Part 7

Well, live and let live is a good maxim, thought I, and there surely never was such a wonderful world as this, and so I came away; and it was then that something occurred which (for everything so far has been sheer prologue) led to these remarks. I was passing the crowd about one of the gentlemen--the more brazenly confident one--who deny the existence of a beneficent Creator, when the words, "Looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm," clanged out, followed by a roar of delighted laughter; and in a flash I remembered precisely where I was when, forty and more years ago, I first heard from a nursemaid that ancient simile and was so struck by its humour that I added it to my childish repertory. And from this recollection I passed on to ponder upon the melancholy truth that originality will ever be an unpopular quality. For here were two or three hundred people absolutely and hilariously satisfied with such a battered and moth-eaten phrase, even to-day, and perfectly content that the orator should have so little respect either for himself or for them that he saw no disgrace in thus evading his duty and inventing something new.

But was that his duty? That was my next thought; and a speech by that eternally veracious type whom Mr. Pickwick met at Ipswich, and who, for all his brief passage across the stage of literature, is more real than many a prominent hero of many chapters, came to mind to answer it. I refer to Mr. Peter Magnus, who, when Mr. Pickwick described Sam Weller as not only his servant and almost friend, but an "original," replied in these deathless words: "I am not fond of anything original; I don't like it; don't see any necessity for it." And that's just it. The tribe of Magnus is very large; it doesn't like originality, and doesn't see any necessity for it--which, translated into the modern idiom, would run "has no use for it." Hence the freethinker was right, and the longer he continues to repose his faith in ancient comic _clichés_ the greater will be his success.

And then I thought for the millionth time what an awful mistake it is to be fastidious. Truly wise people--and by wisdom I mean an aggregation of those qualities and acceptances and compromises that make for a fairly unruffled progress through this difficult life--truly wise people are not fastidious. They are easily pleased, they are not critical, and--and this is very important--they allow of no exceptions among human beings. Originals bore them as much as they did Mr. Magnus. One of the astutest men that I know has achieved a large measure of his prosperity and general contentment by behaving always as though all men were alike. Because, although of course they are not alike, the differences are too trifling to matter. He flatters each with the same assiduity and grossness, with the result that they all become his useful allies. Those that do not swallow the mixture, and resent it, he merely accuses of insincerity or false modesty; yet they are his allies too, because, although they cannot accept his methods, being a little uncertain as to whether his intentions may not have been genuinely kind, or his judgment honestly at fault, they give him the benefit of the doubt.

The Oldest Joke

Many investigators have speculated as to the character of the first joke; and as speculation must our efforts remain. But I personally have no doubt whatever as to the subject-matter of that distant pleasantry: it was the face of the other person involved. I don't say that Adam was caustic about Eve's face or Eve about Adam's: that is improbable. Nor does matrimonial invective even now ordinarily take this form. But after a while, after cousins had come into the world, the facial jest began; and by the time of Noah and his sons the riot was in full swing. In every rough and tumble among the children of Ham, Shem, and Japhet, I feel certain that crude and candid personalities fell to the lot, at any rate, of the little Shems.

So was it then; so is it still to-day. No jests are so rich as those that bear upon the unloveliness of features not our own. The tiniest street urchins in dispute always--sooner or later--devote their retorts to the distressing physiognomy of the foe. Not only are they conforming to the ancient convention, but they show sagacity too, for to sum up an opponent as "Face," "Facey," or "Funny Face," is to spike his gun. There is no reply but the cowardly _tu quoque_. He cannot say, "My face is not comic, it is handsome"; because that does not touch the root of the matter. The root of the matter is your opinion of his face as deplorable.

Not only is the recognition of what is odd in an opponent's countenance of this priceless value in ordinary quarrels among the young and the ill-mannered (just as abuse of the opposing counsel is the best way of covering the poverty of one's own case at law), but the music-hall humorist has no easier or surer road to the risibilities of most of his audience. Jokes about faces never fail and are never threadbare. Sometimes I find myself listening to one who has been called--possibly the label was self-imposed--the Prime Minister of Mirth, and he invariably enlarges upon the quaintness of somebody's features, often, for he is the soul of impartiality, his own; and the first time, now thirty years ago, that I ever entered a music-hall (the tiny stuffy old Oxford at Brighton, where the chairman with the dyed hair--it was more purple than black--used to sit amid a little company of bloods whose proud privilege it was to pay for his refreshment), another George, whose surname was Beauchamp, was singing about a siren into whose clutches he had or had not fallen, who had

an indiarubber lip Like the rudder of a ship.

--So you see there is complete continuity.

But the best example of this branch of humour is beyond all question that of the Two Macs, whose influence, long though it is since they eclipsed the gaiety of the nation by vanishing, is still potent. Though gone they still jest; or, at any rate, their jests did not all vanish with them. The incorrigible veneration for what is antique displayed by low comedians takes care of that. "I saw your wife at the masked ball last night," the first Mac would say, in his rich brogue. "My wife was at the ball last night," the other would reply in a brogue of deeper richness, "but it wasn't a masked ball." The first Mac would then express an overwhelming surprise, as he countered with the devastating question, "Was _that_ her face?"

"You're not two-faced, anyway. I'll say that for you," was the apparently magnanimous concession made by one comedian to another in a recent farcical play. The other was beginning to express his gratification when the speaker continued: "If you were, you wouldn't have come out with that one." Again, you observe, there is no answer to this kind of attack. Hence, I suppose, its popularity. And yet perhaps to take refuge in a smug sententiousness, and remark crisply, "Handsome is as handsome does," should now and then be useful. But it requires some self-esteem.

There is no absolute need, however, for the face joke to be applied to others to be successful. Since, in spite of the complexion creams, "plumpers," and nose-machines advertised in the papers, faces will continue to be here and there somewhat Gothic, the wise thing for their owners is to accept them and think of other things, or console themselves before the unflattering mirror with the memory of those mortals who have been both quaint-looking and gifted. Wiser still perhaps to make a little capital out of the affliction. Public men who are able to make a jest of the homeliness of their features never lose by it. President Wilson's public recital of the famous lines on his countenance (which I personally find by no means unprepossessing) did much to increase his popularity.

As a beauty I am not a star, There are others more handsome by far. But my face, I don't mind it, For I keep behind it; It's the people in front get the jar.

And an English bishop, or possibly dean, came, at last, very near earth when in a secular address he repeated his retort to the lady who had commented upon his extraordinary plainness: "Ah, but you should see my brother." There is also the excellent story of the ugly man before the camera, who was promised by the photographer that he should have justice done to him. "Justice!" he exclaimed. "I don't want justice; I want mercy."

The great face joke, as I say, obviously came first. Because there were in the early days none of the materials for the other staple quips--such as alcohol, and sausages, and wives' mothers. Faces, however, were always there. And not even yet have the later substitutes ousted it. Just as Shakespeare's orator, "when he is out," spits, so does the funny man, in similar difficulties, if he is wise, say, "Do you call that a face?" and thus collect his thoughts for fresh sallies. If all "dials" were identical, Mr. George Graves, for example, would be a stage bankrupt; for, resourceful as he is in the humour of quizzical disapproval, the vagaries of facial oddity are his foundation stone.

Remarkable as are the heights of grotesque simile to which all the Georges have risen in this direction, it is, oddly enough, to the other and gentler sex that the classic examples (in my experience) belong. At a dinner-party given by a certain hospitable lady who remained something of an _enfante terrible_ to the end of her long life, she drew the attention of one of her guests, by no means too cautiously, to the features of another guest, a bishop of great renown. "Isn't his face," she asked, in a deathless sentence, "like the inside of an elephant's foot?" I have not personally the honour of this divine's acquaintance, but all my friends who have met or seen him assure me that the similitude is exact. Another lady, happily still living, said of the face of an acquaintance, that it was "not so much a face, as a part of her person which she happened to leave uncovered, by which her friends were able to recognize her." A third, famous for her swift analyses, said that a certain would-be beauty might have a title to good looks but for "a rush of teeth to the head." I do not quote these admirable remarks merely as a proof of woman's natural kindliness, but to show how even among the elect--for all three speakers are of more than common culture--the face joke holds sway.

The Puttenhams

I

From _The Mustershire Herald and Oldcaster Advertiser_

"The new volume of _The Mustershire Archæological Society's Records_ is, as usual, full of varied fare.... But for good Oldcastrians the most interesting article is a minute account of the Puttenham family, so well known in the town for many generations, from its earliest traceable date in the seventeenth century. It is remarkable for how long the Puttenhams were content to be merely small traders and so forth, until quite recently the latent genius of the blood declared itself simultaneously in the constructive ability of our own millionaire ex-townsman, Sir Jonathan Puttenham (who married a daughter of Lord Hammerton), and in the world-famous skill of the great chemist, Sir Victor Puttenham, the discoverer of the Y-rays, who still has his country home on our borders. The simile of the oak and the acorn at once springs to mind."

II

Miss Enid Daubeney, who is staying at Sir Jonathan Puttenham's, to her Sister

MY DEAR FLUFFETY,--There are wigs on the green here, I can tell you. Aunt Virginia is furious about a genealogy of the Puttenham family which has appeared in the county's archæological records. It goes back ever so far, and derives our revered if somewhat stodgy and not-too-generous uncle-by-marriage from one of the poorest bunches of ancestors a knight of industry ever had. Aunt Virginia won't see that, from such loins, the farther the spring the greater the honour, and the poor man has had no peace and the article is to be suppressed. But since these things are published only for subscribers and the volume is now out, of course nothing can be done. Please telegraph that you can't spare me any longer, for the meals here are getting impossible. Not even the peaches compensate.--Your devoted ENID

III

Sir Jonathan Puttenham to the Rev. Stacey Morris, Editor of _The Mustershire Archæological Society's Records_

DEAR SIR,--I wish to utter a protest against what I consider a serious breach of etiquette. In the new volume of your _Records_, you print an article dealing with the history from remote times of the family of which I am a member, and possibly the best-known member at the present day. The fact that that family is of humble origin is nothing to me. What I object to is the circumstance that you should publish this material, most of which is of very little interest to the outside world, without first ascertaining my views on the subject. I may now tell you that I object so strongly to the publication that I count on you to secure its withdrawal.--I am,

Yours faithfully,

JONATHAN PUTTENHAM

IV

Horace Vicary, M.D., of Southbridge, to his old friend the Rev. Stacey Morris

MORRIS,--It's a good volume, take it all round. But what has given me, in my unregeneracy, the greatest pleasure is the article on the Puttenhams. For years the Puttenhams here have been putting on airs and holding their noses higher than the highest, and it is not only (as they say doubly of nibs) grateful and comforting, but a boon and a blessing, to find that one of their not too remote ancestors kept a public-house, and another was a tinsmith. And I fancy I am not alone in my satisfaction.

Yours, H. V.

V

Sir Victor Puttenham, F.R.S., to the Editor of _The Mustershire Archæological Society's Records_

DEAR SIR,--As probably the most widely-known member of the Puttenham family at the present moment, may I thank you for the generous space which you have accorded to our history. To what extent it will be readable by strangers I cannot say, but to me it is intensely interesting, and if you can arrange for a few dozen reprints in paper wrappers I shall be glad to have them. I had, of course, some knowledge of my ancestors, but I had no idea that we were quite such an undistinguished rabble of groundlings for so long. That drunken whipper-in to Lord Dashingham in the seventeen-seventies particularly delights me.--I am,

Yours faithfully,

VICTOR PUTTENHAM

VI

From Sir Jonathan Puttenham to the Editor of _The Mustershire Herald and Oldcaster Advertiser_

DEAR SIR,--I shall be obliged if you will make no more references in _The Herald_ to the new _Mustershire Archæological Records'_ article on the Puttenhams. It is not that it lays emphasis on the humble origin of that family. That is nothing to me. But I am at the moment engaged in a correspondence with the Editor on the propriety of publishing private or semi-private records of this character without first asking permission, and as he will possibly see the advisability of withdrawing the article in question there should be as little reference to it in the Press as possible.--I am,

Yours faithfully,

JONATHAN PUTTENHAM

VII

The Rev. Stacey Morris to Sir Jonathan Puttenham

The Editor of _The Mustershire Archæological Society's Records_ begs to acknowledge Sir Jonathan Puttenham's letter of the 15th inst. He regrets that the publication of the Puttenham genealogy should have so offended Sir Jonathan, but would point out, firstly, that it has for years been a custom of these Records to include such articles; secondly, that the volume has now been delivered to all the Society's members; thirdly, that there are members of the Puttenham family who do not at all share Sir Jonathan's views; and, fourthly, that if such views obtained generally the valuable and interesting pursuit of genealogy, of which our President, Lord Hammerton, to name no others, is so ardent a patron, would cease to be practised.

VIII

Miss Lydia Puttenham, of "Weald View," Rusper Common, Tunbridge Wells, to Lady Puttenham

DEAR COUSIN MILDRED,--I wonder if Sir Victor has seen the article on our family in _The Archæological Records_. I am so vexed about it, not only for myself and all of us, but particularly for him and you. It is not right that a busy man working for humanity, as he is doing, should be worried like that. Indeed I feel so strongly about it that I have sent in my resignation as a member of the Society. Why such things should be printed at all I cannot see. It is most unfair and unnecessary to go into such details, nor can there be the slightest reason for doing so, for the result is the dullest reading. Perhaps Sir Victor could get it stopped. Again expressing my sympathy, I am,

Yours affectionately,

LYDIA PUTTENHAM

IX

The Rev. Stacey Morris to Ernest Burroughs, the compiler of the Puttenham genealogy

MY DEAR BURROUGHS,--We are threatened with all kinds of penalties by Sir Jonathan Puttenham, the great contractor, over your seamy revelations. It is odd how differently these things are taken, for the other great Puttenham, the chemist, Sir Victor, is delighted and is distributing copies broadcast. Equal forms of snobbishness, a Thackeray would perhaps say. But my purpose in writing is to say that I hope you will continue the series undismayed.

Yours sincerely,

STACEY MORRIS

Poetry made Easy

In the admirable and stimulating lecture given to the English Association by Professor Spurgeon on "Poetry in the Light of War," I came again upon that poem of Rupert Brooke's in which he enumerates certain material things that have given him most pleasure in life. "I have been so great a lover," he writes, and then he makes a list of his loves, thus following, perhaps all unconsciously, Lamb's _John Woodvil_ in that rhymed passage which, under the title "The Universal Lover," has been detached from the play. But Lamb, pretending to be Elizabethan, dealt with the larger splendours, whereas Rupert Brooke's modernity took count of the smaller. John Woodvil's list of his loves begins with the sunrise and the sunset; Rupert Brooke sets down such mundane and domestic trifles as white plates and cups, the hard crust of bread, and the roughness of blankets.

This, to strangers to the poem, may not sound very poetical, but they must read it before they judge. To me it is at once one of the most satisfying and most beautiful leaves in the Georgian anthology. Here is a passage:

Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing; Voices in laughter too; and body's pain Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train; Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home; And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould; Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew; And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new; And new-peeled sticks, and shining pools on grass; --All these have been my loves.

My reason in quoting these fine and tender lines is to point out how simple a thing poetry can be; how easily we, at any rate for a few moments--even the most material, the most world-brutalized of us,--can become poets too. For I hold that any man searching his memory for the things that from earliest days have given him most delight, and sincerely recording them, not necessarily with verbal garniture at all, is while he does so a poet. A good deal of Whitman is little else but such catalogues; and Whitman was a great poet. The effort (even without the reward of this not-always-desired label) is worth making, because (and this is where the poetry comes in) it forces one to visit the past and dwell again in the ways of pleasantness before the world was too much with us and life's hand had begun to press heavily: most of such loves as Rupert Brooke recalls having their roots in our childhood. Hence such poetry as we shall make cannot be wholly reading without tears.

I find that on my list of loves scents would take a very important place--the scent of gorse warmed by the sun coming almost first, gorse blossoms rubbed in the hand and then crushed against the face, geranium leaves, the leaves of the lemon verbena, the scent of pine trees, the scent of unlit cigars, the scent of cigarette smoke blown my way from a distance, the scent of coffee as it arrives from the grocer's (see what a poet I am!), the scent of the underside of those little cushions of moss which come away so easily in the woods, the scent of lilies of the valley, the scent of oatcake for cattle, the scent of lilac, and, for reasons, above all perhaps the scent of a rubbish fire in the garden.

Rupert Brooke mentions the feel of things. Among the loves of the sense of touch I should include smooth dried beans, purple and spotted, and horse-chestnuts, warm and polished by being kept in the pocket, and ptarmigan's feet, and tortoiseshell spoons for tea-caddies. And among sounds, first and foremost is the sound of a carriage and pair, but very high in position is that rare ecstasy, the distant drum and panpipes of the Punch and Judy. Do they play the panpipes still, I wonder. And how should I behave if I heard them round the corner? Should I run? I hope so. Scent, sound, touch, and sight. Sight? Here the range is too vast, and yet here, perhaps, the act of memory leads to the best poetry of all. For to enumerate one's favourite sights--always, as Rupert Brooke may be said to have done, although not perhaps consciously, in the mood of one who is soon to lose the visible world for ever--is to become, no matter how humble the list, a psalmist.

The mere recollecting and recording even such haphazard memories as these has had the effect of reconstructing also many too-long-forgotten scenes of pure happiness, and has urged me about this dear England of ours too, for I learned to love gorse on Harpenden Common, and pinewoods at Ampthill, and moss in Kent, and the scent of coffee in the kitchen of a home that can never be rebuilt, and--but poetry can be pain too.

A Pioneer

To be the first is always an achievement, even though the steps falter. To be the first is also a distinction that cannot be taken away, because whoever comes after must be a follower; and to follow is tame. It occasionally happens that the first, no matter how many imitate him, is also the best; but this cannot be said of Baboo Ramkinoo Dutt, retired medical officer on pension, a tiny pamphlet by whom has just fluttered my way.