Part 9

As surely as my name is Wilbert Vocks (he said), I intend that this business shall be conducted in accord with all principles of integrity and without demurrage to trickery. I have been allowed by fortune to make a frugal and circumstantial inspection of the general laws and accidents of life, and it is my conviction that by exploring the estuaries of remorse no bill of lading was ever brought to consummation. My rudder is uncompromisingly turned to the favoring gales of expedience, and we will sail a vigorous course into the latitudes of magnetism.

In this admirable resolution Mr. Vocks was strengthened by his partner (Mr. Henry Shingle), who is described as “a thrifty man the colour of a glass of light beer, bleached brown by an open-air youth in Monongahela County, but surmounted spiritually by the bright bubbles of aspiration and elasticity. His clothes were neat and his habits orderly; of his meditative components it is not necessary to surmise. He had not made a habit of thinking profoundly, for he knew that any thought he might have could easily be rebutted by more carefully trained men; therefore he spared himself the embarrassment of argument. His management of the Sales Department, however, was not to be criticized.”

We wish we had taken the trouble to copy out more of _The Spanish Sultry_ while we were about it. The Sultry herself was the lady to whom Mr. Vocks finally succumbed: she caused the fracture of the window-glass business. As the author put it: “Hers was not the clear transparence of Mr. Vocks’s glassy nature; she was stained with violent and ominous colours, and through the panes of her vehement character there burst downpours of scarlet and lavender trouble.”

WHAT KIND OF A DOG?

“What kind of a dog is he?” said the Sea Cliff veterinary over the phone.

We must confess we were stumped. All we could say was that he is--Oh, well just a kind of a dog. We didn’t like to say that he is a Synthetic Hound, and that his full name is Haphazard Gissing I. We didn’t like to admit, at any rate over the telephone, that one of his grandmothers may have been a dachshund and that certainly one of his brothers-in-law is an Airedale. But at any rate it was fixed that we should take our excellent Gissing over to the kennels to be boarded while we were in the city.

Gissing’s behaviour was odd. He seemed, in some inscrutable way, to suspect that something was going to happen. The night before his departure he disappeared, and was away all night--saying good-by to his cronies, we suppose. When we came home early in the afternoon to convoy him to Sea Cliff he was nowhere to be found. But about suppertime he turned up, looking more haggard and disreputable than ever. There was a fresh scar on his face, and he was very hungry. He ate his supper hurriedly, with no dignity at all. As soon as he heard the rattle of his chain his spirits went very low.

But the admirable creature was docile. Dogs are profoundly religious at heart: they put their trust in their deities. Unlike cats, who are determined atheists and fight to the last against fate, dogs accept calmly what they see is ordered by the gods. Gissing hopped into Dame Quickly without protest and sat in silence during the ride. His nose was unusually cold, but then that may have been only the winter evening. He had somewhat the bearing of one who is going to the dentist.

Dog fanciers are always baffled and set at naught when they see Gissing. But the Sea Cliff veterinarian made the most penetrating remark when we arrived. He is accustomed, indeed, to dogs of high degree--such dogs as are favoured by the North Shore of Long Island, and Gissing was rather a shock to him. After a long look, “What is his name?” he said. “Gissing,” we replied, with just a little of that embarrassment we always feel when such questions are asked; for it is generally shown in the manner of the inquirer that Gissing is an unusual name, particularly for a dog who looks as though he ought to be called Rover. So we said, perhaps a little defiantly, “Gissing.” But the Doctor misunderstood it. “Guessing!” he said dubiously, and looked again at the abashed quadruped. “That’s because he keeps you guessing what breed he is.”

It amuses us the more to have Gissing staying there, associating with the lordly dogs of Long Islanders who are spending the snow season in Florida, because we feel that it is rather like sending a child to a fashionable boarding school. It is probably useless as far as education is concerned, but it ought to be an interesting experience, and he may pick up a little polish. Gissing may make friends with some influential dogs who will be of help to him in future life; who knows? It is expensive, we admit; but since we paid nothing for him in the first place, and have used him liberally for copy, we feel that we owe Gissing this opportunity to improve himself. At any rate, he has promised to write us a letter from time to time, and we shall see how he gets on.

A LETTER FROM GISSING

SEA CLIFF, L. I., February 13.

Dear Friend, I thought that as to-morrow is Valentine’s Day I had better send you a line to report progress and to wish you my respectful greeting. This Dr. R with whom I am living is a fine man and he smells good to me I heard him say something about a Dog Show being on in New York now and I thought I ought to tell you what the old veterans in this veterinary hotel say, they say not to go to any such show because those things there are not Regular Dogs, not Red Blooded He Dogs not Dogs as you might say with the Bark On. Of course at first it was a bit hard for me here being as I am a self-made dog so to say and not accustomed to associate with pedigree folks and I rather wish you would send me a new collar, that old strap is about wore out and to tell you the truth there is a little Airedale flapper in the next cage that I would like to make an impression on, some of the boys have those collars that are studded with brass spikes and look mighty fine don’t forget my size is 16. As I was saying, at first things were a bit unpleasant, there is a big collie who looked me over the first morning I was here and said “Ye men, how do they get that way? Who let this mutt in here among cultivated animals?” Well, I wasn’t going to stand for that stuff, so I talked right back to him and asked him if he had ever been in print, but I didn’t get it across very big because he was so ignorant he didn’t seem to realize what it means to have been written up right along in the _Evening Post_. By the way, I get kennel-sick for the old paper, out here they all read the sensational sheets and I wish you would tell the Circulation Manager to put me down for a two-months’ subscription. All the other fellows here gave me the razz when I told them my name, Gissing, what kind of a name is that for a dog they said? I told them I was named after a Writer but none of the roughnecks ever heard of him. But I noticed right away that the little Airedale kid was interested, she seems to have some imagination her name is Mistress Zephine IV and I understand that the Airedales are a very fine family. I told her that it had been suggested by some that I had some Airedale in me too, and she laughed and looked a bit scandalized. Either you are an Airedale or you aren’t, she said; there’s no half and half measures. Live and learn, I told her. Anyway she and I go out for a walk together with one of the men every morning, and I have got her quite interested in books, she has promised to write me when she gets home and tell what kind of books her master reads. When you write, send me a cake of flea soap, I want to make myself solid with this dame. There is a whole lot I could write about, but this is just to say that You are my Valentine. These dogs here all have three-barrelled names so I will sign myself in full,

Your affectionate dog, HAPHAZARD GISSING I.

P. S. Please write right away and tell me what is the name of your publisher, I want to give one of your books to Zephine, when I told her you were a Writer she wouldn’t believe it, I am talking you up big all the time here, but it is hard work to get away with it because appearances are against us; never mind, some day we will knock them cold; and what is the name of your car, one of these fellows here says he rides around in a Rolls Royce and I told him yours was a Dame Quickly and he says there isn’t any such boat, it’s an imported car I told him. Yes, he says, imported from Detroit; never mind, I’ve got them all guessing, they’re all keen to see what kind of a guy you are, I told them the story about the old trousers, I guess it was a mistake.

H. G. I.

JULY 8, 1822

It is to-day a hundred years since that sultry afternoon when Edward John Trelawny, aboard Byron’s schooner-yacht _Bolivar_, fretted anxiously in Leghorn Harbour and watched the threatening sky. The thunderstorm that broke about half-past six lasted only twenty minutes, but it was long enough to drown both Shelley and his friend Williams, very haphazard yachtsmen, who had set off a few hours earlier in their small craft. It was only some foolish red tape about quarantine that had prevented Trelawny from convoying them in the _Bolivar_; in which case, probably, that dauntless and all-competent adventurer could have saved them. He was already dubious of their navigating skill. So, if there is any comfort in the thought, one may conclude that Shelley--though of course doomed to some tragic end, for skylarks do not die in nests--was partly the victim of that invincible social and bureaucratic stupidity against which he had always nobly chafed.

Those of our clients who care to devote this week-end to some meditation on Shelley and what he still means to us can well begin with Professor Firkins’s excellent essay. Mr. Firkins, with his usual clarity, lays pen upon a number of considerations that have always occurred to Shelley’s readers, but are not often carefully thought out. For our own part, we also have a mind to reread Francis Thompson’s essay, which remains in our memory as a prismatic dazzle of metaphor. But there are two items which, if our high-spirited clients have not read, they should certainly take steps to meditate. Hogg’s description of Shelley at Oxford is as lovely a picture of youthful genius as one is likely to find: and Trelawny’s _Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron_ gives the other panel of the portrait. It is surely not often that chance bequeaths us such sympathetic observers for both beginning and end of a great life. And then, of course, it is not impossible for our clients to recruit their imaginations by reading some of Shelley himself. If your hearts are what we like to think they are, you may

Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number.

But, for information about Shelley, Trelawny is the darling of all hearts. There is something indescribably manly in his rough, cheery, potent narrative, with its amazing vigour and humour. “As a general rule,” says he, “it is wise to avoid writers whose works amuse or delight you, for when you see them they will delight you no more.” But Shelley, he adds, was a grand exception to this very wise rule. One could happily spread several pages with excerpts from his good-humoured, observant companionship with Shelley and Byron. But, to commemorate the date now here, we intend to copy out part of his description of the burning of Shelley’s body on the Italian coast. Fine and gruesome as it is, we cannot help believing it not well enough known among those younger clients whom we daily cudgel towards virtue. Trelawny says:

The lonely and grand scenery that surrounded us so exactly harmonized with Shelley’s genius that I could imagine his spirit soaring over us. The sea was before us ... not a human dwelling was in sight. As I thought of the delight Shelley felt in such scenes of loneliness and grandeur whilst living, I felt we were no better than a herd of wolves or a pack of wild dogs, in tearing out his battered and naked body from the pure yellow sand that lay so lightly over it, to drag him back to the light of day; but the dead have no voice, nor had I power to check the sacrilege.... Even Byron was silent and thoughtful. We were startled and drawn together by a dull hollow sound that followed the blow of a mattock; the iron had struck a skull, and the body was soon uncovered. Lime had been strewn upon it; this, or decomposition, had the effect of staining it of a dark and ghastly indigo color. Byron asked me to preserve the skull for him; but remembering that he had formerly used one as a drinking-cup, I was determined Shelley’s should not be so profaned. The limbs did not separate from the trunk, as in the case of Williams’s body, so that the corpse was removed entire into the furnace. I had taken the precaution of having more and larger pieces of timber, in consequence of my experience of the day before of the difficulty of consuming a corpse in the open air with our apparatus. After the fire was well kindled we repeated the ceremony of the previous day; and more wine was poured over Shelley’s dead body than he had consumed during his life. This with the oil and salt made the yellow flames glisten and quiver. The heat from the sun and fire was so intense that the atmosphere was tremulous and wavy. The corpse fell open and the heart was laid bare. The frontal bone of the skull, where it had been struck with the mattock, fell off; and, as the back of the head rested on the red-hot bottom bars of the furnace, the brains literally seethed, bubbled, and boiled as in a cauldron, for a very long time.

Byron could not face this scene; he withdrew to the beach and swam off to the _Bolivar_. Leigh Hunt remained in the carriage. The fire was so fierce as to produce a white heat on the iron, and to reduce its contents to grey ashes. The only portions that were not consumed were some fragments of bones, the jaw, and the skull, but what surprised us all, was that the heart remained entire. In snatching this relic from the fiery furnace, my hand was severely burnt; and had any one seen me do the act I should have been put into quarantine.

After cooling the iron machine in the sea, I collected the human ashes and placed them in a box, which I took on board the _Bolivar_.

There are those still living who have shaken the hard, quick hand that snatched Shelley’s heart from the coals. Sir Sidney Colvin, for instance, who tells much about Trelawny in his _Memories and Notes of Persons and Places_. And ghastly as the above account may seem to those of tender sensibility, the parable it implies is too rich to be omitted. Lo! were they not words of Shelley’s that winged the greatest popular success in recent fiction?[A] And, though lulled long ago by the blue Mediterranean--

that burning, reckless heart survives to us little corrupted by time--survives as a symbol of poetic energy superior to the common routines of life. “Mighty meat for little guests, when the heart of Shelley was laid in the cemetery of Caius Cestius!”

[A] If Winter Comes.

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams--

MIDSUMMER IN SALAMIS

In midsummer the morning walk to the station is one long snuff of green and gold. On the winding stony lane through the Estates, before you reach the straight highway to the railroad, it is a continual sharp intake through the nostrils, an attempt to savour and identify the rich, moist smells of early day. That tangle of woodland we would like to call by the good old English word _spinney_, if only to haul in an equally ancient pun. It is in the spinney that you get the top of the morning. Dew is on the darkening blackberries. Little gauzy cobwebs are spread everywhere on grass and bushes, suggesting handkerchiefs dropped by revelling midnight dryads. The little handkerchiefs are all very soppy--do the dryads suffer from hay fever? As you emerge onto the straight station road, it is comforting if you see, not far away, some commuter whose time-sense is reliable trudging not too far ahead. When that long perspective is empty anxiety fills the breast. Across the level Long Island plain come occasional musical whistles from trains on the other line--the Westbury branch. But the practiced commuter knows his own whistle and alarms not at alien shrillings.

In midsummer the subaltern life around us is grown lusty. The spider is in his heyday and cannot be denied. Even indoors he shrewdly penetrates. Looking for a book along the shelves, our eye was caught by the hasty climb of one small spinner, who had been hanging on his airy cord apparently also scanning the titles. To the top of the case he retired, beyond reach. We wish him luck and hope no domestic besom may find him. The young lumpish robins that used to flutter heavily across the road, easily within grasp, fat paunches of feathers upon incapable wings--these are now strong of flight and cat-safe. The young rabbits with whom our woods are crowded no longer stand curiously in the roadway almost until our foot is on them. They too are maturing and have learned wise suspicion. The mole nightly increases his meandering subway, which looks like a zigzagging varicose vein on the surface of the lawn. And Gissing, untaught by menace or thrashing, every night buffets down more of the phlox plants so carefully set out by Titania, in his caperings with a roving Airedale from no one knows where. Only the pond noises seem to have lessened in vitality. The frogs are growing cynical, perhaps. In the sylvester midnight--thanks to Mr. C. E. Montague for that pretty phrase--they utter only an occasional disillusioned twangle, like the pluck of a loose bass string.

But there are signs that the Salamis Estates, so long a rustic Nirvana, are going to fall under the hand of civilization. Which will, one doubts not, have its advantages. It will be helpful to have gas to cook with; and sidewalks are enjoyable for baby carriages and velocipedes. But we shall never forget the happy Salamis Estates as they still are--the lonely roads through virgin woods; the little hidden lakes; the old abandoned orchard buried in overgrowth of vines and forest; solitude and sanctuary. It is our darling old horror of a Salamis railway station that has spared us the evils of “development.” The casual passenger looking out on that gruesome pagoda of claret-coloured brick and the huddle of wooden shacks around it, can only think of Salamis as a place damned and forgotten. When some of our neighbours grunt about that station we think inwardly of it with affection. It has spared us much. There are some people, of course, who really like to live in an artificed toy park like Nassau Boulevard or Garden City. We were raised on the books of Mayne Reid and Du Chaillu; we are for the jungle.

Yet we would not admit impediments to progress, if it does not rob our rustic Eden of all its wilderness charm. And anyhow progress is coming willynil. Actually, in the past six months, we have seen several houses built on the outskirts of our region. The new Methodist kirk, though apparently halted temporarily while our good dominy raises some more funds, is already shoulder-high. Another church, years ago foundered to the status of a saloon, now does brisking business as garage. The little empty lodge at the entrance to the Estates, where we vote on election days, will some day be a tea-room, we suspect. It is ideal for that purpose, with its big open fireplace. In fact, we have heard influential Salamites say that it could be had almost rent-free by some really refined lady as a pekoe-saloon. Those who move the destinies of the Estates think that a nice tea-room there would help the tone of the neighbourhood. We pass this information on to ambitious ladies, on condition we are allowed to have three lumps and an extra pat of butter.

It is all very interesting, because we are going to have a unique opportunity to see exactly how civilization works. We have watched new signboards go up at the front and back entrances to the Estates. Not long ago a hundred thousand people might have gone by and never known our little world was there. We study the new board of a Mortgage Company announcing Desirable Plots. Yes, we can see a plot. Civilization is plotting to take us under its wing. We are going to have a good look at this thing they call civilization and see how it goes about it. Five years from now will we be able to see cows being driven home from their daily pasture near our Green Escape? We are not blind to omens. Just as lightning glimmers even through eyelids closed in bed, so behind the leafy screen of our still scatheless sanctum we can see the bright eyes of Real Estate men blazing in the sky. Well ... there are compensations. Our title is clean and clear, and our second mortgage sticks to us closer than a shinplaster. Wait till they try to buy us out; we’ll get some of our own back.

So we meditate, partly as poet and partly as Man of Affairs, as we walk homeward up the hill. The singing peanut-wagon of George Vlachos, steaming its thin, pensive tune, comes clopping wearily down the road, the white horse shambling a bit after a long day on the highways. FRESH ROSTED PEANUTS, CANDY, ICE CREAM, says the legend. We note the pile of fresh shingles beside the little house going up near the station; we sniff the tang of mortar where our good friend Mr. Corliss will next year be preaching the word of God in his new steeple-house (as George Fox would have called it). We wonder where the Salamis Heights movie will be, when it comes? That, and an occasional street-lamp up in our tangled knolls, will make it easier to keep servants, very likely. And think of having gas to cook with instead of those oil stoves.... Yes, perhaps civilization will have merits.

THE STORY OF GINGER CUBES

I

[_A letter from the Proprietor of the Ginger Cubes to his Advertising Manager, who is ill in hospital._]

DEAR RUSSELL: When I heard that you had been taken to the hospital with a badly dislocated sense of proportion and exhaustion of the adjective secretions, I was worried. The doctor said that you were suffering from a severe attack of deprecation and under-statement, and I feared that would mean you would be quite unfit to help me in the forthcoming campaign for Ginger Cubes. But I hear now that a few weeks of silence and relaxation will bring you round. I have ordered the _Police Gazette_ and _The Nation_ to be sent you. Each in its own way is highly entertaining.

In our last conference, just before you were taken ill, you tried with your usual energy and bullheaded vitality to persuade me to say a word about the Ginger Cubes at the Paperhangers Convention. You made a great deal of the point that this would be a vast gathering, and that it would be excellent business for me to give them a “message.”

I ask you to meditate this thought: give me a small group of folks who are more or less interested in the same sort of thing that I am, and I will “talk my head off.” But speaking to large, miscellaneous audiences, many of whom are only incubating there to pass away the time until the theatres open, is my idea of loss of compression.