Part 2

When I leapt over Tower Bridge There were three that watched below, A bald man and a hairy man, And a man like Ikey Mo.

When I leapt over London Bridge They quailed to see my tears, As terrible as a shaken sword And many shining spears.

But when I leapt over Blackfriars The pigeons on St. Paul’s Grew ghastly white as they saw the sight Like an awful sun that falls;

And all along from Ludgate To the wonder of Charing Cross, The devil flew through a host of hearts-- A messenger of loss.

With a rumour of ghostly things that pass With a thunderous pennon of pain, To a land where the sky is as red as the grass, And the sun as green as the rain.

No. 6. CANON H. D. RAWNSLEY

Britannia mourns for good grey heads that fall, Survivors from our great Victoria’s reign; For they were men; take them for all in all We shall not look upon their like again.

No. 7. NUMEROUS CELTS

There’s a grey wind wails on the clover And grey hills, and mist around the hills, And a far voice sighing a song that is over And my grey heart that a strange longing fills.

A sheen of dead swords that shake upon the wind, And a harp that sleeps though the wind is blowing Over the hills and the seas and the great hills behind, The great hills of Kerry, where my heart would be going.

For I would be in Kerry now where quiet is the grass, And the birds are crying in the low light, And over the stone hedges the shadows pass, And a fiddle weeps at the shadow of the night.

With Pat Doogan Father Murphy Brown maidens King Cuchullain The Kine The Sheep Some old women Some old men And Uncle White Sea-gull and all.

(_Chorus_) And Uncle White Sea-gull and all.

No. 8. THE PEOPLE WHO WRITE IN SECRET WHAT IN PUBLIC THEY ALLEGE TO BE FOLK-SONGS

The night it was so cold, and the moon it was so clear, When I stood at the churchyard gate a-parting from my dear, A-parting from my dear, for to bid my dear good-bye! And I parted from my dear when the moon was in the sky.

“I never shall forget,” said he, “wherever I may roam, The day that I parted from my own true love at home, My own true love at home that was always true to me, I never shall forget my love wherever I may be. But I must off to Barbary for good King George to fight, And it’s farewell to Bayswater and to the Isle of Wight, And it’s farewell to my true love, it’s farewell to you, It’s farewell to my own dear love, so faithful and so true.”

He kissed me good-bye, and he gave me a ring, And he rode away to Lunnon for to fight for the King; Oh! lonely am I now, and sair, sair cold my pillow, And I must bind my head with O the green willow.

For last night there came a white angel to my bed, And he told to me that my own dear love was dead; My own dear love is dead, and I am all alone (So it’s surely rather obtuse of you to ask me why I moan).

No. 9. MR. H. G. WELLS

I

I do not quite know how to begin.... Ever since I left England and settled here in this quiet Putumayo valley I have been wondering and wondering.... I want to put everything down quite frankly so that you who come after me shall understand. It is very peaceful here in the forest, and as my mind goes back to that roaring old England, with its strange welter of aspirations and basenesses, that little old England, so far away now, a small green jewel in the great sea, I break into a smile of tender tolerance. Here, as the immemorial procession of day and night, of summer and winter, sweeps over the earth, amid the vast serenities of primeval nature, it all seems so very far away, so small, so queerly inconsequent.... The men who made me, the men who broke me, the women I loved, the sprawling towns, the confused effort, and that ungainly lop-sided structure of our twentieth-century civilization, with its strange welter of sex....

II

And then it was that the Hon. Astarte Cholmondeley came into my life. I remember as clearly as though it were yesterday--and it is now over thirty years ago--the moment of our meeting. It was at one of those enormous futile receptions that political hostesses give at the beginning of the Session, assemblies of two or three thousand men and women, minor politicians, organizers, journalists, all clamorous for champagne and burning for nods of recognition from the great men of the Party. It was a fine night, almost oppressively warm, and I had walked across the Park from Hill Street, carrying my opera-hat in my hand. There was a dull uniform roar from the distant traffic; the tops of the trees faintly swished in the light wind, the lights along the lake shone very quietly, and above were the vast serenities of the sky, powdered with stars. On benches in the shadows lurked pairs of quiet lovers, and the stars looked down upon them as they had upon lovers in Nineveh and Babylon. As I stepped out into the rush of Pall Mall, with its stream of swift motors, I thought, I remember, of my career....

III

The crush was vulgar and intolerable.

I had spent an hour passing dejected remarks to the other young men, also there out of duty and as bored as I was myself. Then suddenly she entered ... a slender slip of a thing, brown-haired and brown-eyed, leaning flower-like on the arm of her elephantine mother, the Dowager....

IV

“Dearest,” she wrote me next day, “did you sleep last night? I did not sleep a wink. All night long I lay dazzled and overwhelmed by this wonderful thing that has come to us. And then this morning, when God’s great dawn slowly lifted over the westward hills, I got up, did my hair (oh my beautiful, beautiful hair, now all yours, my own Man, all yours), and sat down to write this, my first letter, to you. I am sitting at the little window of my room in the Lion Tower. The breath of the roses rises in the fresh morning air; and out beyond the park, where the deer are placidly grazing, the slanting sun glints exquisitely on spacious woodland and rolling down, mile after mile.... Far away, against the blue of the horizon, there is a little pointing church spire, and somehow it reminds me of you.... Oh, my lover, I am going to lay bare to you the inmost shrine of my heart. You must be patient with me, very patient; for do we not belong to each other? We must live openly we two, we who are the apostles of new freedoms, of new realizations, of a second birth for this dear foolish old world of ours.” Thus she wrote, and there was more, much more, too sacredly intimate to be set down here, but breathing in every line the essence of her adorable self....

V

And then it was that Mary Browne came into my life. I had known her years ago when I was at college; I had thought her a meek and rather dull little girl, as insignificant as the rest of her family. But now there was about her a certain quality of graciousness, very difficult to define, but very unescapable when it is present, that gave to her mouse-grey hair and rather weak blue eyes a beauty very rare and very subtle. She had spent, she told me, two years in the East End at some social work or other....

VI

And then I met Cecilia Scroop....

VII

And so the end came. In those last days I worked more feverishly than ever, writing my book, attending committees, speaking on platforms throughout the country. I was the chief speaker during that by-election of Brooks’s at Manchester, which I still believe might have been the germ of a new social order, of coherences and approximations, of differentiations and realizations beyond the imagining of the men of our time, but to be very clearly and very palpably apprehended by that future race for whom we, in a blind and groping way, are living and building.... And then the blow fell....

It was a Friday afternoon. The House had risen early after throwing out some absurd Bill that that ass Biffin had brought in; I think it was something about Bee Disease. I had been one of the tellers for the Noes, and at three o’clock I walked out into Palace Yard and along the chalky stone cloister that leads to the private tunnel through which members enter the Underground Railway station. I had promised to meet Astarte at four at the foot of the Scenic Railway (this was before the time when little Higgins revolutionized the amusement business with his actino-gyroscopes) in the Earl’s Court Exhibition. Since her marriage with Binger communication had been increasingly difficult for us. All her letters were opened, and Binger had eavesdroppers at work in the telephone exchanges. Her chauffeur, happily, played his master false, and she was usually able to keep appointments when she had made them; and for some months we had arranged our meetings by little cryptic notices in the agony column of the _Morning Post_. We had thought ourselves safe. But she must have dropped a casual word to somebody; some fool had given us away; and when I got to Earl’s Court I found that Astarte was there, but that Mary and Cecilia were there as well....

VIII

I remonstrated with them. I knew it was hopeless, and my heart sank; but I did my best. Greatest agony of all it was to know that these women in whom I had trusted, whom I had looked to as pioneers, as auguries of what was to be and what still will be, were, when the crisis came, still shackled and bound by the little petty jealousies of the old system. With set, white faces they glowered upon me (it was raining a little I remember, and the ground at our feet was muddy and covered with stained and trampled paper) as I spoke, softly and passionately, of muddle and waste, of the sordid and furtive shames and reticences that man has brought with him from the ancestral past, that he must shed before we build for our gods the diviner temples that might be.... Night came over ... and then, as my voice failed, a tall man stepped out from behind a hoarding. It was Montacute, the Prime Minister. “I am very sorry for you,” he said simply, “but I am afraid, Mr. Bilgewater, we shall have to ask you to resign.” He seemed to hesitate a moment; then, as though half ashamed, he held out his hand and looked me in the eyes.... I had known him since I was a boy at school and he a young man, a fastidious and kindly young man who had seemed almost too delicate for the rough work of politics. He had always taken a friendly interest in me even when I was bitterly fighting him.... “Good-bye,” he said. My voice was husky as I returned his farewell.

IX

I went back to my chambers and told my man to pack a single portmanteau. There were just three hours before the boat-train. Before I left I wrote ten letters....

No. 10. MR. G. BERNARD SHAW

_Fragment from an Unwritten Play_

MAHOMET THE PROPHET

+ACT II+

_The library of the Prophet’s house at Medina. As the audience is looking straight into a corner, only two walls are seen. The right wall contains two high windows, through which much blue sky is visible; between them_ +MAHOMET+ _is seated, with his back to the audience, at a handsome oak writing-desk. At the far end of the left wall is a door, and along the rest of its length runs a long blue divan, piled with multicoloured cushions, on which recline_ +AYESHA+, _a slender girl with deep black eyes, pale cheeks, and golden hair, and two others of the Prophet’s eighty wives. They are drinking coffee from brass bowls and turning over the pages of illustrated magazines. The floor is strewn with rich rugs._

_After five minutes’ silence the Prophet stretches his arms, rises, and turns round. He is a fleshy man with huge head, hands, and feet. His eyes are red, his nose imperious, and his beard covers half his chest. He walks up and down nervously jerking his hands, then stands still, right centre._

+MAHOMET+: Well, well, my poor dead Khadija!

+THE WIVES+: We think you might have the decency to refrain from mentioning our predecessor in front of us.

+MAHOMET+: Don’t be absurd, my dears. You, Ayesha, ought to have had more sense. You ought to know that my feelings are perfectly natural. Here has the army just been cutting up the big summer caravan to Mecca, chock-full of all the latest things from Constantinople. I have become the biggest property-owner in Arabia; and you refuse to let me lament the death of Khadija, who used to run the grocery-shop with me. Your behaviour is monstrous. I shall present you all at Christmas with complete editions of August Strindberg.

+AYESHA+ (_screaming_): No, no, anything rather than that!

+MAHOMET+: Well, mend your manners then. It is simply intolerable that I should drudge like a slave working up this prophet business for a pack of ungrateful women, and then get treated like this. (_Enter_ +ABU+, _a white-bearded servant, with a card on a tray_.) Schopenhauer was right ... or was it Weininger?

+ABU+ (_advancing_): Weininger, sir. I am sure that is correct, sir. I know his book very well. I used to read it to my poor wife, sir, when she was in her last illness. (_Wipes his eyes_.) It was a great solace to her.

+MAHOMET+ (_taking the card and looking at it_): I thought I had told you I was not at home. I am supposed to be at the front.

+ABU+ (_turning to go_): Very well, sir.

+MAHOMET+: Here, come back. Is there any news from Mecca?

+ABU+ (_rubbing his head_): Oh, yes, sir! I quite forgot, sir. The excitement of the moment, I suppose, sir. Mecca was taken last Sunday, sir. It was dark, sir, and your men ran into the town by mistake. The other side had run out of it by mistake. Yes, it must have been an exceedingly dark night, sir.

+MAHOMET+: Any converts?

+ABU+: Well, sir, it is like this, sir; there were not many left when your honour’s men had finished. A few children, perhaps. But the general who was impersonating your honour had a great reception from the troops. (_Goes out._)

+MAHOMET+ (_to_ +AYESHA+): Abu is really getting ridiculous. We cannot possibly keep the old fool any longer; he may give me away at any time if he goes on like this. Why the devil can’t you put an advertisement for a servant in the paper as I asked you to?

+AYESHA+ (_sulkily_): Where would you be if I left off writing your wretched old Koran for you?

+MAHOMET+: Precisely where I am, my dear. You are not indispensable. Anybody else could easily continue my Koran. In fact I think it would actually be a good thing to make a change. All those disgusting things you’ve put in about women, and so on. They really revolt me with their tactlessness.

(_There is a great noise at the door, which suddenly gives way and lets in a tall, restless, thin man with a high forehead and a forked red-grey beard. He is dressed in a fawn-coloured all-wool coat and knickerbockers and wears a red tie. He nods his head sideways with a gay smile, rubs his hands and takes up his stand with his back to the corner._ +MAHOMET+ _and the women all stare at him in amazement, for they have never seen a dramatist before_.)

+THE DRAMATIST+: Come along, Prophet, brighten up. You must certainly know my name. I think this inhospitality is perfectly disgraceful. (+MAHOMET+ _makes a threatening move towards him_.) No, no, don’t bother about ringing for coffee for me. I don’t drink your barbarous poisons. Don’t you think you might introduce me to the ladies, Mahomet?

+MAHOMET+ (_to the women_): Go to your rooms at once. I cannot possibly let you listen to the conversation of this pernicious Englishman.

(+AYESHA+ _and the others, with evident reluctance, get up and file through the door, the last shutting it behind her_.)

Well, sir, to what do I owe this most unwarrantable intrusion?

+THE DRAMATIST+: Now, now, my friend, you can’t come it over me like that. I shall blacken your character thoroughly if you are not careful. The truth is, that I came here for the simple reason that though I have frequently put my own name into my characters’ mouths, I have never hitherto actually introduced myself as a person in one of my plays. After all, when you come to think of it, my habit of expressing my sentiments through invented characters has been utterly fantastic. And, besides, some of these confounded actors have made hay with the parts by trying to turn them into other people. One of these days I shall have to start a school for actors. No actor ought to be under eighty years of age. Men younger than that always will insist on interposing their own personalities between the author and his public. What I want is some one who will speak my lines. What on earth do people think my plays are for? I wasn’t born in order that a lot of stupid mummers should have an opportunity of parading their temperaments in public. At all events, here I am, you old reprobate (_takes out his watch and looks at it_), and I propose to talk to you for your good----

+MAHOMET+ (_groaning and sinking on divan_): But what do you want to write a play about me for? I have never done you any harm. I am only a poor prophet, earning an honest living. My Arabians are a simple, unsophisticated people, and they have never seen a play in their life, except my butler, who is merely a menial and doesn’t count.

+THE DRAMATIST+: Now, really, my dear Prophet, this is the basest ingratitude. Why, in most of my plays the characters have had to tolerate a simple honest Englishman introduced into their midst. I can assure you that if I had sent you one of those instead of very kindly coming myself, you would have found him much duller company than you are finding me. Upon my oath, I think you ought to pay me for letting you off so lightly.

+MAHOMET+ (_blubbering_): But why do you want to drag me into it at all? Especially as my dislike of art is notorious.

+THE DRAMATIST+ (_elevating his eyebrows_): Well, my friend, if you insist, I will tell you; but your blood be upon your own head. You have about you several characteristics that make it inevitable that sooner or later I should nobble you. In the first place you are exceedingly well known; in the second place you are a humbug and an impostor; in the third place you are a shameless polygamist; and, in the fourth place, if you refer to any decent encyclopædia, you will find that you are probably an epileptic, like Cæsar and Napoleon. I ask, have you the atrocious conceit to think that you have a right to escape what Cæsar and Napoleon have had to submit to? Why, my dear sir, the thing is perfectly preposterous. I wonder you aren’t ashamed of yourself. I shall really have to write to the _Times_ about you.

+MAHOMET+: Wallah, Billah, Allah, Bismillah! (_He falls to the ground, foaming at the mouth._ +THE DRAMATIST+ _rings bell in the wall_. +ABU+ _enters_.)

+THE DRAMATIST+: My friend, your master seems a little indisposed.

+ABU+: Yes, sir. So it appears, sir. Very sad, sir. Unavoidable tragedy of our time. Clash of ideas, sir, and so on.... (_Picks up the_ +PROPHET+ _and props him against divan_. +THE DRAMATIST+ _goes out_.)

+MAHOMET+ (_recovering his senses_): My God, Abu, where am I?... I’ve had a good many visions and revelations, but never one quite so bad as this!

+CURTAIN+

HOW THEY WOULD HAVE DONE IT

No. 1. IF WORDSWORTH HAD WRITTEN “THE EVERLASTING MERCY”

Ever since boyhood it has been my joy To rove the hills and vales, the woods and streams, To commune with the flowers, the beasts, the birds, And all the humble messengers of God. And so not seldom have my footsteps strayed To that bare farm where Thomas Haythornthwaite (Alas! ’tis now ten years the good old man Is dead!) wrung turnips from the barren soil, To keep himself and his good wife, Maria, Whom I remember well, although ’tis now Full twenty years since she deceased; and I Have often visited her quiet grave In summer and in winter, that I might Place some few flowers upon it, and returned In solemn meditation from the spot. In the employment of this honest man There was a hind, Saul Kane, I knew him well, And oft-times ’twas my fortune to lament The blackness of the youth’s depravity. For when I came to visit Haythornthwaite The good old man, leaning upon his spade, Would say to me, “Saul Kane is wicked, sir; A wicked lad. Before he cut his teeth He broke his poor old mother’s heart in two. For at the beer-house he is often seen With ill companions, and at dead of night We hear him loud blaspheming at the owls That fly about the house. I oft have blushed At deeds of his I could not speak about.” But yet so wondrous is the heart of man That even Saul Kane repented of his sins-- A little maid, a little Quaker maid, Converted him one day. “Saul Kane,” she said, “Dear Saul, I pray you will get drunk no more.” Nor did he; but embraced a sober life, And married Mary Thorpe; and yesterday I met him on my walk, and with him went Up to the house where he and his do dwell. And there I long in serious converse stayed, Speaking of Nature and of politics, And then turned homeward meditating much About the single transferable vote.

No. 2. IF SWINBURNE HAD WRITTEN “THE LAY OF HORATIUS”

_N.B.--Read this aloud, with resonance, nor examine too closely the meaning_

May the sword burn bright, may the old sword smite, that a myriad years have worn and rusted? May an old wind blow where the young winds go immaculate over the eager land? May faded blossoms on ripening bosoms flame with lust as of old they lusted, Or the might of a night take flight with the white sweet arms of a dead Dionysian band? Ah, nay! for the rods of the high pale gods the power of the past have spilled and broken And over the fields the amaranth yields her guerdon of gossamer, bitter as rue, And the desolate blind sad ghost of the wind falters and fails as a word that was spoken Long since of a fire and a blazing pyre of perjured monarchs and kings untrue.[1]

The sword may smite and the keen sword bite though the clouds in the sky be clouds of peril, Though the Teuton glance at the flanks of France and the hand of Fate be a hand unseen, For the brave man’s[2] arm was swift to charm and the coward’s arm was weak and sterile Or ever the Saxon galleons swam to England[3] over the waters green And over the high Thessalian hills the feet of the maidens fail and falter, Samian waters and Lemnian valleys, Ithacan rivers and Lesbian seas, And the god returning with frenzy burning foams at the foot of a roseless altar, And dumb with the kiss of Artemis and the berries of death the virgin flees.

_With persistence and luck the reader, after eighty verses or so, would have come to something as specific as this_:

For the triumph of the trampling of the nations And the laughter of the loud Etrurian[4] gates And the thunder of a host of desolations And the lightning of an avalanche of hates Never daunted thee or made thy cheek the paler On the bridge which thou didst hold as held the fleet Drake, our own superb Elizabethan sailor, Yea, and drove the bloody tyrant from his seat.

No. 3. IF MR. MASEFIELD HAD WRITTEN “CASABIANCA”

“You dirty hog,” “You snouty snipe,” “You lump of muck,” “You bag of tripe,” Such, as their latest breaths they drew, The objurgations of the crew. ---- ---- ---- they roared As they went tumbling overboard, Or frizzled like so many suppers All along the halyard scuppers. “You ----” ... the last was gone, And Cassy yelled there all alone. (He thought the old man was on the ship.) “Father! this gives me the fair pip!”