Literary Lapses - Stephen Leacock
It is pleasing to turn from this excessive sentimentality
of thought and speech to the practical and concise diction
of our time. We have learned to express ourselves with
equal force, but greater simplicity. To illustrate this
I have gathered from the poets of the earlier generation
and from the prose writers of to-day parallel passages
that may be fairly set in contrast. Here, for example,
is a passage from the poet Grey, still familiar to
scholars:
"Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour's voice invoke the silent dust
Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?"
Precisely similar in thought, though different in form,
is the more modern presentation found in Huxley's
Physiology:
"Whether after the moment of death the ventricles of the
heart can be again set in movement by the artificial
stimulus of oxygen, is a question to which we must impose
a decided negative."
How much simpler, and yet how far superior to Grey's
elaborate phraseology! Huxley has here seized the central
point of the poet's thought, and expressed it with the
dignity and precision of exact science.
I cannot refrain, even at the risk of needless iteration,
from quoting a further example. It is taken from the poet
Burns. The original dialect being written in inverted
hiccoughs, is rather difficult to reproduce. It describes
the scene attendant upon the return of a cottage labourer
to his home on Saturday night:
"The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face
They round the ingle form in a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare:
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion wi' judeecious care."
Now I find almost the same scene described in more apt
phraseology in the police news of the Dumfries Chronicle
(October 3, 1909), thus: "It appears that the prisoner
had returned to his domicile at the usual hour, and,
after partaking of a hearty meal, had seated himself on
his oaken settle, for the ostensible purpose of reading
the Bible. It was while so occupied that his arrest was
effected." With the trifling exception that Burns omits
all mention of the arrest, for which, however, the whole
tenor of the poem gives ample warrant, the two accounts
are almost identical.
In all that I have thus said I do not wish to be
misunderstood. Believing, as I firmly do, that the poet
is destined to become extinct, I am not one of those who
would accelerate his extinction. The time has not yet
come for remedial legislation, or the application of the
criminal law. Even in obstinate cases where pronounced
delusions in reference to plants, animals, and natural
phenomena are seen to exist, it is better that we should
do nothing that might occasion a mistaken remorse. The
inevitable natural evolution which is thus shaping the
mould of human thought may safely be left to its own
course.
Self-made Men
They were both what we commonly call successful business
men--men with well-fed faces, heavy signet rings on
fingers like sausages, and broad, comfortable waistcoats,
a yard and a half round the equator. They were seated
opposite each other at a table of a first-class restaurant,
and had fallen into conversation while waiting to give
their order to the waiter. Their talk had drifted back
to their early days and how each had made his start in
life when he first struck New York.
"I tell you what, Jones," one of them was saying, "I
shall never forget my first few years in this town. By
George, it was pretty uphill work! Do you know, sir, when
I first struck this place, I hadn't more than fifteen
cents to my name, hadn't a rag except what I stood up
in, and all the place I had to sleep in--you won't
believe it, but it's a gospel fact just the same--was an
empty tar barrel. No, sir," he went on, leaning back and
closing up his eyes into an expression of infinite
experience, "no, sir, a fellow accustomed to luxury like
you has simply no idea what sleeping out in a tar barrel
and all that kind of thing is like."
"My dear Robinson," the other man rejoined briskly, "if
you imagine I've had no experience of hardship of that
sort, you never made a bigger mistake in your life. Why,
when I first walked into this town I hadn't a cent, sir,
not a cent, and as for lodging, all the place I had for
months and months was an old piano box up a lane, behind
a factory. Talk about hardship, I guess I had it pretty
rough! You take a fellow that's used to a good warm tar
barrel and put him into a piano box for a night or two,
and you'll see mighty soon--"
"My dear fellow," Robinson broke in with some irritation,
"you merely show that you don't know what a tar barrel's
like. Why, on winter nights, when you'd be shut in there
in your piano box just as snug as you please, I used to
lie awake shivering, with the draught fairly running in
at the bunghole at the back."
"Draught!" sneered the other man, with a provoking laugh,
"draught! Don't talk to me about draughts. This box I
speak of had a whole darned plank off it, right on the
north side too. I used to sit there studying in the
evenings, and the snow would blow in a foot deep. And
yet, sir," he continued more quietly, "though I know
you'll not believe it, I don't mind admitting that some
of the happiest days of my life were spent in that same
old box. Ah, those were good old times! Bright, innocent
days, I can tell you. I'd wake up there in the mornings
and fairly shout with high spirits. Of course, you may
not be able to stand that kind of life--"
"Not stand it!" cried Robinson fiercely; "me not stand
it! By gad! I'm made for it. I just wish I had a taste
of the old life again for a while. And as for innocence!
Well, I'll bet you you weren't one-tenth as innocent as
I was; no, nor one-fifth, nor one-third! What a grand
old life it was! You'll swear this is a darned lie and
refuse to believe it--but I can remember evenings when
I'd have two or three fellows in, and we'd sit round and
play pedro by a candle half the night."
"Two or three!" laughed Jones; "why, my dear fellow, I've
known half a dozen of us to sit down to supper in my
piano box, and have a game of pedro afterwards; yes, and
charades and forfeits, and every other darned thing.
Mighty good suppers they were too! By Jove, Robinson,
you fellows round this town who have ruined your digestions
with high living, have no notion of the zest with which
a man can sit down to a few potato peelings, or a bit of
broken pie crust, or--"
"Talk about hard food," interrupted the other, "I guess
I know all about that. Many's the time I've breakfasted
off a little cold porridge that somebody was going to
throw away from a back-door, or that I've gone round to
a livery stable and begged a little bran mash that they
intended for the pigs. I'll venture to say I've eaten
more hog's food--"
"Hog's food!" shouted Robinson, striking his fist savagely
on the table, "I tell you hog's food suits me better than--"
He stopped speaking with a sudden grunt of surprise as
the waiter appeared with the question:
"What may I bring you for dinner, gentlemen?"
"Dinner!" said Jones, after a moment of silence, "dinner!
Oh, anything, nothing--I never care what I eat--give me
a little cold porridge, if you've got it, or a chunk of
salt pork--anything you like, it's all the same to me."
The waiter turned with an impassive face to Robinson.
"You can bring me some of that cold porridge too," he
said, with a defiant look at Jones; "yesterday's, if you
have it, and a few potato peelings and a glass of skim
milk."
There was a pause. Jones sat back in his chair and looked
hard across at Robinson. For some moments the two men
gazed into each other's eyes with a stern, defiant
intensity. Then Robinson turned slowly round in his seat
and beckoned to the waiter, who was moving off with the
muttered order on his lips.
"Here, waiter," he said with a savage scowl, "I guess
I'll change that order a little. Instead of that cold
porridge I'll take--um, yes--a little hot partridge. And
you might as well bring me an oyster or two on the half
shell, and a mouthful of soup (mock-turtle, consomme,
anything), and perhaps you might fetch along a dab of
fish, and a little peck of Stilton, and a grape, or a
walnut."
The waiter turned to Jones.
"I guess I'll take the same," he said simply, and added;
"and you might bring a quart of champagne at the same
time."
And nowadays, when Jones and Robinson meet, the memory
of the tar barrel and the piano box is buried as far out
of sight as a home for the blind under a landslide.
A Model Dialogue
In which is shown how the drawing-room juggler may be
permanently cured of his card trick.
The drawing-room juggler, having slyly got hold of the
pack of cards at the end of the game of whist, says:
"Ever see any card tricks? Here's rather a good one; pick
a card."
"Thank you, I don't want a card."
"No, but just pick one, any one you like, and I'll tell
which one you pick."
"You'll tell who?"
"No, no; I mean, I'll know which it is don't you see? Go
on now, pick a card."
"Any one I like?"
"Yes."
"Any colour at all?"
"Yes, yes."
"Any suit?"
"Oh, yes; do go on."
"Well, let me see, I'll--pick--the--ace of spades."
"Great Caesar! I mean you are to pull a card out of the
pack."
"Oh, to pull it out of the pack! Now I understand. Hand
me the pack. All right--I've got it."
"Have you picked one?"
"Yes, it's the three of hearts. Did you know it?"
"Hang it! Don't tell me like that. You spoil the thing.
Here, try again. Pick a card."
"All right, I've got it."
"Put it back in the pack. Thanks. (Shuffle, shuffle,
shuffle--flip)--There, is that it?" (triumphantly).
"I don't know. I lost sight of it."
"Lost sight of it! Confound it, you have to look at it
and see what it is."
"Oh, you want me to look at the front of it!"
"Why, of course! Now then, pick a card."
"All right. I've picked it. Go ahead."
(Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle--flip.)
"Say, confound you, did you put that card back in the
pack?"
"Why, no. I kept it."
"Holy Moses! Listen. Pick--a--card--just one--look at
it--see what it is--then put it back--do you understand?"
"Oh, perfectly. Only I don't see how you are ever going
to do it. You must be awfully clever."
(Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle--flip.)
"There you are; that's your card, now, isn't it?" (This
is the supreme moment.)
"NO. THAT IS NOT MY CARD." (This is a flat lie, but Heaven
will pardon you for it.)
"Not that card!!!! Say--just hold on a second. Here, now,
watch what you're at this time. I can do this cursed
thing, mind you, every time. I've done it on father, on
mother, and on every one that's ever come round our place.
Pick a card. (Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle--flip, bang.)
There, that's your card."
"NO. I AM SORRY. THAT IS NOT MY CARD. But won't you try
it again? Please do. Perhaps you are a little excited--I'm
afraid I was rather stupid. Won't you go and sit quietly
by yourself on the back verandah for half an hour and
then try? You have to go home? Oh, I'm so sorry. It must
be such an awfully clever little trick. Good night!"
Back to the Bush
I have a friend called Billy, who has the Bush Mania. By
trade he is a doctor, but I do not think that he needs
to sleep out of doors. In ordinary things his mind appears
sound. Over the tops I of his gold-rimmed spectacles, as
he bends forward to speak to you, there gleams nothing
but amiability and kindliness. Like all the rest of us
he is, or was until he forgot it all, an extremely
well-educated man.
I am aware of no criminal strain in his blood. Yet Billy
is in reality hopelessly unbalanced. He has the Mania of
the Open Woods.
Worse than that, he is haunted with the desire to drag
his friends with him into the depths of the Bush.
Whenever we meet he starts to talk about it.
Not long ago I met him in the club.
"I wish," he said, "you'd let me take you clear away up
the Gatineau."
"Yes, I wish I would, I don't think," I murmured to
myself, but I humoured him and said:
"How do we go, Billy, in a motor-car or by train?"
"No, we paddle."
"And is it up-stream all the way?"
"Oh, yes," Billy said enthusiastically.
"And how many days do we paddle all day to get up?"
"Six."
"Couldn't we do it in less?"
"Yes," Billy answered, feeling that I was entering into
the spirit of the thing, "if we start each morning just
before daylight and paddle hard till moonlight, we could
do it in five days and a half."
"Glorious! and are there portages?"
"Lots of them."
"And at each of these do I carry two hundred pounds of
stuff up a hill on my back?"
"Yes."
"And will there be a guide, a genuine, dirty-looking
Indian guide?"
"Yes."
"And can I sleep next to him?"
"Oh, yes, if you want to."
"And when we get to the top, what is there?"
"Well, we go over the height of land."
"Oh, we do, do we? And is the height of land all rock
and about three hundred yards up-hill? And do I carry a
barrel of flour up it? And does it roll down and crush
me on the other side? Look here, Billy, this trip is a
great thing, but it is too luxurious for me. If you will
have me paddled up the river in a large iron canoe with
an awning, carried over the portages in a sedan-chair,
taken across the height of land in a palanquin or a
howdah, and lowered down the other side in a derrick,
I'll go. Short of that, the thing would be too fattening."
Billy was discouraged and left me. But he has since
returned repeatedly to the attack.
He offers to take me to the head-waters of the Batiscan.
I am content at the foot.
He wants us to go to the sources of the Attahwapiscat.
I don't.
He says I ought to see the grand chutes of the Kewakasis.
Why should I?
I have made Billy a counter-proposition that we strike
through the Adirondacks (in the train) to New York, from
there portage to Atlantic City, then to Washington,
carrying our own grub (in the dining-car), camp there a
few days (at the Willard), and then back, I to return by
train and Billy on foot with the outfit.
The thing is still unsettled.
Billy, of course, is only one of thousands that have got
this mania. And the autumn is the time when it rages at
its worst.
Every day there move northward trains, packed full of
lawyers, bankers, and brokers, headed for the bush. They
are dressed up to look like pirates. They wear slouch
hats, flannel shirts, and leather breeches with belts.
They could afford much better clothes than these, but
they won't use them. I don't know where they get these
clothes. I think the railroad lends them out. They have
guns between their knees and big knives at their hips.
They smoke the worst tobacco they can find, and they
carry ten gallons of alcohol per man in the baggage car.
In the intervals of telling lies to one another they read
the railroad pamphlets about hunting. This kind of
literature is deliberately and fiendishly contrived to
infuriate their mania. I know all about these pamphlets
because I write them. I once, for instance, wrote up,
from imagination, a little place called Dog Lake at the
end of a branch line. The place had failed as a settlement,
and the railroad had decided to turn it into a hunting
resort. I did the turning. I think I did it rather well,
rechristening the lake and stocking the place with suitable
varieties of game. The pamphlet ran like this.
"The limpid waters of Lake Owatawetness (the name,
according to the old Indian legends of the place, signifies,
The Mirror of the Almighty) abound with every known
variety of fish. Near to its surface, so close that the
angler may reach out his hand and stroke them, schools
of pike, pickerel, mackerel, doggerel, and chickerel
jostle one another in the water. They rise instantaneously
to the bait and swim gratefully ashore holding it in
their mouths. In the middle depth of the waters of the
lake, the sardine, the lobster, the kippered herring,
the anchovy and other tinned varieties of fish disport
themselves with evident gratification, while even lower
in the pellucid depths the dog-fish, the hog-fish, the
log-fish, and the sword-fish whirl about in never-ending
circles.
"Nor is Lake Owatawetness merely an Angler's Paradise.
Vast forests of primeval pine slope to the very shores
of the lake, to which descend great droves of bears--brown,
green, and bear-coloured--while as the shades of evening
fall, the air is loud with the lowing of moose, cariboo,
antelope, cantelope, musk-oxes, musk-rats, and other
graminivorous mammalia of the forest. These enormous
quadrumana generally move off about 10.30 p.m., from
which hour until 11.45 p.m. the whole shore is reserved
for bison and buffalo.
"After midnight hunters who so desire it can be chased
through the woods, for any distance and at any speed they
select, by jaguars, panthers, cougars, tigers, and jackals
whose ferocity is reputed to be such that they will tear
the breeches off a man with their teeth in their eagerness
to sink their fangs in his palpitating flesh. Hunters,
attention! Do not miss such attractions as these!"
I have seen men--quiet, reputable, well-shaved men--
reading that pamphlet of mine in the rotundas of hotels,
with their eyes blazing with excitement. I think it is
the jaguar attraction that hits them the hardest, because
I notice them rub themselves sympathetically with their
hands while they read.
Of course, you can imagine the effect of this sort of
literature on the brains of men fresh from their offices,
and dressed out as pirates.
They just go crazy and stay crazy.
Just watch them when they get into the bush.
Notice that well-to-do stockbroker crawling about on his
stomach in the underbrush, with his spectacles shining
like gig-lamps. What is he doing? He is after a cariboo
that isn't there. He is "stalking" it. With his stomach.
Of course, away down in his heart he knows that the
cariboo isn't there and never was; but that man read my
pamphlet and went crazy. He can't help it: he's GOT to
stalk something. Mark him as he crawls along; see him
crawl through a thimbleberry bush (very quietly so that
the cariboo won't hear the noise of the prickles going
into him), then through a bee's nest, gently and slowly,
so that the cariboo will not take fright when the bees
are stinging him. Sheer woodcraft! Yes, mark him. Mark
him any way you like. Go up behind him and paint a blue
cross on the seat of his pants as he crawls. He'll never
notice. He thinks he's a hunting dog. Yet this is the
man who laughs at his little son of ten for crawling
round under the dining-room table with a mat over his
shoulders, and pretending to be a bear.
Now see these other men in camp.
Someone has told them--I think I first started the idea
in my pamphlet--that the thing is to sleep on a pile of
hemlock branches. I think I told them to listen to the
wind sowing (you know the word I mean), sowing and crooning
in the giant pines. So there they are upside-down, doubled
up on a couch of green spikes that would have killed St.
Sebastian. They stare up at the sky with blood-shot,
restless eyes, waiting for the crooning to begin. And
there isn't a sow in sight.
Here is another man, ragged and with a six days' growth
of beard, frying a piece of bacon on a stick over a little
fire. Now what does he think he is? The CHEF of the
Waldorf Astoria? Yes, he does, and what's more he thinks
that that miserable bit of bacon, cut with a tobacco
knife from a chunk of meat that lay six days in the rain,
is fit to eat. What's more, he'll eat it. So will the
rest. They're all crazy together.
There's another man, the Lord help him who thinks he has
the "knack" of being a carpenter. He is hammering up
shelves to a tree. Till the shelves fall down he thinks
he is a wizard. Yet this is the same man who swore at
his wife for asking him to put up a shelf in the back
kitchen. "How the blazes," he asked, "could he nail the
damn thing up? Did she think he was a plumber?"
After all, never mind.
Provided they are happy up there, let them stay.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if they didn't come back and
lie about it. They get back to the city dead fagged for
want of sleep, sogged with alcohol, bitten brown by the
bush-flies, trampled on by the moose and chased through
the brush by bears and skunks--and they have the nerve
to say that they like it.
Sometimes I think they do.
Men are only animals anyway. They like to get out into
the woods and growl round at night and feel something
bite them.
Only why haven't they the imagination to be able to do
the same thing with less fuss? Why not take their coats
and collars off in the office and crawl round on the
floor and growl at one another. It would be just as good.
Reflections on Riding
The writing of this paper has been inspired by a debate
recently held at the literary society of my native town
on the question, "Resolved: that the bicycle is a nobler
animal than the horse." In order to speak for the negative
with proper authority, I have spent some weeks in completely
addicting myself to the use of the horse. I find that
the difference between the horse and the bicycle is
greater than I had supposed.
The horse is entirely covered with hair; the bicycle is
not entirely covered with hair, except the '89 model they
are using in Idaho.
In riding a horse the performer finds that the pedals in
which he puts his feet will not allow of a good circular
stroke. He will observe, however, that there is a saddle
in which--especially while the horse is trotting--he is
expected to seat himself from time to time. But it is
simpler to ride standing up, with the feet in the pedals.
There are no handles to a horse, but the 1910 model has
a string to each side of its face for turning its head
when there is anything you want it to see.
Coasting on a good horse is superb, but should be under
control. I have known a horse to suddenly begin to coast
with me about two miles from home, coast down the main
street of my native town at a terrific rate, and finally
coast through a plantoon of the Salvation Army into its
livery stable.
I cannot honestly deny that it takes a good deal of
physical courage to ride a horse. This, however, I have.
I get it at about forty cents a flask, and take it as
required.
I find that in riding a horse up the long street of a
country town, it is not well to proceed at a trot. It
excites unkindly comment. It is better to let the horse
walk the whole distance. This may be made to seem natural
by turning half round in the saddle with the hand on the
horse's back, and gazing intently about two miles up the
road. It then appears that you are the first in of about
fourteen men.
Since learning to ride, I have taken to noticing the
things that people do on horseback in books. Some of
these I can manage, but most of them are entirely beyond
me. Here, for instance, is a form of equestrian performance
that every reader will recognize and for which I have
only a despairing admiration:
"With a hasty gesture of farewell, the rider set spurs
to his horse and disappeared in a cloud of dust."
With a little practice in the matter of adjustment, I
think I could set spurs to any size of horse, but I could
never disappear in a cloud of dust--at least, not with
any guarantee of remaining disappeared when the dust
cleared away.
Here, however, is one that I certainly can do:
"The bridle-rein dropped from Lord Everard's listless
hand, and, with his head bowed upon his bosom, he suffered
his horse to move at a foot's pace up the sombre avenue.
Deep in thought, he heeded not the movement of the steed
which bore him."
That is, he looked as if he didn't; but in my case Lord
Everard has his eye on the steed pretty closely, just
the same.
This next I am doubtful about:
"To horse! to horse!" cried the knight, and leaped into
the saddle.
I think I could manage it if it read:
"To horse!" cried the knight, and, snatching a step-ladder
from the hands of his trusty attendant, he rushed into
the saddle.
As a concluding remark, I may mention that my experience
of riding has thrown a very interesting sidelight upon
a rather puzzling point in history. It is recorded of
the famous Henry the Second that he was "almost constantly
in the saddle, and of so restless a disposition that he
never sat down, even at meals." I had hitherto been unable
to understand Henry's idea about his meals, but I think
I can appreciate it now.
Saloonio
A STUDY IN SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM
They say that young men fresh from college are pretty
positive about what they know. But from my own experience
of life, I should say that if you take a comfortable,
elderly man who hasn't been near a college for about
twenty years, who has been pretty liberally fed and dined
ever since, who measures about fifty inches around the
circumference, and has a complexion like a cranberry by
candlelight, you will find that there is a degree of
absolute certainty about what he thinks he knows that
will put any young man to shame. I am specially convinced
of this from the case of my friend Colonel Hogshead, a
portly, choleric gentleman who made a fortune in the
cattle-trade out in Wyoming, and who, in his later days,
has acquired a chronic idea that the plays of Shakespeare
are the one subject upon which he is most qualified to
speak personally.