chess, but, as the poet Gray observed when he saw his old
school from a long way off, it is sometimes an advantage not to know
too much of one's subject. The imagination can then be exercised more
effectively. So when I am playing Capablanca (or old Robinson) for the
championship of the home pastures, my thoughts are not fixed
exclusively upon the "mate" which is threatening; they wander off
into those enchanted lands of long ago, when flesh-and-blood knights
rode at stone-built castles, and thin-lipped bishops, all smiles and
side-long glances, plotted against the kings who ventured to oppose
them. This is the real fascination of chess.
You observe that I speak of castles, not of rooks. I do not know
whence came this custom of calling the most romantic piece on the
board by the name of a very ordinary bird, but I, at least, will not
be a party to it. I refuse to surrender the portcullis and the moat,
the bastion and the well-manned towers, which were the features of
every castle with which hitherto I have played, in order to take the
field with allies so unromantic as a brace of rooks. You may tell me
that "rook" is a corruption of this or that word, meaning something
which has never laid an egg in its life. It may be so, but in that
case you cannot blame me for continuing to call it the castle which
its shape proclaims it.
Knowing nothing of the origin of the game, I can tell myself stories
about it. That it was invented by a woman is obvious, for why else
should the queen be the most powerful piece of them all? She lived,
this woman, in a priest-ridden land, but she had no love for the
Church. Neither bland white bishop nor crooked-smiling black bishop
did she love; that is why she made them move sideways. Yet she could
not deny them their power. They were as powerful as the gallant young
knight who rode past her window singing to battle, where he swooped
upon the enemy impetuously from this side and that, heedless of the
obstacles in the way, or worked two of them into such a position that,
though one might escape, the other was doomed to bite the dust. Yet
the bishop, man of peace though he proclaimed himself, was as powerful
as he, but not so powerful as a baron in his well-fortified castle.
For sometimes there were places beyond the influence of the Church, if
one could reach them in safety; though when the Church hunted in
couples, the king's priest and the queen's priest out together, then
there was no certain refuge, and one must sally upon them bravely and
run the risk of being excommunicated.
No, she did not love the Church. Sometimes I think that she was
herself a queen, who had suffered at the hands of the bishops; and,
just as you or I put our enemies into a book, thereby gaining much
private satisfaction even though they do not recognize themselves, so
she made a game of her enemies and enjoyed her revenge in secret. But
if she were a queen, then she was a queen-mother, and the king was not
her husband but her little son. This would account for the perpetual
intrigues against him, and the fact that he was so powerless to aid
himself. Probably the enemy was too strong for him in the end, and he
and his mother were taken into captivity together. It was in prison
that she invented the royal game, the young king amused himself by
carving out the first rough pieces.
But was she a queen? Sometimes I think that I have the story wrong;
for what queen in those days would have assented to a proposition so
democratic as that a man-at-arms (a "pawn" in the language of the
unromantic) could rise by his own exertions to the dignity of Royalty
itself? But if she were a waiting-maid in love with the king's own
man-at-arms, then it would be natural that she should set no limit to
her ambitions for him. The man-at-arms crowned would be in keeping
with her most secret dreams.
These are the things of which I think when I push my king's
man-at-arms two leagues forward. A game of chess is a romance sport
when it is described in that dull official notation "P to K4 Kt to
KB3"; a story should be woven around it. One of these days, perhaps,
I shall tell the story of my latest defeat. Lewis Carroll had some
such intention when he began _Alice Through the Looking Glass_, but he
went at it half-heartedly. Besides, being a clergyman and writing as
he did for children, he was handicapped; he dared not introduce the
bishops. I shall have no such fears, and my story will be serious.
Consider for a moment the romance which underlies the most ordinary
game. You push out the king's pawn and your opponent does the same. It
is plain (is it not?) that these are the heralds, meeting at the
border-line between the two kingdoms--Ivoria and Ebonia, let us say.
There I have my first chapter: The history of the dispute, the
challenge by Ivoria, the acceptance of the challenge by Ebonia.
Chapter Two describes the sallying forth of the knights--"Kt to KB3,
Kt to QB3." In the next chapter the bishop gains the queen's ear and
suggests that he should take the field. He is no fighter, but he has
the knack of excommunicating. The queen, a young and beautiful widow,
with an infant son, consents ("B to QB4"), and set about removing
her child to a place of safety. She invokes the aid of Roqueblanc, an
independent chieftain, who, spurred on by love for her, throws all his
forces on to her side, offering at the same time his well-guarded
fastness as a sanctuary for her boy. ("Castles.") Then the queen
musters all her own troops and leads them into battle by the side of
the Baron Roqueblanc....
But I must not tell you the whole story now. You can imagine for
yourself some of the more exciting things which happen. You can
picture, for instance, that vivid chapter in which the young king, at
a moment when his very life is threatened by an Ebonian baron, is
saved by the self-sacrifices of Roqueblanc, who hurls himself in front
of the royal youth's person and himself falls a victim, to be avenged
immediately by a watchful man-at-arms. You can follow, if you will,
the further adventures of that man-at-arms, up to that last chapter
when he marries the still beautiful queen, and henceforward acts in
her name, taking upon himself a power similar to her own. In fact, you
can write the book yourself. But if you do not care to do this, let me
beg you at least to bring a little imagination to the next game which
you play. Then whether you win or (as is more likely) you lose, you
will at least be worthy of the Game of Kings.
Fixtures and Fittings
There was once a young man who decided to be a poodle-clipper. He felt
that he had a natural bent for it, and he had been told that a
fashionable poodle-clipper could charge his own price for his
services. But his father urged him to seek another profession. "It is
an uncertain life, poodle-clipping," he said, "To begin with, very
few people keep poodles at all. Of these few, only a small proportion
wants its poodles clipped. And, of this small proportion, a still
smaller proportion is likely to want its poodles clipped by _you_."
So the young man decided to be a hair-dresser instead.
I thought of this story the other day when I was bargaining with a
house-agent about "fixtures," and I decided that no son of mine
should become a curtain-pole manufacturer. I suppose that the price of
a curtain-rod (pole or perch) is only a few shillings, and, once made,
it remains in a house for ever. Tenants come and go, new landlords buy
and sell, but the old brass rod stays firm at the top of the window,
supporting curtain after curtain. How many new sets are made in a
year? No more, it would seem, than the number of new houses built. Far
better, then to manufacture an individual possession like a
tooth-brush, which has the additional advantage of wearing out every
few months.
But from the consumer's point of view, a curtain-rod is a pleasant
thing. He has the satisfaction of feeling that, having once bought it,
he has bought it for the rest of his life. He may change his house and
with it his Fixtures, but there is no loss on the brass part of the
transaction, however much there may be on the bricks and mortar. What
he pays out with one hand, he takes in with the other. Nor is his
property subject to the ordinary mischances of life. There was an
historic character who "lost the big drum," but he would become even
more historic who had lost a curtain-rod, and neither parlour-maid nor
cat is ever likely to wear a guilty conscience over the breaking of
one.
I have not yet discovered, in spite of my recent familiarity with
house-agents, the difference between a fixture and a fitting. It is
possible that neither word has any virtue without the other, as is the
case with "spick" and "span." One has to be both; however dapper,
one would never be described as a span gentleman. In the same way it
may be that a curtain-rod or an electric light is never just a fixture
or a fitting, but always "included in the fixtures and fittings."
Then there is a distinction, apparently, between a "landlord's
fixture" and a "tenant's fixture," which is rather subtle. A
fire-dog is a landlord's fixture; so is a door-plate. If you buy a
house you get the fire-dogs and the door-plates thrown in, which seems
unnecessarily generous. I can understand the landlord deciding to
throw in the walls and the roof, because he couldn't do much with them
if you refused to take them, but it is a mystery why he should include
a door-plate, which can easily be removed and sold to somebody else.
And if a door-plate, why not a curtain-rod? A curtain-rod is a
necessity to the incoming tenant; a door-plate is merely a luxury for
the grubby-fingered to help them to keep the paint clean. One might
be expected to bring one's own door-plate with one, according to the
size of one's hand.
For the whole idea of a fixture or fitting can only be that it is
something about which there can be no individual taste. We furnish a
house according to our own private fancy; the "fixtures" are the
furnishings in regard to which we are prepared to accept the general
fancy. The other man's curtain-rod, though easily detachable and able
to fit a hundred other windows, is a fixture; his carpet-as-planned
(to use the delightful language of the house-agent), though securely
nailed down and the wrong size for any other room but this, is not a
fixture. Upon some such reasoning the first authorized schedule of
fixtures and fittings must have been made out.
It seems a pity that it has not been extended. There are other things
than curtain-rods and electric-light bulbs which might be left behind
in the old house and picked up again in the new. The silver
cigarette-box, which we have all had as a birthday or wedding present,
might safely be handed over to the incoming tenant, in the certainty
that another just like it will be waiting for us in our next house.
True, it will have different initials on it, but that will only make
it the more interesting, our own having become fatiguing to us by this
time. Possibly this sort of thing has already been done in an
unofficial way among neighbors. By mutual agreement they leave their
aspidistras and their "Maiden's Prayer" behind them. It saves
trouble and expense in the moving, which is an important thing in
these days, and there would always be the hope that the next
aspidistra might be on the eve of flowering or laying eggs, or
whatever it is that its owner expects from it.
Experts
The man in front of the fire was telling us a story about his wife and
a bottle of claret. He had taken her to the best restaurant in Paris
and had introduced her to a bottle of the famous Chateau Whatsitsname,
1320 (or thereabouts), a wine absolutely priceless--although the
management, with its customary courtesy, had allowed him to pay a
certain amount for it. Not realizing that it was actually the famous
Whatsitsname, she had drunk it in the ordinary way, neither holding it
up to the light and saying, "Ah, there's a wine!" nor rolling it
round the palate before swallowing. On the next day they went to a
commonplace restaurant and drank a local and contemporary vintage at
five francs the bottle, of similar colour but very different
temperament. When she had finished her glass, she said hesitatingly,
"Of course, I don't know anything about wine, and I dare say I'm
quite wrong, but I can't help feeling that the claret we had last
night was better than this."
The man in front of the fire was rather amused by this, as were most
of his audience. For myself, I felt that the lady demanded my
admiration rather than my amusement. Without the assistance of the
labels, many of us might have decided that it was the five-franc
vintage which was the better wine. She didn't. Indeed, I am inclined
to read more into the story than is perhaps there; I believe that she
had misunderstood her husband, and had thought that the second bottle
was the famous, aged, and priceless Chateau Whatsitsname, and that, in
spite of this, she gave it as her opinion that the first wine, cheap
and modern though it might be, was the better. Hats off, then, to a
brave woman! How many of us would have her courage and her honesty?
But perhaps you who read this are an expert on wine. If so, you are
lucky. I am an expert on nothing--nothing, anyhow, that matters. I
envy all you experts tremendously. When I see a cigar-expert listening
to his cigar before putting it in his mouth I wish that I were as
great a man as he. Privately sometimes I have listened to a cigar, but
it has told me nothing. The only way I can tell whether it is good or
bad is by smoking it. Even then I could not tell you (without the
assistance of the band) whether it was a Sancho Panza or a Guoco
Piano. I could only tell you whether I liked it or not, a question of
no importance whatever.
Lately I have been trying to become a furniture-expert, but it is a
disheartening business. I have a book called Chats on Old Furniture--a
terrible title to have to ask for in a shop, but I asked boldly.
Perhaps the word "chat" does not make other people feel as unhappy
as it makes me. But even after reading this book I am not really an
expert. I know now that it is no good listening to a Chippendale chair
to see if it is really Chippendale; one must stroke it in order to
find out whether it is a "genuine antique" or only a modern
reproduction; but it is obvious that years of stroking would be
necessary before an article of furniture would be properly responsive.
Is it worth while wasting these years of one's life? Indeed, is it
worth while (I ask nervously) bothering whether a chair or a table is
antique or modern so long as it is both useful and beautiful?
Well, let me tell you what happened to us yesterday. We found a
dresser which appealed to us considerably, and we stood in front of
it, looking at it. We decided that except for a little curley-wiggle
at the top it was the jolliest dresser we had seen, "That's a fine
old dresser," said the shopman, coming up at that moment, and he
smacked it encouragingly. "A really fine old dresser, that." We
agreed. "Except for those curley-wiggles," I added, pointing to them
with my umbrella. "If we could take those off." He looked at me
reproachfully. "You wouldn't take those off----" he said. "Why,
that's what tells you that it's a Welsh dresser of 1720." We didn't
buy that dresser. We decided that the size or the price was all wrong.
But I wonder now, supposing we had bought it, whether we should have
had the pluck to remove the curley-wiggles (and let people mistake it
for an English dresser of 1920) in order that, so abbreviated, it
might have been more beautiful.
For furniture is not beautiful merely because it is old. It is absurd
to suppose that everything made in 1720--or 1620 or 1520--was made
beautifully, as it would be absurd to say that everything made in 1920
was beautiful. No doubt there will always be people who will regard
the passing of time as sufficient justification for any article of
furniture; I could wish that they were equally tolerant among the arts
as among the crafts, so that in 2120 this very article which I write
now could be referred to with awe as a genuine 1920; but all that the
passage of time can really do for your dresser is to give a more
beautiful surface and tone to the wood. This, surely, is a matter
which you can judge for yourself without being an expert. If your
dresser looks old you have got from it all that age can give you; if
it looks beautiful you have got from it all that a craftsman of any
period can give you; why worry, then, as to whether or not it is a
"genuine antique"? The expert may tell you that it is a fake, but
the fact that he has suddenly said so has not made your dining-room
less beautiful. Or if it is less beautiful, it is only because an
"expert" is now in it. Hurry him out.
The Robinson Tradition
Having read lately an appreciation of that almost forgotten author
Marryat, and having seen in the shilling box of a second-hand
bookseller a few days afterward a copy of _Masterman Ready_, I went in
and bought the same. I had read it as a child, and remembered vaguely
that it combined desert-island adventure with a high moral tone; jam
and powder in the usual proportions. Reading it again, I found that
the powder was even more thickly spread than I had expected; hardly a
page but carried with it a valuable lesson for the young; yet this
particular jam (guava and cocoanut) has such an irresistible
attraction for me that I swallowed it all without a struggle, and was
left with a renewed craving for more and yet more desert-island
stories. Having, unfortunately, no others at hand, the only
satisfaction I can give myself is to write about them.
I would say first that, even if an author is writing for children (as
was Marryat), and even if morality can best be implanted in the young
mind with a watering of fiction, yet a desert-island story is the last
story which should be used for this purpose. For a desert-island is a
child's escape from real life and its many lessons. Ask yourself why
you longed for a desert-island when you were young, and you will find
the answer to be that you did what you liked there, ate what you
liked, and carried through your own adventures. It is the "Family"
which spoils _The Swiss Family Robinson_, just as it is the Seagrave
family which nearly wrecks _Masterman Ready_. What is the good of
imagining yourself (as every boy does) "Alone in the Pacific" if you
are not going to be alone? Well, perhaps we do not wish to be quite
alone; but certainly to have more than two on an island is to
overcrowd it, and our companion must be of a like age and disposition.
For this reason parents spoil any island for a healthy-minded boy. He
may love his father and mother as fondly as even they could wish, but
he does not want to take them bathing in the lagoon with him--still
less to have them on the shore, telling him that there are too many
sharks this morning and that it is quite time he came out. Nor for
that matter do parents want to be bothered with children on a South
Sea holiday. In _Masterman Ready_ there is a horrid little boy called
Tommy, aged six, who is always letting the musket off accidentally, or
getting bitten by a turtle, or taking more than his share of the
cocoanut milk. As a grown-up I wondered why his father did not give
him to the first savage who came by, and so allow himself a chance of
enjoying his island in peace; but at Tommy's age I should have
resented just as strongly a father who, even on a desert-island, could
not bear to see his boy making a fool of himself with turtle and
gunpowder.
I am not saying that a boy would really be happy for long, whether on
a desert-island or elsewhere, without his father and mother. Indeed it
is doubtful if he could survive, happily or unhappily. Possibly
William Seagrave could have managed it. William was only twelve, but
he talked like this: "I agree with you, Ready. Indeed I have been
thinking the same thing for many days past.... I wish the savages
would come on again, for the sooner they come the sooner the affair
will be decided." A boy who can talk like this at twelve is capable
of finding the bread-fruit tree for himself. But William is an
exception. I claim no such independence for the ordinary boy; I only
say that the ordinary boy, however dependent on his parents, does like
to pretend that he is capable of doing without them, wherefore he
gives them no leading part in the imaginary adventures which he
pursues so ardently. If they are there at all, it is only that he may
come back to them in the last chapter and tell them all about it...
and be suitably admired.
_Masterman Ready_ seems to me, then, to be the work of a father, not
of an understanding writer for boys. Marryat wrote it for his own
children, towards whom he had responsibilities; not for other people's
children, for whom he would only be concerned to provide
entertainment. But even if the book was meant for no wider circle than
the home, one would still feel that the moral teaching was overdone.
It should be possible to be edifying without losing one's sense of
humour. When Juno, the black servant, was struck by lightning and not
quite killed, she "appeared to be very sensible of the wonderful
preservation which she had had. She had always been attentive whenever
the Bible was read, but now she did not appear to think that the
morning and evening services were sufficient to express her
gratitude." Even a child would feel that Juno really need not have
been struck by lightning at all; even a child might wonder how many
services, on this scale of gratitude, were adequate for the rest of
the party whom the lightning had completely missed. And it was perhaps
a little self-centred of Ready to thank God for her recovery on the
grounds that she could "ill be spared" by a family rather
short-handed in the rainy season.
However, the story is the thing. As long as a desert-island book
contains certain ingredients, I do not mind if other superfluous
matter creeps in. Our demands--we of the elect who adore
desert-islands--are simple. The castaways must build themselves a hut
with the aid of a bag of nails saved from the wreck; they must catch
turtles by turning them over on their backs; they must find the
bread-fruit tree and have adventures with sharks. Twice they must be
visited by savages. On the first occasion they are taken by surprise,
but--the savages being equally surprised--no great harm is done. Then
the Hero says, "They will return when the wind is favourable," and
he arranges his defences, not forgetting to lay in a large stock of
water. The savages return in force, and then--this is most
important--at the most thirsty moment of the siege it is discovered
that the water is all gone! Generally a stray arrow has pierced the
water-butt, but in _Masterman Ready_ the insufferable Tommy has played
the fool with it. (He would.) This is the Hero's great opportunity. He
ventures to the spring to get more water, and returns with
it--wounded. Barely have the castaways wetted their lips with the
precious fluid when the attack breaks out with redoubled fury. It
seems now that all is lost... when, lo! a shell bursts into the middle
of the attacking hordes. (Never into the middle of the defenders. That
would be silly.) "Look," the Hero cries, "a vessel off-shore with
its main braces set and a jib-sail flying"--or whatever it may be.
And they return to London.
This is the story which we want, and we cannot have too many of them.
Should you ever see any of us with our noses over the shilling box and
an eager light in our eyes, you may be sure that we are on the track
of another one.
Getting Things Done
In the castle of which I am honorary baron we are in the middle of an
orgy of "getting things done." It must always be so, I suppose, when
one moves into a new house. After the last furniture van has departed,
and the painters' bill has been receipted, one feels that one can now
settle down to enjoy one's new surroundings. But no. The discoveries
begin. This door wants a new lock on it, that fireplace wants a brick
taken out, the garden is in need of something else, somebody ought to
inspect the cistern. What about the drains? There are a hundred things
to be "done."
I have a method in these matters. When I observe that something wants
doing, I say casually to the baroness, "We ought to do something
about that fireplace," or whatever it is. I say it with the air of a
man who knows exactly what to do, and would do it himself if he were
not so infernally busy. The correct answer to this is, "Yes, I'll go
and see about it to-day." Sometimes the baroness tries to put it on
to me by saying, "We ought to do something about the cistern," but
she has not quite got the casual tone necessary, and I have no
difficulty in replying (with the air of a man who, etc.), "Yes, we
ought." The proper answer to this is, "Very well, then. I'll go and
see about it." In either case, as you will agree, action on the part
of the baroness should follow.
Unfortunately it doesn't. She, it appears, is a partner in my
weakness. We neither of us know how to get things done. It is a
knowledge which one can never acquire. Either you are born with an
instinct for the man round the corner who tests cisterns, or you are
born without it, in which case you never, never find him. There are
men with the instinct so highly developed that they can tell you at a
moment's notice the name and address, not merely of a man who will
test your cistern for you, but of the one man in your neighbourhood
who will test it most efficiently and most cheaply. If your canary
moulted unduly, and you said to your wife, "We must do something
about Ambrose," they could tell you at once of the best canary-mender
to approach. These are the men I admire. But there are weaklings (of
both sexes, unfortunately) who would not even know whether a
greengrocer or a veterinary surgeon was the man to send for, and who
are entirely vague as to whether a cistern is tested for water or for
lead-poisoning.
The press speaks of this or that politician sometimes as the
"Minister who gets things done." I have always felt that, given an
adequate permanent staff, I might go down to fame as the householder
who got things done. As you see, my staff lets me down. I am quite
capable of sitting in my office and saying to an under-secretary, "We
must do something about this shell business." This, in fact, is just
my line. I am quite capable of saying firmly, "I must have ten
million big guns by August." And if the undersecretary only made the
correct reply, "Very well, sir, I'll see about it," my photograph
would appear in the papers as that of "the man who got the guns."
But when your under-secretary refuses to carry on, where are you?
What I want, and what, I imagine, most people who have moved into a
new house want, is an intermediary to get things done for us. I
suggest this as a profession to any demobilized soldier looking for
work. He should walk about London, making a note of the houses which
have just been sold or let, and as soon as the new residents have
taken possession, he should send round his card. "Tell me what is
worrying you," he would say, "and I will see that something is done
about it." He might charge a couple of guineas as his fee. Perhaps it
would be better if he said, "Let me tell you what is likely to worry
you"--if, that is to say, his business was to go round your house
directly you got into it, to make a list of the jobs that wanted
doing, and then, armed with your authority, to go off and get them
done. Many people would gladly pay him two guineas for such excellent
services, and he could probably pick up a trifle more as commission
from the men to whom he gave the work. It would be worth trying
anyway.
But, of course, such a man would have to have a vast knowledge of
affairs. He would have to know, for instance, how one buys string. In
the ordinary way one doesn't buy string; it comes to you, and you take
it off and send it back again. But the occasion may arise when you
want lots and lots of it. Then it is necessary to look for a string
shop. A friend of mine spent the whole of one afternoon trying to buy
a ball of string. He wandered from one ironmonger to the other (he had
a fixed idea that an ironmonger was the man), and finally, in despair,
went into a large furnishing shop, noted for its "artistic suites."
He was very humble by this time, and his petition that they should
sell him some string because he was an old customer of theirs was
unfortunately worded. As far as I know he is still stringless, just as
I am still waiting for somebody to do something about the cistern.
Christmas Games
The shops are putting on their Christmas dress. The cotton-wool, that
time-hallowed substitute for snow, is creeping into the plate-glass
windows; the pink lace collars are encircling again the cakes; and the
"charming wedding or birthday present" of a week ago renews its
youth as a "suitable Yuletide gift." Everything calls to us to get
our Christmas shopping done early this year, but, as usual, we shall
put it off until the latest possible day, and in that last mad rush we
shall get Aunt Emily the wrong pair of mittens and overlook poor Uncle
John altogether.
Before I begin my own shopping I am waiting for an announcement in the
papers. All that my paper has told me is that the Christmas toy
bazaars of the big stores are now open. I have not yet seen that list
and description of the new games of the season for which I wait so
eagerly. It is possible that this year will produce the
masterpiece--the game which possesses in the highest degree all the
qualities of the ideal Christmas game. The unfortunate thing is that,
even if such a game were to appear in this year's catalogue, we should
have lost it by next year; for the National Sporting Club (or whoever
arranges these things) has always been convinced that "novelty" is
the one quality required at Christmas, the hall-mark of excellence
which no Christmas shopper can resist. If a game is novel, it is
enough. To the manager of a toy department the continued vogue of
cricket must be very bewildering.
Let us consider the ideal Christmas game. In the first place, it must
be a round game; that is to say, at least six people must be able to
play it simultaneously. No game for two only is permissible at
Christmas--unless, of course, it be under the mistletoe. Secondly, it
must be a game into which skill does not enter, or, if it does, it
must be a skill which is as likely to be shown by a child of eight or
an old gentleman of eighty as by a 'Varsity blue. Such skill, for
instance, as manifests itself at Tiddleywinks, that noble game. Yet,
even so, Tiddleywinks is too skilful a pursuit. One cannot say what it
is that makes a good Tiddleywinker, whether eye or wrist or supple
finger-work, but it is obvious that one who is "winking" badly must
be depressed by the thought that he is appearing stupid and clumsy to
his neighbours, and that this feeling is not conducive to that
happiness which his many Christmas cards have called down upon him.
It is better, therefore, that the element of skill should be absent.
Let it be a game of luck only; and, since it is impossible to play a
Christmas game for money, you will not be depressed if you lose.
The third and last essential of the ideal game is that it must provoke
laughter. You cannot laugh at Tiddleywinks, nor at Ludo (as I hear,
but I have never yet discovered what Ludo is), nor at Happy Families.
But the ideal game is provocative of that best kind of
laughter--laughter at the undeserved misfortunes of others, seasoned
by the knowledge that at any moment a similar misfortune may happen to
oneself.
Just before the war I came across the ideal game. I forget what it was
called, unless it was some such name as "The Prince's Quest." Six
princes, suitably coloured, set out to win the hand of the beautiful
princess. They started at one end of a long and winding road, and she
waited for the first arrival at the other end. The road, which passed
through the most enthralling scenery, was numbered by milestones--"1"
to "200". Suppose you were the Red Prince, you shook a die (I mean the
half of two dice), and if a four turned up, you advanced to the fourth
milestone. And so on, in succession. So far it doesn't sound very
exciting. But you are forgetting the scenery. Perhaps at the twelfth
milestone there awaited you the shoes of swiftness, which carried you
in one bound to the twentieth milestone; thus by throwing a three at
the ninth, you advanced eleven miles, whereas if you had thrown a four
you would only have advanced four miles. On arriving at other lucky
milestones you received a cloak of darkness, which took you past
various obstacles which were holding the others up, or perhaps were
introduced to a potent dwarf, who showed you a short cut forbidden to
your rivals. One way and another you pushed ahead of the other
princes.
And then the inevitable happened. You arrived at the eighty-fourth
milestone (or whatever it was) and you found a wicked enchanter
waiting for you, who cast upon you a backward spell, as a result of
which you had to travel backwards for the next three turns. Undaunted
by this reverse, you returned bravely to it, and perhaps came upon the
eighty-fourth milestone again. But even so you did not despair, for
there was always hope. The Blue Prince, who is now leading, approaches
the ninety-sixth milestone. He is, indeed, at the ninety-fifth. A
breathless moment as he shakes the die. Will he? He does. He throws a
one, reaches the ninety-sixth milestone, topples headlong into the
underground river, and is swept back to the starting-point again.