CIRCULAR SAWS
_Other books by the same Author_
_Verse_
LONDON SONNETS
SHYLOCK REASONS WITH MR. CHESTERTON
CIRCULAR SAWS
By
Humbert Wolfe
LONDON
CHAPMAN & HALL LTD.
1923
Printed in England
at The Westminster Press
411a Harrow Road, London, W.9
Three or four of these tales have appeared in _The Weekly Westminster
Gazette_ and _The Chapbook_. The author’s thanks are due for permission
to reprint them here. Thanks are also due to the Editor of _The
Saturday Review_ for permission to republish the verses in the story
called “Dis Aliter Visum.”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
I. Waste not, want not 1
II. Looking for a needle in a haystack 2
III. All’s well that ends well 3
IV. Faint heart never won fair lady 5
V. Truth is stranger than fiction 7
VI. A rose by any other name 10
VII. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing 12
VIII. Two wrongs do not make a right 14
IX. Business is business 16
X. Let sleeping dogs lie 19
XI. It’s never too late to mend 20
XII. Ars longa, vita brevis 24
XIII. Sunt certi denique fines 30
XIV. Heaven helps those that help themselves 35
XV. “You never can tell” 37
XVI. United we stand 41
XVII. Ici-Gît 44
XVIII. Silence is golden 45
XIX. Look before you leap 48
XX. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity 52
XXI. Quis separabit? 53
XXII. Men, not measures 55
XXIII. You cannot have your cake and eat it 62
XXIV. In vino veritas 66
XXV. Tantae religio 71
XXVI. On entertaining angels unawares 73
XXVII. Tempus fugit 77
XXVIII. You can take a horse to the water 78
XXIX. Half a loaf is better than no bread 80
XXX. In for a penny, in for a pound 84
XXXI. Quantity is better than quality 89
XXXII. Charity begins at home 95
XXXIII. Dis aliter visum 99
XXXIV. Parallel lines do not meet 109
XXXV. Cherchez le juif 111
XXXVI. [Greek: gnôthi seauton] 119
XXXVII. E pur si muove 120
XXXVIII. The game and the candle 124
XXXIX. Once bitten twice shy 126
XL. It takes two to make a peace 127
XLI. Vicisti Galilæe 130
I
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT
When Haroun-al-Raschid (of whom I have told you before, and if I
haven’t it is only because I have forgotten) was having a bath they
wouldn’t let him splash. “By the beard of Allah,” he observed mildly
to the Vizier, who was standing by with his favourite celluloid duck
(guaranteed to float), “this is preposterous. Cannot the Commander
of the Faithful splash a little water? What’s the good of being a
King, that’s what I say?” “Sire,” replied the Vizier, handing him the
celluloid duck, “the higher, the fewer the pleasures of life. And
remember in season the saying, ‘Waste not, want not.’”
The following day torrential rains of unprecedented severity visited
Bagdad, sweeping away houses and gardens and drowning, among others, in
circumstances of peculiar discomfort, the Grand Vizier. “Well,” said
Haroun, splashing in his bath (and hitting the opposite wall, mind
you), “that only shows.”
II
LOOKING FOR A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK
Mr. Arthur Benacres--the celebrated philanthropist--suffered in private
life the inconvenience of being an ostrich. This was due to the act of
a rather deaf fairy friend of the family, who mistook an observation
on the weather (addressed to him by a conversational curate at the
christening) for a request for feathers.
This, as you suppose, caused Mr. Benacres some difficulty, and led him
to consider methods of escape. For though it was agreeable to be able
to subsist on odd scraps of broken rubbish, and to dig with his head
(instead of a spade) in the nice clean sand, people did make a fuss on
the Underground and at parties.
Till at last another fairy friend of the family, who was neither deaf
or blind, said: “Why don’t you go into Parliament? Then nobody will
notice.” And they didn’t.
III
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Once upon a time there was a princess whose mother would not buy her an
umbrella. This was due to the wicked incompetence of the Prime Minister
of that country, who, having no children of his own, spent all his
money on swords instead of umbrellas. (Yes, I know swords are nicer
generally, but these weren’t; besides they were two-edged.) Moreover,
her mother went and bought her a most unbecoming mackintosh--the sort
that cuts your chin. And so, as it was raining all the time (for this
princess lived at Kilcreggan in Dumbartonshire), she asked to be turned
into a frog or a toad, because they didn’t need umbrellas, and their
mackintoshes fit at the neck.
Well, she was, and then she found that being a frog she couldn’t use
her scooter, or read “Antony and Cleopatra” to her mother, or go into
Kensington Gardens with her father. (No! Kensington Gardens isn’t at
Kilcreggan, but this is a fairy princess, and so it doesn’t matter.) So
she unwished herself, and she was a princess, and she had no umbrella
and a mackintosh that didn’t fit at the neck. But it was a drought.[A]
So all’s well that ends well.
[A] A drought is when it doesn’t rain at all. The scene of the story
has been shifted from Scotland.
IV
FAINT HEART NEVER WON FAIR LADY
Miss June Mortifex was most beautiful--yes, and more beautiful than
that. So that when she looked out of the window the Meteorological
Department in Exhibition Road, Kensington, over the Post Office, said:
“The westerly depression over London is now moving rapidly northward
with a southern twist,” which means nothing, and only shows how excited
they all were.
But on account of her very exceptional beauty everybody was afraid of
marrying her because they said “She would cost a King’s Hansom,” and
owing to the increase in the number of motor taxicabs nobody had one
about them.
So one day she blacked her face and assuming a Mid-Victorian Cockney
accent went down Piccadilly singing the well-known ditty:
“O Mr. Jansen,
You kissed me in the hansom,
’Ansom is as ’ansom does,
Now you push me off the bus.”
As may be supposed, this remarkable revival aroused the interest of a
distinguished literary critic, who, recognising merit, even under an
unpromising exterior, offered his hand, shortly after followed by his
heart. “But, Edward,” whispered June, “I am not what I seem.” “You
couldn’t be,” he answered triumphantly, “the Victorians never were.”
And with that he walked into St. George’s, Hanover Square, and ordered
three of the best banns they had. And he gave her as a bridal gift the
collected works of Mr. Edmund Gosse, for he was not faint-hearted.
V
TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION
It’s no good pretending that Petronella Gibbs was a good princess. For
one thing, she was always asking questions. And if the nurses didn’t
know the answer they were instantly beheaded. With the result that
there was an unprecedented shortage in the supply of domestic labour.
The Queen, her mother, indeed remarked to a friend of hers, another
Queen living in the palace opposite, that “she never.” You may suppose
therefore that things had reached a crisis.
But did Petronella care? She did not care. She could do without nurses,
thank you. On the contrary, she decided to start answering questions.
For instance. For a long time all the best people had wanted to know
“Who’s Who.” And a very large and important book had been written about
it. Petronella wrote as follows:
“Deer Editter.
Nobody is.
Yours evva,
Petronella P.”
This, which was the obvious solution, created considerable
consternation. The Queen--her mother--had a long consultation with the
King--her father--on his return from the Royal Exchange, where he kept
his bulls, bears and hyenas, and remarked, “I never.” But the King only
laughed. That is why so many women are Republicans.
At last Petronella became so celebrated that the King of America,
colloquially known as the President of the United States, asked for her
hand in marriage. He and his subjects had been guessing so long that
they thought that the time had come to find someone who knew.
The flattering offer was accepted by her royal parents, and Petronella,
with great pomp and ceremony, embarked. Upon her arrival she was met by
the leading citizens, who asked her, “What do you think of America?” “I
don’t,” she replied, which was the right answer. At which they, being
accustomed to the latter, and never previously having met the former,
exclaimed, “Truth is stranger than fiction,” and adding, “not half so
true either,” asked her with tears in their eyes to return where they
asserted she belonged. Which she did. And both she and the King of
America lived happily ever after.
VI
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL AS SWEET
When Arthur Nobbs was a little boy he believed in fairies. If, for
example, he ate part of his sister’s jam (as he constantly did), he
assured her that the fairies would put it back. And if they didn’t,
well that was because she didn’t believe in them.
When he grew older and became a business man he naturally continued to
entertain that belief. When he was successful (as he generally was)
in his business transactions, he ascribed his success to the fairies,
though the persons he so continuously and cleverly ruined thought that
he had got the name wrong.
One day he met a starving sculptor whose father he had been able to put
out of business. “What are these horrible objects that you have in your
tray?” he asked severely. “These,” said the sculptor, “are the seven
fairies in which you believe.” “But,” objected Mr. Nobbs, “they are
labelled ‘The Seven Deadly Sins,’ and they look it.” “Oh,” said the
sculptor, “the title is only a matter of taste.” “You are an impostor,
sir,” exclaimed Mr. Nobbs; “but fortunately we are in a law-abiding
country.” And he gave the young man in charge for seeking to obtain
money by false pretences.
But you will be glad to learn that Arthur Nobbs was subsequently raised
to the peerage and died universally beloved and respected, and on his
tombstone they carved the simple phrase:
“He believed in fairies.”
VII
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS THING
The father of Miss Liddell was favourably known to the general public
as the man who had written to the public prints during a strike a
bold letter beginning: “Sir,--Let all strikers be shot. Then let ...”
and again during a lock-out an equally bold letter with the following
introduction: “Sir,--Let all employers be shot. Then let ...” (It is
believed that it is from this use of “let” in public correspondence
that the word “letter” is derived.)
Miss Liddell, therefore, naturally objected to the fact that the
Prince, over whose education she presided, disliked the manly game
of football. “Don’t you know,” she would say from time to time,
“what Wellington said about the playing fields of Eton?” “No,” the
Prince used to reply, “who was Wellington? One of those professional
footballers one reads about in their newspapers?” “Certainly not,”
Miss Liddell was wont to reply. “He was a great general who beat the
French.” “What did he do that for?” the Prince would ask. “Because
they were his country’s enemies.” “Ah!” the Prince would say, “but I
thought the French were England’s friends.” “So they are now,” Miss
Liddell would say. “And did Wellington beat them because of football?”
the Prince would inquire. “Wellington said so,” Miss Liddell (slightly
flushed) would reply.
“Will you give me my paint-box?” the Prince would murmur politely.
VIII
TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT
Listen. This is quite a new story. It is about a swan that wished he
was an ugly duckling again. He was one of those two swans who stand
at the edge of the Round Pond, have black feet and holes to put tape
through in their beaks. Only they won’t let you put tape through.
What he said was (quite simply), “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.” To
which his mate said, “Then why do you always eat more than your share?”
But the other swan was an idealist and took no notice.
He summoned a public meeting of the ducks after closing-time, and
having elected himself to the chair after rather a protracted argument
with a pertinacious old drake, told his audience that he was a duck at
heart. “What is beauty,” he went on to say, “that it should put one
on a lonely eminence. The exquisite shape of the swan, his girl-like
neck, what right to rule do these confer?” “None,” said the old drake,
heartily. “Did you say beauty?” said a young female duck, bridling her
feathers. “Why you poor old antic, if you knew how we ducks sympathised
with you on your deformity!”
But this was a little too much for the swan. “I did not come here to be
insulted,” he said hotly, “by a brood of blasphemous pond-puddlers. Are
you aware that the Great Swan made swans in his image?” “And are you
aware,” said the old drake, “that the swans retorted by making him in
theirs?”
“Well,” said his mate to the rather draggled swan who returned about
midnight, “how did you get on?” “Get on,” he screamed, “those ducks
think that equality means that I’m equal with them.” “And doesn’t it?”
“Certainly not,” said the swan, tucking his head under his wings, “it
means that they’re equal with me.” “And what’s more,” he said with
sudden truculence as he emerged for a moment, “a swan’s a swan for a’
that.”
IX
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS
The electric bell had rung for the fourth time, when the door was
opened by an agreeable young man dressed in the height of fashion.
“Who are you?” he inquired in the amiable tone of one who begins an
interesting conversation.
“I’m the Milk,” retorted the young man with the cans a little shortly,
for he was not pleased at being so long delayed.
“Will you not come in one moment?” the young householder retorted. “I
have within the butcher, the grocer and the baker, and I have long
desired to add you to the list of my visitors.”
The young milkman (still carrying his heavy can) followed the polite
young gentleman into a fine, lofty room. The whole was arranged with
exquisite taste, and many deep rugs indicated a luxurious vein in the
young man’s character. At the further end of the room, arranged neatly
in an isosceles triangle (for the baker was much shorter than the
other two), were the corpses of the butcher, the baker, and the grocer.
“May I inquire,” said the Milk, after surveying the scene in silence
for a minute, “why you have killed these three gentlemen?”
“You have the best of rights in the world to ask, and I shall be
delighted to explain,” answered the young gentleman courteously. “You
must know, then, that I have a speculative interest in the manner
in which the smaller British tradesman meets death. I have been
much charmed by the experience I have gleaned with the help of my
three friends there. The butcher,” he added, pointing smilingly to a
discolouration on his forehead, “was the least graceful. And now as I
have answered you, perhaps you will allow me to ask you a question?”
“But pray do,” answered the Milk, not to be outdone in courtesy.
“I thank you. I was going to inquire whether you knew any reason why I
should not add you to my list.”
“I apprehended,” returned the Milk, “that your question might be
something of that sort. I had gone so far as to prepare an answering
question.”
“And what might that be?” inquired the young gentleman?
“Why should I not kill you?” retorted the Milk affably.
“There is something in what you say,” exclaimed the young gentleman. “I
had not considered the question. Will you give me a minute or two to
meditate?”
“I must be about my business, I am afraid,” returned the Milk, quietly
bludgeoning the young man as he spoke with his milk can. “Yet how
sad it is,” he said reflectively surveying the four corpses, “that
speculation must inevitably make way for practical affairs.”
And with that he proceeded to replace the milk he had spilled with
water from a neighbouring table.
X
LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE
Once upon a time there was a wizard who could find the truth in a
newspaper.
Fortunately he was discovered and hanged in time, and since then nobody
has dared to tamper with the liberty of the Press.
XI
IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND
North of Skelleffteå, in the kingdom of Sweden, there lived a more than
usually repulsive troll, who was, however, the supreme Scandinavian
authority on psycho-analysis. The pine-trees in that part of the world
walk down to the water of the sea as though the weight of their own
beauty had become too heavy for them. And the sea with blandishing
whispers holds out to them the immense temptation of his cold peace.
On a rock at the rendezvous of sea and pines, under a
midnight-sun-haunted sky of June, the troll sat with huge horn glasses
on his twisted nose relentlessly reading the work which Mr. Freud was
to write some centuries later....
Out of the shadows of the pine, as straight, as serious, and weighed
down like them with the burden of her own loveliness, slipped the
Princess Gurli on her way to the cold temptation of the sea. Like other
princesses before and after, she was enchanted. When she looked at her
almost flawless loveliness in the lily-pond of her father’s castle, she
saw always a faint silver mist that trembled at her mirrored lips. The
mist would draw together into a frangible bubble, a diaphanous ball of
silver, and finally dissolve, leaving an infinite argent stain on the
red of her mouth.
One day a fish had swum up from the marble floor, and rising to the
surface, had said to her, “What will you give me if I drink the mist?”
And she had answered, “What do you wish?” “Your soul,” he replied.
This she was glad in any case to be rid of, for her soul had often
interfered with the natural pleasures to which she was entitled by her
loveliness.
The fish and the mist disappeared together, and for the first time she
saw herself in flawless loveliness. But she was strangely cold.
Princes came to her from the North and the South, but when they looked
into the green stain of her eyes they shivered and turned away. The
Princess was not sorry, for she thought that men were a poor substitute
for her own beauty. But with her twenty-first summer she was conscious
that her beauty was threatened. For a neighbouring queen had been
heard to say of her, “Yes, she is lovely. But for me her beauty has no
soul.”
Therefore she decided to marry a prince of her own choice, who would
ask all of her and nothing, whose castle has no lamps and whose palace
gardens are visited neither by sun nor snow.
It was on her way to this alliance that she slipped out of the pines,
and beheld on the rock under the midnight-sun-haunted sky the unusually
repulsive troll reading the prenatal works of Mr. Freud.
“Ha,” neighed the troll, looking up, “you have come to consult me,
Princess Gurli.” “I have not,” said the Princess. “I do not like
trolls.” “But I,” said the troll, “am not like other trolls.” “That
is what all trolls say,” replied the Princess scornfully. “Perhaps,”
said the troll, “but I am the greatest Scandinavian authority on
psycho-analysis!” “What in Valhalla,” said the Princess, “is that?”
“The study of souls,” cried the troll with a significant chuckle.
“Oh,” said the Princess, “you can’t study mine. I haven’t got one.”
“This is interesting,” said the troll; “you are undoubtedly suffering
from an advanced condition of mermaid-complex.” “What does that mean?”
said the Princess. “It means that you have a suppressed passion for a
Mer-King,” replied the troll, “and if you give way to it you will be
cured immediately.” “I have never heard anything so disgusting,” said
the Princess. “Why, a Mer-King is half a fish.” “Half a fish,” said
the troll sententiously, “is better than no fish.” “I had meant,” said
the Princess, “to drown myself in the sea because the loss of my soul
troubled me. But now that I know that souls are things that can be
studied by creatures like you, I am very glad I have not got one.”
The troll was so shocked at this outburst that he fell backwards into
the sea, where he was instantly seized by mermaids and drowned. But the
Princess went back, slim and gold, through the shadow of the pines, and
married the youngest son of the nearest fishmonger.
XII
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS
At about half-past eleven on a summer evening there might have been
observed, wending her way slowly along the Rue du Soleil Levant into
the Cour de St. Pierre at Geneva, a small black kitten with her
tail straight up. There was nobody in the cobbled square except the
beech-tree in the middle with a wooden seat round him. The kitten,
who was being brought up on a severely anti-religious basis, doubted
whether the tree might not have been influenced by the cathedral
window, in whose shadow he had dreamed summer and winter for more than
a hundred years. She was therefore on the point of slipping into a most
engaging gutter of stone, like a deep mouse-track, that leads past the
chapel of Calvin to the railings that overlook the Passage des Degrés
des Poules.
But the beech wasn’t going to stand that. On the contrary! He dropped
one little fidgety brown leaf--puff!--between the kitten’s paws,
who, throwing religious prejudice to the winds, played with it as
enchantingly as though it had been a convert to Epistemological
Radicalism.
Then the moon looked over the crooked gables into the square, and
proceeded to light her cold lamp in all the dark cathedral windows.
But the beech rustled her leaves warningly at her. “What is it?” said
the moon, and then she saw the little black kitten dancing with the
leaf on the cobbles. “Who is your little black faun of a friend?” she
inquired of the beech. “I don’t know her name,” said the beech, “but
she certainly dances extremely well.”
At this point the kitten stopped abruptly and said a little harshly,
“What are you two old ones whispering about?” “We were remembering,”
said the beech, who was a kindly old fellow, “the time when we also
danced with our shadows in the joy of our youth.” “How can that be?”
said the kitten impatiently. “The moon never was young, and you never
had but one leg, and that stuck in the ground. You are telling me fairy
tales, and I have no patience with them. Let me tell you my dancing is
merely automatic muscular reaction.” “Dear me,” said the moon mildly,
“what long words that child uses! But tell me, little one, if you don’t
like fairy tales, you won’t want to hear the story of the cat and the
fiddle.” “Does it observe the dramatic unities?” inquired the kitten.
“I don’t know what they are,” said the moon, “but it has a moral.”
“Which is more than you have, you little wretch,” said the beech
severely. “Oh well,” said the kitten ungraciously, “I suppose I must
hear it, though I expect that it will be representational.”
“Once upon a time,” said the moon, “there was a cat that had the soul
of a musician. But when she tried to render her thoughts into sound
she excited no sympathetic response. On the contrary, people threw
boots and bottles at her. ‘I do not care,’ said the cat, ‘my songs are
for posterity.’ But nevertheless the constant succession of missiles
disturbed her.”
“It is my considered opinion,” interrupted the kitten, “that she was no
artist. The best art rejects appreciation.”
“So the dog said,” observed the moon, “when he was chasing the cat up
the tree with yells of derision. But the cat was not comforted.
“Finally one day as she wandered disconsolate through a field she met a
very tragic cow lowing, as it seemed to the cat, with a mild haunting
beauty. When she came up with the cow the cat observed that her eyes
were streaming with tears. ‘How is it,’ said the cat, ‘that you who
are notoriously as unmusical as a milk-can can low with a beauty that
brings tears to your own eyes.’ ‘It is not my music that brings tears
to my eyes, but my lost calf. And let me tell you, cat, that till you
also play on the strings of your own heart you will never make music.’”
“This is very affecting,” said the beech-tree; “and very untrue,” added
the kitten.
“The cat resolved this dark saying till one day she heard in the
dining-room the delicate symphony of a spoon upon a china plate.
Presently the sound ceased and the cat jumped upon the table to
investigate. ‘How is it,’ said she to the empty dish, ‘that you make
such exquisite music though you are nothing but baked clay?’ ‘It is the
loss of the beautiful jelly that adorned me that sings,’ said the dish,
‘and let me tell you, cat, that till you also play upon the strings of
your own heart you will never make music.’
“‘This is very strange,’ thought the cat, but she continued
nevertheless to sing as before without sympathetic response. Till at
last an angry old gentleman obtained a gun and shot the cat dead.”
“This story is in very bad taste,” said the kitten.
“I think she richly deserved it,” said the beech.
“Wait a minute,” said the moon, “the story is not finished. An old
poor maker of fiddle-strings found the cat on his way home. And about
a month later a young fiddler of the country called upon him to buy
some strings. ‘These are the best I have ever made,’ said the old man.
That night,” went on the moon, “the fiddler played under a window of
a high house in the Place de la Taconnerie an old German tune, ‘Einst
o wunder.’ And now no one threw boots and missiles, but out of a high
lattice fell a white rose.”
“That is a very beautiful story,” said the beech, “and now I am almost
sorry for the cat.” “You need not be,” said the moon; “even if her life
was short her art”--“was in the right place,” rudely interjected the
impertinent kitten. “But what I want to know is, who shot the fiddler?”
“I am afraid,” replied the moon, “that I must be going about my
business.”
XIII
SUNT CERTI DENIQUE FINES
“What will the next story be about?” said the publisher. “I’m not sure
that I shall publish the book at all if it’s about Swedish trolls and
Genevese cats. Couldn’t you write about something British--a gnome who
made 94 not out for Surrey and then went home and drank a bottle of
stout?” “I not only can,” said the author, “but I immediately will.”
“There was once,” said the author, “a sprite who thought goloshes and
hot water bottles unmanly. He preferred east winds and colds in the
head, and being strong and silent (though he sneezed a good deal from
time to time), and though he was a pagan himself, he could respect
Christianity in others. His name was Puck; he lived at Bexhill.”
“I have been expecting this for some time,” broke in the publisher;
“all you do is to take other people’s noble conceptions and distort
them. Disguising plagiarism as travesty, you seek to impose on the
public. But let me tell you, sir, in the words of the Latin poet, ‘Sunt
certi denique fines.’”
“I am sorry to have given offence,” said the author, “particularly as
I would have wished to sketch a new version of Puck’s life, when as a
result of continued exposure to draughts in what the Americans taught
him to call God’s Great Out-at-Elbows he contracted a vivid form of
rheumatism. So crippled, he devoted his declining years to Worthing and
the pleasures of a bath chair. Not unnaturally in these circumstances
he developed a horror of Sussex and of children, and found his only
remaining happiness in reading the poems of Mr. Edward Shanks to the
local clergy. When he died, as he did shortly after this----”
“I am only surprised,” interrupted the publisher bitterly, “that the
clergy survived.”
“Oh,” said the author, “they did not survive long. It is true that
their counsel at the trial urged that it was justifiable homicide
in self-defence, but the judge quite properly pointed out in his
summing-up that they needn’t have listened. But I can see,” went on
the author, “that this is not the sort of story of which you were in
need. Let me therefore recount to you the true story of Jack and the
Beanstalk.”
“I hope that it is not very long,” said the publisher.
“That depends on the method of payment,” replied the author. “If I am
paid by the word, of course----”
“Get on with the story,” said the publisher.
“By the side of a slow river in the western parts of a great metropolis
there lived a boy named Jack. Though he was so young he was already
justly celebrated for his climbing feats. Indeed, the old woman who
looked after him was never tired of saying, with a roguish smile at
herself in the mirror, ‘C’est un vrai gosse!’ which means in English,
‘He takes after his spiritual grandmother.’
“Jack had climbed all the trees in his own garden and all those in
everybody else’s. And then one day he announced that he was going to
climb an entirely new tree whose roots are in the heart but whose
leaves are in eternity.... There was much discussion among his friends,
some saying that he should climb and others that he shouldn’t, and
still others (but these were jealous) that it was little better than
an Indian rope trick. But Jack was not to be deterred. For he said that
he was tired of living among pygmies; he would now climb the Immortal
Tree and slay one of the giants and return with his head.
“That night accordingly the tree was planted, and by morning its leaves
hid the sky. After a farewell breakfast, at which a good deal of stout
was drunk, and at which the Press was well represented, Jack started
the ascent. He climbed up and up till he was out of sight. His friends
waited about till nightfall, but as he did not return they concluded
that he was making a night of it with the giants, and went home to
their evening porter and bed.
“Next morning the tree was withered. Some said one thing and some said
another. These, that the giants had insisted on Jack’s remaining among
them, and these (but these were traducers), that he had fallen to the
first giant. The general view, however, was that Jack had burst with
chagrin on discovering that, except for himself, there were no giants.
But since his departure nobody has ever climbed the beanstalk, for, as
they all said, ‘Sunt certi denique fines.’”
“That story,” said the publisher, “is worse than the first. That was
vulgar, but this has no meaning whatever.”
“You just publish it and see,” said the author.
XIV
HEAVEN HELPS THOSE THAT HELP THEMSELVES
In the great days of Haroun-al-Raschid, when the minarets of Bagdad
were sewn together against the sky like a gold embroidery on blue
canvas, a certain merchant, whose name has unhappily not been
preserved, was entering at nightfall with his camels and his asses
through the Gold East Gate. The beggars, as was their custom, crowded
round with shrill cries, extolling the merchant’s virtues and their own
miseries, and suggesting that the former might reasonably be expected
to mitigate the latter. “In the name of the All-Compassionate, the
All-Merciful,” they murmured musically. But the merchant only wrapped
his cloak round him closer, saying in a harsh voice, “Heaven helps
those that help themselves.”
At this moment one of the merchant’s asses stumbled and beautiful
red coins ran in the gutters under the pale yellow moon. With
cries even more musical the beggars--not excluding those lame by
profession--threw themselves upon the gold. “Sons of Shaitan,” roared
the merchant, “I will have you all strung up to the city gates by your
toes and ears. I will have you flayed with red pepper. I will----”
“You surprise me, oh merchant,” said a poet who had been a witness of
the whole scene. “Is it no longer your view then that heaven helps
those that help themselves?”
“Do you not see,” screamed the merchant, “that it is an ass that helps
them?” “Does that surprise you,” inquired the poet, going on his way,
“I gather from your appearance of wealth that heaven has already helped
you.”
XV
“YOU NEVER CAN TELL”
“This is a story for patriots,” said the pin of the unexploded
hand-grenade to the poppies among which he was rusting.
“What is a patriot?” asked the youngest of the poppies, who, I am
afraid, was rather an affected puss and thought that the pin was in
love with her.
“A patriot,” said the pin, “is a man who loves his country so well that
he dies for it.”
“He would show his affection better to my mind,” said a rather withered
female poppy, “if he lived for it.”
“Oh no,” simpered the young poppy, “I think that death is so romantic.”
“How adorable,” sighed the hand-grenade, “are the enthusiasms of
youth. I remember exactly the same innocent thrill when some five years
ago I reposed among a pile of grenades like myself all going into
action. We were doomed, we knew, to burst. But what did that matter?
Our country called us.”
“What country was that?” inquired one of the poppies.
“England,” said the grenade proudly. “Bow, poppies, you are in the
presence of a British bomb! It is true, of course, that my iron was
dug in Spain, that my copper came from the New World, and that my
explosives were in part foreign. But I was as pure British as anybody
else.”
“I’m sure you were,” said the young poppy consolingly.
“When we came to the trench,” continued the pin, “we were assigned
each to a bomb-thrower. I myself fell to the lot of a young man
beautiful as an angel and reckless as a devil. Grenade after grenade
he tossed into the air with exquisite dexterity, and the frightful
explosions and horrible cries that followed showed only too well how
richly his skill had been rewarded. And now my great moment was at
hand. An attack was ordered. Over the parapet he leapt clasping me in
his hand, and together we flew through the flying and screaming death
about us. We reached the enemy trench. The loathsome horrors were
actually attempting to shoot down our brave fellows. I am happy to say
that the bayonet taught them better. But alas! I now come to the most
awful moment in my life. We jumped into the trench. My hero raised his
hand to throw me at one of the incarnate devils. And then--his hand
dropped. ‘Carl,’ he whispered, ‘is it you, Carl?’ This, mind you, to
an incarnate devil. ‘George,’ he replied, and though he was a devil, I
confess his voice made me uneasy, ‘has it come to this, dear brother?
Throw the grenade. It will be better so. There can be no hell as foul
as this.’ ‘What, murder you?’ cried my ex-hero. ‘Why not?’ said the
other wearily. ‘After all, one more or one less, why should it matter
to either of us?’ ‘I won’t,’ said George, ‘not if they shoot me for
it.’ ‘What?’ said Carl, ‘have you still a soul? Then by God I can die
in peace.’ And with that he shot himself through the heart. ‘Kiss me,
George,’ he whispered, and George, dropping me as though I were of no
account, kissed the crime-stained lips. And here in consequence I have
been ever since.”
“And what happened to George?” asked the oldest poppy. “Oh,” said the
grenade easily, “I am not sure. I heard--(and I hoped it was true)
that he had been shot for cowardice in the face of the enemy.”
“Would patriots like that story?” inquired the withered female poppy.
“Certainly,” said the pin.
“Then,” said the poppy, “you do not seem to me to make out a good case
for patriots.”
“Madam,” said the grenade hotly, “you would not speak so if you were
being threatened by the hobnailed boots of a gross invader, who was
on the point of squashing you flat. Then you would be glad enough to
have the protection of a patriot like myself.” And the pin was so moved
(and the sun so hot) that he suddenly and violently exploded, with the
result that the poppies were scattered in fragments to the four winds
of heaven.
XVI
UNITED WE STAND
Now listen! and if you can possibly avoid it don’t interrupt. In the
far and non-existent province of Arabia the population consisted
almost exclusively of kings, except for the lower classes, who were,
as everybody knows, emperors. The kings had it all their own way for
years and years, when suddenly the emperors formed a trade society,
popularly known as the Amalgamated Emperors’ Union. In pursuance of
the principle upon which all such societies rest (in non-existent
provinces), the emperors, as a preliminary step, ceased the function
which distinguished their calling. The kings were thereupon compelled
to act both as kings and emperors, which caused them inconvenience.
Accordingly they summoned a special meeting of Sanhedrim--the Arabian
legislative assembly--and passed a law withdrawing the right of
association among emperors (though naturally preserving it for kings),
and severely forbidding, under penalty, what was described in the Act
as “striking.”
In Arabia--that fabulous country--a law on being duly passed by the
kings becomes automatically a law of nature. So that it is very
necessary to pay the greatest attention to the drafting. On this
occasion the framers of the Bill had forgotten by an unaccountable
oversight to omit “clocks” from the exclusion clause. In consequence
all clocks in the province automatically ceased striking, and
thereafter it was no use consulting an Arabian constable because nobody
in that legendary land knew what o’clock it was.
“I suppose,” said the publisher scornfully, “you think that’s clever
and Socialistic, and all that sort of thing. Have you any idea what
wages we have to pay to the book-binders?”
“I asked you not to interrupt,” said the author. “Now you’ve prevented
me from explaining how the clock in the principal mosque----”
“I don’t believe they have clocks in mosques,” said the publisher.
“--how the clock in the principal mosque welcomed the change, observing
that it for one had always been in favour of methods of conciliation.
‘And anyhow,’ the church clock continued as it finally ran down, ‘why
bother about time when you have eternity?’”
“Have you any aspirin?” inquired the publisher.
XVII
ICI-GÎT
When at creation God was faced
With earth’s illimitable waste,
We understand that what he said is:
“Let there be light,”--and there was Geddes.
XVIII
SILENCE IS GOLDEN
“You will observe,” remarked the placid convict, negligently dropping
his pick on the warder’s foot, “that a very few words express a great
deal.”
The warder, who had already expressed more than a little in his first
two words, stopped abruptly, and with a graceful wave of his hand bade
the convict be seated. “For this,” he added, “is a subject to which I
have devoted much thought, and you with your varied experience of men
and manners should speak with authority.”
“It is true,” admitted the convict agreeably, “that in the course of
the commission of a certain number of tolerably execrable crimes I have
been brought into contact with many people, but I have made it a rule
never to allow my conversation to be affected by the practical affairs
of life. To be personal is to be dull without redemption.”
“But in your case,” interrupted the warder, “your experiences are so
unusual that you might well be forgiven for dwelling on them.”
“That,” retorted the felon, with a certain graceful melancholy, “is the
conviction of every conversationalist. But I have never supposed that a
murder was necessarily interesting just because I had perpetrated it.”
“This sort of trait,” murmured the custodian of the condemned, “elicits
a man’s respect. But,” he continued aloud, “what, then, is left us to
discuss?”
“The universe,” smilingly returned the convict, “and any other fictions
you may care to invent. The whole world loves a liar. I admit,” he
added, with a gentle shrug, “that ‘Not guilty’ was an error, but that
you will understand was more by way of repartee than of continuous
conversation. The judge, after all, drew the retort on himself.”
“But truth, I have always understood, is stranger----”
“Pardon me if I interrupt,” said the criminal a little sternly, “but I
cannot stand by and hear a friend (for I include you in that number),”
he added courteously enough, “quote proverbs. I can forgive your being
a warder of condemned men, but I cannot stand your being a guardian of
(forgive me!) damned phrases.”
“You hold, then,” returned the warder, a little confused, “that
quotation is not admissible in polite conversation.”
“You cannot quote a proverb,” earnestly responded the prisoner, “any
more than you can butter a hypothesis. But I perceive,” he went on
more gently, “that I have fallen into the fault of heat. Forgive a
hotheadedness which has more than once ruined my conversation.”
“But I have nothing to forgive,” cried the custodian, much affected.
“It is I who am the more to blame.”
“That, indeed, is true,” interjected the Governor of the gaol, who had
come up unobserved during the latter part of the conversation, “and,
much as I shall regret your loss, I must reconcile myself to it. While
you,” he went on, turning to the convict, “will have leisure, when
consuming bread and water, to reflect whether, after all, there is not
something to be said for silence.”
XIX
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP: OR, REFLECTIONS BEFORE YOU JUMP
“I am tired of reflection,” said the looking-glass, “I will now live my
own life.” As a first step to that end he succeeded in rolling himself
right out of his seventeenth-century uprights and falling off the
spindle-legged dressing-table, oval face downwards, on to a deep grey
carpet.
“Dear me,” said the carpet, who was rather a simple old-fashioned
thing, though of an excellent texture, “here is somebody come down in
the world. Ahem! I hope, sir, that you are none the worse for your
fall.”
“Certainly not,” replied the mirror, who was rather bewildered by the
fall and the complete darkness in which his new situation had placed
him, “I precipitated myself to the ground on purpose.” “What!” cried
the carpet, who feared that she had to do with a self-murderer, “after
full reflection?”
“Without any reflection whatever,” cried the mirror testily. “I am,” he
added more suavely, “entirely incapable of such an act.”
“Poor thing,” said the carpet soothingly, for she now perceived that
her affair was merely with a madman. “If you will only compose yourself
I am sure you will be your own man again immediately.”
“I see, madam,” said the mirror, “that we do not understand each
other. Let me therefore explain my point of view. You must know then
that I am by nature a person of a profoundly original turn of thought.
Judge then of my despair when a malignant fate ordained for more than
a century that I should be tortured by serving merely to reflect the
follies and lack of grace of others. I have borne things insupportable,
and finally I took the magnificent decision which has, among, other
agreeable circumstances of release, conferred upon me the pleasure of
your conversation. You will conceive for yourself my mental tumult when
you used the word ‘reflection.’”
“But, sir,” said the carpet, now much distressed, “reflect. Are you
not flying in the face of Providence? If reflection was the gift
bestowed upon you by your designer would you wantonly dissipate it?
Such conduct, believe me, must have the most dire results!”
“Madam,” neighed the mirror with an accent that suggested his century,
“I am, I hope, a mirror of Feeling, and I know what respect must ever
be paid to the Fair. None the less, I cannot leave you a prey to common
error, even though its removal should offend your Female Delicacy.
M’am, there is no such thing as a designer, but each of us is his own
architect.”
“No designer!” screamed the carpet. “Now the weaver be good to me!
Impious creature, do you not know that we are each of us made with
nicely adjusted virtues and qualities by an all-understanding maker?
And that to doubt this is to be damned beyond hope of re-weaving?”
“And what, m’am,” sneered the mirror, “is your particular virtue?”
“To be a comfort and a support to the foot, an office of which I am
proud,” replied the carpet.
“I dare swear,” said the mirror courteously, “that you are perfect in
it. But I do not doubt that, were I called upon, I could adjust myself
to the same task in spite of all the pretensions of your friend the
designer.”
The carpet was spared the necessity of continuing so sacrilegious
a conversation by the entry into the darkened room of its owner. He
stepped heavily in the direction of the dressing-table, and stamped
his riding-boot hard on the back of the mirror, smashing the glass to
fragments.
“Damn!” he cried loudly, and after switching on the lights rang for
a servant. “Who has been so d--d clumsy as to leave the old mirror
standing between the window and the door?”
The servant picked up the mirror. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but it’s
only the glass as is smashed. We could easy get a new one put in, and
you were always complaining that the old one didn’t reflect.”
“Very well,” said the owner, “but the glass must be put right. Tell
them to let me see the designer before the work is begun--and sweep up
the litter of glass. By the way, the carpet’s not injured, is it?”
“No, sir,” said the servant, busily sweeping, “the carpet’s perfectly
all right.”
XX
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
“There is a good deal of talk in certain circles,” said the deuce of
spades casually to the ace of hearts, “as to the need for equality
among cards.”
“And how,” inquired the ace amicably, “is this equality to be
established?”
“There are three schools of thought,” replied the deuce readily; “the
first holds that all cards should rank as deuce, while the second that
all should be aces. I myself have ventured to favour a golden mean of
all counting, say, as nine.”
“There is a great deal in all these theories,” replied the ace, “and I
think one or other should be immediately adopted. There is, however,
one point on which I should like to sound a note of caution. I do not
quite see how in the altered circumstances any game is to be played.”
“Oh, we have thought of that,” said the deuce carelessly, “and frankly
we do not see the necessity of the game.”
“Then,” said the ace, “I have nothing more to say.”
XXI
QUIS SEPARABIT?
Two statesmen of well-merited celebrity in their own countries and
times, having for a moment escaped the vigilance of their warders, met
in a comparatively cool corner of hell to discuss the possibility of
forming a new government.
“I do not feel,” said the first, “that H.H. any longer really
represents the feeling in the circles.”
“I entirely agree,” said the second; “he is still, I fear, a hopeless
reactionary and continues to believe that there is a distinction
between evil and good--a doctrine which all advanced thought has long
since abandoned.”
“And not only that,” said the first, “he is still a prey to the war
spirit. He is for ever thinking in terms of the great conflict in
which he thinks he was defeated. As a matter of fact, if he could only
realise the truth, heaven was by far the greater sufferer, and is
greatly embarrassed by the reparation exacted from him.”
“There is only one way,” said the second, “to repair the ravages of
that unfortunate misunderstanding, and that is to recognise frankly
that heaven and hell are necessary to one another and to arrange for a
policy of goodwill and intercelestial understanding.”
“Nor should we stop at that,” replied the first, taking fire, as
well he might, at the enunciation of sentiments so lofty; “mere
understanding is not enough. We must have a pact, co-operation, even
coalition.”
“With a common policy,” broke in the second, “resting on the best of
evil and the worst of good.”
“The only difficulty,” said the first, “that I can see is one of the
leadership.”
“We must not,” replied the second, “permit these wretched personalities
to interfere with policies of universal benefit. Moreover, I am sure
that the two forces are both too large-minded to let their personal
inclinations stand in the way. And in any case, is it not possible that
as a result of this great movement they may come to realise----”
“Yes,” cried the first breathlessly.
“--that they themselves are one and the same personality?”
XXII
MEN, NOT MEASURES
“What is that little man with the soul like a wet umbrella, that
somebody has left in a corner, doing?” inquired the lovely, though
scarcely visible, presence that had unexpectedly materialised the night
before in the house of the Prime Minister of Samaria.
“Hush,” whispered his conductor, the utterly outraged Private
Secretary, “hush, they will hear you.”
“Have no fear,” said the radiant creature, looking carefully at the
faces of the assembled Council, “my voice is of the kind that does not
reach their ears. Therefore tell me what he is doing?”
“He is keeping minutes,” said the Secretary, a little sullenly.
“Why does he do that?” inquired the angel. “Were I in his place I would
shoo them on their way like a hen-yard full of hens.”
“You do not understand,” said the Secretary; “he is keeping a record
of what is happening.”
“But how does he know?” inquired the angel.
“By listening to what these gentlemen say,” replied the Secretary.
“Dear me,” said the angel, “if that is his only source of information
I see that I must help him,” and he walked across the Council chamber
to the side of the luckless clerk, gently disregarding the frenzied
gestures of the Private Secretary.
The Clerk had made the following entry in a neat flowing hand on a
handsome sheet of thick white paper.