Here are Ladies Part 21

"Thus, by slow accretions, the various languages crept into currency, and the youth of innumerable schoolboys has been embittered by having to learn to spell.

"Gra.s.shoppers are a fine, st.u.r.dy race of people. A great many of them live on the Hill of Howth, where I have often spent hours hearkening to their charming conversation. They do not speak with the same machinery that we use--they convey their ideas to each other by rubbing their hind-legs together, whereupon noises are produced of exceeding variety and interest. As a method of speech this is simply delightful, and I wish we could be trained to converse in so majestical a manner. Perhaps we shall live to see the day when the journals will chronicle that Mr.

Redmond had rubbed his legs together for three hours at the Treasury Bench and was removed frothing at the feet, but after a little rest he was enabled to return and make more noise than ever."

The old gentleman smiled very genially and went out. The a.s.sistant suggested that he had a terrible lot of old "guff," but I did not agree with him.

VII

Between impartial sips at his own and my liquor the old gentleman perused the small volume which he had taken from my pocket. After he had read it he b.u.t.toned the book in his own pouch and addressed me with great kindness--

"In some respects," said he, "poets differ materially from other animals. For instance, they seldom marry, and when they do it is only under extreme compulsion.--This is the more singular when we remember that poets are almost continually singing about love. When they do marry they instantly cease to make poetry and turn to labour like the rest of the community.

"It has been finely said that the poet is born and not made, but I fancy that this might be postulated of the rest of creation.

"Many people believe that all poets arise from their beds in the middle of the night, and that they walk ten miles until they come to a hillside, where they remain until the dawn whistling to the little birds; but this, while it is true in some instances, is not invariably true. A proper poet would not walk ten miles for any one except a publisher.

"The art of writing poetry is very difficult at first, but it becomes easy by practice. The best way for a beginner is to take a line from another poem; then he should construct a line to fit it; then, having won his start, he should strike out the first line (which, of course, does not belong to him) and go ahead. When the poet has written three verses of four lines each he should run out and find a girl somewhere and read it to her. Girls are always delighted when this is done.

They usually clasp their hands together as though in pain, roll their eyes in an ecstasy, and shout, 'How perfectly perfect!' Then the poet will grip both her hands very tightly and say he loves her but will not marry her, and, in an agony of inspiration, he will tear himself away and stand drinks to himself until he is put out. This is, of course, only one way of being a poet. If he perseveres he will ultimately write lyrics for the music halls and make a fortune. He will then wear a fur coat that died of the mange, he will support a carnation in his b.u.t.tonhole, wear eighteen rings on his right hand and one hundred and twenty-seven on his left. He will also be ent.i.tled to wear two breast-pins at once and yellow boots. He will live in England when he is at home, and be very friendly with d.u.c.h.esses.

"Poetry is the oldest of the arts. Indeed, it may be called the parent of the arts. Poetry, music, and dancing are the only relics which have come down to us from those ancient times which are termed impartially the Golden or the Arboreal Ages. In ancient Ireland the part played by the poet was very important. Not alone was he the singer of songs, he was also the bestower of fame and the keeper of genealogies, and, therefore, he was treated with a dignity which he has since refused to forget. When a poet made a song in public, it was customary that the king and the n.o.bility should divest themselves of their jewels, gold chains, and rings, and give this light plunder to him. They also bestowed on him goblets of gold and silver, herds of cattle, farms, and maidservants. The poets are not at all happy in these constricted times, and will proclaim their astonishment and repugnance in the roundest language.

"A few days ago I was speaking in Grafton Street to a poet of great eminence, and, with tears in his voice, he told me that he had never been offered as much as a bracelet by any lady. Times have changed; but for the person who still wishes to enter this decayed profession there is still every opportunity, for poetry is only the art of cutting sentences into equal lengths, and then getting these sentences printed by a publisher. It is in the latter part of this formula that the real art consists.

"There are a great many poets in Ireland, particularly in Dublin. In an evening's walk one may meet at least a dozen of this peculiar people. They may be known by the fact that they wear large, soft hats, and that the breast-pockets of their coats have a more than noticeable bulge, due to their habit of carrying therein the twenty-seven masterpieces which they have just written. They are very ethereal creatures, composed largely of soul and thirst. Soul is a far-away, eerie thing, generally produced by eating fish."

The old gentleman borrowed the price of a tram home; but as he instantly stood himself a drink with it, I was forced to relend him the money when we got outside.

VIII

The old gentleman was in a very bad temper when I arrived. He had a large gla.s.s of porter in his hand--a pint, in fact--and he was gazing on this liquid with no great favour. I was a little surprised at his choice of a drink, for I had never before known him care for any other refreshment than spirits; but I did not like to make any reference to the change. Looking thus, with great disgust, upon his pint, he began to talk with some asperity about the English nation.

"The ways of Providence," said he, "are indeed inscrutable, else why should there be such things in the world as lobsters, gutta-percha, ballet-dancers, and Englishmen? These four objects, and some others--notably water, tram-cars, and warts--I can find no necessity for in nature; but there must be some reason for such, or else they could not have arrived at the more or less mature stage of development at which they are found.

"If we apply the canons of the Pragmatic philosophy to these objects we will arrive at some conclusion which, although it may not justify their existence, will give a hint as to their expediency. The question to be put to any doubtful fact in nature is this--'What is your use?' and the reality of the fact is in ratio to the degree of usefulness inhering in it. Thus treated, most of the objects to which I have referred may be able to adduce some excuse for their existence. A lobster may aver that if he were not alive his absence would be a severe blow to the lobster-pot industry, and would throw many respectable families on the already-overburdened rates. Gutta-percha might plead that it has aspired through many millions of ages to a maturity which would enable it to rub out lead-pencil marks. Ballet-dancers would have a great deal to say for themselves, possibly on moral grounds; but I really see no reason for Englishmen.

"I have said that an object is real in ratio to its usefulness. If we examine an Englishman thus pragmatically we must discover that his usefulness is zero, and we are then forced to inquire why he exists at all, for he does undoubtedly exist, as witness this pint of porter which I hold in my hand, and which I do hold in my hand solely on account of the unexplainable existence of Englishmen.

"I may say at once that I never indulge in this particular form of refreshment, against which I have nothing further to charge than it does not agree with my system, but I am no bigot in such matters, and can quite willingly believe that lower natures and less cultivated palates may take pleasure in secreting this inordinately lengthy liquid. I cannot avoid the belief that any liquid which may be imbibed by the imperial pint is an essentially gross drink, and one unfitted for persons of a high culture. Nor can I find in nature that any of the more specialised organisms take their drink in such extravagant quant.i.ties. Camels, who, I am informed, are a very well-behaved and moral race leading rigorous and chaste lives in a desert, do drink deeply, but their excess is more apparent than real, for Providence in an aberration endowed these folk with more stomachs than the average person possesses, and the necessity for filling these additional cisterns accounts for and justifies their liberal use of moisture.

Worms, on the other hand, are a folk for whom I have very little reverence and no affection. I am not aware whether they are all stomach or all neck, but from their corner-boy expression I am inclined to fancy that worms would drink pints if they could. Happily, this disgusting exhibition is forbidden by the imperfect state of their civilisation and the inelastic quality of their environment.

"But this is beside the point. My grievance is, that in my old age I am forced to drink porter which disagrees with my liver, and am compelled to abstain from spirits which have a sustaining and medicinal effect on that organ, and this deprivation is solely due to the unnatural and inexplicable existence of Englishmen. It may be that nature grew Englishmen for the sole purpose of interfering with my organs, and so, by modifying my teaching in accordance with my diseased interior, nature may be striving to evolve a new culture wherein bile will have a rare ability. If this is so, then I am not at all obliged to nature for singling me out as the instrument of her changes; if it is not so I can only confess my ignorance and wash my hands of the matter.

"Mark you, it was only during my lifetime that an exorbitant tax was placed on whisky. Before my era the interference with this refreshment was of the most tentative and apologetic description.

"I can remember, and I do remember with dismay, the time when whisky was purchaseable at two bronze pennies for the naggin, but now one may discharge a ruinous impost for the privilege of imbibing one poor fourth of that happy measure.

"This has been brought about by the continuous interference of Englishmen with my liquor. Time and again they have added additional difficulties to my obtaining this medicinal refreshment, and, while I am compelled to bow my head to the ideas of nature for the improvement of our race, I am often inclined, having bowed it, to charge goat-like at these intolerable people and b.u.t.t them off the face of the earth into the nowhere for which their villainous and ungenial habits have fitted them. Otherwise, by their future exactions I may be brought to the drinking of benzene or printer's ink for lack of a fortune wherewith to purchase fitter refreshment."

Having said this with great fury, the old gentleman laid down his untasted pint and stalked out. The acolyte behind the counter made a sympathetic clicking noise with his tongue and sold the pint to another man.--He probably did this thoughtlessly, and I did not care to embarra.s.s him by remarking on it.

IX

I met the old gentleman marching solemnly across Cork Hill. There was a tramcar in his immediate rear, a cab in front of him, an outside-car and a bicycle on his right hand, and a dray laden with barrels on his left. The drivers of all these vehicles were entreating him in one voice to stroll elsewhere. He looked around and, observing that matters were complicated, he opened his umbrella, held it over his head, and awaited events with the most admirable fort.i.tude. When I had escorted him to the pavement, and further to his own hostelry, he seized the third b.u.t.ton of my waistcoat and spake as follows:--

"It is an admirable example of the wisdom of nature that she has refrained in every case from equipping her creatures with wheels instead of legs, and she might easily have done this. So far as I am aware there are but four methods of progression in nature--these are, flying, swimming, walking and crawling. None of these are performed with a rotary motion, and all are admirably adapted to the people using them, and are sufficiently expeditious to suit their needs.

"There is no doubt that the most primitive of movements is that of crawling, and by this method of progression, one is brought into an intimate contact with the earth which cannot fail to be beneficial. I do not see any real difficulty in the way of our again becoming a race of happy and crawling people. The initial essay towards this end is to shed our arms and legs as useless inc.u.mbrances, and then to aim at a stronger growth of jaw and cranium. Among certain organisms it will be found that the jaws are the most immediately useful parts of the body, performing the most varied and delicate functions with the greatest ease. A dog, for example, will, with the one organ, play with a ball, kill a cat, or nip the calf of a Christian, and, when the moon is high, he can make a noise with his mouth which is as loud and quite as melodious as the professional clamour of a ballad-vocalist.

"One of the greatest evils of civilisation is the longing for speed, which, within the past hundred years, has developed from a simple vice to a complicated mania. Long ago men were accustomed to use their legs in order to propel themselves forward, and, when greater speed was necessary, they a.s.sisted their legs with their hands--this was coeval with, or shortly after, the arboreal age. Next came the hunting epoch, when some person, probably a commercial traveller, dropped off a tree on to a horse's back, and finding the movement pleasant he informed his companions of his adventure and demonstrated to them how it had been performed. It is from this occurrence we may date the degradation of the human race and the industry of horse-stealing. There followed the pastoral age, when nuts were, more or less, abandoned as a food and tillage became general. The necessity for conveying the crops from the field to the camp excited some lazy individual to invent a cart, and, thus, wheels came into use and the doom of humanity as an instinctive and natural race was sealed.

"While we walked on our own legs we were natural and instinctive creatures, open to every impression of nature and able to tell the time without clocks, but when we adopted mechanical methods of progression we became unnatural and mechanical people, whizzing restlessly and recklessly from here to yonder, for no purpose save the mere sensual pleasure of movement, and we are at this date simply debauched by travel and have shortened the world to less than one-tenth of its actual size as well as destroying our abilities for simple and rational enjoyment.

"If we continue using these artificial means of locomotion there is no doubt that the race will become atrophied in the legs but with extraordinary results. The spectacle of an egg-shaped humanity squatting painfully on engines is not a pleasant one to contemplate, nor is the prospect of a world wherein there will be neither breeches nor boots good for the moralist or economist to dwell upon.

"In order to conserve the happiness of the world every inventor should be squashed in the egg, more particularly those having anything to do with wheels, cogs or levers. The wheel has no counterpart in nature, and is unthinkable to any but a diseased and curious mind. Man will never more be happy until he has broken all the machinery he can find with a hammer, and has then thrown the hammer into the sea; and then he can, by experiment, become almost as rooted in the earth as a tree or an artesian well. It is a bad thing to have an indefinite horizon. It is a good thing to grow knowing one part of the world as thoroughly as one knows the inside of one's boots. Legs make for nationality, patriotism, and all the virtues which centre in locality. Wheels make for diffuseness, imperialisms, cosmopolitanisms. By the use of legs humanity has stalked into manhood. By the use of wheels we are rapidly rolling into a race of commercial travellers, touts, gad-abouts, and members of parliament, folk with the hanging jaws of astonishment, avid for curios, and with mental, moral and optical indigestion.

"I believe that the Spanyols and Mandibaloes, two Mongol races inhabiting the countries at the rear of the Great Chow Desert, were the first people to deal largely with wheels. The men of these nations were used, when travelling, to affix two small wheels upon their shoulder blades, and on coming to any slight incline in their path they would curl up their legs, lie on their backs and free-wheel as distantly as the slant of the ground permitted, greatly, no doubt, to the astonishment of less sophisticated people. But, knowing their habits, their enemies were wont to lie in wait at the bottoms of hills and slopes, and when a Spanyol or Mandibaloe came wheeling down a hill with his legs up he was killed before he could regain a less complicated position, or one more fitted for defence or offence. Thus, these races became rapidly extinct, and are now only remembered by the tracks as wide as a man's shoulderblades which are occasionally found in parts of the post-tertiary formation."

The old gentleman released the third b.u.t.ton of my waistcoat which he had held for so long and stepped with me out of the hostel. As it had begun to rain he carefully folded up his umbrella, tucked it under his arm, and strode rapidly down the street. Some small boys followed him for a little time singing, "We are the boys of Wexford who fought with heart and hand," but I drove these away.

X

He wiped his face with a large, red pocket-handkerchief, pursed his lips, shut one eye, and, with the other, he critically observed the remnant of his liquor. After a moment of deep consideration he smiled delightfully and said he thought it was all right. The apothecary behind the counter smiled also as one gratified and suggested that there was not much of that at the North Pole, and, after a little discussion on this point, the old gentleman addressed me in the following words:--

"I do not understand what necessity impels people to the discovery of something, which, if it has any existence at all, has only an idealistic existence, and which, when it is discovered, cannot be utilised in any possible direction. Utility is the first attribute of all terrestrial bodies. A stone, for instance, is a useful inorganic substance--it can be built into a house, or thrown at a duck, or, when ground into sand, it can be, and is, sold as sugar by a grocer. It is constantly being utilised in one or other of these directions; and so with all other objects. But the necessity for a North or a South Pole has yet to be demonstrated.

"The statement that the North Pole was put there by the Castle authorities is one which I do not believe, for I am a.s.sured that at every period of the world's history there has been a North and a South Pole, which, surrounded as they were by snow-clad countries, icebergs, cold water and whales, were too remote and inhospitable to tempt the average civilian to journey there.

"The only thing which grows in the Polar regions is ice, and this is generally found in almost tropical profusion and rankness, growing sometimes to the height of several hundred feet, none of which wear boots. Polar bears and Esquimos are also found there, but in scattered and inconsiderable quant.i.ties. These two races spend most of their time chasing each other in order to keep themselves warm, which they do by degrees which are often registered on a barometer. They also eat each other and get scurvy. Outside of these relaxations their existence is stagnant and unexciting. I sometimes fancy that if I had the misfortune to be born a polar bear or an Esquimo I would not have been a patriot.

"I have no esteem for ice in other than easily portable quant.i.ties.

Some small pieces to pack around fish, a particle to drop into a gla.s.s of lager beer--that is all the ice which I can regard patiently or leniently; but a continent composed entirely of ice and polar bears tempts me to believe that Providence is subject to aberrations.

"It is supposed to redound to the credit of a nation when one of its citizens resolves to discover some inaccessible and futile place, and proceeds to do so in the most fantastic manner. The inhabitants of that country who remain at their work and continue to pay their rates are expected to be in a condition of wild enthusiasm and delight at the adventure.--My own impression is, that the majority of people take no more than a tepid interest in these forlorn adventures, and are but imperfectly convinced of the sanity of the adventurers; and this is the more particularly noticeable when the quest is for something so intangible and unmarketable as a North Pole. Why need they go so far afield for their excitement? Every discoverer is a detective. He traces missing places, and there are cartloads of Poles in their own countries waiting for explorers.

"The habit of seeking for a North Pole is one of only comparative antiquity. Its conception is well within the historic era, and must, therefore, be cla.s.sed as an acquired habit and one not inherent in man.

I have not observed that any other animals are addicted to this peculiar expeditionary craze. It is true that many species of birds migrate annually from these sh.o.r.es, and, although their departures are usually chronicled in the newspapers, it must not without further evidence be inferred that these birds have gone to look for the North Pole. They may, as a matter of fact, have left this country to avoid being arrested, for here one is continually being arrested. The evidence in favour of the North Pole theory as regards birds is, that n.o.body knows where they have gone to, and that as the rest of the earth is round and densely populated their arrival would be noted somewhere as their departure was, but their arrival not being so noted, and as they must be somewhere, the process of eliminating all possible places leaves nowhere but the North Pole as their objective. Now birds are a very intelligent and strenuous race of people who build nests in trees and have often five eggs at a time, and I believe that they leave these countries because their nests are full of broken egg-sh.e.l.ls, and because the winter is setting in, and because they dislike cold weather; and, thus disliking cold weather, it is unlikely that they would fly to the North Pole where the cold is very intense, and where, moreover, there is little food to be found, saving polar bears and Esquimos, a form of victual for which birds have only the scantiest relish. My own impression is, that these birds when out of sight of land are enabled by a mechanism with which we are not yet familiar, to convert themselves into fishes, or, alternatively, that they know the whereabouts of Tir na n-Og and go there, or else that they do not go anywhere at all but are simply translated into the Fourth Dimension of s.p.a.ce, and are, thus, flying, nesting and mating all around us in a medium which our eyes are too gross to penetrate.

"From a perusal of the evening papers I observe that the discoverer of the North Pole is an American citizen with a complicated pedigree, a long beard and a red s.h.i.+rt, all of which he hoisted to the top of the Pole and left there for subsequent identification. I fear this was a thoughtless action on his part because the Esquimos who live habitually at the North Pole, but have not discovered it, will, while his back is turned, take to wearing his s.h.i.+rt in turn. They are a communistic people, I fancy, and no s.h.i.+rt will survive communism. Also, seeing the fuss which is being made of their Pole, they may either hide it or sell pieces of it to tourists as remembrancers.

"The explorer should have cached his s.h.i.+rt and other memorials at the foot of the Pole, built a cairn upon it, and shook cayenne pepper on top of all to keep bears away--but it is useless to advise explorers."

The ancient hereupon made a significant gesture to the curate, who misinterpreted it, and brought more than he had required. He was very much perturbed, for, as he explained, he had forgotten to bring his purse with him. He consented, however, to use my purse for his needs, and, after paying his shot, he, in an abstracted and melancholy manner, put the change in his trouser pocket. There was only one s.h.i.+lling in the purse so I did not like to draw his attention to the mistake. He very genially returned my purse, and said he had conceived a great liking for me.