Plum Pudding by Christopher Morley

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I shipped aboard a galleass
In a brig whereof men brag,
But lying on my palliass
My spirits began to sag.

I heard the starboard steward
Singing abaft the poop;
He lewdly sang to looard
And sleep fled from the sloop.

"The grog slops over the fiddles
With the violins of the gale:
Two bitts are on the quarterdeck,
The seamen grouse and quail.

"The anchor has been catted,
The timid ratlines flee,
Careening and carousing
She yaws upon the sea.

"The skipper lies in the scupper,
The barque is lost in the bight;
The bosun calls for a basin--
This is a terrible night.

"The wenches man the winches,
The donkey men all bray--"
... I hankered to be anchored
In safety in the bay!

[Illustration]

A SUBURBAN SENTIMENTALIST

That wild and engaging region known as the Salamis Estates has
surprising enchantments for the wanderer. Strolling bushrangers, if
they escape being pelleted with lead by the enthusiastic rabbit
hunters who bang suddenly among thickets, will find many vistas of
loveliness. All summer long we are imprisoned in foliage, locked up
in a leafy embrace. But when the leaves have shredded away and the
solid barriers of green stand revealed as only thin fringes of
easily penetrable woodland, the eye moves with surprise over these
wide reaches of colour and freedom. Beyond the old ruined farmhouse
past the gnarled and rheumatic apple tree is that dimpled path that
runs across fields, the short cut down to the harbour. The stiff
frozen plumes of ghostly goldenrod stand up pale and powdery along
the way. How many tints of brown and fawn and buff in the withered
grasses--some as feathery and translucent as a gauze scarf, as
nebulous as those veilings Robin Herrick was so fond of--his mention
of them gives an odd connotation to a modern reader--

So looks Anthea, when in bed she lyes,
Orecome, or halfe betray'd by Tiffanies.

Our fields now have the rich, tawny colour of a panther's hide.
Along the little path are scattered sumac leaves, dark scarlet. It
is as though Summer had been wounded by the hunter Jack Frost, and
had crept away down that secret track, leaving a trail of
bloodstains behind her.

This tract of placid and enchanted woodland, field, brake, glen, and
coppice, has always seemed to us so amazingly like the magical
Forest of Arden that we believe Shakespeare must have written "As
You Like It" somewhere near here. One visitor, who was here when the
woods were whispering blackly in autumn moonlight, thought them akin
to George Meredith's "The Woods of Westermain"--

Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare.
Nothing harms beneath the leaves
More than waves a swimmer cleaves,
Toss your heart up with the lark,
Foot at peace with mouse and worm.
Fair you fare.
Only at a dread of dark
Quaver, and they quit their form:
Thousand eyeballs under hoods
Have you by the hair.
Enter these enchanted woods,
You who dare.

But in winter, and in such a noonday of clear sunshine as the
present, when all the naked grace of trunks and hillsides lies open
to eyeshot, the woodland has less of that secrecy and brooding
horror that Meredith found in "Westermain." It has the very breath
of that golden-bathed magic that moved in Shakespeare's tenderest
haunt of comedy. Momently, looking out toward the gray ruin on the
hill (which was once, most likely, the very "sheepcote fenced about
with olive trees" where Aliena dwelt and Ganymede found hose and
doublet give such pleasing freedom to her limbs and her wit) one
expects to hear the merry note of a horn; the moralizing Duke would
come striding thoughtfully through the thicket down by the tiny pool
(or shall we call it a mere?). He would sit under those two knotty
old oaks and begin to pluck the burrs from his jerkin. Then would
come his cheerful tanned followers, carrying the dappled burgher
they had ambushed; and, last, the pensive Jacques (so very like Mr.
Joseph Pennell in bearing and humour) distilling his meridian
melancholy into pentameter paragraphs, like any colyumist. A bonfire
is quickly kindled, and the hiss and fume of venison collops whiff
to us across the blue air. Against that stump--is it a real stump,
or only a painted canvas affair from the property man's
warehouse?--surely that is a demijohn of cider? And we can hear,
presently, that most piercingly tremulous of all songs rising in
rich chorus, with the plenitude of pathos that masculines best
compass after a full meal--

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude--

We hum the air over to ourself, and are stricken with the most
perfect iridescent sorrow. We even ransack our memory to try to
think of someone who has been ungrateful to us, so that we can throw
a little vigorous bitterness into our tone.

Yes, the sunshine that gilds our Salamis thickets seems to us to
have very much the amber glow of footlights.

In another part of this our "forest"--it is so truly a forest in the
Shakespearean sense, as all Long Island forests are (e.g., Forest
Hills), where even the lioness and the green and gilded snake have
their suburban analogues, which we will not be laborious to
explain--we see Time standing still while Ganymede and Aliena are
out foraging with the burly Touchstone (so very like that well-loved
sage Mr. Don Marquis, we protest!). And, to consider, what a place
for a colyumist was the Forest of Arden. See how zealous
contributors hung their poems round on trees so that he could not
miss them. Is it not all the very core and heartbeat of what we call
"romance," that endearing convention that submits the harsh
realities and interruptions of life to a golden purge of fancy? How,
we sometimes wonder, can any one grow old as long as he can still
read "As You Like It," and feel the magic of that best-loved and
most magical of stage directions--_The Forest of Arden_.

And now, while we are still in the soft Shakespearean mood, comes
"Twelfth Night"--traditionally devoted to dismantling the Christmas
Tree; and indeed there is no task so replete with luxurious and
gentle melancholy. For by that time the toys which erst were so
splendid are battered and bashed; the cornucopias empty of candy
(save one or two striped sticky shards of peppermint which elude the
thrusting index, and will be found again next December); the
dining-room floor is thick with fallen needles; the gay little
candles are burnt down to a small gutter of wax in the tin holders.
The floor sparkles here and there with the fragments of tinsel balls
or popcorn chains that were injudiciously hung within leap of puppy
or grasp of urchin. And so you see him, the diligent parent,
brooding with a tender mournfulness and sniffing the faint whiff of
that fine Christmas tree odour--balsam and burning candles and
fist-warmed peppermint--as he undresses the prickly boughs. Here
they go into the boxes, red, green, and golden balls, tinkling glass
bells, stars, paper angels, cotton-wool Santa Claus, blue birds,
celluloid goldfish, mosquito netting, counterfeit stockings,
nickel-plated horns, and all the comical accumulation of oddities
that gathers from year to year in the box labelled CHRISTMAS TREE
THINGS, FRAGILE. The box goes up to the attic, and the parent blows
a faint diminuendo, achingly prolonged, on a toy horn. Titania is
almost reduced to tears as he explains it is the halloo of Santa
Claus fading away into the distance.

[Illustration]

GISSING

Our subject, for the moment, is Gissing--and when we say Gissing we
mean not the author of that name, but the dog. He was called Gissing
because he arrived, in the furnace man's poke, on the same day on
which, after long desideration, we were united in holy booklock with
a copy of "By the Ionian Sea."

Gissing needs (as the man said who wrote the preface to Sir Kenelm
Digby's _Closet_) no Rhetoricating Floscules to set him off. He is
(as the man said who wrote a poem about New York) vulgar of manner,
underbred. He is young: his behaviour lacks restraint. Yet there is
in him some lively prescription of that innocent and indivisible
virtue that Nature omitted from men and gave only to Dogs. This is
something that has been the cause of much vile verse in bad poets,
of such gruesome twaddle as Senator Vest's dreadful outbark. But it
is a true thing.

How absurd, we will interject, is the saying: "Love me, love my
dog." If he really is my dog, he won't let you love him. Again, one
man's dog is another man's mongrel. Mr. Robert Cortes Holliday, that
quaint philosopher frequently doggishly nicknamed Owd Bob, went to
Washington lately to see President Harding. His eye fell upon the
White House Airedale. Now Owd Bob is himself something of an
Airedale trifler, and cherishes the memory of a certain Tristram
Shandy, an animal that frequently appeared in the lighter editorials
of the _Bookman_ when Mr. Holliday (then the editor) could think of
nothing else to write about. And of Mr. Harding's dog Mr. Holliday
reports, with grave sorrow: "I don't think he is a good Airedale. He
has too much black on him. Now Shandy had only a small saddle of
black...."

But such are matters concerning only students of full-bred dogs, of
whom we are not who.

As to Gissing: we were trying to think, while writing the preceding
excursion, how to give you his colour. Yellow is a word too violent,
too vulgarly connotative. Brown is a muddy word. Sandy is too pale.
Gamboge is a word used by artists, who are often immoral and
excitable. Shall we say, the colour of a corncob pipe, singed and
tawnied by much smoking? Or a pigskin tobacco pouch while it is
still rather new? Or the colour of the _Atlantic Monthly_ in the old
days, when it lay longer on the stands than it does now, and got
faintly bleached? And in this colour, whatever it is, you must
discern a dimly ruddy tinge. On his forehead, which is not really a
forehead, but a continuation of a long and very vulpine nose, there
is a small white stripe. It runs upward from between his eyes, but
cants slightly to one side (like a great many journalists). There
is a small white patch on his chin. There is a white waistcoat on
his chest, or bosom if you consider that a more affectionate word.
White also are the last twelve bristles (we have counted them) on
his tail (which is much too long). His front ankles bend inward
rather lopsidedly, as though he had fallen downstairs when very
young. When we stoke the furnace, he extends his forward legs on the
floor (standing erect the while in his rearward edifice) and lays
his head sideways on his paws, and considers us in a manner not
devoid of humour.

Not far from our house, in that desirable but not very residential
region which we have erst described as the Forest of Arden, there is
a pond. It is a very romantic spot, it is not unlike the pond by
which a man smoking a Trichinopoly cigar was murdered in one of the
Sherlock Holmes stories. (The Boscombe Valley Mystery!) It is a
shallow little pond, but the water is very clear; last winter when
it was frozen it always reminded us of the cheerful advertising of
one of the ice companies, it was so delightfully transparent. This
pond is a kind of Union League Club for the frogs at this time of
year; all night long you can hear them reclining in their armchairs
of congenial mud and uttering their opinions, which vary very little
from generation to generation. Most of those frogs are Republicans,
we feel sure, but we love them no less.

In this pond Gissing had his first swim one warm Sunday recently.
The party set out soon after breakfast. Gissing was in the van, his
topaz eyes wild with ambition. Followed a little red express-wagon,
in which sat the Urchiness, wearing her best furry hat which has,
in front, a small imitation mouse-head with glass eyes. The Urchin,
wearing a small Scotch bonnet with ribbons, assisted in hauling the
wagon. Gissing had not yet been tested in the matter of swimming:
this was a sober moment. Would he take gladly to the ocean? (So the
Urchin innocently calls our small sheet of water, having by a
harmless ratiocination concluded that this term applies to any body
of water not surrounded by domestic porcelain.)

Now Gissing is passionate in the matter of chasing sticks hurled
abroad. On seeing a billet seized and held aloft with that sibilant
sound which stirs his ingenuous spirit to prodigies of pursuit, his
eyes were flame, his heart was apoplexy. The stick flew aloft and
curved into the pond, and he rushed to the water's edge. But there,
like the recreant knight in the Arthurian idyl, he paused and
doubted. There was Excalibur, floating ten feet from shore. This was
a new experience. Was it written that sticks should be pursued in
this strange and alien element? He barked querulously, and returned,
his intellect clouded with hesitation. What was this etiquette? He
was embarrassed.

Another stick was flung into the trembling mere. This time there was
no question. When the gods give the same sign twice, the only answer
is obey. A tawny streak crossed the small meadow, and leaped
unquestioningly into the pond. There was a plunging and a spattery
scuffle, and borne up by a million years of heredity he pursued the
floating enemy. It was seized, and a large gulp of water also, but
backward he came bearing it merrily. Then, also unknowing that he
was fulfilling old tradition, he came as near as possible to the
little group of presbyters and dehydrated himself upon them. Thus
was a new experience added to this young creature. The frogs grew
more and more pensive as he spent the rest of the morning churning
the pond hither and thither.

That will be all about Gissing for the present.

[Illustration]

A DIALOGUE

It was our good fortune to overhear a dialogue between Gissing (our
dog) and Mike, the dog who lives next door. Mike, or Crowgill Mike
II, to give him his full entitles, is a very sagacious old person,
in the fifteenth year of his disillusionment, and of excellent
family. If our humble Gissing is to have a three-barrelled name, it
can only be Haphazard Gissing I, for his ancestry is plainly
miscellaneous and impromptu. He is, we like to say, a synthetic dog.
He is young: six months; we fear that some of the errors now
frequently urged against the rising generation are plainly
discernible in him. And Mike, who is grizzled and grown somewhat
dour, shows toward our Gissing much the attitude of Dr. Eliot toward
the younger litter of humans.

In public, and when any one is watching, Mike, who is the Dog
Emeritus of the Salamis Estates, pays no heed to Gissing at all:
ignores him, and prowls austerely about his elderly business. But
secretly spying from a window, we have seen him, unaware of notice,
stroll (a little heavily and stiffly, for an old dog's legs grow
gouty) over to Gissing's kennel. With his tail slightly vibrant, he
conducts a dignified causerie. Unhappily, these talks are always
concluded by some breach of manners on Gissing's part. At first he
is respectful; but presently his enthusiasm grows too much for him;
he begins to leap and frolic and utter uncouth praises of things in
general. Then Mike turns soberly and moves away.

On such an occasion, the chat went like this:

GISSING: Do you believe in God?

MIKE: I acknowledge Him. I don't believe in Him.

GISSING: Oh, I think He's splendid. Hurrah! Hullabaloo! When He puts
on those old khaki trousers and smokes that curve-stem pipe I always
know there's a good time coming.

MIKE: You have made a mistake. That is not God. God is a tall,
placid, slender man, who wears puttees when He works in the garden
and smokes only cigarettes.

GISSING: Not at all. God is quite stout, and of uncertain temper,
but I adore Him.

MIKE: No one knows God at your age. There is but one God, and I have
described Him. There is no doubt about it, because He sometimes
stays away from the office on Saturdays. Only God can do that.

GISSING: What a glorious day this is. What ho! Halleluiah! I don't
suppose you know what fun it is to run round in circles. How
ignorant of life the older generation is.

MIKE: Humph.

GISSING: Do you believe in Right and Wrong? I mean, are they
absolute, or only relative?

MIKE: When I was in my prime Right was Right, and Wrong was Wrong. A
bone, buried on someone else's ground, was sacred. I would not have
dreamed of digging it up----

GISSING (_hastily_): But I am genuinely puzzled. Suppose a motor
truck goes down the road. My instinct tells me that I ought to chase
it and bark loudly. But if God is around He calls me back and
rebukes me, sometimes painfully. Yet I am convinced that there is
nothing essentially wrong in my action.

MIKE: The question of morals is not involved. If you were not so
young and foolish you would know that your God (if you so call Him,
though He is not a patch on mine) knows what is good for you better
than you do yourself. He forbids your chasing cars because you might
get hurt.

GISSING: Then instinct is not to be obeyed?

MIKE: Not when God is around.

GISSING: Yet He encourages me to chase sticks, which my instinct
strongly impels me to do. Prosit! Waes hael! Excuse my enthusiasm,
but you really know very little of the world or you would not take
things so calmly.

MIKE: My dear boy, rheumatism is a great sedative. You will learn by
and by. What are you making such a racket about?

GISSING: I have just learned that there is no such thing as free
will. I don't suppose you ever meditated on these things, you are
such an old stick-in-the-mud. But in my generation we scrutinize
everything.

MIKE: There is plenty of free will when you have learned to will the
right things. But there's no use willing yourself to destroy a motor
truck, because it can't be done. I have been young, and now am old,
but never have I seen an honest dog homeless, nor his pups begging
their bones. You will go to the devil if you don't learn to restrain
yourself.

GISSING: Last night there was a white cat in the sky. Yoicks,
yoicks! I ran thirty times round the house, yelling.

MIKE: Only the moon, nothing to bark about.

GISSING: You are very old, and I do not think you have ever really
felt the excitement of life. Excuse me, but have you seen me jump up
and pull the baby's clothes from the line? It is glorious fun.

MIKE: My good lad, I think life will deal hardly with you.

(_Exit, shaking his head._)

[Illustration]

AT THE GASTHOF ZUM OCHSEN

Looking over some several-days-old papers we observe that the truant
Mr. Bergdoll was discovered at Eberbach in Baden. Well, well, we
meditate, Herr Bergdoll is not wholly devoid of sense, if he is
rambling about that delicious valley of the Neckar. And if we were a
foreign correspondent, anxious to send home to the papers a complete
story of Herr Bergdoll's doings in those parts, we would know
exactly what to do. We would go straight to the excellent Herr
Leutz, proprietor of the _Gasthof zum Ochsen_ in Eberbach, and
listen to his prattle. Herr Leutz, whom we have never forgotten
(since we once spent a night in his inn, companioned by another
vagabond who is now Prof. W.L.G. Williams of Cornell University, so
our clients in Ithaca, if any, can check us up on this fact), is
the most innocently talkative person we have ever met.

A great many Americans have been to Alt Heidelberg, but not so many
have continued their exploration up the Neckarthal. You leave
Heidelberg by the Philosophers' Way (_Philosophenweg_), which looks
over the river and the hills--in this case, lit by a warm July
sunset--and follow (on your bicycle, of course) the road which
skirts the stream. There are many springs of cold water tinkling
down the steep banks on your left, and in the mediaeval-looking
village of Hirschhorn you can also sample the excellent beer. The
evening smell of sun-warmed grass and a view of one of those odd
boats grinding its way up-current by hauling a chain from the
river-bed and dropping it again over-stern will do nothing to mar
your exhilaration. It will be getting dark when you reach Eberbach,
and if you find your way to the Ox, Herr Leutz will be waiting (we
hope) in his white coat and gold pince-nez, just as he was in 1912.
And then, as you sit down to a cold supper, he will, deliberately
and in the kindest way, proceed to talk your head off. He will sit
down with you at the table, and every time you think a pause is
coming he will seize a mug, rise to his feet (at which you also will
sadly lay down your tools and rise, too, bowing stiffly from your
hips), and cry: "_Also! ich trinke auf Ihr Wohl!_" Presently,
becoming more assured, the admirable creature abbreviates his
formula to the more companionable "_zum Wohl!_" And as he talks, and
his excitement becomes more and more intense, he edges closer and
closer to you, and leans forward, talking hard, until his dark
beaming phiz quite interposes between your food and its destination.
So that to avoid combing his baldish pate with your fork you must
pass the items of your meal in quite a sideways trajectory. And if,
as happened to our companion (the present Cornell don), you have no
special taste for a plump landlord breathing passionately and
genially upon your very cheek while you strive to satisfy a
legitimate appetite, you may burst into a sudden unpremeditate but
uncontrollable screech of mingled laughter and dismay, meanwhile
almost falling backward in your chair in an effort to evade the
steady pant and roar of those innumerable gutturals.

After supper, a little weary and eager to meditate calmly in the
delicious clear evening, and to look about and see what sort of
place this Eberbach is, you will slip outside the inn for a stroll.
But glorious Herr Leutz is not evadable. He comes with. He takes
position between you two, holding each firmly by an elbow so that no
escape is possible. In a terrific stream of friendliness he explains
everything, particularly expatiating upon the gratification he feels
at being honoured by visitors all the way from America. The hills
around, which stand up darkly against a speckle of stars, are all
discussed for you. One of them is called _Katzenbuckel_, and
doubting that your German may not be able to cope with this quite
simple compound, he proceeds to illustrate. He squats in the middle
of the street, arching his back like a cat in a strong emotion,
uttering lively miaowings and hissings. Then he springs, like the
feline in fury, and leaps to his feet roaring with mirth. "You
see?" he cries. "A cat, who all ready to spring crouches, that is of
our beautiful little mountain the name-likeness."

Yes, if Bergdoll has been staying in Eberbach, the good Herr Leutz
will know all about it.

[Illustration]

MR CONRAD'S NEW PREFACE

Joseph Conrad, so we learn from the March _Bookman_, has written a
preface to a cook book about to be published by Mrs. Conrad.

We like to think about that preface. We wonder if it will be
anything like this:

I remember very well the first time I became aware of the deep and
consoling significance of food. It was one evening at Marlow's, we
were sitting by the hearth in that small gilded circle of firelight
that seems so like the pitiful consciousness of man, temporarily and
gallantly relieved against the all-covering darkness. Marlow was in
his usual posture, cross-legged on the rug. He was talking.... I
couldn't help wondering whether he ever gets pins and needles in his
legs, sitting so long in one position. Very often, you know, what
those Eastern visionaries mistake for the authentic visit of
Ghautama Buddha is merely pins and needles. However. Humph. Poor
Mrs. Marlow (have I mentioned her before?) was sitting somewhere in
the rear of the circle. I had a curious but quite distinct
impression that she wanted to say something, that she had, as people
say, something on her mind. But Marlow has a way of casting
pregnancy over even his pauses, so that to speak would seem a quite
unpardonable interruption.

"The power of mind over matter," said Marlow, suddenly, "a very odd
speculation. When I was on the _Soliloquy_, I remember one evening,
in the fiery serenity of a Sourabaja sunset, there was an old
serang...."

In the ample drawing room, lit only by those flickering gleams of
firelight, I seemed to see the others stir faintly--not so much a
physical stir as a half-divined spiritual uneasiness. The Director
was sitting too close to the glow, for the fire had deepened and
intensified as the great logs slowly burned into rosy embers, and I
could smell a whiff of scorching trouser legs; but the courageous
man dared not move, for fear of breaking the spell. Marlow's tale
was a powerful one: I could hear Mrs. Marlow suspire faintly, ever
so faintly--the troubled, small, soft sigh of a brave woman
indefinably stricken. The gallantry of women! In a remote part of
the house a ship's clock tingled its quick double strokes.... Eight
o'clock, I thought, unconsciously translating nautical horology into
the dull measurements of landsmen. None of us moved. The discipline
of the sea!

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