Part 8

Mr. Dutt's pioneer work was done in the realms of poesy, somewhen in the eighteen-sixties, and the fruits are gathered together in this _brochure_ under the title _Songs_, published at Chittagong, in India, which, in some bewildering way, reached a second edition in 1886. In the opening "distich" Mr. Dutt makes the claim to be the first Asiatic poet to write in English, and if that is true this insignificant work becomes the seed of which the full flower is the gifted Rabindra, son of Tagore, whose mellifluous but mystic utterances lie, I am told, on every boudoir table. Me they, for the most part, stump.

Baboo Ramkinoo Dutt, although a pioneer, made no claim himself to have originated the startling idea of writing songs "in English word" and English rhyme; he merely accepted the suggestion and acted upon it. The suggestion came, under divine guidance, from Mr. J. D. Ward, the Chittagong magistrate. Here are the lines, setting forth that epoch-making moment, in an address to the Deity:

I thank Thee for an idea that Thou has created in my heart On which through the faculty I met now a very fresh art.

...

Being myself desired by the Chittagong magistrate, Mr. J. D. Ward, Got encouraged and commence writing a few songs in English word.

To Mr. Ward, then, much honour; and, indeed, one of Ramkinoo Dutt's pleasantest qualities is his desire always to give honour where it is due. Mr. Ward was perhaps his especial darling among the white sahibs of Chittagong, but all are praised. Thus, in another invocation to Heaven, we read:

King, conqueror of nations, encourage two sorts of mortals, One skilled in war, the other in counsel.

If so, why not Captain Macdonald should be the former? If so, why not Mr. J. D. Ward would be the latter?

And here is part of a "distich on arrival of 38th N.I.":

We paid a visit upon Captain John A. Vanrenen, He is a high-spirited hero and jolly gentleman,

So is the Lieutenant George Fergus Graham, So is the Lieutenant Henry Tottenham.

The last poem of all is wholly devoted to eulogies of Chittagong worthies. For example, Mr. H. Greavesour, the judge,

Is a pious and righteous man, Administering justice with mental pain.

Of Mr. D. R. Douglas:

There is Mr. D. R. Douglas, Joint Magistrate, His judgment is pure, yes, on the highest rate.

And Mr. A. Marsh, Magistrate-Collector:

He is devout, holy man, naturally shy, His mind seems runs through righteous way.

And the Executive Engineer, Mr. C. A. Mills:

The energitic gentleman is getting on well.

All these were living and probably in daily reception of the obeisances of the retired medical officer who esteemed them so highly; but Dr. Beatson was dead:

We lost, lately lost, Dr. W. B. Beatson. We again shall never gain him in person.... He is a Dr. Philanthropist, He is a Dr. Physiognomist, He is a Dr. Anatomist, He is His Lordship's personal Surgeon.

It will be seen already that Mr. Dutt had not yet mastered his instrument, but he did not lack thoughts: merely the power to express them. Throughout these thirty odd pages one sees him floundering in the morass of a new language, always with something that he wants to say but can only suggest. Here, for example, is a personal statement, line by line more or less inarticulate, but as a whole clear enough. With all the mental incompleteness, the verbal looseness, the fumblings and gropings of the traditional Baboo, it is a genuine piece of irony. Seldom can a convert to Christianity have been more frank.

I would not accept a second creation, I thank the Omnipotent for his kind protection. From my minority, I profess the mendacity, Passed days in poverty, From my minority. Perpetually my duty, Sobbing under perplexity. Nothing least prosperity, But sad and emotion.

I gave up the heathenism, And its favouritism, Together with the Hinduism.

I gave up the heathenism. Neither the fanaticism, Nor the paganism, Or my idiotism, Could enrich me with provision.

Such was the poetical pioneer, Baboo Ramkinoo Dutt, who (supposing always that we may accept his statement as true) was the first Hindu to write English verse.

Full Circle

I have lately been the witness of two phenomena.

Not long ago two officers and gentlemen (whom I had never seen before and one of whom, alas! I shall never see again) descended from a blue sky on to a neighbouring stretch of sward; had tea with me in my garden; and, ascending into the blue again, were lost to view. Since it is seldom that the heavens drop such visitants upon us in the obscure region in which I live, it follows that while the aviators were absent from their machine the news had so spread that by the time they rejoined it and prepared to depart, a crowd had assembled not unworthy of being compared, in point of numbers, with that which two workmen in London can bring together whenever they begin to make a hole in the wood-block paving. I had not thought so many people lived in the neighbourhood. Every family, at any rate was represented, while the rector looked on with the tolerant smile that the clergy keep for the wonders of science, and just at the last moment up panted our policeman on his bicycle, and pulling out his notebook and pencil for the aviators' names (Heaven knows why), set upon the proceedings the seal of authority.

Whatever may be said against aeroplanes in full flight, and there is quite a long indictment--that they are, for instance, not at all like birds, and much more like dragon-flies, and are too noisy, and too rigid, and so forth,--no one in his senses can deny that as they rise from the ground--especially if you are behind them and they are receding swiftly in a straight line from you, and even more so if you are personally acquainted with the occupants--they have beautiful and exciting qualities. Not soon shall I forget the sight as my guests in their biplane glided exquisitely from the turf into the air and, after one circular sweep around our bewildered heads, swam away in the direction of the Hog's Back.

That was phenomenon No. 1. Phenomenon No. 2--also connected with the mechanics of quicker movement than Shanks's mare ever compassed--was one of those old high bicycles, a fifty-two inch, I should guess, dating from the late eighteen-seventies, which, although the year was 1916, was being ridden along the Brighton front.

I am, unhappily, old enough to have been the owner of a bone-shaker, upon which I can assure you I had far more amusing times than on any of its luxurious progeny, even though they were fitted with every device that all the engineers' brains in the world, together with the white hat and beard of Mr. Dunlop, have succeeded in inventing. Being able to remember the advent of the high bicycle and the rush to the windows and gates whenever word went forth that one was approaching (much as a few of the simpler among us still run when the buzz of the aeroplane is heard), I was, as I watched the interest aroused among Brighton's butterflies by this antique relic, in a position to reflect, not I trust sardonically, but at any rate without any feelings of triumph, upon the symmetrical completion of--I must not say one cycle of mechanical enterprise, but one era. For this high bicycle (which was perhaps built between thirty and forty years ago) wobbling along the King's Road drew every eye. Before that moment we had been looking at I know not what--the _Skylark_, maybe, now fitted with auxiliary motor power; or the too many soldiers in blue clothes, with only one arm or one leg, and sometimes with no legs at all, who take the sun near the Palace Pier and are not wholly destitute of female companionship. But when this outlandish vehicle came we all stopped to gaze and wonder, and we watched it out of sight.

"Look at that extraordinary bicycle!" said the young, to whom it was something of the latest.

"Well, I'm blessed," said the old, "if there isn't one of those high bicycles from before the Flood!"

And not only did it provide a diverting spectacle, but it gave us something to talk about at dinner, where we compared old feats perched on these strange monsters, in the days when the road from John o' Groats to Land's End was thick with competitors, and half the male world wore the same grey cloth, and the Vicar of Ripley strove every Sunday for the cyclist's soul.

Being myself didactically disposed, I went farther than reminiscence and bored my companions with some such reflections as those that follow. It is not given (I said) to many of us to have a second time on earth, but this bicycle is having it, and enjoying it. In the distant eighteen-seventies or eighties it was, as a daring innovation, a marvel and a show. Then came (I went on) all the experiments and developments under which cycling has become as natural almost as walking, during which it lay neglected in corners, like the specimen in the London Museum in the basement of Stafford House. And then an adventurous boy discovered it, and riding it to-day bravely beside that promenade of sun-beetles, assisted it (I concluded) to box the compass and transform the Obsolete into the Novelty.

Some day, if I live, there may visit me from the blue as I totter among the flower-beds an aeroplane of so scandalous a crudity and immaturity that all the countryside, long since weary of the sight and sound of flying machines, then so common that every cottager will have one, will again cluster about it while its occupants and I drink our tea.

For with mechanical enterprise there is no standing still. Man, so conspicuously unable to improve himself, is always making his inventions better.

A Friend of Man

In Two Parts

I. THE FALLEN STAR

Once upon a time there was a pug dog who could speak.

I found him on a seat in Hyde Park.

"Good afternoon," he said.

Why I was not astonished to be thus addressed by a pug dog, I cannot say; but it seemed perfectly natural.

"Good afternoon," I replied.

"It's a long time," he said, "since you saw any of my kind, I expect?"

"Now I come to think of it," I replied, "it is. How is that?"

"There's a reason," he said. "Put in a nutshell it's this: Peeks." He wheezed horribly.

I asked him to be more explicit, and he amplified his epigram into: "Pekingese."

"They're all the rage now," he explained; "and we're out in the cold. If you throw your memory back a dozen years or so," he went on, "you will recall our popularity."

As he spoke I did so. In the mind's eye I saw a sumptuous carriage-and-pair. The horses bristled with mettle. The carriage was on C-springs, and a coachman and footman were on the box. They wore claret livery and cockades. The footman's arms were folded. His gloves were of a dazzling whiteness. In the carriage was an elderly commanding lady with an aristocratic nose; and in her lap was a pug dog of plethoric habit and a face as black as your hat.

All the time my new acquaintance was watching me with streaming eyes. "What do you see?" he asked.

I described my mental picture.

"There you are," he said; "and what do you see to-day? There, look!"

I glanced up at his bidding, and a costly motor was gliding smoothly by. It weighed several tons, and its tyres were like dropsical life-belts. On its shining door was a crest. The chauffeur was kept warm by costly furs. Inside was an elderly lady, and in her arms was a russet Pekingese.

"So you see what went when I went," the pug said, after a noisy pause. "It wasn't only pugs that went; it was carriages-and-pairs, and the sound of eight hoofs all at once, and footmen with folded arms. We passed out together. Exeunt pugs. Enter Peeks and Petrol. And now we are out in the cold."

I sympathized with him. "You must transfer your affection to another class, that's all," I said. "If the nobs have gone back on you, there are still a great many pug-lovers left."

"No," he said, "that's no good; we want chicken. We must have it. Without it, we had better become extinct." He wept with the sound of a number of syphons all leaking together, and waddled away.

At this moment the man who has charge of the chairs came up for my money. I gave the penny.

"I'm afraid I must charge you twopence," the man said.

I asked him why.

"For the dog," he said. "When they talks we has to make a charge for them."

"But it wasn't mine," I assured him. "It was a total stranger."

"Come now," he said; and to save trouble I paid him.

But how like a pug!

II. THE NEW BOOK OF BEAUTY

A hundred years ago the Books of Beauty had line engravings by Charles Heath, and long-necked, ringleted ladies looked wistfully or simperingly at you. I have several examples: _Caskets_, _Albums_, _Keepsakes_. The new Book of Beauty has a very different title. It is called _The Pekingese_, and is the revised edition for 1914.

The book is different in other ways too. The steel engravers having long since all died of starvation, here are photographs only, in large numbers, and (strange innovation!) there are more of gentlemen than of ladies. For this preponderance there is a good commercial reason, as any student of the work will quickly discover, for we are now entering a sphere of life where the beauty of the sterner sex (if so severe a word can be applied to such sublimation of everything that is soft and voluptuous and endearing) is more considered than that of the other. Beautiful ladies are here in some profusion, but the first place is for beautiful and guinea-earning gentlemen.

In the old Books of Beauty one could make a choice. There was always one lady supremely longer-necked, more wistful or more simpering than the others. But in this new Book of Beauty one turns the pages only to be more perplexed. The embarrassment of riches is too embarrassing. I have been through the work a score of times and am still wondering on whom my affections and admiration are most firmly fixed.

How to play the part of Paris where all the competitors have some irresistibility, as all have of either sex? Once I thought that Wee Mo of Westwood was my heart's chiefest delight, "a flame-red little dog with black mask and ear-fringes, profuse coat and featherings, flat wide skull, short flat face, short bowed legs and well-shaped body." But then I turned back to Broadoak Beetle and on to Broadoak Cirawanzi, and Young Beetle, and Nanking Fo, and Ta Fo of Greystones, and Petshé Ah Wei, and Hay Ch'ah of Toddington, and that superb Sultanic creature, King Rudolph of Ruritania, and Champion Howbury Ming, and Su Eh of Newnham, and King Beetle of Minden, and Champion Hu Hi, and Mo Sho, and that rich red dog, Buddha of Burford. And having chosen these I might just as well scratch out their names and write others, for every male face in this book is a poem.

The ladies, as I have said, are in the minority, for the obvious reason that these little disdainful distinguished gentlemen figure here as potential fathers, with their fees somewhat indelicately named: since there's husbandry on earth as well as in heaven.

Such ladies as are here are here for their beauty alone and are beyond price. Among them I note with especial joy Yiptse of Chinatown, Mandarin Marvel, who "inherits the beautiful front of her sire, Broadoak Beetle"; Lavender of Burton-on-Dee, "fawn, with black mask"; Chi-Fa of Alderbourne, "a most charming and devoted little companion"; Yeng Loo of Ipsley; Detlong Mo-li of Alderbourne, one of the "beautiful red daughters of Wong-ti of Alderbourne," Champion Chaou Chingur, of whom her owner says that "in quaintness and individuality and in loving disposition she is unequalled," and is also "quite a 'woman of the world,' very _blasée_ and also very punctilious in trifles"; Pearl of Cotehele, "bright red, with beautiful back"; E-Wo Tu T'su; Berylune Tzu Hsi Chu; Ko-ki of Radbourne and Siddington Fi-fi.

Every now and then there is an article in the papers asking and answering the question, What is the greatest benefit that has come to mankind in the past half-century? The answer is usually the camera, or matches, or the Marconi system, or the cinema, or the pianola, or the turbine, or the Röntgen rays, or the telephone, or the bicycle, or Lord Northcliffe, or the motor-car. Always something utilitarian or scientific. But why should we not say at once that it was the introduction of Pekingese spaniels into England from China? Because that is the truth.

The Listener

Once upon a time there was a man with such delicate ears that he could hear even letters speak. And, of course, letters lying in pillar-boxes have all kinds of things to say to each other.

One evening, having posted his own letter, he leaned against the pillar-box and listened.

"Here's another!" said a voice. "Who are you, pray?"

"I'm an acceptance with thanks," said the new letter.

"What do you accept?" another voice asked.

"An invitation to dinner," said the new letter, with a touch of pride.

"Pooh!" said the other. "Only that."

"It's at a house in Kensington," said the new letter.

"Well, _I'm_ an acceptance of an invitation to a dance at a duchess's," was the reply, and the new letter said no more.

Then all the others began.

"I bring news of a legacy," said one.

"I try to borrow money," said another, rather hopelessly.

"I demand the payment of a debt," said a sharp metallic voice.

"I decline an offer of marriage," said a fourth, with a wistful note.

"I've got a cheque inside," said a fifth, with a swagger.

"I convey the sack," said a sixth in triumph.

"I ask to be taken on again, at a lower salary," said another, with tears.

"What do you think I am?" one inquired. "You shall have six guesses."

"Give us a clue," said a voice.

"Very well. I'm in a foolscap envelope."

Then the guessing began.

One said a writ.

Another said an income-tax demand.

But no one could guess it.

"I'm a poem for a paper," said the foolscap letter at last.

"Are you good?" asked a voice.

"Not good enough, I'm afraid," said the poem. "In fact I've been out and back again seven times already."

"A war poem, I suppose?"

"I suppose so. I rhyme 'trench' and 'French.'"

"Guess what I am," said a sentimental murmur.

"Anyone could guess that," was the gruff reply. "You're a love-letter."

"Quite right," said the sentimental murmur. "But how clever of you!"

"Well," said another, "you're not the only love-letter here. I'm a love-letter too."

"How do you begin?" asked the first.

"I begin 'My Darling,'" said the second love-letter.

"That's nothing," said the first; "I begin 'My Ownest Own.'"

"I don't think much of either of those beginnings," said a new voice. "I begin, 'Most Beautiful.'"

"You're from a man, I suppose?" said the second love-letter.

"Yes, I am," said the new one. "Aren't you?"

"No, I'm from a woman," said the second. "I'll admit your beginning's rather good. But, how do you end?"

"I end with 'A million kisses,'" said the new one.

"Ah, I've got you there!" said the second. "I end with 'For ever and ever yours.'"

"That's not bad," said the first, "but my ending is pretty good in its way. I end like this: 'To-morrow will be Heaven once more, for then we meet again.'"

"Oh, do stop all this love talk," said the gruff voice again, "and be sensible like me. I'm a letter to an Editor putting everything right and showing up all the iniquities and ineptitudes of the Government. I shall make a stir, I can tell you. I'm It, I am. I'm signed 'Pro Bono Publico.'"

"That's funny!" said another letter. "I'm signed that too, but I stick up for the Government."

But at this moment the listener was conscious of a hand on his arm and a lantern in his face.

"Here," said the authoritative tones of a policeman, "I think you've been leaning against this pillar-box long enough. If you can't walk I'll help you home."

Thus does metallic prose invade the delicate poetical realm of supernature.

The Dark Secret

It was the most perfect September day that anyone could remember. The sun had risen in a dewy mist. The early air was pungent with yellowing bracken.

Then the mist cleared, the dew disappeared from everywhere but the shadows, and the Red Admirals again settled on the Michaelmas daisies.

A young man walked up and down the paths of the garden and drank in its sweetness; then he passed on to the orchard and picked from the wet grass a reddening apple, which he ate. Something pulled at his flannel trousers: it was a spaniel puppy, and with it he played till breakfast-time.

He was staying with some friends for a cricket match. It was the last of the season and his only game that year. As one grows older and busier, cricket becomes less and less convenient, and on the two occasions that he had arranged for a day it had been wet.

He had never been a great hand at the game. He had never made 100 or even 70, never taken any really good wickets; but he liked every minute of a match, so much so that he was always the first to volunteer to field when there was a man short, or run for some one who was lame, or even to stand as umpire.

To be in the field was the thing. Those rainy interludes in the pavilion which so develop the stoicism of the first-class cricketer had no power to make a philosopher of him. All their effect on him was detrimental: they turned him black. He fretted and raged.

But to-day there was not a cloud; nothing but the golden September sun.

It was one of the jolly matches. There was no jarring element: no bowler who was several sizes too good; no bowler who resented being taken off; no habitual country-house cricketer whose whole conversation was the jargon of the game; no batsman too superior to the rest; no acerbitous captain with a lost temper over every mistake; no champagne for lunch. Most of the players were very occasional performers: the rest were gardeners and a few schoolboys. Nice boys--boys who might have come from Winchester.

He was quickly out, but he did not mind, for he had had one glorious swipe and was caught in the deep field off another, and there is no better way of getting out than that.

In the field he himself stood deep, and the only catch that came to him he held; while in the intervals between wickets he lay on the sweet grass while the sun warmed him through and through. If ever it was good to be alive....