As for Chuck and Cooney, they appeared to be a wood-chuck and a raccoon who were surprised by a farmer in his corncrib, and escaped by a narrow margin, but I am aware that it was a thinly-disguised fable of race-hatred, because Cooney was the stupid one and got into all the serious trouble.
All my subsequent work has drawn heavily on these sources, accounting for the ugly undertone on which you comment so frankly. Please tell me more. There is nothing that flatters an author so much as having his work explained to him by a graduate student who brings a modern, critically-trained intellect to bear upon it. I can hardly wait for the next instalment.
Eagerly yours,
Samuel Marchbanks.
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• FROM MY NOTEBOOKS •
STRANGE DELUSION / Waiting to see my doctor today I fell into conversation with a woman, obviously from the country, who sat near me. She appeared to be deeply aggrieved at life in general, though her manner was pleasant enough, and I judged that she was suffering from some inconvenient but not serious malady. “You city people don’t know how well off you are,” she said, broodingly. “Every kind of convenience—electric toilets and such.” I marvelled at the quaintness of this idea, but did not feel capable of explaining the limitations of hydro-electric power to her. But since then I have gazed at the plumbing at Marchbanks Towers with new eyes.
FOG-DENSITY / Picked up a magazine this afternoon and read an article by a man who had appointed himself an expert upon what he called the “fog-density” of authors—meaning the difficulty which they presented to the average reader. He did not reveal all his secrets, but one way in which he measures this quality is to count the number of three-syllable words in every 100 words of a writer’s prose. If they are frequent, fog-density is high. I suppose I present a considerable fog-density to some of my readers, but I don’t care; who wants to be understood by everybody? I like long and unusual words, and anybody who does not share my taste is not compelled to read me. Policemen and politicians are under some obligation to make themselves comprehensible to the intellectually stunted, but not I. Let my prose be tenebrous and rebarbative; let my pennyworth of thought be muffled in gorgeous apparel; lovers of Basic English will look to me in vain.
LET US BE PATIENT / The failure of yet another Canadian play on Broadway was attributed to many things, but I think it was owing to the simple fact that nobody is interested in Canadians except, very occasionally, other Canadians. Nations enjoy spells of popularity in the theatre and elsewhere; they become fashionable for no reason that I can discover. For centuries, for instance, nobody was interested in Scotsmen; they were regarded simply as hairy fellows who spoke faulty English. But during the nineteenth century plays about Scots, books about them, jokes about them and indeed everything about them sprang into a new popularity. We are beginning to tire of them now, but Irishmen, Armenians, and Scandinavians have become objects of popular interest. As yet the world does not think that Canadians are interesting; we stand where the Scotch stood before the Big Bagpipe Boom of the Victorian Era, and the period of 1900–1920, when Sir James Barrie persuaded the world that, appearances to the contrary, all Scots were delightful fellows with the souls of little children. Canada’s day will come, no doubt, but we may have to wait a few centuries for it.
SABBATH MUSINGS / Sat by my window, and as the church bells rang and people hastened past my door with their prayerbooks and hymnals in their hands, I pondered upon the secrets of the human heart. Do people go to church in Chalk River, I wondered, and in Los Alamos? And if they do so, do they try to square it with the Almighty that they are engaged in making the most devilish engines of destruction that the world has ever known? We are assured, of course, that atomic power will do great things for the world at peace, but we never hear anything specific except what it will do for the world at war. Do the wives of atomic scientists worry about hats and social prestige? Did the wife of Dr. Faustus fret about what to do with the leftovers of yesterday’s dinner while the Doctor was in his study chatting with the Devil? The answer to all these questions, I have no doubt, is Yes.
CARELESS MUSICIAN / Joined in a private sing-song—one of those affairs where three or four people work through a book called The Jumbo Volume of Songs the Whole World Loves, or something of the kind. We sang The Lost Chord, familiar to me as a boy through a gramophone record of Arthur Pryor playing it on the trombone. But, as I sang, I wondered how the musician in the song ever lost that chord, which sounded like a great Amen? I am no master of musical theory, but the number of chords on an organ which could have sounded like a great Amen to a Victorian organist were remarkably few, and if he was unable to find it again the Royal College of Organists should have insisted that he repeat his final examinations.
GOGOL UNMASKED / Was talking to a Russian, and worked up courage to address him thus: “For many years I have read in books about literature that the Russian author Nikolai Gogol was a very great humorist—the peer of Shakespeare, Aristophanes and Cervantes—and that his novel Dead Souls is one of the world’s great funny books. During a bout of ’flu last year I read Dead Souls carefully, attentively and receptively, but my gravity was not disturbed. Am I stupid, or does Gogol not translate well into English, or what is the matter?” (During this I took care to pronounce Gogol’s name in a gargling fashion, which I hoped would sound Russian.) To my amazement he replied: “My dear Samuel Marchbankovitch, I have never thought Gogol very funny myself. Indeed, Russian writers are never funny in the way that English or American writers are. They are rather facetious, little father, but that is all.” (I observed that he pronounced the name “Goggle,” which I take to be the true Russian manner.) So there it is. I suppose that the Russians, like every other nation, like to pretend that they have a sense of humour. I have been told Chinese jokes, too, by people who thought them funny though, like much Chinese art, the only interesting thing about them was that they were Chinese.
CANADIAN SHIBBOLETH / Was at a party where a merry fellow—a Ph.D. and much respected in academic circles—was tormenting an Australian lady about the accent he believed to be characteristic of her native land. “I can always tell an Aussie by the way they say ‘stewed fruit,’ ” he declared, and then went on saying “stewed fruit” very comically, as well as he could through his laughter. “Please say ‘wash and curl the hair of the squirrel,’ ” said the Australian lady, and the savant obligingly said, “Worsh ’n currl the haira the squrrl.” “That is how I always know a Canadian,” said she, and he was not pleased. But there is something about a Canadian which compels him, however much education and sophistication he may have attained in other realms, to preserve intact the accent in which his barefoot old granny used to curse the timber wolves that raged around her cabin. It is one of the last areas in which illiteracy is equated with integrity.
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• COMMUNIQUÉ (dropped down my chimney) •
To Big Chief Marchbanks.
How, Marchbanks:
Meet fellow on park bench yesterday. Bum, Marchbanks. He awful fat. I got to get rid of this fat, he say. Why, I say. Fat not healthy, he say. All doctors say fat make you die young. First I got to get money to eat, he say, then I got to go on diet. You got fat head, I say. Look at bear. Bear awful fat. Bear healthy, too. Bear healthier than any doctor. Skinny doctor meet fat bear, bear win every time. You poor ignorant Indian, he say. You know nothing about modern science. I know bears, I say.
Not in jail yet, Marchbanks. Winter come soon. How can I get in jail?
How, again,
Osceola Thunderbelly,
Chief of the Crokinoles.
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• CULLED FROM THE APOPHTHEGMS OF WIZARD MARCHBANKS •
A book is criticized by the reviewer in direct proportion as the reviewer is criticized by the book: no man can find wisdom in print which is not already waiting for words within himself.
(August 24 to September 23)
VIRGO IS the sign of the Virgin, and those born under it have a special gift of em
erging from the most dishevelled situations looking as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. You who are born under this sign will do well to take fullest advantage of your air of inexperience and untouchability which, with careful husbanding, should last all your life, deluding thousands of people, some of whom ought to know better. Staggering as the notion is, all astrologers agree that the greatest danger to you lies in over-work; therefore you should never lose an opportunity to rest, and should always put off until tomorrow what people born under Leo have demanded that you do today.
• ENCHANTMENT-OF-THE-MONTH •
As you might have expected, those born under the sign of Virgo have a somewhat cool group of lucky colours—green, greeny-yellowy, blue and black. Your lucky flowers likewise are on the quiet side—bachelor’s button, mourning bride, lavender and azalea. Your lucky stones are marcasite (or white iron pyrites if you want to drag the thing down to its lowest level), agate (of the kind from which children’s marbles are made), jasper and the more attractive emerald and topaz. You will probably wonder why those born under the sign of the Virgin are not encouraged to wear white. I do not know, but I think you should be pleased that you have been spared such a trying colour; it is a nuisance to maintain and very few people look really well in it. Also, it is a ridiculous colour for men. The only man in recent history who habitually wore white clothes was Mark Twain, who was born under Sagittarius and should have worn black, both for astrological and laundry considerations.
• HEALTH HINTS FOR THOSE BORN UNDER VIRGO •
Disagreeable as such a revelation must be to the Virgin-born, your weak spot is your intestines, and astrologers for five centuries have advised your kind to keep away from rich foods and sweetmeats. Your liver, spleen, pancreas and tripes are all of a delicate and readily incommoded disposition. Much of your pensive and romantic character in youth springs directly from this source, but as middle age overtakes you these qualities are likely to be transformed into simple dyspepsia. It is then that you must either behave like a philosopher and eat a restricted and moderate diet, or embark on a life of alternating excess and remorse—the Christmas Dinner followed by the Awful Session in the Night. Many of the Virgo-born attempt to sublimate their dyspepsia—to render it nobler by pretending that it is some mysterious and debilitating complaint which they bear with a martyr’s smile—but this rarely works. The eructation and the borborygmy, the yellow eyeball and the pallid cheek betray too plainly where the trouble really lies.
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• MEDITATIONS AT RANDOM •
INVENTOR OF THE HANDKERCHIEF / I should like to learn something every day, but whole months pass during which I learn nothing at all. Today, however, a crumb of information came my way which I had never nibbled before, and it was this: the handkerchief was invented by King Richard II. He was the first man known to history to carry a piece of linen or silk, clean every day, for blowing his nose. This seems to me to raise Richard to a higher place in the ranks of English royalty than he is usually granted. We make a hero of Henry V, who was a loudmouthed brawler, and we take an indulgent view of his father, Henry IV, who was a crook. Both of these fellows, though usurpers of Richard’s throne, blew their noses on their fingers and slept in their underwear. But Richard, who invented the handkerchief and seems to have been one of the very few English politicians who knew how to get along with the Irish, is usually brushed off as a foolish fellow who liked poetry and music, attended plays and wasted money on triflers like Chaucer. For his invention of the handkerchief I insist that he deserves a statue in pure gold.
CHURCH ECONOMICS / Attended an entertainment in a church hall this evening, and during the intervals some little girls sold fudge in aid of their Sunday School. They handed over a large sack of first-class fudge in return for ten cents, and this struck me as typical church economics, for there was at least twenty cents’ worth of delicious fattening sweetmeat in each bag. If these little girls had business instincts, they would reckon their overhead, time, cartage to the church, and materials, and would then sell the fudge at thirty-five cents a bag; but as no one could then afford to eat it, they would lobby for a government subsidy, which would pay them twenty cents on each bag of fudge, allowing them to sell for fifteen cents. As the fudge would still sell very well at that price, there would soon be a glutted market, and they would get the government to buy their surplus fudge at the full retail price, and sell it to Europe for ten cents a bag. However, I did not explain these things to them, but contented myself with buying two bags of bargain fudge, and stealing another, which somebody, in the seats in front of mine, left behind them at the end of the entertainment.
*
*
• FROM MY FILES •
To the Rev. Simon Goaste, B.D.
Dear Rector:
Do you believe in reincarnation? I don’t suppose you do, and neither do I, but it is attractive nonsense, none the less. I ask because it occurred to me last night that I might possibly be a reincarnation of Good Queen Bess. I read that she “passionately admired handsome persons and he was already far advanced in her favour who approached her with beauty and grace. She had so unconquerable an aversion for men who had been treated unfortunately by nature, that she could not endure their presence.” I feel just the same. I like handsome people, particularly women. I also like people who are fascinatingly ugly. It’s the in-betweens who give me eye-strain and I generally treat them with bad-tempered indifference.
So perhaps I am Queen Elizabeth returned to earth. Have you noticed that people who believe in reincarnation never imagine that they were a person of no importance in another life? Have you ever heard one claim that he was a slave who worked quite contentedly on the Pyramids, and died of rupture at 23? Or that he was a peasant who neglected to go to see Joan of Arc burned because he was mending his roof? Or that he was a Scottish crofter who saw young James Watt watching the tea-kettle and said “Yon laddie’ll never amount to owt”? But the world is full of unrecognized Napoleons, Cleopatras and similar great ones.
Yours sincerely,
Samuel Marchbanks
(or possibly Queen Elizabeth).
*
To Miss Nancy Frisgig.
Charming Nancy:
I have your note in which you say that you wish you had lived in the Middle Ages, because it must have been such fun. I’m not so sure. Do you know that during the greater part of what we call the Middle Ages nobody had a bed? They slept on heaps of straw, quite naked, and it was considered pernickety to change the straw more than two or three times a year. Those who had beds slept in curious contrivances which caused them to lie at an angle of forty-five degrees; it must have been rather like sleeping standing up. Do you know that there were no chimneys in those times? Fires were built in the middle of the main room of the house, and the smoke escaped through a hole in the roof, but only after it had whirled all around the room and choked everybody. When, late in the Middle Ages, chimneys were introduced, they caused outraged complaint among architectural critics and moralists who thought discomfort must be healthy.
But the real trial was the music. Last week I had a chance to hear quite a lot of mediaeval music, played on a lute, by a modern expert. I suppose you think of a lute as a charming instrument which young men would have played under your window to show that they loved you? Ha, ha. The lute sounds pretty much like a guitar with a cold in its head. A catarrh, in fact. Ho, ho.
So when you are tempted to idealize the Middle Ages, imagine yourself lying naked in dirty, tickly straw, breathing smoke and listening to the lute. There is really a great deal to be said for modern comfort.
Yours as always,
Sam.
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To Haubergeon Hydra, ESQ.
My dear Mr. Hydra:
I am not an unreasonable man, I hope, but the Government’s action in bringing in Daylight Saving, or Summer Time, has caused me a degree of inconvenience which rouses me to protest. And naturally it is to you, as Deputy Commissioner of Offici
ally Approved Nuisances, that I turn.
The principal timepiece in my home, sir, is a striking clock. At the half hour it goes Dong, and at the hour it goes Dong as many times as it is o’clock. Or rather, I should say that it goes Whang, for the thing in its intestines which makes the noise is not a bell, but a coiled spring, which simulates the sound of a bell less than perfectly.
Now some years ago this clock fell ill of a horological malady which caused its Whanging apparatus to lose an hour, so that it always Whangs one too few. And now that you have further complicated matters with your Daylight Saving, it Whangs two too few, which is more than flesh and blood can bear, particularly when it Whangs midnight at two a.m.
As you know, it is fatal to tamper with a good clock. One must take it as it is, or not at all. But my clock is unnerving me, and I hold you and the Government responsible.
Yours at sixes and sevens,
Samuel Marchbanks.
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To Raymond Cataplasm, M.D., F.R.C.P.
Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack Page 12