BELLOC-On Something - ON A VAN TROMP
A certain merchant in the City of London, having retired from business,
purchased for himself a private house upon the heights of Hampstead and
proposed to devote his remaining years to the education and the
establishment in life of his only son.
When this youth (whose name was George) had arrived at the age of nineteen
his father spoke to him after dinner upon his birthday with regard to the
necessity of choosing a profession. He pointed out to him the advantages
of a commercial career, and notably of that form of useful industry which
is known as banking, showing how in that trade a profit was to be made by
lending the money of one man to another, and often of a man's own money to
himself, without engaging one's own savings or fortune.
George, to whom such matters were unfamiliar, listened attentively, and it
seemed to him with every word that dropped from his father that a wider
and wider horizon of material comfort and worldly grandeur was spreading
out before him. He had hitherto had no idea that such great rewards were
attached to services so slight in themselves, and certainly so valueless
to the community. The career sketched out for him by his father appealed
to him most strongly, and when that gentleman had completed his advice he
assured him that he would follow it in every particular.
George's father was overjoyed to find his son so reasonable. He sat down
at once to write the note which he had planned, to an old friend and
connection by marriage, Mr. Repton, of Repton and Greening; he posted it
that night and bade the lad prepare for the solemnity of a private
interview with the head of the firm upon the morrow.
Before George left the house next morning his father laid before him, with
the pomp which so great an occasion demanded, certain rules of conduct
which should guide not only his entry into life but his whole conduct
throughout its course. He emphasized the value of self-respect, of a
decent carriage, of discretion, of continuous and tenacious habits of
industry, of promptitude, and so forth; when, urged by I know not what
demon whose pleasure it is ever to disturb the best plans of men, the old
gentleman had the folly to add the following words as he rose to his feet
and laid his hand heavily upon his son's shoulder:
"Above all things, George, tell the truth. I was young and now am old. I
have seen many men fail, some few succeed; and the best advice I can give
to my dear only son is that on all occasions he should fearlessly and
manfully tell the truth without regard of consequence. Believe me, it is
not only the whole root of character, but the best basis for a successful
business career even today."
Having so spoken, the old man, more moved than he cared to show, went
upstairs to read his newspaper, and George, beautifully dressed, went out
by the front door towards the Tube, pondering very deeply the words his
father had just used.
I cannot deny that the impression they produced upon him was
extraordinary--far more vivid than men of mature years can easily
conceive. It is often so in early youth when we listen to the voice of
authority; some particular chance phrase will have an unmeasured effect
upon one. A worn tag and platitude solemnly spoken, and at a critical
moment, may change the whole of a career. And so it was with George,
as you will shortly perceive. For as he rumbled along in the Tube his
father's words became a veritable obsession within him: he saw their value
ramifying in a multitude of directions, he perceived the strength and
accuracy of them in a hundred aspects. He knew well that the interview he
was approaching was one in which this virtue of truth might be severely
tested, but he gloried in the opportunity, and he came out of the Tube
into the fresh air within a step of Mr. Repton's office with set lips and
his young temper braced for the ordeal.
When he got to the office there was Mr. Repton, a kindly old gentleman,
wearing large spectacles, and in general appearance one of those genial
types from which our caricaturists have constructed the national figure of
John Bull. It was a pleasure to be in the presence of so honest a man, and
in spite of George's extreme nervousness he felt a certain security in
such company. Moreover, Mr. Repton smiled paternally at him before putting
to him the few questions which the occasion demanded. He held George's
father's letter between two fingers of his right hand, moving it gently in
the air as he addressed the lad:
"I am very glad to see you, George," he said, "in this old office. I've
seen you here before, Chrm! as you know, but not on such important
business, Chrm!" He laughed genially. "So you want to come and learn your
trade with us, do you? You're punctual I hope, Chrm?" he added, his honest
eyes full of good nature and jest.
George looked at him in a rather gloomy manner, hesitated a moment, and
then, under the influence of an obvious effort, said in a choking voice,
"No, Mr. Repton, I'm not."
"Hey, what?" said Mr. Repton, puzzled and a little annoyed at the young
man's manner.
"I was saying, Mr. Repton, that I am not punctual. I have dreamy fits
which sometimes make me completely forget an appointment. And I have a
silly habit of cutting things too fine, which makes me miss trains and
things, I think I ought to tell you while I am about it, but I simply
cannot get up early in the morning. There are days when I manage to do
so under the excitement of a coming journey or for some other form of
pleasure, but as a rule I postpone my rising until the very latest
possible moment."
George having thus delivered himself closed his lips and was silent.
"Humph!" said Mr. Repton. It was not what the boy had said so much as the
impression of oddness which affected that worthy man. He did not like it,
and he was not quite sure of his ground. He was about to put another
question, when George volunteered a further statement:
"I don't drink," he said, "and at my age it is not easy to understand
what the vice of continual drunkenness may be, but I shouldn't wonder
if that would be my temptation later on, and it is only fair to tell
you that, young as I am, I have twice grossly exceeded in wine; on one
occasion, not a year ago, the servants at a house where I was stopping
carried me to bed."
"They did?" said Mr. Repton drily.
"Yes," said George, "they did." Then there was a silence for a space of
at least three minutes.
"My dear young man," said Mr. Repton, rising, "do you feel any aptitude
for a City career?"
"None," said George decisively.
"Pray," said Mr. Repton (who had grown-up children of his own and could
not help speaking with a touch of sarcasm--he thought it good for boys
in the lunatic stage), "pray," said he, looking quizzically down at the
unhappy but firm-minded George as he sat there in his chair, "is there
any form of work for which you do feel an aptitude?"
"Yes, certainly," said George confidently.
"And what is that?" said Mr. Repton, his smile beginning again.
"The drama," said George without hesitation, "the poetic drama. I ought to
tell you that I have received no encouragement from those who are the best
critics of this art, though I have submitted my work to many since I left
school. Some have said that my work was commonplace, others that it was
imitative; all have agreed that it was dull, and they have unanimously
urged me to abandon every thought of such composition. Nevertheless I
am convinced that I have the highest possible talents not only in this
department of letters but in all."
"You believe yourself," said Mr. Repton, with a touch of severity, "to be
an exceptional young man?"
George nodded. "I do," he said, "quite exceptional. I should have used a
stronger term had I been speaking of the matter myself. I think I have
genius, or, rather, I am sure I have; and, what is more, genius of a very
high order."
"Well," said Mr. Repton, sighing, "I don't think we shall get any
forrader. Have you been working much lately?" he asked anxiously--
"examinations or anything?"
"No," said George quietly. "I always feel like this."
"Indeed!" said Mr. Repton, who was now convinced that the poor boy had
intended no discourtesy. "Well, I wonder whether you would mind taking
back a note to your father?"
"Not at all," said George courteously.
Mr. Repton in his turn wrote a short letter, in which he begged George's
father not to take offence at an old friend's advice, recalled to his
memory the long and faithful friendship between them, pointed out that
outsiders could often see things which members of a family could not, and
wound up by begging George's father to give George a good holiday. "Not
alone," he concluded; "I don't think that would be quite safe, but in
company with some really trustworthy man a little older than himself, who
won't get on his nerves and yet will know how to look after him. He must
get right away for some weeks," added the kind old man, "and after that
I should advise you to keep him at home and let him have some gentle
occupation. Don't encourage him in writing. I think he would take kindly
to gardening. But I won't write any more: I will come and see you
about it."
Bearing that missive back did George reach his home.... All this passed in
the year 1895, and that is why George is to-day one of the best electrical
engineers in the country, instead of being a banker; and that shows how
good always comes, one way or another, of telling the truth.
Philip, King of Macedon, destroyer of the liberties of Greece, and father
to Alexander who tamed the horse Bucephalus, called for the tutor of that
lad, one Aristotle (surnamed the Teacher of the Human Race), to propound
to him a question that had greatly troubled him; for in counting out his
money (which was his habit upon a washing day, when the Queen's appetite
for afternoon tea and honey had rid him of her presence) he discovered
mixed with his treasure such an intolerable number of thruppenny bits as
very nearly drove him to despair.
On this account King Philip of Macedon, destroyer of the liberties of
Greece, sent for Aristotle, his hanger-on, as one capable of answering any
question whatsoever, and said to him (when he had entered with a profound
obeisance):
"Come, Aristotle, answer me straight; what is the use of a thruppenny bit?"
"Dread sire," said Aristotle, standing in his presence with respect, "the
thruppenny bit is not to be despised. Men famous in no way for their
style, nor even for their learning, have maintained life by inscribing
within its narrow boundaries the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten
Commandments, while others have used it as a comparison in the classes
of astronomy to illustrate the angle subtended by certain of the orbs of
heaven. The moon, whose waxing and waning is doubtless familiar to Your
Majesty, is indeed but just hidden by a thruppenny bit held between the
finger and the thumb of the observer extended at the full length of any
normal human arm."
"Go on," said King Philip, with some irritation; "go on; go on!"
"The thruppenny bit, Your Majesty, illustrates, as does no other coin, the
wisdom and the aptness of the duodecimal system to which the Macedonians
have so wisely clung (in common with the people of Scythia and of Thrace,
and the dumb animals) while the too brilliant Hellenes ran wild in the
false simplicity of the decimal system. The number twelve, Your
Majesty...."
"Yes, yes, I know," said King Philip impatiently, "I have heard it a
thousand times! It has already persuaded me to abandon the duodecimal
method and to consign to the severest tortures any one who mentions it in
my presence again. My ten fingers are good enough for me. Go on, go on!"
"Sovran Lord!" continued Aristotle, "the thruppenny bit has further been
proved in a thousand ways an adjuvator and prime helper of the Gods. For
many a man too niggardly to give sixpence, and too proud to give a copper,
has dropped this coin among the offerings at the Temple, and it is related
of a clergyman in Armagh (a town of which Your Majesty has perhaps never
heard) that he would frequently address his congregation from the rails
of the altar, pointing out the excessive number of thruppenny bits which
had been offered for the sustenance of the hierarchy, threatening to
summon before him known culprits, and to return to them the insufficient
oblation. Again, the thruppenny bit most powerfully disciplines the soul
of man, for it tries the temper as does no other coin, being small, thin,
wayward, given to hiding, and very often useless when it is discovered.
Learn also, King of Macedon, that the thruppenny bit is of value in ritual
phrases, and particularly so in objurgations and the calling down of
curses, and in the settlement of evil upon enemies, and in the final
expression of contempt. For to compare some worthless thing to a farthing,
to a penny, or to tuppence, has no vigour left in it, and it has long
been thought ridiculous even among provincials; a threadbare, worn, and
worthless sort of sneer; but the thruppenny bit has a sound about it
very valuable to one who would insist upon his superiority. Thus were
some rebel or some demagogue of Athens (for example) to venture upon the
criticism of Your Majesty's excursions into philosophy, in order to bring
those august theses into contempt, his argument would never find emphasis
or value unless he were to terminate its last phrase by a snap of the
fingers and the mention of a thruppenny bit.
"King Philip of Macedon, most prudent of men, learn further that a
thruppenny bit, which to the foolish will often seem a mere expenditure of
threepence, to the wise may represent a saving of that sum. For how many
occasions are there not in which the inconsequent and lavish fool, the
spendthrift, the young heir, the commander of cavalry, the empty, gilded
boy, will give a sixpence to a messenger where a thruppenny bit would have
done as well? For silver is the craving of the poor, not in its amount,
but in its nature, for nature and number are indeed two things, the one on
the one hand...."
"Oh, I know all about that," said King Philip; "I did not send for you
to get you off upon those rails, which have nothing whatever to do with
thruppenny bits. Be concrete, I pray you, good Aristotle," he continued,
and yawned. "Stick to things as they are, and do not make me remind you
how once you said that men had thirty-six, women only thirty-four, teeth.
Do not wander in the void."
"Arbiter of Hellas," said Aristotle gravely, when the King had finished
his tirade, "the thruppenny bit has not only all that character of
usefulness which I have argued in it from the end it is designed to serve,
but one may also perceive this virtue in it in another way, which is by
observation. For you will remember how when we were all boys the fourpenny
bit of accursed memory still lingered, and how as against it the
thruppenny bit has conquered. Which is, indeed, a parable taken from
nature, showing that whatever survives is destined to survive, for that
is indeed in a way, as you may say, the end of survival."
"Precisely," said King Philip, frowning intellectually; "I follow you.
I have heard many talk in this manner, but none talk as well as you do.
Continue, good Aristotle, continue."
"Your Majesty, the matter needs but little exposition, though it contains
the very marrow of truth," said the philosopher, holding up in a menacing
way the five fingers of his left hand and ticking them off with the
forefinger of his right. "For it is first useful, second beautiful, third
valuable, fourth magnificent, and, fifthly, consonant to its nature."
"Quite true," said King Philip, following carefully every word that fell
from the wise man's lips, for he could now easily understand.
"Very well then, sire," said Aristotle in a livelier tone, charmed to
have captivated the attention of his Sovereign. "I was saying that which
survives is proved worthy of survival, as of a man and a shark, or of
Athens and Macedonia, or in many other ways. Now the thruppenny bit,
having survived to our own time, has so proved itself in that test, and
upon this all men of science are agreed.
"Then, also, King Philip, consider how the thruppenny bit in another and
actual way, not of pure reason but, if I may say so, in a material manner,
commends itself: for is it not true that whereas all other nations
whatsoever, being by nature servile, will use a nickel piece or some other
denomination for whatever is small but is not of bronze, the Macedonians,
being designed by the Gods for the command of all the human race, have
very tenaciously clung to the thruppenny bit through good and through
evil repute, and have even under the sternest penalties enforced it upon
their conquered subjects? For when Your Majesty discovered (if you will
remember) that the people of Euboea, in manifest contempt of your Crown,
paid back into Your Majesty's treasury all their taxes in the shape of
thruppenny bits...."
At this moment King Philip gave a loud shout, uttering in Greek the word
"Eureka," which signifies (to those who drop their aitches) "I've got it."
"Got what?" said the philosopher, startled into common diction by the
unexpected interjection of the despot.
"Get out!" said King Philip. "Do you suppose that any rambling Don is
going to take up my time when by a sheer accident his verbosity has
started me on a true scent? Out, Aristotle, out! Or, stay, take this note
with you to the Captain of the Guard"--and King Philip hastily scribbled
upon a parchment an order for the immediate execution of the whole of the
inhabitants of Euboea, saving such as could redeem themselves at the price
of ten drachmae, the said sum upon no account whatsoever to be paid in
coin containing so much as one thruppenny bit.
But the offended philosopher had departed, and being well wound up could
not, any more than any other member of the academies, cease from spouting;
so that King Philip was intolerably aggravated to hear him as he waddled
down the Palace stairs still declaiming in a loud tone:
"And, sixteenthly, the thruppenny bit has about it this noble quality,
that it represents an aliquot part of that sum which is paid to me daily
from the Royal Treasury in silver, a metal upon which we have always
insisted. And, seventeenthly...."
But King Philip banged the door.
The hotel at Palma is like the Savoy, but the cooking is a great deal
better. It is large and new; its decorations are in the modern style with
twiddly lines. Its luxury is greater than that of its London competitor.
It has an eager, willing porter and a delightful landlord. You do what you
like in it and there are books to read. One of these books was an English
guide-book. I read it. It was full of lies, so gross and palpable that I
told my host how abominably it traduced his country, and advised him first
to beat the book well and then to burn it over a slow fire. It said that
the people were superstitious--it is false. They have no taboo about days;
they play about on Sundays. They have no taboo about drinks; they drink
what they feel inclined (which is wine) when they feel inclined (which is
when they are thirsty). They have no taboo book, Bible or Koran, no damned
psychical rubbish, no damned "folk-lore," no triply damned mumbo-jumbo of
social ranks; kind, really good, simple-minded dukes would have a devil of
a time in Palma. Avoid it, my dears, keep away. If anything, the people of
Palma have not quite enough superstition. They play there for love, money,
and amusement. No taboo (talking of love) about love.
The book said they were poor. Their populace is three or four times as
rich as ours. They own their own excellent houses and their own land; no
one but has all the meat and fruit and vegetables and wine he wants, and
usually draught animals and musical instruments as well.
In fact, the book told the most frightful lies and was a worthy companion
to other guidebooks. It moved me to plan a guide-book of my own in which
the truth should be told about all the places I know. It should be called
"Guide to Northumberland, Sussex, Chelsea, the French frontier, South
Holland, the Solent, Lombardy, the North Sea, and Rome, with a chapter on
part of Cheshire and some remarks on the United States of America."
In this book the fault would lie in its too great scrappiness, but the
merit in its exactitude. Thus I would inform the reader that the best time
to sleep in Siena is from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon,
and that the best place to sleep is the north side of St. Domenic's ugly
brick church there.
Again, I would tell him that the man who keeps the "Turk's Head" at
Valogne, in Normandy, was only outwardly and professedly an Atheist, but
really and inwardly a Papist.
I would tell him that it sometimes snowed in Lombardy in June, for I have
seen it--and that any fool can cross the Alps blindfold, and that the
sea is usually calm, not rough, and that the people of Dax are the most
horrible in all France, and that Lourdes, contrary to the general opinion,
does work miracles, for I have seen them.
I would also tell him of the place at Toulouse where the harper plays
to you during dinner, and of the grubby little inn at Terneuzen on the
Scheldt where they charge you just anything they please for anything;
five shillings for a bit of bread, or half a crown for a napkin.
All these things, and hundreds of others of the same kind, would I put
in my book, and at the end should be a list of all the hotels in Europe
where, at the date of publication, the landlord was nice, for it is the
character of the landlords which makes all the difference--and that
changes as do all human things.
There you could see first, like a sort of Primate of Hotels, the Railway
Hotel at York. Then the inn at La Bruyère in the Landes, then the "Swan"
at Petworth with its mild ale, then the "White Hart" of Storrington,
then the rest of them, all the six or seven hundred of them, from the
"Elephant" of Chateau Thierry to the "Feathers" of Ludlow--a truly noble
remainder of what once was England; the "Feathers" of Ludlow, where the
beds are of honest wood with curtains to them, and where a man may drink
half the night with the citizens to the success of their engines and the
putting out of all fires. For there are in West England three little inns
in three little towns, all in a line, and all beginning with an L--
Ledbury, Ludlow, and Leominster, all with "Feathers," all with orchards
round, and I cannot tell which is the best.
Then my guide-book will go on to talk about harbours; it will prove how
almost every harbour was impossible to make in a little boat; but it would
describe the difficulties of each so that a man in a little boat might
possibly make them. It would describe the rush of the tide outside Margate
and the still more dangerous rush outside Shoreham, and the absurd bar
at Littlehampton that strikes out of the sea, and the place to lie at in
Newhaven, and how not to stick upon the Platters outside Harwich; and the
very tortuous entry to Poole, and the long channel into Christchurch past
Hengistbury Head; and the enormous tides of South Wales; and why you often
have to beach at Britonferry, and the terrible difficulty of mooring in
Great Yarmouth; and the sad changes of Little Yarmouth, and the single
black buoy at Calais which is much too far out to be of any use; and how
to wait for the tide in the Swin. And also what no book has ever yet
given, an exact direction of the way in which one may roll into Orford
Haven, on the top of a spring tide if one has luck, and how if one has no
luck one sticks on the gravel and is pounded to pieces.
Then my guide-book would go on to tell of the way in which to make men
pleasant to you according to their climate and country; of how you must
not hurry the people of Aragon, and how it is your duty to bargain with
the people of Catalonia; and how it is impossible to eat at Daroca; and
how careful one must be with gloomy men who keep inns at the very top of
glens, especially if they are silent, under Cheviot. And how one must not
talk religion when one has got over the Scotch border, with some remarks
about Jedburgh, and the terrible things that happened to a man there who
would talk religion though he had been plainly warned.
Then my guide-book would go on to tell how one should climb ordinary
mountains, and why one should avoid feats; and how to lose a guide which
is a very valuable art, for when you have lost your guide you need not pay
him. My book will also have a note (for it is hardly worth a chapter) on
the proper method of frightening sheep dogs when they attempt to kill you
with their teeth upon the everlasting hills.
This my good and new guide-book (oh, how it blossoms in my head as I
write!) would further describe what trains go to what places, and in what
way the boredom of them can best be overcome, and which expresses really
go fast; and I should have a footnote describing those lines of steamers
on which one can travel for nothing if one puts a sufficiently bold face
upon the matter.
My guide-book would have directions for the pacifying of Arabs, a trick
which I learnt from a past master, a little way east of Batna in the year
1905--I will also explain how one can tell time by the stars and by the
shadow of the sun; upon what sort of food one can last longest and how
best to carry it, and what rites propitiate, if they are solemnized in a
due order, the half-malicious fairies which haunt men when they are lost
in lonely valleys, right up under the high peaks of the world. And my book
should have a whole chapter devoted to Ulysses.
For you must know that one day I came into Narbonne where I had never been
before, and I saw written up in large letters upon a big, ugly house:
Lodging for Man and Beast.
So I went in and saw the master, who had a round bullet head and cropped
hair, and I said to him: "What! Are you landed, then, after all your
journeys? And do I find you at last, you of whom I have read so much and
seen so little?" But with an oath he refused me lodging.
This tale is true, as would be every other tale in my book.
What a fine book it will be!
"I will confess and I will not deny," said Wandering Peter (of whom you
have heard little but of whom in God's good time you shall hear more). "I
will confess and I will not deny that the chief pleasure I know is the
contemplation of my fellow beings."
He spoke thus in his bed in the inn of a village upon the River Yonne
beyond Auxerre, in which bed he lay a-dying; but though he was dying he
was full of words.
"What energy! What cunning! What desire! I have often been upon the edge
of a steep place, such as a chalk pit or a cliff above a plain, and
watched them down below, hurrying around, turning about, laying down,
putting up, leading, making, organizing, driving, considering, directing,
exceeding, and restraining; upon my soul I was proud to be one of them! I
have said to myself," said Wandering Peter, "lift up your heart; you also
are one of these! For though I am," he continued, "a wandering man and
lonely, given to the hills and to empty places, yet I glory in the workers
on the plain, as might a poor man in his noble lineage. From these I came;
to these in my old age I would have returned."
At these words the people about his bed fell to sobbing when they thought
how he would never wander more, but Peter Wanderwide continued with a high
heart:
"How pleasant it is to see them plough! First they cunningly contrive an
arrangement that throws the earth aside and tosses it to the air, and
then, since they are too weak to pull the same, they use great beasts,
oxen or horses or even elephants, and impose them with their will, so that
they patiently haul this contrivance through the thick clods; they tear
up and they put into furrows, and they transform the earth. Nothing can
withstand them. Birds you will think could escape them by flying up into
the air. It is an error. Upon birds also my people impose their view. They
spread nets, food, bait, trap, and lime. They hail stones and shot and
arrows at them. They cause some by a perpetual discipline to live near
them, to lay eggs and to be killed at will; of this sort are hens, geese,
turkeys, ducks, and guinea-fowls. Nothing eludes the careful planning of
man.
"Moreover, they can build. They do not build this way or that, as a dull
necessity forces them, not they! They build as they feel inclined. They
hew down, they saw through (and how marvellous saw!), they trim
timber, they mix lime and sand, they excavate the recesses of the hills.
Oh! the fine fellows! They can at whim make your chambers or the Tower
prison, or my aunt's new villa at Wimbledon (which joke of theirs),
or St. Pancras Station, or the Crystal Palace, or Westminster Abbey, or
St. Paul's, or Bon Secours. They are agreeable to every change in the wind
that blows about the world. It blows Gothic, and they say 'By all means'--
and there is your Gothic--a thing dreamt of and done! It suddenly veers
south again and blows from the Mediterranean. The jolly little fellows are
equal to the strain, and up goes Amboise, and Anet, and the Louvre, and
all the Renaissance. It blows everyhow and at random as though in anger at
seeing them so ready. They care not at all! They build the Eiffel Tower,
the Queen Anne house, the Mary Jane house, the Modern-Style house, the
Carlton, the Ritz, the Grand Palais, the Trocadero, Olympia, Euston, the
Midhurst Sanatorium, and old Beit's Palace in Park Lane. They are not to
be defeated, they have immortal certitudes.
"Have you considered their lines and their drawings and their cunning
plans?" said Wandering Peter. "They are astonishing there! Put a bit of
charcoal into my dog's mouth or my pet monkey's paw--would he copy the
world? Not he! But men--my brothers--they take it in hand and make
war against the unspeaking forces; the trees and the hills are of their
own showing, and the places in which they dwell, by their own power,
become full of their own spirit. Nature is made more by being their model,
for in all they draw, paint, or chisel they are in touch with heaven and
with hell.... They write (Lord! the intelligence of their men, and Lord!
the beauty of their women). They write unimaginable things!
"They write epics, they write lyrics, they write riddles and marching
songs and drinking songs and rhetoric, and chronicles, and elegies, and
pathetic memories; and in everything that they write they reveal things
greater than they know. They are capable," said Peter Wanderwide, in
his dying enthusiasm, "of so writing that the thought enlarges upon the
writing and becomes far more than what they have written. They write that
sort of verse called 'Stop-Short,' which when it is written makes one
think more violently than ever, as though it were an introduction to the
realms of the soul. And then again they write things which gently mock
themselves and are a consolation for themselves against the doom of
death."
But when Peter Wanderwide said that word "death," the howling and the
boo-hooing of the company assembled about his bed grew so loud that he
could hardly hear himself think. For there was present the Mayor of
the village, and the Priest of the village, and the Mayor's wife, and
the Adjutant Mayor or Deputy Mayor, and the village Councillor, and
the Road-mender, and the Schoolmaster, and the Cobbler, and all the
notabilities, as many as could crush into the room, and none but the
Doctor was missing.
And outside the house was a great crowd of the village folk, weeping
bitterly and begging for news of him, and mourning that so great and so
good a man should find his death in so small a place.
Peter Wanderwide was sinking very fast, and his life was going out with
his breath, but his heart was still so high that he continued although his
voice was failing:
"Look you, good people all, in your little passage through the daylight,
get to see as many hills and buildings and rivers, fields, books, men,
horses, ships, and precious stones as you can possibly manage to do. Or
else stay in one village and marry in it and die there. For one of these
two fates is the best fate for every man. Either to be what I have been, a
wanderer with all the bitterness of it, or to stay at home and hear in
one's garden the voice of God.
"For my part I have followed out my fate. And I propose in spite of my
numerous iniquities, by the recollection of my many joys in the glories of
this earth, as by corks, to float myself in the sea of nothingness until I
reach the regions of the Blessed and the pure in heart.
"For I think when I am dead Almighty God will single me out on account
of my accoutrement, my stirrup leathers, and the things that I shall be
talking of concerning Ireland and the Perigord, and my boat upon the
narrow seas; and I think He will ask St. Michael, who is the Clerk and
Registrar of battling men, who it is that stands thus ready to speak
(unless his eyes betray him) of so many things? Then St. Michael will
forget my name although he will know my face; he will forget my name
because I never stayed long enough in one place for him to remember it.
"But St. Peter, because he is my Patron Saint and because I have always
had a special devotion to him, will answer for me and will have no
argument, for he holds the keys. And he will open the door and I will come
in. And when I am inside the door of Heaven I shall freely grow those
wings, the pushing and nascence of which have bothered my shoulder blades
with birth pains all my life long, and more especially since my thirtieth
year. I say, friends and companions all, that I shall grow a very
satisfying and supporting pair of wings, and once I am so furnished I
shall be received among the Blessed, and I shall at once begin to tell
them, as I told you on earth, all sorts of things, both false and true,
with regard to the countries through which I carried forward my homeless
feet, and in which I have been given such fulfilment for my eyes."
When Peter Wanderwide had delivered himself of these remarks, which he did
with great dignity and fire for one in such extremity, he gasped a little,
coughed, and died.
I need not tell you what solemnities attended his burial, nor with what
fervour the people flocked to pray at his tomb; but it is worth knowing
that the poet of that place, who was rival to the chief poet in Auxerre
itself, gathered up the story of his death into a rhyme, written in the
dialect of that valley, of which rhyme this is an English translation:
When Peter Wanderwide was young
He wandered everywhere he would;
And all that he approved was sung,
And most of what he saw was good.
When Peter Wanderwide was thrown
By Death himself beyond Auxerre,
He chanted in heroic tone
To Priest and people gathered there:
"If all that I have loved and seen
Be with me on the Judgment Day,
I shall be saved the crowd between
From Satan and his foul array.
"Almighty God will surely cry
'St. Michael! Who is this that stands
With Ireland in his dubious eye,
And Perigord between his hands,
"'And on his arm the stirrup thongs,
And in his gait the narrow seas,
And in his mouth Burgundian songs,
But in his heart the Pyrenees?'
"St. Michael then will answer right
(But not without angelic shame):
'I seem to know his face by sight;
I cannot recollect his name....'
"St. Peter will befriend me then,
Because my name is Peter too;
'I know him for the best of men
That ever wallopped barley brew.
"'And though I did not know him well,
And though his soul were clogged with sin,
I hold the keys of Heaven and Hell.
Be welcome, noble Peterkin.'
"Then shall I spread my native wings
And tread secure the heavenly floor,
And tell the Blessed doubtful things
Of Val d'Aran and Perigord."
* * * * *
This was the last and solemn jest
Of weary Peter Wanderwide,
He spoke it with a failing zest,
And having spoken it, he died.
BELLOC-On Something - ON A VAN TROMP