like. I ought to know, because I once tried to write one, and some
kind critic was found to say (as generally happens on these occasions)
that I showed "a wonderful insight into the child's mind." Perhaps
he was thinking of the elephant. The manager had a property elephant
left over from some other play which he had produced lately. There it
was, lying in the wings and getting in everybody's way. I think he had
left it about in the hope that I might be inspired by it. At one of
the final rehearsals, after I had fallen over this elephant several
times, he said, "It's a pity we aren't going to use the elephant.
Couldn't you get it in somewhere?" I said that I thought I could.
After all, getting an elephant into a play is merely a question of
stagecraft. If you cannot get an elephant on and off the stage in a
natural way, your technique is simply hopeless, and you had better
give up writing plays altogether. I need hardly say that my technique
was quite up to the work. At the critical moment the boy-hero said,
"Look, there's an elephant," pointing to that particular part of the
stage by which alone it could enter, and there, sure enough, the
elephant was. It then went through its trick of conveying a bun to its
mouth, after which the boy said, "Good-bye, elephant," and it was
hauled off backwards. Of course it intruded a certain gross
materialism into the delicate fancy of my play, but I did not care to
say so, because one has to keep in with the manager. Besides, there
was the elephant, eating its head off; it might just as well be used.
Well, so far as the children were concerned, the elephant was the
success of the play. Up to the moment of its entrance they were--well,
I hope not bored, but no more than politely interested. But as soon as
the hero said, "Look, there's an elephant," you could feel them all
jumping up and down in their seats and saying "Oo!" Nor was this
"Oo" atmosphere ever quite dispelled thereafter. The elephant had
withdrawn, but there was always the hope now that he might come on
again, and if an elephant, why not a giraffe, a hippopotamus, or a
polar-bear? For the rest of the pantomime every word was followed with
breathless interest. At any moment the hero might come out with
another brilliant line--"Look, there's a hippopotamus." Even when it
was proved, with the falling of the final curtain, that the author had
never again risen to these heights, there was still one chance left.
Perhaps if they clapped loudly enough, the elephant would hear, and
would take a call like the others.
What sort of pantomime do children like? It is a strange thing that we
never ask ourselves "What sort of plays--or books or pictures--do
public-school men like?" You say that that would be an absurd
question. Yet it is not nearly so absurd as the other. For the real
differences of thought and feeling between you and your neighbour were
there when you were children, and your agreements are the result of
the subsequent community of interests which you have shared--in
similar public-schools, universities, services, or professions. Why
should two children want to see the same pantomime? Apart from the
fact that "two children" may mean such different samples of humanity
as a boy of five and a girl of fifteen, is there any reason why
Smith's child and Robinson's child should think alike? And as for your
child, my dear sir (or madam), I have only to look at it--and at
you--to see at once how utterly different it is from every other child
which has ever been born. Obviously it would want something very much
superior to the sort of pantomime which would amuse those very
ordinary children of which Smith and Robinson are so proud.
I cannot, therefore, advance my own childish recollections of my first
pantomime as trustworthy evidence of what other children like. But I
should wish you to know that when I was taken to _Beauty and the
Beast_ at the age of seven, it was no elephant, nor any other kind of
beast, which made the afternoon sacred for me. It was Beauty. I just
gazed and gazed at Beauty. Never had I seen anything so lovely. For
weeks afterwards I dreamed about her. Nothing that was said or done on
the stage mattered so long as she was there. Probably the author had
put some of his most delightful work into that pantomime--"dialogue
which showed a wonderful insight into the child's mind"; I apologize
to him for not having listened to it. (I can sympathize with him now.)
Or it may be that the author had written for men and women of the
world; his dialogue was full of that sordid cynicism about married
life which is still considered amusing, so that the aunt who took me
wondered if this were really a pantomime suitable for children. Poor
dear!--as if I heard a word of it, I who was just waiting for Beauty
to come back.
What do children like? I do not think that there is any answer to that
question. They like anything; they like everything; they like so many
different things. But I am certain that there has never been an ideal
play for very young children. It will never be written, for the reason
that no self-respecting writer could bore himself so completely as to
write it. (Also it is doubtful if fathers and mothers, uncles and
aunts, would sacrifice themselves a second time, after they had once
sat through it.) For very young children do not want humour or
whimsicality or delicate fancy or any of the delightful properties
which we attribute to the ideal children's play. I do not say that
they will rise from their stalls and call loudly for their
perambulators, if these qualities creep into the play, but they can
get on very happily without them. All that they want is a continuous
procession of ordinary everyday events--the arrival of elephants (such
as they see at the Zoo), or of postmen and policemen (such as they see
in their street), the simplest form of clowning or of practical joke,
the most photographically dull dialogue. For a grown-up it would be an
appalling play to sit through, and still more appalling play to have
to write.
Perhaps you protest that your children love _Peter Pan_. Of course
they do. They would be horrible children if they didn't. And they
would be horrible children if they did not love (as I am sure they do)
a Drury Lane pantomime. A nice child would love _Hamlet_. But I also
love _Peter Pan_; and for this reason I feel that it cannot possibly
be the ideal play for children. I do not, however, love the Drury Lane
pantomime... which leaves me with the feeling that it may really be
"the children's pantomime" after all.
The Road to Knowledge
My pipe being indubitably smoked out to the last grain, I put it in my
pocket and went slowly up to the nursery, trying to feel as much like
that impersonation of a bear which would inevitably be demanded of me
as is possible to a man of mild temperament. But I had alarmed myself
unnecessarily. There was no demand for bears. Each child lay on its
front, engrossed in a volume of _The Children's Encyclopaedia_. Nobody
looked up as I came in. Greatly relieved, I also took a volume of the
great work and lay down on my front. I came away from my week-end a
different man. For the first time in my life I was well informed. If
you had only met me on the Monday and asked me the right questions, I
could have surprised you. Perhaps, even now... but alas! my knowledge
is slipping away from me, and probably the last of it will be gone
before I have finished this article.
For this _Encyclopaedia_ (as you may have read in the advertisements)
makes a feature of answering all those difficult questions which
children ask grown-ups, and which grown-ups really want to ask
somebody else. Well, perhaps not all those questions. There are two to
which there were no answers in my volume, nor, I suspect, in any of
the other volumes, and yet these are the two questions more often
asked than any others. "How did God begin?" and "Where do babies
come from?" Perhaps they were omitted because the answers to them are
so easy. "That, my child, is something which you had better ask your
mother," one replies; or if one is the mother, "You must wait till
you are grown-up, dear." Nor did I see any mention of the most
difficult question of all, the question of the little girl who had
just been assured that God could do anything. "Then, if He can do
anything, can He make a stone so heavy that He can't lift it?"
Perhaps the editor is waiting for his second edition before he answers
that one. But upon such matters as "Why does a stone sink?" or
"Where does the wind come from?" or "What makes thunder?" he is
delightfully informing.
But I felt all the time that in this part of his book he really had
his eye on me and my generation rather than on the children. No child
wants to know why a stone sinks; it knows the answer already--"What
else could it do?" Even Sir Isaac Newton was a grown-up before he
asked why an apple fell, and there had been men in the world fifty
thousand years before that (yes I have been reading _The Outline of
History_, too), none of whom bothered his head about gravitation. Yes,
the editor was thinking all the time that you and I ought to know more
about these things. Of course, we should be too shy to order the book
for ourselves, but we could borrow it from our young friends
occasionally on the plea of seeing if it was suitable for them, and so
pick up a little of that general knowledge which we lack so sadly.
Where does the wind come from? Well, really, I don't think I know now.
The drawback of all _Guides to Knowledge_ is that one cannot have the
editor at hand in order to cross-examine him. This is particularly so
in the case of a _Children's Encyclopaedia_, for the child's first
question, "Why does this do that?" is meant to have no more finality
than tossing-up at cricket or dealing the cards at bridge. The child
does not really want to know, but it does want to keep up a friendly
conversation, or, if humourously inclined, to see how long you can go
on without getting annoyed. Not always, of course; sometimes it really
is interested; but in most cases, I suspect, the question, "What
makes thunder?" is inspired by politeness or mischief. The grown-up
is bursting to explain, and ought to be humoured; or else he obviously
doesn't know, and ought to be shown up.
But these would not be my motives if the editor of _The Children's
Encyclopaedia_ took me for a walk and allowed me to ask him questions.
The fact that light travels at so many hundred thousand miles an hour
does not interest me; I should accept the information and then ask him
my next question, "How did they find out?" That is always the
intriguing part of the business. Who first realized that light was not
instantaneous? What put him up to it? How did he measure its velocity?
The fact (to take another case) that a cricket chirps by rubbing his
knees together does not interest me; I want to know why he chirps. Is
it involuntary, or is it done with the idea of pleasing? Why does a
bird sing? The editor is prepared to tell me why a parrot is able to
talk, but that is a much less intriguing matter. Why does a bird sing?
I do not want an explanation of a thrush's song or a nightingale's,
but why does a silly bird go on saying "chiff-chaff" all day long?
Is it, for instance, happiness or hiccups?
Possibly these things are explained in some other volume than the one
which fell to me. Possibly they are inexplicable. We can dogmatize
about a star a billion miles away, but we cannot say with certainty
how an idea came to a man or a song to a bird. Indeed, I think,
perhaps, it would have been wiser of me to have left the chiff-chaff
out of it altogether. I have an uneasy feeling that all last year the
chiff-chaff was asking himself why I wrote every day. Was it
involuntary, he wondered, or was it done with the idea of pleasing?
A Man of Property
Yes, a gardener's life is a disappointing one. When it was announced
that we were just too late for everything this year, I decided to buy
some ready-made gardens and keep them about the house, until such time
as Nature was ready to co-operate. So now I have three gardens. This
enables me to wear that superior look (which is so annoying for you)
when you talk about your one little garden in front of me. Then you
get off in disgust and shoot yourself, and they bury you in what you
proudly called your herbaceous border, and people wonder next year why
the delphiniums are so luxuriant--but you are not there to tell them.
Yes, I have three gardens. You come upon the first one as you are
shown up the staircase to the drawing-room. It is outside the
staircase window. This is the daffodil garden--3 ft. 8 ins. by 9 ins.
The vulgar speak of it as a window-box; that is how one knows that
they are vulgar. The maid has her instructions; we are not at home
when next they call.
Sometimes I sit on the stairs and count the daffodils in my garden.
There are seventy-eight of them; seventy-eight or seventy-nine--I
cannot say for certain, because they will keep nodding their heads, so
that sometimes one may escape me, or perhaps I may count another one
twice over. The wall round the daffodil garden is bright blue--I
painted it myself, and still carry patterns of it about with me--and
the result of all these yellow heads on their long green necks waving
above the blue walls of my garden is that we are always making excuses
to each other for going up and down stairs, and the bell in the
drawing-room is never rung.
But I have a fault to find with my daffodils. They turn their backs on
us. It is natural, I suppose, that they do not care to look in at the
window to see what we are doing, preferring the blue sky and the sun,
and all that they can catch of March and April, but the end of it is
that we see too little of their faces; for even if they are trained in
youth with a disposition towards the window, yet as soon as they begin
to come to their full glory they swing round towards the south and
hide their beauty from us. But the House Opposite sees them, and
brings his visitors, you may be sure, to his window to look at them.
Indeed, I should not be surprised if he boasted of it as "his
garden" and were even now writing in a book about it.
My second garden is circular--18 ins. in diameter, and, of course,
more than that all the way round. I can see it now as I write--or,
more accurately, if I stop writing for a moment--for it is just
outside the library window. The vulgar call it a tub--they would;
actually it is the Tulip Garden. At least, the man says so. For the
tulips have not bourgeoned yet. No, I am wrong. (That is the worst of
using these difficult words.) They have bourgeoned, but they have not
blossomed. Their heads are well above ground, they have swelled into
buds, but the buds have not broken. So, for all I know, they may yet
be sun-flowers. However, the man says they will be tulips; he was paid
for tulips; and he assures me that he has had experience in these
matters. For myself, I should never dare to speak with so much
authority. It is not our birth but our upbringing which makes us what
we are, and these tulips have had, during their short lives above
ground, a fatherly care and a watchfulness neither greater nor less
than were bestowed upon the daffodils. That they sprang from different
bulbs seems to me a small matter in comparison with this. However, the
man says that they will be tulips. Presumably yellow ones.
One's gardens get smaller and smaller. My third is only 11 ins. by 9
ins. The vulgar call it a Japanese garden--indeed, I don't see what
else they could call it. East is East and West is West and never the
twain shall meet, but this does not prevent my Japanese garden from
sitting on an old English refectory table in the dining-room. A
Japanese garden needs very careful management. I have three native
gardeners working at it day and night. At least they maintain the
attitudes of men hard at work, but they don't seem to do much; perhaps
they are afraid of throwing one another out of employment. The head
gardener spends his time pointing to the largest cactus, and saying (I
suppose in Japanese), "Look at my cactus!" The other two appear to
be washing his Sunday shirt for him, instead of pruning or potting
out, which is what I pay them for. However, the whole scene is one of
great activity, for in the ornamental water in the middle of the
garden two fishermen are hard at it, hoping to land something for my
breakfast. So far they have not had a bite.
My Japanese garden has this advantage over the others, that it is
independent of the seasons. The daffodils will bow their heads and
droop away. The tulips--well, let us be sure that they are tulips
first; but, if the man is correct, they too will wither. But the green
hedgehog which friends tell me is a cactus will just go on and on. It
must have some source of self-nourishment, for it can derive little
from the sand whereon it rests. Perhaps, like most of us, it thrives
on appreciation, and the gardener, who points to it so proudly day and
night, is rightly employed after all. He knows that if once he dropped
his hand, or looked the other way, the cactus would give it up
disheartened.
It is fortunate for you that I am writing this week, and not later,
for I have now ordered three more gardens, circular ones, to sit
outside the library. There is talk also of a couple of evergreen woods
for the front of the house. With six gardens, two woods, and an
ornamental lake I shall be unbearable. In all the gardens of England
people will be shooting themselves in disgust, and the herbaceous
borders will flourish as never before. But that is for the future.
To-day I write only of my three gardens. I would write of them at
greater length but that my daffodil garden is sending out an
irresistible call. I go to sit on the staircase.
An Ordnance Map
Spring calls to us to be up and about. It shouts to us to stand
bareheaded upon hills and look down upon little woods and tiny red
cottages, and away up to where the pines stand straight into the sky.
Let the road, thin and white, wander on alone; we shall meet it again,
and it shall lead us if it will to some comfortable inn; but now we
are for the footpath and the stile--we are to stand in the fields and
listen to the skylark.
Must you stay and work in London? But you will have ten minutes to
spare. Look, I have an ordnance map--let us take our walk upon that.
We will start, if you please, at Buckley Cross. That is the best of
walking on the map; you may start where you like, and there are no
trains to catch. Our road goes north through the village--shall we
stop a moment to buy an apple or two? Apples go well in the open air;
we shall sit upon a gate presently and eat them before we light our
pipes and join the road again. A pound, if you will--and now with
bulging pockets for the north.
Over Buckley Common. You see by the dotted lines that it is an
unfenced road, as, indeed, it should be over gorse and heather. A mile
of it, and then it branches into two. Let us take this lane on the
left; the way seems more wooded to the west.
By now we should be passing Buckley Grove. Perhaps it is for sale. If
so, we might stop for a minute or two and buy it. We can work out how
many acres it is, because it is about three-quarters of an inch each
way, and if we could only remember how many acres went to a square
mile--well, anyhow, it is a good-sized place. But three miles from a
station, you say? Ah yes, but look at that little mark there just
round the corner. Do you know what _that_ stands for? A wind pump. How
jolly to have one at your very door. "Shall we go and look at the
wind pump?" you would say casually to your guests.
Let us leave the road. Do you see those dots going off to the right?
That is a footpath. I have an idea that that will take us to the
skylark. They do not mark skylarks on the map--I cannot say why--but
something tells me that about a mile farther on, where the dots begin
to bend.... Ah, do you hear? Up and up and up he goes into the blue,
fainter and fainter falls the music. He calls to us to follow him to
the clean morning of the world, whose magic light has shone for us in
our dreams so long, yet ever eluded us waking. Bathed in that light,
Youth is not so young as we, nor Beauty more beautiful; in that light
Happiness is ours at last, for Endeavour shall have its perfect
fulfilment, a fulfilment without regret....
Yes, let us have an apple.
Our path seems to end suddenly here. We shall have to go through this
farm. All the dogs barking, all the fowls cluttering, all the lambs
galloping--what a jolly, friendly commotion we've made! But we can get
into the road again this way. Indeed, we must get into the road soon
because it is hungry work out in the air, and two inches to the
north-west is written a word full of meaning--the most purposeful word
that can be written upon a map. "Inn," So now for a steady climb. We
have dropped down to "200" by the farmhouse, and the inn is marked
"500." But it is only two miles--well, barely that. Come along.
What shall we have? Ought it not to be bread and cheese and beer? But
if you will excuse me, I would rather not have beer. I know that it
sounds well to ask for it--as far as that goes, I will ask for it
willingly--but I have never been able to drink it in any comfort. I
think I shall have a gin and ginger. That also sounds well. More
important still, it drinks well; in fact, the only thing which I don't
like about it is the gin. "Oh, good morning. We want some bread and
cheese, please, and one pint of beer, and a gin and ginger.
And--er--you might leave out the gin." Yes, of course, I could have
asked straight off for a plain ginger beer, but that sounds so very
mild. My way I use the word "gin" twice. Let us be dashing on this
brave day.
After lunch a pipe, while we consider where to go next.
It is anywhere you like, you know. To the north there is Greymoor
Wood, and we pass a windmill; and to the east there is the little
village of Colesford which has a church without a steeple; and to the
west we go quite near another wind pump; and to the south--well, we
should have to cross the line pretty soon. That brings us into touch
with civilization; we do not want that just yet. So the north again
let it be....
This is Greymoor Wood. Yes; there is a footpath marked right through
it, but footpaths are hard to see beneath such a carpet of dead
leaves. I dare say we shall lose ourselves. One false step and we are
off the line of dots. There you are, there's a dot missing. We have
lost the track. Now we must get out as best we can.
Do you know the way of telling the north by the sun? You turn the hour
hand of your watch to the sun, and half-way between that and the XII
is the south. Or else you turn the XII to the sun and take half-way
between that and the hour hand. Anyhow you do find the south
eventually after one or two experiments, and having discovered the
south it is easy enough to locate the north. With your permission then
we will push due north through Greymoor Wood.
We are through and on the road, but it is getting late. I et us hurry
on. It would be tempting to wander down to that stream and follow its
banks for a little; it would be pleasant to turn into that
"unmetalled, unfenced" road--ah, doesn't one know those roads?--and
let it carry us to the village of Milden, rich in both telegraph
office and steeple. There is also, no more than two miles from where
we stand, a contour of 600 ft.--shall we make for the view at the top
of that? But no, perhaps you are right. We had best be getting home
now. It is growing chilly; the sun has gone in; if we lost ourselves
again, we could never find the north. Let us make for the nearest
station. Widdington, isn't it? Three miles away....
There! Now we're home again. And must you really get on with your
work? Well, but it has been a jolly day, hasn't it?
The Lord Mayor
There is a story of a boy who was asked to name ten animals which
inhabit the polar regions. After a little thought he answered, "Six
penguins and four seals." In the same way I suspect that, if you were
asked to give the names of any three Lord Mayors of London, you would
say, "Dick Whittington, and--er--Dick Whittington, and of
course--er--Dick Whittington," knowing that he held that high office
three times, and being quite unable to think of anybody else. This is
where I have the advantage of you. In my youth there was a joke which
went like this: "Why does the Lord Mayor like pepper? Because without
his K.N., he'd be ill." I have an unfortunate habit of remembering
even the worst joke, and so I can tell you, all these years after,
that there was once a Lord Mayor called Knill. It is because I know
the names of four Lord Mayors that I can write with such authority
upon the subject.