6 6 8 4 7 FR6001 L66ef9 LIBRARY UNIVERSIT. ;. wLlFORNIA RIVERiilDE [J'lflnitsfiiece OXFORD, ST. BEES AND THE FRONT 1911 — 1916 H. B. K/aLLPASS ("REX ALLPASS") SOMKTIMF. SCHOLAR OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD 2ND LIEUTENANT, THF. ESSEX REGIMENT LONDON T. WERNER LAURIE, LTD. 30, NEW BRIDGE STREET, LONDON, E.C. 4. piintet) in threat ^Britain BY WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS, LIMITED. LONDON AND BECCLES The verse and prose contained in this little volume — written at Oxford, St. Bees, and in. camp — have been collected and compiled with reverent love, and in memory of him who lies sleeping in France ; whose watchword was duty ; whose desire was to serve his generation; whose life was achievement; whose death sacrifice. With Rex AUpass went out a light that shone. The Fabian Society has lost one of its keenest students : the Isis the best topical poet in Oxford : and Exeter a scholar whom it will sadly miss. A. M. A. ToH. B. K. A. Friend, if I had t lie pluck of yon, Pd tlirotu my life wliere you thre^v yours, And trust we'd pick them up, we t7vo. On some old pla)ufs ivindy shores — Shores where a grey sea spins its foam Down a west wind and flecks the grass, And wets your face before you pass T/u: little gate — yo7i kiiow — at home. No brand-new planets, lad, for ns, Not Saturn with his gaudy rings. And ?noofis arid planetoids arid things, But Just some quiet old stellar 'bus, With not too many earthly ills. And Just the sort of beach Fve said: A mile or so of sand to tread. And back of that thefrietidly hills : And ba^k of all a red-brown house, Where cro7vditig Jockdatvs in the trees Most homelily shall squaiok and wheeze. Listen I Out there — what ghosts they rouse I A slightest stirring of my hair — So I — And if 1 shmild close tny eyes, Surely you're by vie in the chair. *' P'or CTcr, and for ever dies," Ah no, that shall be that has been. God surely will not have it so That you who found His wine so clean, And drinking laughed, leave but the low Sweet ringing of the bowl set down. vui TO H. B. K. A. Again in some far element, Old meaning of new substance blent, From lovely into lovelier grown, lliefce-t of you are swiftness still: Again, upon some dawn- washed hill You go our wonted ways — alone. Alone I For you on some netv day The sundering veil of sense is drawn ; For you, on some new Himalay, Goes like a running fire tlf dawn. Alone — and on my zvindow-pane Rattles the first of Autumn's hail. Still runs a crying in the gale : Come back again I Come back again I Surely yoji loved the wet sea wind, Grey skies that shivered into rain : Does no far echo of the mind Cry that your loving was not vain 1 Come back again ! Come back again I J.J. From the ST. BEES SCHOOL MAGAZINE, July, 19 1 7 It is almost a year since the news came from France that Mr. Allpass was reported wounded and missing after leading a bombing raid on German trenches on September 16, 191 6. Although he was too badly wounded to move, and our stretcher-bearers were unable to get to him, he was seen within the German wire, and there seemed to be good reason to hope he was still alive and a prisoner. But each month has made that hope fainter, till at last his death has been officially presumed, and it is with the deepest sorrow that we at St. Bees realise our loss. Mr. H. B. K. Allpass, sometime Scholar of Exeter College, Oxford, was appointed to succeed the late Mr. Ziillig as Senior Modem Language Master in the summer of 19 14, just after he had won first-class honours in the Final School of Modern Languages at Oxford. In December, 191 5, he transferred from St. Bees O.T.C. to the Essex Regiment, and in June of last year volunteered for service in France with the ist Battalion of the Cambridgeshire Regiment, and at once obtained the position of Battalion Bombing Officer. In this capacity he proved his efficiency and courage again and again, and was recommended by his Colonel for the Military Cross, " for most gallant behaviour under fire." Many letters from fellow officers and others all tell the same tale of extra- ordinary bravery and " unfailing cheerfulness even in torrents of rain and shells." It was no surprise to us who knew him to find in his military career the same brilliance that marked bis earlier activities: he was one of those rarely gifted people wlio seem to excel without effort in any surroundings. One of the most notable things in him was his exceptional gift of literary expression in jirose and verse, combined as it was with an astonishing fertility ol ideas. This Magazine has lost in him the most original and humorous ol its contributors, and its X FROM " ST. BEES SCHOOL MAGAZINE " readers will be glad to know that a collection of some of his writings is to be published at the end of the war. Much of his best work was written at various times for the Westminster Gazette, for the Isis during his undergraduate days, and for Stars for Subalterns, a camp paper which he himself brilliantly edited during his period of training with the Essex Regiment. It is less easy to describe his love for St. Bees, and especially the Foundation, in which he lived for a year as House Master, but those who knew him intimately know how completely it absorbed his heart and soul. In every letter, in every page of his diary after he left us, there is the same thought expressed : his will provides for a concrete and lasting expression of it in the form of an annual prize to be given for Modern Languages in the School. The hope of coming back some day to the joy he found and left here was the inspiration that enabled him to stand the dulness of waiting to go to the Front, and the real horror of war as his sensitive mind found it. To himself he applied the words that his friend and colleague, James Yates, had written from France before him : '* Life here is very interesting, but it is not the real thing. My life is still being lived at St. Bees." To us the knowledge that he counted his days here as the happiest and best part of his life must bring something of consolation, and gives an added nobleness to the greatest sacrifice that a man may make. F. C. G. CONTENTS "The Letters of a Subaltern" . A Outrange The Cardinal, the Bishop, and the Fair The Stamp-collectors' Aunt KiKUYU . An Enemy of Society Kant The Sending down of Robert Dibbey MisTERE Ponder and Mistere Palmer Family Lx)ve . The Chess Blue . A Trafalgar Tragedy Horatio . summum bonum Love, Angela, and a Ckab The Complaint of Abraham On Maps The Speedometer . On Meals in Dining-cars The Scoring off of Verney A Drkam Afterwards . St. George's Day . To my Friend Music Skptemher 27TH The Kaiser and ihe Time-tai.le Farewell .... xi Maiden PAGE I 9 ID 12 13 14 15 18 27 28 30 31 32 34 35 37 38 40 43 46 52 54 55 58 59 60 61 62 xu CONTENTS The Bolt-head Charger-guide, and why Sir Bowdkn of Bicester Spring A Mute Inglorious Milton . TwA Scotch Ballads .... Ballad of St. Begha and St. Boniface A Simple Introduction to Literary Criticism Honour to whom Honour .... PACE 64 66 67 67 67 70 73 80 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT 'THE LETTERS OF A SUBALTERN" [From the Camp Magazine, Stars for Subalterns] Halton Camp. February i8th, 1916. My Dear Mother, This leaves me after my second commissioned day, so don't expect any definite impressions as yet. My chief occupation has been remembering my rank, and that I do not salute anything with less than three stripes nor say " Sir " to the Company-Sergeant-Major. This is quite hard, especially the last part, as the C.S.M. is a fierce man, and does not conceal his conviction that I am mentally, morally, and physically but as dust in the balance with him. This morning I was attached to B Company. After a brief interview with the CO., wherein I inadvertently directed my salute at the Adjutant, who looked a far greater blood, I found tin; Ojmpany in a large building celebrating a quite unintelligible rite. At first I thought it was an examination — the sort of thing the Civil Service Examiners would have described as " Section III. Military Scien'ce. Transport (Part IL). Bradshaw : B (Oral)." 2 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT A man with a loud voice was proclaiming lists of train- times, and when any one knew the answer he went up and received a charming little case for a prize. The queer thing was that, supposing you recognised the 4.29, you did not shout out " Walberswick-Towyn Express " or whatever it might be, but just " Yes, Sir," and got the case. I wish the Civil Service Commissioners had been as trustful ! However, this theory was washed out by the advent of the 17.76, and for a bit I took it for a History exam. — so thoroughly, I reflected, was the Military Art taught to the British Tommy — and was eagerly awaiting my own little pet date (1616, Death of Shakespeare), when we suddenly leaped to 4704, which not even the prophecies of Old Moore attain. So I turned in despair to the exclusive group of senior subalterns, who had been carrying on an animated conversation all the time, interrupted only by their stern injunctions for "Silence" to the men, and I meekly inquired. " Issue of Wives, house ; A.F.D. 3296," was the answer ; but it didn't get me much further. As for clothing I do not find much demand for woollen mufflers and Balaklavae ; so if Aunt Jane sends any more, tell her that the men appreciated the last lot enormously but are now completely equipped ; as the Tory members of the Coalition have shamed their colleagues into providing them officially. If she still persists, put them in the fire. Socks, however, are higlily desirable ; as, despite the best boots, they get quickly sodden with leather-filtered slush. The trench-coat also I am returning, as it is not much worn on parade ; but when I actually get to the trenches, say, in ten years' time, it will be splendid. Meanwhile it will do for Bobbyin polar charades. All the other things are excellent except the air-pillow, which expires during each night and has to be replenished about 4 a.m., which is a trifle disturbing to one's rest. Much love, Berry. 1 THE LETTERS OF A SUBALTERN 3 II Halton Camp. February 29th, 1916. My Dear Mother, I always enjoy writing letters on ceremonial dates, so to-day finck me working through enormous arrears of correspondence. One has to make the best of these occa- sions nowadays ; for the golden age when i — 2 — 3 and II — II — II were of comparatively common occurrence has, alas ! passed away with 11 — 12 — 13. I should so love to die on the celestial date i — i — i (and incidentally to discover whether they will call it twenty hundred or two thousand), but 108 is a rather over-ripe age, and my highest ambition is now reduced to some minor mathematical delicacy, perhaps an addition sum, like 30 — 11 — 41. I am in command of No. 12 Platoon, C Company, which will be a good note for At Homes : " My son, you know, is in command of No. 12 Platoon . . . , etc." We have an impressive nominal roll, 107 N.C.O.'s and men, but it is very nominal. I appear to supply the Company with all its hut orderlies, fatigues, guards, picquets, and other non- combatant duties — by the way, I don't envy the con- scientious objector ; I would rather be burned alive by a Senuss, or whatever is the singular of Senussi, than under- take a life of permanent fatigues — which is rough on my men and boring for me. Yesterday I had on parade five N.C.O.'s and a Man, but that is, of course, too good to last, and it looks as if my average day will be the inspection of my sergeant's small kit, followed by his inspection of mine. This seems rather an arid life for a Man with a Moustache ; but most wasteful of all is the compulsion of all these Cook-Generals to parade daily for the purpose of being dismissed. Each man in my platoon wastes a daily quarter of an iiour in order that he may say when I animad- vert on his buttons : " Cu(;kliousc, sir," or some similar shibboleth. I have calculated the net daily wastage per diem per brigade involved in these abortive parades : it 4 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT amounts to 6400 hours, or more than eight months' leave. Eight Months' Leave. Ye Gods ! I am very interested in your authentic details of the Zeppelin raid ; for the moment authentics are rather a glut on the market : everybody has news of some national establishment in ruins, so that one begins to wonder how the war has been kept going since. We regard Zeppelins here in the same darkness as Adjutants — necessary evils which occasionally interfere with one's enjoyment, but can be evaded by adroit concealment. Last week I arrived at Berkhamstead Station at 9 p.m., and enquired cheerily the whereabouts of the 9.5 to Tring ; and my patriotism became positively rampant when I learned that it was lurking at Euston lest the bomb that flieth in the night- season should destroy it. I had to walk ten miles back, and arrived eventually to find blankets — my blankets — shrouding all the hut windows and the inhabitants furtively crouching round one little candle, which, as Shakespeare noticed, is just about as luminous as a good deed. This, in the words of Punch's Nut, brings the war home to us, by Jove ! My servant and I have kept an Anagnorisis, a recogni- tion scene, ci la Aristotle. For two months I have addressed him as Wade, and he has perseveringly answered thereto. Yesterday, having need of some clean boots, I requested a circumambient 0.0. to send him along. The 0.0 enquired in Hut 34 whether Wade was present, to which a hilarious chorus replied : " Acting Wade, sir." It appears that his family name is Bowes, which explains why so many of my messages failed to reach him. {The Censor has been unkind here.) Much love. Berry. Ill Halton Camp. March 26th, 1916. My Dear Mother, It is Sunday afternoon. My fingers are numbed with acknowledging salutes. They must work out at 250 THE LETTERS OF A SUBALTERN 5 per yard, and I am in horrid fear of suffering the fate of the actress, who died from heart-failure owing to suspending her arms above her head to make them white. Also I am always mifortunate as a salute-monger. Three days ago I was confronted by a very powerful salute in the confusion of leaving the train at Aylesbury, to which, having expected a porter, I sweetly replied : " No, thank you." Yesterday, again, I met a Colonel in Wendover and saluted with vast gusto ; but instead of the gratified smile usual to Colonels on such occasions, his response was most marked in its lack of enthusiasm : I discovered why this was later, when I tried to take off my Sam Browne and found I hadn't got it on. Worst of all was my error of to-day, when, dis- cerning afar a martial figure in a British Warm with a double decoration on his shoulder, and having ascertained that BrowTie had not been left at home, I produced my very best Gent's Round Arm. He was a Lieutenant of course, but 1 think he was the more embarrassed. Spring is (presumably) coming, with its promise of betrothal. One imagines that it can scarcely be much more hymeneal than winter, autumn, and summer have been, for the Army seems to be amorous all the year round, least so, perhaps, just at the recognised mating time. The military motto is rather, as " A Dcrbyite " sings : In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to hymns of hate, and we are all getting the " Good-bye-Dolly-I-must-leave-you " sort of feeling. Meanwhile the processions of Pauls and Virginias that one meets in the evening grow in volume, and it seems to have become a sort of social duty to " walk out with a girl." I can't help feeling that it is all rather undigni- fied (the nursemaid world calls it " keeping comi)any "), and more suited to schoolboys than subalterns, l)ul 1 cannot claim that this is a very popular view. Hy the way, the polygamous excess of female admirers that threatens the survivors (if any) of the war is too horrible to contemplate. On the whole I suppose these joy- walks and joy-rides originate in the sense that one's tune may be short. On 6 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT the same principle one of the last " Temporary Tabs " (you remember our old abbreviation of Cantabs — most expressive) took at least two baths daily during the Cam- bridge Course. He called it " laying in a stock of clean- liness." Another man started storing cream-cakes a la camel. He attained a daily average of eleven at one time, but the store went bad, and an Army doctor has but little sympathy with a " disordered digestion " — -nor is that what he calls it. Many thanks for the peace-prophecy of Mr. Joynson Hicks' second cousin. My own feeling in the matter is complicated. Of course, every one wants the war to stop — abstractly ; but I, not having been out, don't want it to stop yet. A week in the trenches, one charge, the D.S.O. (which is much more dignified than a V.C), and a wound in the left arm is my own idea. (Providence, please note.) The prospect of peace is not much discussed here, and the civilian is mistaken in supposing the junior officers of a third-line unit to be in constant communication with Kitchener. The Dump, an excellent magazine issued in December by the 23rd Division, bore the superscription : " Vol. L No. L," and the Editorial announced that it would appear every Christmas till the end of the war, that six numbers went to a volume, and that on the conclusion of peace handsome mahogany bookshelves would be on sale to hold the complete series. Others are more hopeful, and there is an idea that one day a Division will accidentally attack and we shall cross the Rhine. One would like to be in that Division. They say that we get £50 at the end. I think the spending of it should be purely non-utilitarian and artistic, some Sacramental Extravagance. My present inclination is to take the Scotch Express from Euston, and to pull the communication cord at intervals of half an hour. Possibly they would give a reduction for wholesale business : £5 per single stoppage, ;^5o per dozen ? Much love, BliRKY. THE LETTERS OF A SUBALTERN 7 IV Hal ton Camp. April I3tli. My Dear Mother, I am sending you by this post a copy of the Camp Magazine, Stars for Subalterns, and I hope you will like it. I buy it regularly as a sort of " support home indus- tries " idea, but haven't yet read any of it. I know the Editor, who is quite mad, and it is reported that all the best parts are {censored). As a matter of fact various people have talked to me about it, and the idea strikes me as rather admirable. People in a camp of Reservists get so sour-tempered and dull from perpetual idleness and weari- some gossip that their sole interest is gradually reduced to sordid things like seniority and promotion and leave. Added to that there was during winter the doleful oppres- sion of damp and dirt, with no books, and nowhere to read what there were — this paper did at least give a certain number of people something to do, even if only to tell each other how bad it was. Still I don't suppose it will go on much longer, as everything is getting so unreliable ; any one may go anywhere at any time, and with Derbyites and sunshine there is less of this impious leisure. I give it till Easter. With regard to the success of the enterprise I have my doubts. It seems to me that the Editors aimed too high in imitating the literate flippancy of an undergrad. paper like the I sis. Very few of their public liad the undergrad. mind : they are all either younger or older, with tastes vitiated by the double entendre of the Revue. They wanted suburban jibes at senior officers, and limericks as near to the unprintable as their Censor would allow ; and as far as I can gather they did not get them. For this reason 1 should not think the sales liave been great : the Editor docs, it is true, profess satisfaction at the circulation, but he is certainly prejudiced and probably lying. Then, again, 1 doubt whclher the tamp possesses a 8 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT sufficient number of ready writers to form the clique of reliable wits necessary for a journal of frivolity. It is a rumour that only three pages of the second number came from contributors other than the two Editors, and Editors are not like Sacraments : many more than two are necessary for salvation. Moreover, a Camp is not a Unity, but a federation of mutually ignoring societies — the Officers' Messes. There is no corporate spirit and no central meeting-place : regiments keep separate, and the organisa- tion of a staff would be almost impossible. In my opinion military papers can only be run regimcntally, but with these sparse battalions such a thing would be hopeless. Anyhow they have succeeded in producing three numbers, mcluding the quite effective if rather ponderous April Fool jest, which must have amused the producers, and has distinctly enlivened the last dreary months. Which is, after all, something. They tell me that some silly ass is publishing his letters to his mater, and every one thinks them very dull and much too long-winded to be genuine letters. It would be rather sport to publish mine to you, wouldn't it ? Camp is very boring still, and I hope to get out during the Offensive, as they are almost bound to want volunteers for units that have a rough time. There does not seem much prospect of vacancies in my own battalion. Much love, Berry. [Stars for Subalterns, 191G.] A OUTRANGE It was a winter's evening, A bleak and frosty night, While all the world was wrapped in sleep, When by a candle's light My bedroom window-frame and I Embarked upon our fight. Enshrouded in my sheets I lay, Wishing that sleep were near. When gently through the darkened room Its challenge reached my ear. I turned me over on my side, Pretending not to hear. Again I heard the challenge sound, And louder still it grew With low, persistent, rattling creak — For well the window knew That soon or late I must arise Or watch the whole night through. Slowly I cast the blankets off And seize my patent wedge. Approach the window warily And kneel upon tlic ledge. Then grimly smile, and in the frame • Neatly insert the edge. « * * * « Two hours have passed ! the window's filled With wedges, curtains, nails. With sponges, razors, brushes, combs And towels — but nought avails. 10 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT I even try my trouser-press, But like the rest, it fails. At last beneath the growing strain The laden frame gives way, And creaking in the gentle breeze The window 'gins to sway. Frenzied I sever through the cords : It falls— Mine is the day. Wearied, but proud, I lay me down, At last the battle o'er. Hark ! Am 1 mad ? Or did I hear A rattle as before ? Is it a phantom come from hell ? Or — No ! It is the door. [Westminster Gazette, August, 1913-] THE CARDINAL, THE BISHOP, AND THE FAIR MAIDEN An Edifying Ballad Compiled with divers Hortatory and Admonitory Com- ments by a Devout and God-fearing Christian for a Solemn Ensample and Warning unto All Men. (The action takes place — as is clear from line 48 — in the year 4000 a.d., and the narrative can therefore have no personal reference.) His Eminence Cardinal Merry del Val And the Bishop of Sodor and Man \^'ere walking one day in a town of Natal • Discussing the problem of Dan, When, behold ! on the banks of a peaceful canal There met them a maiden (named Anne) . Ware Merry ! Ware Sodor ! Return meditation To Dan's and Manasseh's vexatious migration ! THE CARDINAL, BISHOP, AND FAIR MAIDEN ii Said His Eminence Cardinal Merry del Val To the Bishop of Sodor and Man : " My brother, look there ! WTiat a very fine gal ! " — And they turned them the maiden to scan — " You'd not find her match from the walks of the Mall To the sparsely-clad wilds of Soudan ! " What words for a Cardinal ! Woe is me ! Woe ! So much of the beauty of maidens dost know ? To his Eminence Cardinal Merry del Val Said the Bishop of Sodor and Man : " Your taste is superb, my pontifical pal ! You discern as few Catholics can ! " And then, as in rapture, cried : " Praise to Baal ! I've thought of an excellent plan ! " Oh ! never before has so evil an odour Attached to the acts of a Bishop of Sodor ! Then His Eminence Cardinal Merry del Val And the Bishop of Sodor and Man They forgot all their dignity Episcopal, And they girded their loins and they ran, And they ran such a race as that peaceful canal Never saw since creation began. Oh, Satan ! Fulfilled is thine uttermost wish ! Behold here a Bishop more wicked than Bysshe ! And His Eminence Cardinal Merry del \''al Beat the Bishop of Sodor and Man, And proposed on the spot without silly fal-lal (For he'd won by the length of a span). " I'd wed you at once," he said, " beautiful gal. But I fear the pontifical ban." The Church's fair fame was it ever thus marred ? Did ever a Cardinal prove such a card ? So His Eminence Cardinal Merry del \'al Left the Bisliop of Sodor and Man To appeal to the authorities spiritual, But " Hence ! " cried the grim Vatican, 12 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT " And fear lest, fulfilling this purpose banal. You be hurled from the heavenly clan 1 " The courage and glory for ever be heard Of Pius the Hundred and Seventy-third ! So His Eminence Cardinal Merry del Val Migrated in wrath to Japan, And there found his end, far away from Natal, For he fried for the Faith in a pan. And so, after all, that enchanting young gal Took the Bishop of Sodor and Man. But better by far to be served up in rashers Than join the assemblage of weepers and gnashers ! [Tke Isis, November, 1913.] THE STAMP-COLLECTORS' AUNT Oh ! List to the tragical lachrymose tale Of Martha Elizabeth Gamp, Who received by the post the Philatelist's Grail A Royal Timbuctean stamp. Martha Eliza two nephews possessed. Each a collector of note : Herbert Antonio Samuel West And Fawcett Excelsior Choate. Now Martha, to ways of collectors unused. Invited both nephews to tea. With benevolent simper the stamp she produced And gave it the cousins to see. Silent they stood, and beheld in amaze, And praised in full reverent tone, And focussed its markings with rapturous gaze And languished to make them their own. But rapture yields swiftly to rivalrous lust, And black importunity's hate : Though " I cannot decide," Martha wept, " But you must," They answered, " or death is your fate." THE STAMP-COLLECTORS' AUNT 13 Thus urged and insisted and threatened they both With demands that would not be denied, Till " Fawcett " she murmured. Then Bert with an oath Plunged the cake-knife deep in her side. "Ah, villain ! " cried Fawcett, " Behold what you've done ! O'er this ruin you never shall gloat ! " And swift a resilient halfpenny bun He thrust down the cousinly throat. But Bert ere, asphyxiate, life he resigned, Arose with the rest of his strength, And Fawcett he pierced 'twLxt the shoulders behind With the cake- knife's murderous length. Thus they died ; and below with their issuing gore The ceiling grew ruddily damp, As there fluttered regretfully down to the floor That Royal Timbuctean stamp. [December, 191 3.] KIKUYU Do you know the stir you are Raising in domains afar, Little town in Africa, Kikuyn ? Do you visualise the Deans With the Bishops making scenes. Giving one another beans ? Say, do you ? Do you picture those who claim That Christian Concord from you came. And with never-dying fame Endue you ? 14 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND TflE FRONT Of that party can you tell Who 'mid threat enings of Hell All with Candle, Book and Bell Taboo you ? Can you know those others, who Wobbling in between the two. Wait for an official clue To view you ? Hearing it perchance afar You'll perceive that mortals are Not only vile in Africa, Kikuyu ! [January, 1914.] AN ENEMY OF SOCIETY To this Haunt of Sport and Pedantry, of Graduates grown sedent'ry There came one term a Fresher, just an ordinary wight — One who dressed himself expensively, the Sportsman read extensively, and babbled inoffensively When chancing to be tight. You perceive, the type traditional of youth, to man tran- sitional, The type that buys bright waistcoats and in later years reads Stubbs — He obeyed all customs various, save one he thought nefarious ; the tendency gregarious, The tendency to clubs. Though from Michaelmas to Hilary Loquacity's artillery Bombarded at our hero with prospectuses and cant, Ever urging the propriety of joining some variety of fatuous society. His mind was adamant. AN ENEMY OF SOCIETY 15 Of all high preferment glamorous they failed to make him amorous, All offered power and office, he declined them on the spot ; For the Clubbist's aim essential, the happiness potential of honours presidential He did not care a jot. Thus with obstinate tenacity he spumed the grim rapacity Of wily secretaries till he reached the Summer Term : Then he yielded — Ah ! The Vanity ! The tragical inanity of the struggles of Humanity ! — He yielded to the germ ! He had passed two Terms of martyrdom, of voluntary Spartadom : The third — a weak Diogenes ! — he leaves his cynic's tub: And a victim to propriety, he adds one more variety of fatuous society : The Anti-Clubbist Club ! [The I sis, January, igi^.] THE ISIS SERIES OF PHILOSOPHICAL CANTATAS, OR, Wisdom without Thought (Edited by the Snooksian Professor of Empirical Metamorphosis.) I . Kant Kant was, I scarcely need say, a philosopher. Treble Solo mf Famous through Europe as erudite boss of a School of a very superior kind. He proved with eclat and acumen forensical Other philosophers wholly nonsensical, Mowing them down with his murderous pen- sickle. Changing all ancient conceptions of mind. i6 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT What could be more airy and light and Trebles only galant Than the courtly Critique of Immanuel Kant ? Immanuel — manuel — manuel Kant, TiiUi f. The courtly Critique of Immanuel Kant ! Thoughts apodictic, ideal, categorical, Tenof Solo mj. Thoughts problematical, thoughts asser- torical. Thoughts fit to give one the cerebral creep, Unity, Multitude, Allness, Reality, Quantity too, and Relation, Modality, Quality, Substance, Negation, Causality, These were but trifles — arranged in his sleep. Then what more delightful to read in a punt Tenors only Than the creamy Critique of Immanuel Kant? Immanuel — manuel — manuel Kant, Tuttif. The creamy Critique of Immanuel Kant ! Seek you original thoughts for your Diary ? Bass Solo mf. Something perchance re perceptions a priori — Oh ! The false quantity ! Murder the TitUi ff. sneak ! — If to a female of wealth and rotundity Bass Solo mf. You should desire to display your pro- fundity. Turn for assistance in lavish fecundity, Turn to the one and the only Critique ! For what more impressive to read to one's Basses only aunt Than the massive Critique of Immanuel Kant? Immanuel — manuel — manuel Kant, Tutli ff. The massive Critique of Immanuel Kant ! PHILOSOPHICAL CANTATAS 17 Friends, they are books of entrancing Tutti tnf. lucidity, Books to be bought and devoured with avidity. Read them, oh, read them whenever you can ! Read of Imperatives, Truths Inferential, Truths Transcendental, and Truths Eviden- tial, Read of the Schemata Experiential, Read of the Ego's relation to Man ! Then what for one's aunt in a punt more Trebles only galant Than the courtly Critique of Immanuel Kant? Then what more galant for one's aunt in a Tenors only punt Than the creamy Critique of Immanuel Kant? Then what in a punt more galant for one's Basses only aunt Than the massive Critique of Immanuel Kant ? Immanuel — manuel — manuel Kant, Tutti ff. The perfect Critique of Immanuel Kant ! [The Isis, January, 1914.] THE SENDING DOWN OF ROBERT DIBBEY I It was June, and Oxford languished in the summer heat. The sunUt stone of the College walls stretched in harsh whiteness down the High ; the new motor-'buses leaped dustily from ridge to ridge ; and the perspiring dons, hurrying ineffectively from one unattended lecture to the next, glanced enviously and evilly at the waistcoatless undergrads., whom they met sauntering gently towards the Isis. Even some of the less diligent girl students, ostentatiously unconscious of male proximity, had taken unaccustomed leave of Minerva, and were setting out for a methodical picnic on the Upper River. Two persons only — exclusive of the civil population — seemed indifferent to the heat. They were, the Rev. K. B. H. Wilkinson, D.Litt., M.A., Vice-Chancellor of the University and Head of Pembnose ; and R. Dibbey, Esq., Undergraduate of the ancient College of Gloucester. The Vice-Chancellor was a tall, stately man, of noble presence, the dignified cadence of whose Latin enunciation had not been equalled in the transaction of official business since the days when Latin was the Esperanto of the Scholar, and English but the Cockney of the Scout. Robert Dibbey, on the other hand, was neither tall nor stately ; his figure was small and mean, and his voice of a piping smallness ; his hair was straw-coloured, his face pale ; and he wore spectacles. And the patron saint who surmounted the College gateway opposite smiled complacently at the comparison as the Vice-Chancellor passed beneath the undergraduate's window ; for he said : " Thus does Learning ennoble, and Ignorance deform." THE SENDING DOWN OF ROBERT DIBBEY 19 But the saint's smile was short ; for even as he smiled Ignorance adjusted the balance ; Dibbej^'s window shot up, and an enamel water- jug discharged its impious contents on the venerable head beneath. And the saint blenched as he watched, and shuddered in his niche. II The Senior Proctor hitched his gown over his shoulders and gazed regretfully at the first finger of his right hand, whose nail, too lavishly pared by his wife, hurt him as he wrote. The first of the asynchronous Oxford clocks had scarcely yet begun to chime the hour of ten, and all the minor culprits, some warned, some fined, some gated, had already departed : there remained a quarter of an hour before the chief criminal should arrive. The Senior Proctor was a kindly man, as his rotund iron-gray moustache promised ; but Dibbey's offence seemed to him so wanton, so outrageous, and withal so inartistic, that even his leniency had despaired, when the opening door ushered in a messenger with a letter. It was from Gordon, Dibbey's Tutor ; and the Senior Proctor opened it with some curiosity. " My Dear Jackson," it ran, " I hasten to answer your note of yesterday with reference to young Dibbcy. I fully appreciate the gravity of his conduct, but yet I would urge you to treat him as hghtly as you can. He comes from one of the smaller public schools, whose teaching, though failing in his case in its first aim of athletic efficiency, has nevertheless suc- ceeded in its second of discrediting for liim as effeminate weakness every trace of artistic and htcrary appreciation. Such cases are, of course, common ; but the undergraduate whom the sporting aristocracy outlaws at school usually gains confidence at the University, and begins to develop his neglected artistic faculty with surprising speed. Dibbcy, however, lacking the necessary assurance and 20 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT adaptability, missed the mushroom clubs of liis first year, and retired almost by force of habit into his old seclusion. " Nevertheless — and here I think I find the explanation of his recent action — he did not retire willingly. Naturally a sociable mind, though one artificially stunted, he will always have longed for popularity ; and the mawkish ' manliness ' of Dean Farrar and the school story will have pointed him his course. Some signal deed of prowess, some magnificent defiance of authority, should rally his contemporaries round his misjudged devilry ; and, as I beheve, this soaking of Wilkinson (who, by the way, methinks must have looked more than a little comic !) is that deed of might. " With apologies for so long a letter and in hope that you will deal gently with the young man, " Ever yours, " L. W. G. Gordon." That, meditated the Senior Proctor, was all very well, but Gordon must remember that the Law was a generalisa- tion and might take no account of particular psychology. Moreover a Vice-Chancellor must not be insulted with impunity. No, decidedly, Mr. Dibbey must go down. A timid knock sounded on the door, and Dibbey wafted himself into the room, looking bleached and decrepit beneath the flabby tentacles of his Commoner's gown. " 1 think," said the Senior Proctor reassuringly, " that there has been some mistake. 1 am expecting a gentleman of the name of Dibbey. Perhaps you will call again to-morrow at 9.30 ? " Dibbey blushed and sniggered. He explained that he thought . . . that was, he didn't think ... or rather perhaps ... in fact his name was Dibbey : R. Dibbey, of Gloucester College. The Senior Proctor jumped. Gordon's letter had pre- pared him for something strange, but not quite for this. Could this washed-out semi-albino be the dare-devil who had douched Wilkinson ? THE SENDING DOWN OF ROBERT DIBBEY 21 " So you are Oxford's latest wag," he remarked, to cover his surprise. The wag smiled wanly. He surveyed the criminal again, and pondered. The boy must be half an imbecile to have done this thing. It would be cruel to send him down. There was Wilkinson of course . . . but he might be reconciled to a smaller sentence when he understood the circumstances. . . . And if what Gordon said was true, the boy only had to see that his exploit was merely laughed at to be brought to reason. . . . Surely gating and a fine. . . . Dibbey watched it all. How often both at Oxford and at school had some desperate enterprise of his been drowned in the ocean of tutorial pity ! How well he knew the process : the sudden surprise at his appearance, the gathering doubt of his sanity, the leniency rising in his judge's face, and finally the few kindly words and the nominal sentence. It must not be. He would not allow the last and greatest of his feats to be smothered in the womanish emollience of a dotard's heart. Bracing himself for a supreme effort, he leaned stiffly over the Senior Proctor's desk. " You go to the devil ! " he said. Ill They were not drunk. Their eyes were still bright ; their faces, if flushed, had not grown greasy ; and their white ties and their hair, though errant and streaky, were not yet demoralised. Nor had they reached the stage of enunciatory purism, when sobriety would seem to depend on the literal integrity of the British Constitution. On the other hand, they were not sober. Even the intellectual alertness of the first stage had been well passed. Rather they were luxuriating in that pleasant borderland which is neither intoxication nor sobriety, and whose main character- istics are to the chance stranger an expansive cosmopoli- tanism of comradeship, and a mutual abstention from critical severity in regard to native pleasantries. C 22 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT Thus was the twenty-first birthday of Hopkins being celebrated by his friends. Conversation, which, beginning with an appreciation of the soup, had mounted with the successive instalments of the champagne through meditations on examiners to questions of politics, and thence to theories of art, had with the coffee succumbed to hypertrophy of paradox ; and the resultant silence already threatened to precipitate the philosophic drowsiness of the more advanced stages, when Williams saved the situation. " Have any of those present," he demanded with insistent solemnity, " heard about Dibbey ? " It appeared that they had not heard about Dibbey ; also that Dibbey, though they at present lacked the pleasure of his acquaintance, was a persona grata to them all ; that, in fact, their one ambition was to hear about Dibbey, and to serve him in any and every manner possible. " Dibbey,'' continued WiUiams with meticulous pre- cision of speech, " has [a) poured water on Wilkinson ; (6) told the Senior Proctor to go to the devil ; " " Williams ! " expostulated the shrill, plaintive tones of Coke, who was a clergyman's son, " may I request you, as one gentleman to another, to moderate your language, which is not fit — I say it with all reverence — for a vestry meeting ? My father " " (6) " repeated the narrator calmly, " has told the Senior Proctor to go to the devil ; and (c) is to go down to-morrow." This announcement aroused a singular demonstration. Several of t;i? guests wept silently — they were leaving the equivocal bjrderland ; many pledged themselves and the new hero in deep draughts of port ; while yet others broke out into continued and monotonous hand-clapping. Suddenly the high, loud voice of Felkin chimed forth : " Good old Dibbey ! " he cried hilariously, and seizing Coke by the waist pirouetted destructively round the table. In a moment the room was full of the cry, and the ceihng trembled to the goodness of Dibbey. Only the host, THE SENDING DOWN OF ROBERT DIBBEY 23 Hopkins, whom etiquette restrained one degree of drunken- ness behind his guests, seemed incredulous, and demanded corroboration. (He was a Theology student, though not naturally suspicious.) " Hopkins," rejoined Williams, " I am pained at your Uttle faith. The facts were recounted to me by Mr. Dibbey himself. Moreover Mr. Dibbey intimated — with the ut- most delicacy, be it said — that it was his expectation to be escorted to the station to-morrow by ' the usual funeral procession.' A funeral," he added, anticipating interro- gation, " is apparently a ceremony which was conducted not long ago at Cambridge, and which Mr. Dibbey saw described in the Daily Mail." "Good old Cambridge!" asseverated Felkin, and the company agreed, with the exception of Sharman, who preferred the Daily Mail, and Coke, who, looking dishevelled after his dance, had mounted the table and was himself endeavouring to beshriek the attention of the company. " Gentlemen," he cried, " and Hopkins. We have all heard with pleasure and admiration the account given us by Mr. E. S. Williams of the heroic conduct of Mr. Dibbey. [Loud cheers.] We have also learned, not without emotion [cheers], that Mr. Dibbey [prolonged cheers] desires, and expects, to be buried with all due funereality. What 1 say, gentlemen, is this : \i Mr. Dibbey desires and expects a burial, then a burial he shall have [deafening cheers and much breaking of glasses] ; and, gentlemen, 1 further propose, by and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled [a voice, " Down with Lloyd George ! " and cheers], that Mr. John Favicll Smyth [prolonged enthusiasm], as a dirty teetotaller [groans], who ought never to have been invited here at all [renewed groans], be entrusted on peril of his life [with a threatening gesture towards Mr. Smyth] with the charge of arranging the funeral aforesaid [overwhelming applause ." This proposal was carried unanimously — except by Mr. Smyth, who did not count — amid mingled cheers and 24 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT weeping, and an adjournment having been made to the quad., the party promenaded arm-in-arm until a late hour, proclaiming to the heavens in thunderous tones their sentiments of affection, respect, and admiration for Mr. Robert Dibbey. And Dibbey lay solitary in his bedroom, grateful and elated, revelling feverishly in the popular enthusiasm. IV Although a teetotaller, John Faviell Smyth was a man of imagination, and Dibbey's ideal of a funeral vividly appealed to him. Wilkinson, whom Smyth disliked as a pompous pedant, would certainly be infuriated by a popular demonstration apparently directed against him ; and Dibbey, for whom, unconsciously sharing the ideas of Gordon, he entertained a certain sceptical pity, would be enchanted, and might even gain self-confidence enough to last him a lifetime. Before going to bed he decided that there should be a funeral ; and in the fruitful hour before getting up he prepared his plans. To the sobered and reluctant guests of yesterday's party he insisted that his preparations, undertaken on their commission, were already too far advanced for them to withdraw. To other acquaintances he announced that he and the Hopkins clique proposed to give Dibbey a funeral, and besought them both to join the procession themselves and to spread the news to others. And to Dibbey himself he intimated that inhumatory exigencies would require him to allow at least an hour for the half-mile journey to the station. The rumour of the rag, spreading in geometric pro- gression, soon penetrated to the utmost corners of the University, and when Dibbey, pink and triumphant under his green Homburg hat, stepped out of Gloucester gate, an enormous array of fantastic carriages had assembled in the rear of his own crape-decked victoria. His appearance THE SENDING DOWN OF ROBERT DIBBEY 25 was the signal for a vast wave of wailing. Started by Hopkins and Felkin, it was taken up by the head of the procession, and surged crescendo down the High. For two minutes it continued, startling the dons who were lecturing in the schools, and even rousing the tram-horses from their age-long torpor. As it ceased, three American organs, perched precariously back to back on a black-plumed trolley, simultaneously gave tongue ; and to the strains of " On the Resurrection morning," Dibbey's carriage moved off, followed by the trolley and all the host of mourners. Penetrating slowly through the curious crowds whom the collection of vehicles had warned of some unusual event, and slightly delayed by a funeral sermon preached by an impassioned orator at Carfax, the cortege eventually reached the station, where, posted by the G.W. Goods Depot, the organs embarked with verve and perseverance on the Dead March from Saul. Meanwhile Dibbey's chariot drew up, under Smyth's orders, to review the procession. One by one, solemnly and slowly, the carriages rolled past. First, in an open automobile, rode a dignified allegorical figure representing Oxford, black- garbed, mourning for her departing son ; then came Hopkins and his friends, seated round a dinner-table in a hay-cart, and wringing their hands and faces at the one empty place ; next, a donkey-cart with a deputation of rcd-robcd Fabians declaiming hotly against tyranny and arbitrary govern- ment ; and behind them a detachment of twelve gowned greybeards, ropes round their necks and shackles on their wrists, presenting a dozen of the best-known Oxford dons. Next followed a hearse and a coffm with the inscription— " Learning, Courage, Generosity," accompanied by closed carriages full of mourners weeping copiously from each window ; and in their wake a succession of symljolic cars portraying tlic grief of the Empire and the United States, and fdled with Rhodes Scholars in fancy dress. Yet more were behind, some disguised, others merely in black ; until, at ten minutes to twelve, the last 26 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT tableau arrived, a touching scene, in which Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley held out welcoming hands to Oxford's latest martyr. Dibbey lay back in the victoria, and pushed from his eyes the crape band that Smyth had pinned round his hat. His heart seemed swollen to an enormous size, pressing heavily on his throat, his ribs, his lungs, everywhere. His legs seemed altogether substanceless, incapable of carrying him a yard. He found it impossible to realise his surroundings ; and was only half conscious of the procession, as though through the wrong end of a telescope. Just the one central fact he felt intensely : that all this was in his honour, a spontaneous outlDurst of boyish enthusiasm for a great deed nobly done. And he felt that he had justified his existence, that the albino was forgotten in the hero. As the proffered embrace of Latimer receded under the railway bridge, Smyth touched his arm. The train was at hand. Feverishly happy he marched confidently up the station incline, gazing exultantly at the lines of mourners with their prayer-clasped hands and uplifted eyes. Dimly before his consciousness passed the purchase of a ticket and the search for a corner seat, and involuntarily he found himself talking incoherently to Smyth of his mother and his sisters. Suddenly Felkin raised cheers for him, and the station rang with applause. A shy panic seized him, and he sank into his seat until it was over. When he looked up again, Smyth had walked away, and a few yards off Hopkins was standing, conversing with a man whom he did not know. He strained his ears to catch what complimentary thing might be said. " Yes," said the man, " it certainly was a ripping rag. But who on earth is Dibbey ? " " Oh, some ass," replied Hopkins indifferently. " Smyth wanted to make him feel a hero." Whereupon the train started. [January, 1914.] YE TR.\GICALLE HISTORIE OF MISTERE PONDER AND MISTERE PALMER Their Friendship, Travails, Love and Woe, and howe after manie Yeares they were Re-united. A BRIGHT young lad was Ponder. He set out for to wander, And with him wandered Palmer. They went to Yokohama. A maiden fair met Ponder ; Admiringly he conned her. Her saw, too, comrade Palmer : Her glances pierced his armour. In love enraptured Ponder Saw her and nought beyond her. Unceasingly friend Palmer Gazed on the common charmer. Admiring mutely Ponder Grew fond and ever fonder. When parted from her. Palmer Felt as in Akeldama. Odes and sonnets Ponder Wrote to his " (jioconda." And drearily poor Palmer Groaned like the voice in Ramah. Soon tcntalivrly Ponder 'Gan calling her Esmonda. Then scowled the flouted Palmr r With the scowl of melodrama. 28 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT Than she was none, said Ponder, Or livelier or blonder : With oaths replied fair Palmer, None darker were or calmer. Till once discovered Ponder Her husband down in Rhondda : Shocked and amazed found Palmer Her married to a farmer. 4c :jc »): sic H: Thus reconciled at last they were And friend embraced his friend : Ponder abode at Palmer's Green, Palmer at Ponder' s End. [The Isis, May, 1914.] FAMILY LOVE " Banned, dearest aunt, to seclusion monastical, Crowding two years into half of a term, Training my mind to evasions scholastical. Duty-enslaved, I must really be firm, And— Tireless ensuing Renown Baccalaureous (Most meritorious Fame Baccalaureous) Ply me to diligent toil and laborious, Spurning Enjoyment's insidious germ." Skilful the plot ; and no cozened Gamaliel Stand 1 this year amid maids in their teens, Pondering nicely the limits of Balliol, Striving to separate All Souls' from Oueen's, Nor— Wildly delude I enquiring affinity, (Bright consanguinity. Garish affinity) Falsely bestowing on town and vicinity Plethoric wealth of " historical scenes." FAMILY LOVE 29 This year we need not, oh Conscience Immaculate, Perjured identify Scholar and Blue, This year, oh Purse, no abuses ejaculate^ Coursing the spectrum of facial hue, As— Wryly we order each ample comestible, (Most indigestible Costly comestible) Banishing vainly reminders detestable, Battel and Pass-book and pale I.O.U. Needless that annual plunder of Chesterton, Epigram-vendor for many a year, Rest we him jiavTiv tuv Sy aKparia-Tarov ! Rest we him, highly intemperate seer ! For 'tis — Useless to sparkle capillary- raisingly (Novel-in-phrasingly) Wonderment-raisingly) Useless to scintillate ne'er so amazingly, Mocked by the Zephyr's pcr-cynical ear ! Rather, secure from related adjacency, Careless the rovers we'll view and the race, Basking bccushioned in puntous complacency, Lushly ensconced in the cosiest place. While— Nowhere ! Yes ! Nowhere ! in all the viciniiy (Thanks to the Trinity ! -' All the vicinity !) Vestige exists of our kin and al'linity — Nowhere a single unweddable face ! [The Sew Cut, Tu>,'hts Week, i';i !•! 30 OXFORD. ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT THE CHESS BLUE Is there never a mate for a Mater to woo. For future young Maters no mater ? Not one of that worshipping maidenly queue. Their favours who strew 'Fore the sportulous Blue On such wholly inadequate data ? To none has Minerva unravelled the clue Of the infinite grossness of matter ? Not one, but must titter, and simper, and sue. And flatter, and coo To the Blue, who's a Blue 'Cause his biceps than most men's are fatter ? Oh ! Their glances direct at me too, at me too, Their maidenly homage, great Venus ! Unto me, unto me let their worship accrue, The worship that's due To a Blue, to a Blue, Whate'er his azureal genus ! How foolish these virgins ! If only they knew How, when perfect in High Mathematic My skill remains fresh as matutinal dew, Their rashness they'll rue As their puerile Blue Grows old and obe^c and rheumatic ! For powers athletic with honours endue That pass in Time's fleeting cabriolet. But when Blues of Fifteen and Eleven and Crew Grow grayish in hue. Then my Blue, My Blue, Will be sporting the ultra-est violet [The Isis, May, 1914.] A TRAFALGAR TRAGEDY 3i A TRAFALGAR TRAGEDY " Often, my Phyllis, in cruel derision Held by the plural site of Charing, Fix we to-morrow with stricter precision The time and place of our amorous pairing, And meet we exactly at half- past four (The time observe with particular care) By the smallest toe in the left hind-paw Of the largest lion in Trafalgar* Square ! Fa la la, Fa la la, The smallest toe in the left hind- paw Of the largest lion in Trafalgar Square." Thuswise I wrote ; and by verdant Walham Duly disgorged on the day appointed. Straight I repaired to the Nelson Column, Like Solomon seeking a bride anointed, But 'tis oh ! for the horrible sight I saw As I fixed a bright expectant stare On the time-worn toes in the left hind- paw Of the largest lion in Trafalgar Square. Fa la la, Fa la la, The smallest toe in the left hind- paw Of the largest lion in Trafalgar Square. There lay my love — in her hand a pistol Clasped to a brain-exuding forehead, Fixed were her eyes in a glare of crystal, Her hat was crumpled something horrid, And washed her warm, her crimson gore. And wiped her soft, her llaxen hair, The callous toes of the left hind-paw Of the largest lion in Trafalgar Square. Fa la la, Fa la la. The smallest toe in the left hind- paw Of the largest lion in Trafalgar Square. * Such is the metrical subtlety of this poem, that the word may be pronounced Trafalgar or Trafalgar, according to taste. 33 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT Dazed as I stood, an officious copper Brought me a note he had found on the " hdy " " Forgive," she wrote, " this conduct improper," (I dropped a tear) " and this mess untidy ! I die — -I can face your wrath no more — For lo ! there are two, my lover fair. Two equal toes in the left hind-paw Of the largest lion in Trafalgar Square." Fa la la. Fa la la, Ti0o equal toes in the left hind-paw Of the largest lion in Trafalgar Square. {The Isis, May, 1914.] HORATIO A Didactic Ghost-Story Horatio encouniereth a runner and questioneth him. The night is wild and lone and dark ; Who runs the chill tow-path ? What athlete trains at midnight's hour Scorning the coffeed hearth ? " Say, who art thou ? and whence ? brave friend. Thy speed what College boasts ? " The runner stayed ; grim- voiced he cried : " I'm one of the G-hosts ! " He denounceth superstition. " That cannot be," I cried, " swift sir. For the phantom-world is dead : Deposed long since is the headless King, And Reason reigns instead. " The headless King and the grim blood-stain Melted 'fore Darwin's stare — " The runner smiled : I raised my fist, And struck — the empty air. HORATIO 33 The runner revealeth himself a phantom. " Ha ! Ha ! " the phantom shrieked, " Ho ! Ho ! " And he tossed his mane ill-kempt, " There are more things, Horatio, In heaven and earth, above, below, Than earth's wise men have dreamt. " There are more things in heaven and earth And one of the Things am I, A darkling sprite of gruesome night. A corpse that ne'er may die. The phantom telleth of his torments. " Night by night with a fellow band Of phantoms lean and lank, I rise by Iffley's haunted weir And stagger along the bank ; Of the maidens of North Oxford. " Night by night in frenzied haste I speed this loathsome marge. While Boreal maids and curious dons Fashioned of adamantine bronze Obstructing stem the charge ; And of the spectral boats. " And spectral boats speed on beside I'ropellcd by a spectral screw : With pistols, cymbals, bells equipped, Idle reclines each crew, And jeer and curse at us, for they Have nothing else to do." " I fear you, clammy ghost," I cried, " And I fear dim niidnigiii's chime ! " " Nay ! fear me not, Horatio, My punishment fits my crime : 34 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT The phantom expoundeth unto Horatio his crime " For once I, too, was such as you, Nor cheered my College Eight, But slacked within the Union — And very just is Fate ! . . . And solemnly warneth him. " Farewell ! Farewell ! But this I tell To thee, Philistia's son, Soundest they rest, who bellow best As cheering the bank they run ; " Soundest they rest, who bellow best With clamours great and small, And he whose voice ne'er cheered his boat May never rest at all." HoRA TIG waketh up. By a ghastly host that tortured ghost In onward haste was borne : And a sadder and a wiser man I rose the morrow morn. \The I sis, May, 191 4.] SUMMUM BONUM A Hymn Now the Schools are over. Vivas drawing nigh, Shadows of the tradesmen Steal along the High. Now the debts foregather, Battel, fee and tip ; Vain you wonder how to Give them all the slip. Lo ! And in the distance Other Hydras lurk. Gloomy thoughts of labour. Presages of work. LOVE, ANGELA. AND A CRAB 35 One perchance to India Europe's culture weds, Civilises Pagans, Chopping off their heads. Others who can count on Shekels from Papa, Haste to try their briefless Fortune at the Bar. Some, seduced by Knightley, Charmed by Gabbitas, Gently drift to swell the Pedagogic mass. And if Fate should natheless Leave you in the lurch, Yet be not downhearted : There is still the Church. * * * None to me be granted ! Heaven hear my cry ! Bankrupt in a workhouse Let me live and die ! Far from Indian bullets, Far from Schoolboy- drones.. Let me bask forgotten Breaking up of stones. [The Isis, June, 1914] LOVE, ANGELA, AND A CRAB A Tragedy in Four Stanzas and a Bit Oh, gentle reader, unleash your tears, For I sing you a song of lachrymose kind : Of Smith, who rowed stroke in the boat in front, And me, who rowed bow in the boat behind, And of Smith his Sister, who watched from the Barge, And of Love that was fond and blind. 36 OXFORD. ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT (And never before did Love's rosy magic A poet supply with a theme so tragic !) And lo ! 'Twas the final day of the race, And Smith was proud, for his crew were head : Behind them, grinding a desperate spurt. Swearing and splashing and sweating we sped : And I had just drawn level with Smith — And 'tis Fie ! for the things he said ! (For a bump is often expected by folk When bow has drawn up level with stroke.) Despairing cries from the bank arise, Mingled with shouts of rejoicing high. And Smith foretastes the Bumpee's shame. The Bumper's feverish triumph I — When sudden, regarding from off the Barge, I catch Smith's Sister's eye. (And verily grim is the conflict and cruel, When Love and Honour engage in a duel !) Did it pray for pity, that lingering glance. Reaching my heart with a piercing stab ? — Smith's Sister versus — my College's fame — (Already the cox gives a vicious jab) Smith's Sister versus — Honour v. Love ! — Love ! — Angela ! — and — a crab ! (For who could have bumped the unbumped Smith 'Neath the azure eyes of his flaxen kith ?) !fC IfC ?}S J|C V Alas for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun ! My Angela's attitude Gave me no gratitude ! (Bring me a gun !) For the glance that my youthfulness Took to be ruthfulness. Mourning defeat, THE COMPLAINT OF ABRAHAM 37 That tenderness sisterly Piercing so tristily Turmoil and heat, Had been gloating delightfully, Wickedly, spitefully. Thrilled to espy A brotherly Paragon's Sickening arrogance Done in the eye ! (For sisters and brothers don't always love As angels are said to in realms above.) Alas for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun ! [The Stapeldon, June, 1914.] THE COMPLAINT OF ABRAHAM On being gathered to his Fathers in the One hundred and seventy-fifth Year of his Age. " Come, gather round me, dear relations, Attend my catalogue of care ; Mourn we in common ululations The times, that are not what they were : For men arc liars — Yes ! Rebecca !— Our land is going to the dogs ; Belial blooms at the Exchequer ; And shameless arc the Women's togs ! " The Sun revolves in agelong fashion In rival-song with sister-spheres : Not so persists the measly ration Of human kind's allotted years ! Lo 1 old Mcthusclali and Xoaii Shaved the millennium, while 1 Shall miss in Dcatli's constricting boa A paltry double century. 38 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT " When two moons since I 'gan to sicken And mounted this my restless bed, I said, ' 'Tis but a tardy chicken Poxing my longtime scatheless head, Or haply some belated measle Impedes this heavy-laden breath.' How vain these thoughts so Eben-ezal ! — It was the clammy hand of Death ! " The shooting corn is parched and yellow, The pea is withered in the pod ; Rebecca dear, attune your 'cello, Sing me a dying Ichabod ! For I grow sick where Pa and Gran' pa Had scarce attained the teething stage. And horrid worms I go to pamper, Where they had hardly come of age ! " [June, 1914.] ON MAPS Now some there be, whose skeptic thoughts deny That end or meaning in a map may lie. By whom a chart most profitless is found, A barren Fig-tree, cumbering the ground. " Armed with your Ailas (thus they scoff) could you Travel unhelpt from Kensington to Kew ? At Paddington locate the latent train ? Or, lost at Selfridge's, escape again ? " And if, this near deficiency confest. Its use for wider journeys you suggest. They scathingly exclaim : " For common chaps There may indeed repose some use in Maps, But all the Great (whom Fame folds next her heart) Excell'd in very hatred of a Chart : ON MAPS 39 Now Roos'velt plows it with a River's bed, Now Clive discolours with new blots of red, Now Oxford hews fresh channels for the Cher, Now broad canals dismember Panama ; Of all the bright effulgence of his wit What but a scorn of Maps memorials Piii ? What Moses, save his calmly ambling through Regions which every map had charted blue ? Lo ! also Ptolemy, whose hate intent (With carelessly ignoring not content) Deceitful Charts devises, most remote In figure from the lands they should denote, Whereby with speed and sur'ty to condemn The cred'lous fool who might believe in them." Yet would I not assert, Reflective Muse, That I\laps are wholly destitute of use. But rather that Geographers neglect Their hidden use, by me now first detect : Let Reason, and no more the brutal Sea, To Land declare the form it ought to be ; Each feature dow'ring with symbohc shape, Admit no more fortuitous gulf and cape ; And senseless colour let the painter stint. Suiting each country with a proper tint. Thus the poor German his oflicial'd mind By a Red Placard weU portray'd might fmd ; While Greece, still mindful of her faded fame, A wither'd laurel in old gold might claim ; To England I'd assign a blood-red steak ; To Italy a pinkly placid lake. Thus blam'd or lauded after cacli man's taste Eacli country might be meaningly embrac'd, Whicli plan delight and colour would supply To the dead Science of Cartography. [Weslminsler Gazelle, July, 1914] THE SPEEDOxMETER Conditions were ideal. Like some vast but shoddy motor-car the wind tore howHng through the sky, back- firing in a limitless exhaust and sparking from Titanic plugs. Hail and torrential rain were its mud ; spires, trees, houses, its victims ; and the Universe strained in the eddy of its wake. Even the pale, gaunt finger-post round which the Futurists were assembled seemed scarce able to hold the quivering earth. Punctually as his pocket wireless receiver proclaimed the hour of noon, Signor Vermicelli stepped into the leading car. No words were spoken, but in his eyes gleamed the lust of Speed, and his twitching fingers boded ill for the presump- tuous or unwary pedestrian. Turning to the tensely expectant company he fired a pistol-shot three times into the wind. In a moment the frenzy of Nature was drowned by the chaotic crepitation of a hundred engines, and the whole array surged swiftly up the road. Signor Vermicelli was puzzled. For more than an hour he had been on the road ; the throttle was wide open ; the car, although a new purchase, was running smoothly, and the road was good. Yet his Speedometer persisted in declaring that he was covering barely twenty miles in the hour. He bent down to the oil-pump, and sent the yellow blood coursing through his charger's veins ; he opened the throttle yet wider ; and tugged at the brakes, lest some oversight should have left them operative. But for all his efforts the indicator remained decorously and tenaciously within the legal limit. THE SPEEDOMETER 41 Signer Vermicelli began to feel worried ; a passing donkey-cart full of charitable gifts escaped him with the loss of a wheel, and several cyclists went by wholly unscathed, so that the cars behind marvelled at his unaccustomed indulgence. Suddenly a passing thought blanched his stern features. Could it be the ivind that hindered him ? Could it be that he, Vermicelli, Leader of the Futurists, Champion of ^lankind in the Struggle with Nature, Arch- Engineer of the New Religion — could it be that he was being conquered by the very Nature he despised ? The raging of the blast seemed to yell a derisive affirmative, and he shuddered like a skidding 'bus. Once more he overhauled the car. The meters recorded a sufficiency of petrol and oil ; the control was satisfactory ; even the Speedometer, which duly trembled and sank when he slowed down, seemed to be in good order. And, finally, when taking advantage of a straight stretch of road he lashed the steering-wheel fast and crawled along the bonnet to inspect the radiator, there also he missed nothing. His perplexity rendered him desperate ; he began to discard all dispensable movables ; he tore at the foot- brake and up- rooted it ; and finally, in the mad hope of relieving the engine, he lay down and pushed with all his force against the dashboard. But still the hand pointed to 20. Suddenly he leaped up and faced the swirling of the wind. " Curse you ! " he cried. " Curse you ! Curse you ! Dare you face me ? Am I not Vermicelli ? I challenge you ! I defy you ! . . . The road turned abrujitly. Several minutes elapsed before the other Futurists, outdistanced by Vermicelli's mad haste, arrived on the scene of the disaster. At first some thouglit that their Leader was but quaffing the velvet nectar of the ditch ; but the spreading stain of red soon disclosed his martyrdom. Reverently they excavated the corpse from the wreckage and bore it to the road. P>cautifnl indeed it looked, bloody and soft, like a soapy rubber sponge. From the crushed 42 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT skull trickled the purple brain they had loved so well ; great tomato-like clots of muscle welled from the torn limbs ; legs and feet lay like scrambled eggs, seething in a tortuous mass. For some minutes they regarded the regal corpse ; and then the Funeral began. First one car, then another shot forward to crush the mangled body to the road ; others followed, till the whole line of whirling wheels had kissed the cushioned frame. At last, nothing remained but a crimson patch in the road-surface, where the body had been. When it was over some went to survey the shattered ruins of the car ; but nothing was distinguishable save a fragment of the Speedometer-dial. And on its reverse side they found this inscription : ' ' The ' Soldagen ' Speedometer : Warranted not to exceed the Speed-limit : Patent by the British Police Deception Society, Ltd., London." But none knew why Vermicelli had driven so fast. [Westminster Gazette, July, 1914.] ON MEALS IN DINING-CARS Outside most of the Railway-stations in London there hangs, prominent in those decorative galleries with which the authorities woo the native excursionist and welcome the touring foreigner, a Picture. It is the portrait of a gentleman. Exquisitely dressed and ruddy of countenance he sits at a beflowered table, regarding with one eye the passing landscape, and with the other a lady seated beside him. In the background are other tables and other gentle- men — financiers, diplomatists, peers — in whose faces sublime perfection of feature and colouring compensates for a certain lack of individuality and expression. It is a dining-car. Possibly you have not studied this picture closely. Presenting, as it does, no problem — the gentleman represents obviously, even aggressively, Contentment — it has not the arresting quality of the puzzles of the Hon. John Collier ; but its multiple recurrence must have scarred even the least observant mind. And when the prospect of a meal in a dining-car quivers with subtle pleasure along your flesh, it is that subconscious image that is flickering through your thought ; your expectation is luxuriating in those exquisite clothes and basking in the smiles of that lady and that landscape. And yet, powerful though this remembrance is, it does not account for the whole of the eviscerating thrill that the thought of such a meal excites. Another clement lias a part, and that element is the Romance of Speed. The Dining-car is the climax of the Express-train ; it sums up its very essence ; and behind the liandsome diner looms a vivid sense of Importance and Power, exciting by its mystery 44 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT where he had charmed by his ease. The mind reels with dizzy thoughts of Mr. Le Queiix, of Secret Pohce, Stolen Documents, Murdered Ambassadors, Intercepted Mails, and similar things ; all the fascinating appurtenances of Speed crowd in ; labels, corridor-trains, engaged compartments, and those long boards spanning the carriages, inscribed : " London and Manchester Express ", ; and in fancy you feel a Man of Mark, a Power in the \\^orld, Some Great One. Such, to human frailty, is the anticipation of a meal in a dining-car ; but such is not human experience. It is not that the quality of the food is bad ; on the contrary, it is curiously good. But it is something more noble, something more exalted, than mere sordid swallowing, that one seeks in a dining-car. It is Poetry. And it is the Poetry that so bitterly disappoints. In the first place it is to be noted that the meal suffers from an initial disadvantage in that it presupposes a long journey, which in turn presupposes an unpleasant object. Few persons engage in a railway journey that is long enough to justify refreshment en route unless they are either accompanying the family to the seaside, revisiting old friends, catching a boat, or going to school, all of which undertakings are of so uncertain or unpleasant an issue that gastronomic enjoyment is made impossible. Thus the diner, staggering moodily along the corridor to the Saloon, is already predisposed to irritabihty and discontent. He no longer remembers Mr. Le Queux ; he has grown accus- tomed to his engaged compartment ; the long awe-inspiring board is not visible ; and by the Irony of Fate, now that, he is speeding he cannot realise his speed. Moreover he becomes painfully conscious that neither his person nor his clothes at all approach the splendour of the gentleman in the picture ; either there is no lady beside him, or she is his wife ; the landscape does not smile ; it grimaces with hideous advertisements ; and the peers and diplomatists around make horrid noises with their soup. What wonder, then, that the waiter's most skilful plate- juggling fails to please, and his most brazen bill- juggling to annoy ? ON MEALS IX DINING-CARS 45 Unhappily there seems to be but little possibility of reconciling the ideal dinner with harsh reality. At most the Companies could devise mirrors reflecting their idealised conception, not the actual scene ; but this might lack verisimihtude. On the other hand, an approach to the Le Queux model is by no means unthinkable. The Com- panies could easily create an Atmosphere by disguising the waiters, guards, and attendants as international spies, who might occasionally and patently abstract waxy docu- ments from paid accomplices made up as ambassadors. But until then let the prudent traveller first well survey the Picture ; then on the train let him sleep and dream thereof ; for the artists of the Railway Companies are not realists. IWestminster Gazette, August, 1914.] THE SCORING OFF OF VERNEY Our University Fabian Society is a curious body. Inclusively of the patron-dons it embraces slightly more than one hundred members ; and these are spht into two resolute factions who more or less monopolise its proceedings with permanent internecine warfare. The one of these factions designates itself " Collectivist " ; while the other proclaims itself " Guild-Sociahst." In term the strife is severe and embittered, but vacation makes strange bed- fellows ; and when, with the end of term, a University's infinitely graded choice of companionship disappears, contact with capitalist society is wont to merge the two types, and to couch Economic and Political Power together. Hence it was possible that at the beginning of August in the year of grace 1914, there were dwelling peaceably together, in two bedrooms and a sitting-room, at one of those Eastern villages which the combined enterprise of the billow and the builder bring daily nearer to the coast, two Guild-Socialists, an Anarchist, and a Collectivist. It was, perhaps, surprising that the sojourn should have evaded dissension for a fortnight — for political differences are generally temperamental as well — but so far, with the aid of dignity, common-sense, and excellent cooking, cordiality had been happily maintained. Only, the Guild-Socialists and the Anarchist were de- plorably unpunctual. They were late for every meal, and specially late when it was postponed for them ; and it was, therefore, without surprise that on the fourteenth day of their stay the Collectivist found himself alone at the break- fast table, heartily strengthening the penalty for unpunctu- ality in his Utopia. However, he did not propose to wait. THE SCORING OFF OF VERNEY 47 Precisely at nine he uncovered the bacon and eggs and serv'ed himself an exact quarter of the provision. Eating meticulously, with the legended accuracy of the late Mr. Gladstone, he had scarcely masticated half his allowance when the sound of studded brogues mutilating the frail stairs heralded the entry of his co-lodgers. " Hullo, here's old Coppers started without us," pro- claimed Smith breezily ; " how are you, Coppers ? Been to bathe." " Your hair," the Collectivist answered, " tells me as much. Also, my name is Coope. Also, you're late." " All right. Coppers dear, don't be chowsy. And for Heaven's sake buck up with the victuals." Three equal portions of bacon and eggs circulated, and silence fell, for the post-bathing mood is not conversational. Suddenly Verney rose, and made pugnaciously for the bell, demanding the while of Coope why on earth he couldn't keep the landlady up to the mark. " If it's your filthy Lager you want," said Coope, " you may spare the bell, for it's outside on the landing, with your letters. I can't possibly eat bacon and eggs while you're drinking Lager ; it makes me sick. Therefore I asked Mrs. Landlady to put you up a private bar outside, to which region I would request you to confine your debauches, at any rate until those later hours when ine- briation becomes gentlemanly." The reproof, however, was lost, and Coope sipped his coffee alone. There was less exuberance about his Guild-Socialist fellows when they came back, a fact which filled Coope with misgivings lest some one should have received news of a domestic bereavement and would have to be condoled with. Smith reassured him. " Shall you go ? " he asked Verney. " Go ? " said Coope. " Where to ? Wliy ? When ? " " These absurd O.T.C. people want us to take up commissions in the new army. ... I liiink I shall go. . . . What do you say, Hudflers ? " 48 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT Hudson the anarchist supposed he might as well. So did Verney. Coopc, who was not in the Corps, intervened : " Are you sure you are eligible ? It says ' Young men of good education ' " " Haw, haw," Verney commented. " Of course it's rather bad luck on you. Coppers," Smith put in, " for we must clear out to-morrow so as to get interviewed in time." " But perhaps Coppers will be coming too ? " Verney laughed. " A fine, well-set-up, patriotic son of a gun like him — why, you can see him simply panting to be off to the front." " When one has come to realise," parried Coope, flushing slightly at the taunt, " that the whole of the material universe is merely a fiction of one's presumptuous imagina- tion, it becomes a matter of complete indifference whether Uhlan or Cossack oppresses the Central European plain. Moreover, being constitutionally and conscientiously a Pacifist " " Ah, yes, I forgot your Conscience," jeered Verney, with a Parthian smile ; and Coope, realising that a conscience is not a debating asset, relapsed into irritated silence. Meanwhile it was decided by the others to take a farewell walk to Cromer. Coope refused to join, declaring that he would occupy himself with the packing. For one thing he detested walks. For another, Verney's sarcasm rankled. So far as sincerity is possible to mortals he was, indeed, sincere in his cynicism ; yet, furtively, he Uked it to be thought that beneath "the veneer" there was hidden something fine and warm and fierce, and Verney had aggrieved him by taking him at his own estimate. Hence he felt sulky and bitter as he watched the three walkers swing off ; and Pyrrhonism, effective as it is to quell rash argument, is useless to soothe a ruffled temper. It was during the packing — in which, in the interest of his reputation as a practical man he expended much care — that the Idea occurred to him. Solitude had grotesquely THE SCORING OFF OF VERNEY 49 magnified Verney's jibe, and he had become obsessed by the feeling that unless he could discover some more effective retort than his conscience the logical basis of his existence was gone. He was arranging \''erney's belongings, packing them with a delicate malevolence that gloated over each neatly folded garment as over a burning coal pressed into the hand of its exasperated owner, when the Idea came : How could he better discomfit Verney than by imitating him ? What retort could he more effective than — a commission ? At first the Idea was stunning. Fighting was to him an altogether novel conception. It required time to become acclimatised. But gradually his mental focus adjusted itself : the Idea grew definite : he began to visuaUse it clearly, fixing it in time and space. And as it became a reality, a thousand incidental bearings flooded his mind. He marvelled, finding himself occupied not with essential things but with trivialities. How would his Headmaster regard it, he thought ; the Headmaster with whom he had contracted to expound the Classics to small schoolboys ? A substitute was scarcely obtainable so late in the year. And if he took French leave, what would be his prospects when he returned ? On the other hand, if he seemed to " shirk," he would certainly find it very difficult to teach the Classics to small but patriotic and uproarious schoolboys. Whereas if he did go, and came back, perhaps with a broken leg, youthful hero-worship could be relied on to assure the most willing discipline. He pictured the triumphal pro- gress of his wounded leg, the laconic respect of the male, the gushing admiration of the female, and, above all, the annoyance of the maybe unwoundcd Verney. Suddenly liis matcriaUsm revolted him, and he tried hard to whip up some finer enthusiasm. With the Kaiser and Treitschke, the sufferings of Belgium and the other out- rages of Prussian militarism, he strove to conjure up at least a spark of anti-Teutonic ire. But the effort failed ; however genuinely he succeeded — in an academic fashion — in condemning the " atrocities," he yet recognised— for at 50 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT least he was honest — that at the back of his mind it was not outraged humanity that impelled him. Primarily he hoped to score oft" Verney. He went on with the packing, half-decided. It occurred to him that he might get killed. Strangely enough, he did not fear being killed. He was even willing to be wounded in the arms or legs or head. In fact, a broken limb rather promised to add to the romantic eWect. But he did fear being wounded in the stomach ; the picture of a bayonet exploring his digestion turned him sick, and for a moment he almost gave up the enterprise at the thought. Then he reflected that the average proportion of injured among combatants was very small, and that the proportion of stomach- wounds among these must be even smaller. Moreover, he was apparently to be an officer, and officers ought surely to be more secure than men. His thoughts wandered to questions of pay and kit. He had seen in the papers that the wages were insufficient ; but if that were so, his fellow-officers would as a rule be equally afflicted ; and the only sting of poverty is the contrast of rich society. Besides, impecuniosity could not matter on a battlefield. Opening Smith's trunk he came across a copy of the Daily Mail. He had been greatly annoyed with the Daily Mail and the rest of the Press for making it impossible for him to open a newspaper without finding himself denounced as a coward and a sneak. Now he perused sympathetically the patriotic leading article and joined complacently in the editorial sneer. Gradually, under the influence of this continuous self- encouragement, his mind grew excited and gave birth to the wildest Romanticism. He pictured himself winning miUtary fame and returning medal-decked ; he planned a cvnic's epigram for a philosopher's death ; even he wondered whether the emotional stress of War might not make of him a Poet. But always his desire came back to the scoring off of Verney. THE SCORING OFF OF VERNE Y 51 Strapping Smith's box, he wondered at what precise stage he had actually made the decision, for how long his speculations had ceased to influence his intention, and had merely arisen out of it. His inability to fix this point vexed him, for as a CoUectivist he Uked things done in order. The only certainty was the decision itself, the cumulative effect of all the reasoning : he certainly would go. In- stinctively fearful lest delay should exhaust his excitement, he hastened the packing. Suits, underclothing, boots, flannels were flung in, systemless and intertwined ; recalci- trant locks and straps evoked volleys of furious curses, strange to his unemotional Ups ; and on the labels his mincing script degenerated into a straggling scrawl. Then he settled down to offer himself to the Adjutant. The task proved unexpectedly easy : he was surprised to find that the appropriate tone approximated closely to his actual mood, for he had anticipated a difficulty in subduing his epistolary flippancy. So quickly was it finished that he had time to re- write the labels and revise the packing, feeUng that the excitement they betrayed was inconsistent with a proper dignity. Then he sat and waited. At supper the chmax came. Verncy, who had taken the correspondence to the post, questioned across the table : " I say. Coppers, what on earth did you write to the Adjutant about ? " " Oh, I just thought I'd try for a commission," he replied languidly; "but, of course, I haven't much chance compared with you people." It was very creditable to Coope that he betrayed by no Mush his exquisite enjoyment of the subsequent sensation. Finally, Vcrney spoke : " Well, you are a son of a gun. after all I " And in payment for that Coope would have welcomed even a bayonet in his stomach. [Salurday VVeslminster Gazelle, September, 1914-] A DREAM (Dreamed on the night of December 20th, 1914.) It was an odd castle, a cross between a Tudor mansion and the Escorial. It had a tower at each corner, and some- times there was a drawbridge. But when I was there, you walked straight up to the door — I never got to the door, of course, but that was where I was going at the time — through a paved court bounded on each side by enormous walls, like the railway station at Whitehaven. (There wasn't a clock, however.) One of the walls, of course, couldn't have been there always, for I ran to Constantinople that way ; but there were two walls at first, because I saw them from inside as well. There seemed to be no one in the castle except my sister, but we both instinctively felt ourselves surrounded by watchers lowering through the thick stone walls. 1 hey were, 1 remember, headed by a Spanish Dago, who stood at one of the corners. My room had no windows ; and its appearance varied. Sometimes it was a luxurious library, without books, but with a fine polished mahogany table — an heirloom — in the middle. More frequently it was a lofty white-washed garret, with nothing in it but a bed. It was in this state, fortunately, when I noticed the hawthorn in my heart. Some one had been trying to graft a new variation. Silly ass ! He might have known it would make me bleed. At this crisis, when my sister — I had never had one before — might have been most useful, she vanished ; and I was left alone. Nothing remained but to make myself as comfortable as possible in the bed, and then set off to Constantinople for help. At least I suppose I set off, for A DREAM 53 how otherwise could I have been running along the carriage- drive at Versailles ? 1 knew I was going to Constantinople because of the sign-posts ; but I didn't get along very fast as the road was a revolving arrangement, like the one in " The Whip." Suddenly I disappeared. Or rather I was transported into a whirlwind of Pure Mathematics. I call it Pure Mathematics because nothing else could be so huge and terrifying and withal so sub- stanceless. It was not precisely a mist, nor a tidal wave, nor a gale, nor a rolling column of smoke ; but it partook of the nature of all these things, and at the same time was not material substance. And as it raged I began to swell and swell until 1 found myself rushing wildly through Space batthng with unspeakable clouds of Nothingness, like Thor fighting the Frost giants. Then, quite suddenly, there was peace. 1 was hovering in a canoe over a calm stretch of blue water, such as we see in the Royal Academy. But when would the cabin window stop rattling ? [Salurday Westminster Gazette, January, 1915.] E AFTERWARDS " My King and Country needed me," to fight The Prussian's tyranny. I went and fought, till our assembled might With a wan triumph had dispersed in flight At least the initial P. I came back. In a crowded basement now I scratch, a junior clerk. Each day my tried experience must bow Before the callow boy, whose shameless brow Usurps my oldtime work. I had not cared— but that my toil was vain. But that still rage the strong : I had not cared — did any good remain. But now I scratch, and wait for War again, Nor shall I need wait long. [January, 191 5 ] ST. GEORGE'S DAY. (A Fragment.) A Patriotic Play. Act the Last. Scene the Last. Time : Midnight. Seem : Hampstead Heath. In the centre is an aeroplane stationary with a propeller noisily revolving.* To the right Infanterie- leutnant Theophil von Friedensheim and Pro- fessor Doktor Gotthold Menschenlieb unload- ing from a series of Gladstone bags quantities of powder and explosive projectile which they stow in the aeroplane. How the powder, etc., came to be on Hampstead Heath was explained in the thrilling scenes of Act Four.) L-L. Th. v. F. Ha ! Ha ! Have you th' asphyxiating bomb ? P. D. G. M. I have ! I have ! And the Torpedo ! (Enter L. three boy scouts furtively. They stare through the framework of the aeroplane.) First Boy Scout {to Second Boy Scout). Tom ! They are two Germans ! Fetch the Police ! S. B. S. I go ! The word ? F. B. S. " May England aye increase ! " (Interval for patriotic demonstration. As it subsides S. B. S. bows and creeps away, wliile F. B. S. and Third Boy Scout throw themselves on the ground watching the Germans. They only rise for the purpose of singing their several songs.) • Note the Progress of Kcali^iii in Englisli Opci.i. The old- fashioned Librctti.st would liavc allowed his two latlions to yi 11 in a hollow pretence of unconsciousness of each other's presence from opposite ends of the .stage. The siini)le device of a propeller lends complete verisimilitude to the situation. 56 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT P. D. G. M. This Lyddite mnemonic of kinship Teutonic, This Culture-corrective — I scatter them far, Till Lutheran-Zwinglish I'll christen these English, And succour their schools with the sweet Seminar ! F. B. S. (At the same time as the foregoing.) Oh, pestilent vampire ! Oh, foe of the Empire ! You wait ! — and the moment shall swiftly declare That Krupp's not a bit worth an Armstrong and Whit- worth, Nor Essen a Woolwich or Barrow — so there ! I.-L.Th. v. F. With a murderous foison of pendulous poison Of darts and of dynamite, shrapnel and shell, A selfless distiller of Goethe and Schiller I lead them unconscious to Heaven through Hell. T. B. S. (At the same time as the foregoing.) I'd love to exterminate each blooming German ! — Oh, chuck it now, cocky, don't make such a song ! Already no hope'll save Constantinople, And you bet Berhn won't hold out very long. I.-L.Th. v. F. Come now ! 'Tistime for scouring these Augean Stables ! P. D. G. M. But first to Him a lauding Paean ! I.-L.Th. v. F. and P. D. G. M. (together.) Behold us Our Emperor ! Hail we ascribe Thee ! See us destroying the traitorous Saxon ! Glorious Greatness ! Gleaming Serenity ! Grasp Thou the Gold of the Laurel we gain ! Wilhelm ! Wilhelm ! Victorious ! Virtuous ! We vie to scatter the vile ones, thy foes ! Glorying Greatness ! Gleaming Serenity I Virtue ! Victory ! Wilhelm the Great 1 ST. GEORGE'S DAY 57 (Enter Lieutenant-Colonel the Honourable Frrz- Maurice Rostrevor-Carruthers (pronounced Rostrers) at the head of a miscellaneous troop of Boy Scouts (in- cluding S. B. S.), Suffragettes and Civilian Guards. One of the Guards springs into the aeroplane and stops the pro- peller, which is now superfluous. The Germans look round in amazement and anguish.) L.-C. H. F. R.-C. Excuse me— that is— if you— I— ah— (Two Guards advance and arrest the Germans.) P. D. G. M. Ach Gott ! Was fur eine IIcptTrtTeta ! L-L.Th. v. F. and P. D. G. M. (together). Alas ! our hearts are torn and broken ! Our rendered swords — behold the token ! Yet are our loyal tongues not rendered ! They sing the praise our Lord engendered : The Kaiser, Hoch ! The Kaiser, Kaiser, Kaiser, Kaiser, Hoch ! Hoch ! Hoch ! L.-C. H. F. R.-C, Boy Scouts, Suffragettes, Civilian Guards (together, and at the same time as the foregoing). Hurrah ! These fools who thought to spit an Erasing fire on sleeping Britain Are thoroughly destroyed and beaten — All hail the Playing Fields of Eton ! The Kaiser, Faugh ! The Kaiser, aye sir, aye sir, aye sir, Faugh ! Faugh ! Faugh ! (The Germans walk moodily off the stage, followed by the English. At last there remains only S. B. S., who clambers into the deserted aeroplane, and would say, were it not the fifty-lirst hne * :) S. B. S. The Kaiser — Faugh ! Curtain. * " A fragment, not exceeding fifty lines," for the Saturday Westminster dazcttc Competition Page. [April, 1915.] TO MY FRIEND A LAD once flourished in St. Bees, Now scarce alive ; (a Litotes : I mean that he is dead.) He was a morbid optimist, And brains of a most curious twist Inhabited his head : So singular a mania Has ne'er afflicted crania. It was his persevering way With every twilight to expect That Fate would certainly bisect Into a Half the coming day. Fine weather, similarly snow, A sunset, grey or coral, A scholarship (in embryo), A triumph, real or " moral " — The least was quite enough for him To find confirmed his hopeful whim, And from his time-table to prune The work set for the afternoon. Nor did just retribution fail ; — The which let silence veil. To him there came a day when rain Stormed on the straining window-pane. He said : " To-morrow can but be A full day's school, assuredly : Approach, Horatius Flaccus, Let us wade through your crusty wines, Lest Furies deluge us with lines, Or haply whack us." MUSIC 59 The morrow dawned, sublime and still A Special Half it graces. The school migrates to many a hill And many jocund places. — But sideways stole one broken soul. And hanged him with his braces. A lad once flourished in St. Bees, Now scarce alive ; (a Litotes : 1 mean that he is dead.) [St. Bees' School Magazine, July, 1915.] MUSIC Beside me sits my friend, a quavered page Before him, and upon the hairy stage His eyes firm-fixt, while I in Culture's quest Strive to locate some passion in my breast, Some sweet sublimity or beauteous pain, One breath of Orpheus only — and in vain. Yet as the stringed nightmare waxed, a scheme Arose in me which, outhned here, I deem Of use to all who may likewise be prone To love " melanges " more than Mendelssohn. No longer, brother, shall you need repine Beneath the scornful taint of " Philistine " : Here may you learn the critic's tones to sport, (Nor need you send a coupon, nor report This journal's name : the clue is gratis (juite) And here become a perfect Wagncritc, — Enough of one at any rate, we'll say, For converse in the Concert- room. Then (a) There are two kinds of music, which they call " Komantic ' one, the other " ( lassical." The latter sometimes has a sort of tune, Wherefrom the former proudly is immune. {b) If you know a name or title well, Soulfully speak of its " unrivalled spell " : 6o OXFORD. ST. BEES. AND THE FRONT All else you can quite safely call " bizarre." (Maybe your friend is shannning, as you are, And even should he rouse contentious fuss, You quell him with a neat " De gustibus — ") (c) Make yourself the zealous partisan Of some grotesque exotic-sounding man, (Tchaikowsky is a fairish chap for this) : Receive his works with ostentatious bliss. And say with firm and fervent repetition, " So-and-so is the only true musician." And {d) if ever Fate should chance to will A piece that really makes you warm and thiill, A piece you really like and understand, E.xpress a wish to have such piffle banned : Its quality as music grows the less Proportionately to its tunefulness. Thus armed, my friend, Queen's Hall no fears shall hold ; Note this too : (e) Be garrulous and bold. [August, 1915-] / SEPTEMBER 27TH The papers are a-revel, flags a-dance ; Domestic patriots whoop their safe delight ; Even the sky has freshened keen and bright To speed the unleashing of the Great Advance ; Soft heaps of Germans feast the eye from France, And British Commerce cheers, as wasteful night Nears the fair Dawn of Profit, though the Fight Lays bare our blest to the whims of Chance, 1 cannot joy vv.th Commerce, neither set Oblivion on the blood so lightly spilled ; 1 cannot joy with Commerce, neither whet My soul on bulging purses, German-filled ; 1 cannot joy with Commerce, nor forget My friend and brother, whom the War has killed. [1915-] THE KAISER AND THE TIME-TABLE bi THE KAISER AND THE TIME-TABLE " Aliamque inter caritatem scholae illic inventae sancta Begha tabulam temporum velut discendi indicem dedisse dicitur. Quae vero tabula haud erat quae spatia exquisite divisisset sed nonnullis placebat nee quisquam ei vim atferre volebat." (Ye Lyfe of ye Holi Beghe in ye originelle Latine, done by John Smithhe at ye Signe of ye Crook' d Billet at Templebar, 1473.) The Kaiser is a Methodist, And it grieves him when he sees Our motley muddly Heaven (That the Maps call St. Bees) ; The unscheduled shingle shocks him And the disciplineless wave, But most of all the Time-table, The peerless precious prime table, The twisted tousled Time-table That Holy Begha gave. He'd love to build new class-room^ With hygienic desks bedight. And uniform the Sixth in mauve, The Lower Fourth in white ; And order endless indexes Of all we worked and played, And a tight Teutonic Time-table, With a ' Fault-sheet ' and a ' Crime-table ' For the lovely lissom Time-table That Holy Begha made. He'd turn u.^ into timc-wormi^. And fashion punctual clods, Willi a gross symmetricality Of patient periods ; 62 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT And feed us ' as per estimate,' And register our rest. And synchronise the Time-table, With electric bells and a chime-table, For to shame the hoary Time-table That Holy Begha blessed. But I am not a Methodist, And I do not feel so poor, Because I am not drilled by clerks Nor rationed on Kultur ; And I will not be docketed And syllabused and schemed, Nor betray our ancient Time-table, Our delirious sublime table. The hurly-burly Time-table That Holy Begha dreamed. [St. Bees' School Magazine, December, 1915.] FAREWELL What, you ? In tears ? You ? You — so proud Of the " cynic's pleasant fame " ? Your head Melodramatically bowed In stage- flung arms ? You — from whom had fled All human weakness — weeping at the loss Of a dowdy gown and an ill-wielded cane. Weeping for " indiscreetly wordy Crosse " ? What hackneyed pathos can entrain You to survey yon Classroom's emptiness, And ache for it full of listless boys, (Searching your teaching for a chance of noise) — To feed your " realist " eyes on some chalk mess — Half a rag probably — wishing you " Luck " ? Oh ! Eric or Little by Little ! Your mind's unstuck By soft arch sentiment. FAREWELL 63 I think I was in love. And to-day as the boys went And left me, forgetful, after their swift cheer, 1 felt as though an unhanded glove. Empty of all, barren, drear. No person did I love, but the whole place, The slanmiing door, the half-heard grace. The fidgetty child who wouldn't behave. Even the impositions that I gave — With everything I think I was in love. Oh God, I have no heart to sing. To seek the appropriate epithet, Nor on the balanced lines to set Their rhythmic polishing. My words are comical, obvious, trite, Because my thoughts for mc are new : For in the pain of this sickened night, In the bitter passing of sweet weal, I know one cant of fools is true : I know that men do love. And I know that men do feel. [December, 1915.] THE BOLT-HEAD CHARGER-GUIDE, AND WHY Once upon a time there was a Bolt. He was like other Bolts, and had a hard head, and a face and a body and a rib and other limbs. He was a quiet, godly bolt, and had earned the D.P. degree at Hythe, and there had been little excitement in his Ufe, which had been more or less one long Cam groove. But one day, as he was dressing, he lost his divisional stud. In vain he tried his stop-clip and his clip- stop, and many cross-pins : they all failed. Then the Bolt lost his temper, and he became a wicked, wicked Bolt, with no regard for Knox form, and began indulging himself to his full bent. Fouling, internal and external, became the mainspring of his action ; he became the leader of an inner band of lewd fellows of the baser sort : he hugged the small of the Butt and tickled the ribs of the trigger ; he wasted his money in the inchned slot ; and he devoted much fore- sight and fine adjustment to his attire. Soon he went yet further and insulted the boss ; and then he joined an even lower band and assumed the collar of the Striker, which rectified his lack of studs. About the same time also, he took to the barrel, and almost every night he went to bed with his head screwed tight. But on one of his ramps he fell, and broke his resistance-shoulder ; and for a long time he lay ejecting, and they feared he might never pull through. At last, however, he recovered, and his friends sent a just and pious man, a famous Sear, half-bent with years and wisdom, to reason with him. But the Bolt perceived that the Sear was a bore, and that he suffered from a visual angle, and he insulted him, and offered him an aim- corrector, saying that his eyes were inaccurately centred, and he THE BOLT-HEAD CHARGER-GUIDE, AND WHY 65 pulled his nose and broke his poor short arm with a patent safety-catch of his owti. Then his friends came, and they induced his father to cut off his erring son (though this was afterwards cancelled in Eastern Command Orders), and they stripped the Bolt and put a plug in his muzzle and fixed a Charger-guide on his head. Which is why it is there now. [Stars for Stibalterns, March, 1916.] THE BALLAD OF SIR BOWDEN OF BICESTER Sir Bowden was a merrie knyghte, (And pray ye for hys lyke !) He had nor Lance nor Prancing Steed, He rode upon a Bike. Now Bik^s hae twa merrie Wheels, And Braks most Bikfes have ; No Braks Sir Bowden had, and now He sleepyth in ye grave. Full stiep Barwes that on Feet Men scarcely would aspire. Sir Bowden tackled on twa Wheels, With a foot athwart ye Tyre. Sir Bowden's Limbs were tight and true (God rest hys merrie Wraith !) He culde dismount at Lyghtnyng's Speed, And feared nor Skid nor Scathe. But ah ! too rccklesse, he assayed Twelve cruel Stayres of Stone, And BiCYCLETTA, ileavenlie Queen, Dyd claim hym for Her Own. Sir Bowden on Celestial tyres Now cries to Mortals : " Fas To gambol on Bicyclibus Dum gradus timeas." [The Mitre, St. Bees, March, 1916.] TWA SCOTCH BALLADS 67 SPRING— A POEM By a Derbyite In the Spring a young man's fancy Lightly turns to hymns of hate, And his prospects are most chancy In the hands of Huns and Fate : An a bullet finds its billet, And his brains are outwards hurled, His remembrance — will Death kill it, Wipe his traces from his world ? — Hearts that keep his memory whole Are the resurrection of his soul. [Stars for Subalterns, April, 1916.] A xMUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON I WENT on leave, my final leave, In sadness beyond precedent : My lot — so connnon — seemed unique, A sore and solemn Sacrament. And campwards, in the night express, 1 thought to set my tears aflow, To live my leave and love again In a wild, bitter talc of woe. When I am killed (I thought) my friends These verses from their Times will keep, And mourn my unshared misery. Unhappily 1 went to sleep. [Stars for Subiiltenis, April. i()H>.] i \VA SCOTCH BALLADS (Edtlor — inlerrtiplinf; : Why Scotch Ballads ? You're not Scotch, and you're iirti ii Iroubatltjur. Me: Ah . . . that's your ignorance. . . . Always write Scotch Ballads in Wartimr. . . , Economy, you know. 68 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT Ed. (stealing a jest from Mr. Chesterton) : With what OiKOS ? Me : Rhymes. Rhymes. If you can't rhyme in a ballad you just put in the same word again, and if in the end you have to vary it after all, there are very few words which don't rhyme in Scotch ; toes, for instance, with belrays. Thus one both creates an Atmosphere. . . . Ed. : With what Atmos ? Me : Scotchiness . . . and saves mental energy, a Vitally Important Matter In Wartime, and Calculated To Produce A Great Impression In Neutral Countries. So here goes, — or rather gaes) : — Fryst Scotch Ballad A Patriotic Dirge CoLDE and hot and hot and cold, — Towel, bath and geyser, Mud and marshes manifold, And Devil take the Kaiser. It soaks the sole, it soaks the taes, — Towel, bath and geyser, Eke the dubbined boot betrays, And Devil take the Kaiser. If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon, Towel, bath or geyser, Get them back and put them on ; A nd Devil take the Kaiser. In vain the niaidens socks do knit, — Towel, bath and geyser, A pair a day scarce sufficit, And Devil take the Kaiser. To the camp-kit bath when thou dost flee, — Towel, bath and geyser, ' The bath doth leak with rapidity. And Devil take the Kaiser, TWA SCOTCH BALLADS 69 Oh ! for a desirable residence, Towel, bath and geyser, And every modern convenience ! — And Devil take the Kaiser. TvvoTH * Scotch Ballad D'Arcy, D'Arcy " Why does your brand sae drap wi' blude, D'Arcy, D'Arcy ? Why does your brand sae drap wi' blude. And why sae sad gang ye, O ? " {Distinctly Scotch, what ?) " O, I hae killed ye German spie, Eschenbach, Eschenbach, And buried him (the corpse smells high In Number Foure Class-room 0." " Ye hae not killed ye German spie, Eschenbach, Eschenbach, 'Tis onion-peel that smells sae high In Number Eoure Class-room O." — " O, I hae stabbed Sir Tyn-Beard's dog That barked from eve to morning 0." — " Ye he, for eftsoons came his dog Adown my kilties fawning O." " Then since the very Truth thou wilt I did not do it lighting O, But tore my nose all with ye hilt Saluting and eyes righting O. With my anc brand my nose to teai Bother ! Bother ! O I hae torn my nose sae fair, Alas and wac is me O." [The Milrc, St, Bees, June. 1916.] • Pronounced " toulli " 70 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT THE PIOUS BALLAD OF ST. BEGHA AND ST. BON n< ACE Umpteen hundred years ago, In the tvviUght of the Ancient Gods. The Irish monks went to and fro And taught the world new things to know, Like Law and Love and Honour Mods. And to the savage Teuton race, To the cruel realm of the distant Pruss, There went the wise St. Boniface (Q.V., I think, in Tacitus). He taught them how to count and span, And the modal tastes of Ut and Diim, And why downhill the Oder ran, And crowned the work by building an Oberrealgymnasium. And to the Abbot thus he wrote : — " / have dictated many a note, And taught them to throw stones from slings. And lots of other useful things." But the Abbot frowned and was wroth withal ; " Tut, tut ! I didn't want that at all, That men should merely learn to know ! " And he went unto the banquet hall And cried to the merry saints below : — " Brethren, full much the Bosci know, The forms of ti, and why winds blow. And the habits of the sad giraffe ; But who elsewhither now will go, To teach to think and not to know. And chiefly teach to jest and laugh ? " BALLAD OF ST. BEGHA AND ST. BONIFACE 71 Answered fair Begha then erect (A perilous sight for monks to see) : With blanshflowers pure her breast was decked. And not, as 30U perhaps expect. With regulation rosemary : — " Eastward a fair white haven lies By fijly fathoms and a half : Thither will I at the third sunrise. And I will teach men how to laugh." And she sailed and came to a wondrous well, And she drank the water and supped the haws (And to this day in her name men sell Jam there and loflee and Chutney Sauce). Then on to the castle fiercely manned, Where they gave her amber mead to quaff : But she cried : " Give me not mead, but land, That I may teach men how to laugh." Now the lord had not an ungenerous hand, But he did hate parting with his land : Wherefore St. Begha made him wroth, And he swore an ungentlemanly oath, By his Halidame and his Uncle's Gizzard, And he sent in haste for the Privy Wizard. And he said : — " Give you the land my harvest grows on ! I Attic you'll get of that, I Irow, But just as much land as the Snow-God snows on, If the Snow-God does snow snow ! " And the courtiers cchoi:d :— " Just as much land as the Snow-God smnvs on, I J I lie Snow-God docs snow snow ! " (Now the Autumn sun was red aglow \\\\\\ little likelihood of snow.) r2 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT And Begha sadly passed that day, With bitter tears she fled, And sate twelve days by the Caider Way Nor knew the taste of bread. (And the Beck that breaks the road to-day Are the tears that Begha shed.) But the thirteenth daj' she cast her care. Joyous as one fresh from the feast, And paced the fields a fathom square North and West and South and East. And other tears her new mirth bore. Wondrous fair in crystal flow. And they settled soft her steps before White as the blanshflowcrs that she wore, — For the Snow-God turned them into snow. And all within the girdling snow She built a home of jest and chal^, \\ hile Boniface taught to and fro Helped by a Highly Qualified Staff : Wherefore The Bosci still think it good to know. But the Blighti know it best to laugh. [57. Bees' School Magazine, July, 1916.] A SIMPLE INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY CRITICISM Story-telling, that is Literature, is of two kinds, accord- ing to the attitude of the teller. If the Teller, the Artist, the Poet, the Author, whatever he may be called, regards life as a frivolous matter, and envisages himself and all men as rather contemptible little creatures over- impressed with a sense of their alleged importance, his style of writing is known as'. Comedy. If, on the other hand, he conceives man as a dignified, heroic being, and looks on Ufe as a season of earnest endeavour mostly overcast with disaster and melancholy, his work is called Tragedy. Both the Tragedian and the Comedian exaggerate : the one over-estimates his importance, the other under-cstimates it. It is to be noted that these two terms. Comedy and Tragedy, are not used in their ordinary sense as divisions of the dramatic form only, but as classing the two alternative standpoints, from which the Teller can view his tale. Throughout this discussion this fact must not be forgotten : that although certain " plots " or stories are by nature more suited to one treat- ment than to the other, yet no plot is of necessity and unalterably comic or tragic. The plot develops into Comedy or Tragedy solely according to the treatment it receives, not according to whether it "ends happily" or " unhappily." Thus if we examine fur instance that masterpiece of English Comedy " The Importance of Being Earnest." we shall sec that another temperament might easily have found the sketch of an intense tragedy in Wilde's story. Let a Rf)manticist take the story as it stands, and emphasise rath(;r the simph; yet sublime nobility of llie flcpraved rou<'r, in his pathetic efforts to preserve, by a bucolic avuncularity, the one white stretch of purity in his 74 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT darkling heart ; let a tragic genius focus the interest on the cruel failure of this innocent scheme under the merciless callousness of an evil friend, and stress the irony whereby the innocent maid who should redeem him herself falls victim to the seductions of town and society — what more satisfying theme could Tragedy discover ? On the other hand, let us take one of our greatest tragedies, " Hamlet." The ghost, the excessive bloodshed, the farcical choice of the ear as a receptacle for poison — here are the germs of what the Press might easily advertise as a " screaming absurdity." Accordingly let us bear in mind that no incident is of itself comic or tragic, until it assumes one or other quality in the telling — until " thinking makes it so." We have now established the fact that it is the attitude of the author, not the marriage or death of the heroine, that determines the character of a work of literature. Aristotle has laid down, in a much and vainly discussed phrase, that the effect of tragedy is the " purging " of the emotions of pity and fear. Whatever the precise meaning of his word {Kadapai?) may be, his general idea clearly is that the appeal of tragedy is to the emotions, that tragedy is, so to speak, emotional exercise, which is just as beneficial to the spirit as is physical exercise to the body, while comedy may be regarded as an equally valuable intellectual exercise. Either the Author will make his appeal to our Reason, to that faculty which supplies us with a sense of proportion, making us, as it were, get outside ourselves, and examine our own actions and motives as we do those of a bee or a pre- historic man ; to that Reason which, when we are inclined to overrate the annoyances of daily life, suddenly reminds us of our absurd smallness in comparison with the invisible immensity of the Universe : or he will confine himself to our Emotions, to that instinct which makes each man the hub of his own universe, the centre of a world of men and actions which are welcomed or rejected according as they favourably or adversely affect his own personality, to those Emotions which move us more intensely at a collision of trains than a INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY CRITICISM 75 collision of suns. Comedy; in fact, is the child of Logic, Tragedy of Feeling. These premisses apply to all the genres of literature, which are only distinguished from one another in form, not in essence. " The Ancient Mariner " is of the same kind as " Three Men in a Boat " ; " The Bishop of Rum-ti-foo " is not essentially different from " Paradise Lost" or "The Last of the Mohicans." They are all stories, some long, some short, others so short that they are little more than momentary scenes. Of this last sort is lyrical verse : poems like "Oh, that 'twere possible after long grief and pain," or " Under the Greenwood Tree," which are merely vivid pictures of brief moods, nevertheless imply a story, that is, some connected account of some single event. The classi- fication into " epic " and " dramatic " literature is purely a matter of convenience to distinguish stories which are told by a single witness (epic) from stories which are presented by alternate speeches as if they were actually happening before our eyes (drama). All works of literature must be either epic or drama, or a mi.xture of both. These differences of form do not affect the substance, and any conclusions we can discover with reference to the substance, i.e. the stoi"y, will be valid for literature in all its forms. We come, therefore, to the conclusion that literature has the same standards as story-telling, and we shall discover those standards best by examining our own narrative instinct. What is the first quality of a wcU-told story ? What is the adjective we naturally use to condemn a poor story ? The most cutting tiling that can be said of a man socially is that he is always telling poinllcss stories. One of the great dillicultics of the polite listener is to ascertain where he should interject an expression of amazement, amusement, horror, congratulation, or other appropriate emotion ; but an author has no pf»litc listeners. Unless all his story is a continuous pyramid of interest with every lino converging on a clear-cut summit, he is not only a bore, but a bore who insists on perpetuating his boredom by having it printed. Every incident, every word in his work must 76 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT lead up to a climax of excitement (technically called in Tragedy the Catastrophe). Irrelevancy is fatal in Art. This principle is known as the Uniiy of Action. Thus if we take an average melodrama (like " The Whip "), we find half a dozen rival plots all competing for the main interest, so that when this main interest is finally gained by one of them and the play ends, there are still five uncompleted stories vainly awaiting solution. Similarly in " Julius Caesar," which, like most of Shakespeare's Histories, has very little dramatic value, the climax of interest is attained with the death of Cajsar, and the whole of the rest is little more than disconnected historical events, each of which might alone welcome tragic treatment, but which, when forced into anti-climax by the main interest of the play, merely disturb and interrupt the artistic effect. A contrast with this dispersion of interest is the continuously growing intensity of " Hamlet," in which each of the side-plots, though in itself distinct, yet contributes immediately to the final catastrophe. Beside this example of a complex plot the direct development of the " Ancient Mariner," with its tale of a crime committed and expiated, is worth quoting as a model of a simple plot. , It is to be noted that the length of a plot is not in question : the vast size of " Paradise Lost " and its in- numerable episodes never swamp the single interest in Milton's Tragedy of the First Sin ; while the comparative brevity of, for instance, "The Merry Widow" fails altogether to make its artistic effect intelligible. And herein — apart from their advantages as Music and Verse — lies the cause of the immense and undeniable superiority of the Operas of Gilbert and Sullivan to the Revues and Musical Comedies : that the former have a definite sequence of development, i.e. a plot, from which, in addition to their incidental play of their humour, they are able to extract comic situations, while the latter must rely for their comicality exclusively on the heavy gestures of their clowns and the infrequent wit of their song-writers, the sequence of events being too invertebrate to allow of comicality in the situations. INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY CRITICISM 77 The second essential of literary composition has an equally technical name, and is equally obvious and simple when examined. Consistency and accuracy in the characterisation is what the critic looks for in literature, and it is in the opinion of many the supremely important necessity. An extreme critical school has argued that psychology redeems everything, and, in fact, that a composi- tion in which the psychology is unexceptionable requires no redeeming — however loose and diffuse the plot — but is sufficient in itself ; but all admit that no piece of literature can attain to the status of a Work of Art unless the characters in it are true to life and to themselves. Thus if, again, we look back to our earliest efforts in narrative, we shall remember that even in our first ventures we uncon- sciously strove after accurate characterisation by attempt- ing to reproduce the special pronunciation or gestures of our heroes. In the familiar tale of the Curate's Egg our Curate was endowed with a nasal sabbatical pronunciation designed to lend more vividness to the scene : the masters whose alleged adventures we repeated were afflicted with immensely exaggerated imitations of their tricks of speech. Again it was not only the manner of speech but the matter : not only how the hero spoke but what he spoke. We did not allow our Curate to snarl " Rotten ! " like a retired General, nor to laugh " Weak to weakish, old sport," like an im- pertinent undcrgrad. Instead wc let him purr just what a stage Curate would purr : " Well, my Lord, good in parts " ; and the story would be hopeless if he were to say anything else. That is what is meant by psychological consistency : if our characters are to seem alive — which is the final test of characterisation always — they must (a) be of such n nature as might reasonably be expected in view of their education, occupation, and circumstances, and (b) act in accordance with that nature througliout. Thus a Curate must within limits be curate-like ; and although a creditable farce might he extracted from a Curate accidentally and incongruously ordained, the farcical success would be due solely to the contrast between tlic Curate of the farce and 78 OXFORD, ST. BEES, AND THE FRONT the conventional Curate of the stage, which would give ground for the legitimate criticism, " Why make him a Curate at all ? " And, again, a man must not talk and act like a Curate at 4, and like a Publican at 4.5, under penalty of making the play wholly unbelievable, and discrediting the artist : though of course there is no reason why a Cur-ate should not gradually change under the influence of some great shock, so that he concludes with the dramatic reply, " Rotten ! " like a retired General, or conversely why a retired General should not gradually change and become a Curate — but this is a gradual psychological change requiring to be traced step by step with intense acuteness, as may be found well done in " The History of Mr. Polly," and badly in " Captain Brassbound's Conversion." Third among the primary literary qualities comes Poetry. This does not merely mean the ordinary necessi- ties of expression. It is taken for granted that a man will not start writing at all until his grammar is reasonably accurate and beyond the possibility of syntactical outrages, unless an outrage is justified by a gain of conciseness or vividness in the expression. Furthermore a writer addicted to the " cliche " habit is justly banished to suburban drawing-rooms. A " cliche " is a phrase which by perennial familiarity has become contemptible, and is so common that the printer keeps it on a permanent die for everyday use. Such once daring phrases as " confusion worse con- founded," " gives furiously to think," " durance vile," etc., are now so commonplace as to be comical. Again, no one who uses epithets which do not definitely add to the meaning of his nouns should write anything at all : " brave soldiers," " egregious folly," " gallant gentleman," " generous donor," have come to mean no more than soldier, folly, gentleman, and donor, and are merely waste of paper and proofs of incompetent writing. But Poetry is much more than economy of words. It is something indescribable, not merely elevated language and noble thought, not merely florid language and rhetoric, not merely subtle balance and sense of sound, but something containing and surpassing all INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY CRITICISM 79 these, something only to be recognised by much reading and only to be produced by genius. It is not, of course, a necessity to a work of Hterature : one of the most frequent comic devices is the contrast between lofty speech and trivial meaning, and modem comedy seldom aims at any- thing more than wit in its language. But when the language is Poetry, everything else is dispensable : plots may meander, characters maunder, the Poet can afford to rely on his poetry alone, [France, 1916. Written in the trenches, on active service, and intended as an introduction to an edition, for school use. of " Die Ahnfrau."] HONOUR TO WHOM HONOUR When dim in the far time It shall not be war-time, And life be not death, and pleasures increase ; When dazzle the cheering, And the end of the fearing And the manifold blessings of Commerce and Peace. When pulpits are crowing, And wine is a-flowing, And friends are a-meeting who long have not met ; When fair is Earth's promise, And you patronise " Tommies " — In the day of rejoicing you shall not forget : — 'Tis Ours that you're reaping, Ours, who lie sleeping. Princes of Ypres and Loos and the Aisne : To us be the glory. Us, mangled and gory, First honour to Us, whom you honour in vain. Then, sorrowing greatly. Your Jubilee stately You shall keep for a fast to the friends who are fled ; And solemnly voicing Shall cease your rejoicing To toast and keep toasting the health of The Dead. [St. Bees' School Magazine, April, 1916.] PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. DATE DUE 1 CAYLONO miNTCOIN U.S.A. Illlllllllllllllllllllllll AA 000 606 847 2