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sometimes there came into them a look that was almost wild.... The blackness and the brightness of his eyes were brought into greater relief by the almost deadly pallor of his complexion.... As he walked up the floor of the House he seemed to be enveloped by a great solitude, so unmistakably did he stand out from all the figures around him.
I must add to this description of his extreme physical gifts the wonderful quality of his voice. It was a powerful voice, but sweet and melodious, and it was managed as exquisitely and as faithfully as the song of a great prima donna. If the speech were ringing, it came to your ears almost soft by that constant change of tone which the voice displayed; it could whisper, it could thunder.... I have seen many great figures, but, with all respect to the greatest among them, the House of Commons without Gladstone seems to me as great a contrast as a chamber illumined by a farthing dip when the electric light has failed.”
XIV
A ROOM WITHOUT A VIEW
What is the worst poem ever written by a man of genius? It is certain that if an anthology should be made of the most terrible verses of the English bards the results would be both surprising and appalling. I cannot at this moment think of any worse pair of lines in English literature than those offered in all seriousness by the seventeenth-century poet, Richard Crashaw. They occur in a poem containing many lovely passages. In comparing the tearful eyes of Mary Magdalene to many different things he perpetrated a couplet more remarkable for ingenuity than for beauty. Her eyes are
Two walking baths, two weeping motions, Portable and compendious oceans.
Alfred Tennyson, in his second volume of poems, bearing the date 1833, included the following, though it is only fair to say that he afterward suppressed it. It aroused the mirth of the critics and still is often resurrected as a specimen of what Tennyson could do when he was deserted by both inspiration and taste.
O DARLING ROOM
O darling room, my heart’s delight, Dear room, the apple of my sight, With thy two couches soft and white, There is no room so exquisite, No little room so warm and bright,
Wherein to read, wherein to write.
For I the Nonnenwerth have seen, And Oberwinter’s vineyards green, Musical Lurlei; and between The hills to Bingen have I been, Bingen in Darmstadt, where the Rhene Curves toward Mentz, a woody scene.
Yet never did there meet my sight, In any town, to left or right, A little room so exquisite, With two such couches soft and white; Not any room so warm and bright, Wherein to read, wherein to write.
Imagine the profanity and laughter this piffle must have aroused among the book reviewers; some of his severer critics called him “Miss Alfred,” not knowing that he was a six-footer, with a voice like a sea captain in a fog.
I have no mind to defend the poem. Apart from the fact that the reading of it ought to teach Americans the correct accent on the word “exquisite,” it must be admitted that when Tennyson wrote this stuff he not only nodded but snored.
But, although it is difficult for me to understand how he could have written it, have read it in proof and then published it, I perfectly understand and sympathise with his enthusiasm for the room.
It is often said that polygamous gentlemen are—at any rate, for a considerable period—monogamous; the Turk may have a long list of wives, but he will cleave to one, either because he wants to or because she compels him to. Thus, even in a house that has a variety of sitting rooms, or living rooms or whatever you choose to call them, the family will use only one. After the evening meal they will instinctively move toward this one favourite room.
There is no doubt that even as dogs and cats have their favourite corner or chair, or favourite cushion of nightly repose, men and women have favourite rooms. And if this is true of a family in general, it is especially true of a man or a woman whose professional occupation is writing; and he becomes so attached to his room that Tennyson’s sentiments, no matter how silly in expression, accurately represent his emotion.
Twice a year, once in June and once in September, circumstances force me to leave a room where I have for a long time spent the larger part of my waking hours; I always feel the pain of parting, look around the walls and at the desk and wish the place an affectionate farewell, hoping to see it again, either in the autumn or in the next summer, as the case may be. I love that room, as Tennyson loved his room. I love it not because of the view from the windows, for a working room should not have too good a view, but for the visions that have there appeared to the eyes of the mind. It is the place where I have sat in thought, where such ideas as are possible to my limited range have appeared to me and where I have endeavoured to express them in words.
And if I can have so strong a passion for a room, with what tremendous intensity must an inspired poet or novelist love the secluded chamber where his imagination has found free play!
We know that Hawthorne, after his graduation from college, spent twelve years in one room in Salem. When he revisited that room as a famous writer he looked at it with unspeakable affection and declared that if ever he had a biographer great mention must be made in his memoir of this chamber, for here his mind and character had been formed and here the immortal children of his fancy had played around him. He was alone and not alone. As far as a mortal man may understand the feelings of a man of genius, I understand the emotion of Hawthorne.
I think nearly every one, if he were able to afford it, would like to have a room all his own. I believe it to be an important factor in the development of the average boy or girl if in the family house each child could have one room sacred to its own personality. When I was
a small boy, although I loved to be with family and friends, I also loved to escape to my own room and read and meditate in solitude.
The age of machinery is not so adverse to spiritual development as the age of hotels and apartment houses; there is no opportunity for solitude, and a certain amount of solitude, serene and secure from interruption, is almost essential for the growth of the mind. A great many girls and women could be saved from the curse of “nerves” if there were a place somewhere in the building where they could be for a time alone. One of the worst evils of poverty is that there is no solitude; eating, sleeping, living, all without privacy.
When I was a graduate student in the university I was fortunate enough to possess for one year exactly the right kind of room. The young philosopher, George Santayana, came to see me and exclaimed, “What a perfect room for a scholar! The windows high up, as they should be.” For if one is to have clear mental vision it is not well that the room should have a view.
XV
TEA
“Thank God,” said Sydney Smith, “thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea?—how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.” Well, I get along very well without tea, though I rejoice to see that more and more in “big business” houses in American cities there is a fifteen-minute pause for afternoon tea.
One of the chief differences between the life of Englishmen and of Americans is tea. Millions of Englishmen take tea three times a day. Tea is brought to their bedside early in the morning, and thirstily swallowed while in a horizontal attitude. The first thing an Englishman thinks of, if he wakes at dawn, is tea. When Arnold Bennett was travelling in America he took a limited train from New York to Chicago. Early in the morning he rang for the porter and when that individual appeared he commanded nonchalantly a cup of tea. He might as well have asked for a pot of hashish. The porter mechanically remarked that the “diner” would be put on at such-andsuch an hour. This unintelligible contribution to the conversation was ignored by the famous novelist, who repeated his demand for tea. He was amazed to find there was no tea. “And you call this a firstclass train!”
Then at breakfast—a substantial meal in British homes, though having somewhat the air of a cafeteria—tea is drunk copiously. To the average American tea for breakfast is flat and unprofitable. We are accustomed to the most inspiring beverage in the world, actual coffee. The coffee in England is so detestable that when an American tastes it for the first time he thinks it is a mistake. And he is right. It is. Many Americans give it up and reluctantly order tea. In my judgment, for breakfast the worst coffee is better than the best tea.
There are many Americans who have tea served at luncheon. For some reason this seems to the Englishman sacrilegious. The late Professor Mahaffy, who is now (I suppose) drinking nectar, was absolutely horrified to find that in my house he was offered a cup of tea at lunch. “Tea for lunch!” he screamed, and talked about it for the rest of the meal.
I was invited by a charming American lady to meet an English author at her house for luncheon. Tea was served and she said deprecatingly to the British author, “I don’t suppose you have tea at this time in England.” “Oh, yes,” said he, “the servants often have it below stairs.” To my delight, the hostess said, “Now, Mr. ——, aren’t you really ashamed of offering me an insult like that? Isn’t that remark of yours exactly the kind of thing you are going to be ashamed of when you think it over, all by yourself?”
At precisely 4:13 . . every day the average Englishman has a thirst for the astringent taste of tea. He does not care for hot water or hot lemonade coloured with tea. He likes his tea so strong that to me it has a hairy flavour. Many years ago the famous Scot William Archer invited me to his rooms in the Hotel Belmont, New York, for afternoon tea at 4:15. He had several cups and at five o’clock excused himself, as he had to go out to an American home for tea. I suggested that he had already had it. “Oh, that makes no difference.”
There are several good reasons (besides bad coffee) for tea in England. Breakfast is often at nine (the middle of the morning to me), so that early tea is desirable. Dinner is often at eight-thirty, so that afternoon tea is by no means superfluous. Furthermore, of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year in England, very, very few are warm; and afternoon tea is not only cheerful and sociable but in most British interiors really necessary to start the blood circulating.
There are few more agreeable moments in life than tea in an English country house in winter. It is dark at four o’clock. The family and guests come in from the cold air. The curtains are drawn, the open wood fire is blazing, the people sit down around the table and with a delightful meal—for the most attractive food in England is served at afternoon tea—drink of the cheering beverage.
William Cowper, in the eighteenth century, gave an excellent description:
Now stir the fire and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Not long before this poem was written the traveller Jonas Hanway had the bad luck to publish an essay on tea, “considered as pernicious to health, obstructing industry, and impoverishing the nation,” which naturally drew the artillery fire of the great Dr. Johnson. Sir John Hawkins, in his life of Johnson, comments on this controversy. He says: “That it is pernicious to health is disputed by physicians”—where have I heard something like that recently? But Hawkins continues: “Bishop Burnet, for many years, drank sixteen large cups of it every morning, and never complained that it did him the least injury.”
As for Johnson, “he was a lover of tea to an excess hardly credible; whenever it appeared, he was almost raving, and by his impatience to be served, his incessant calls for those ingredients which make that liquor palatable, and the haste with which he swallowed it down, he seldom failed to make that a fatigue to every one else, which was intended as a general refreshment.”
In nearly every English novel I find the expression, “I am dying for my tea!” On a voyage to Alaska, where tea was served on deck every afternoon, at precisely the same moment an elderly British lady appeared from below with precisely the same exclamation: “Oh, is there tea going?” And on her face was a holy look.
Alfred Noyes told me that during the war, when he was writing up important incidents for the benefit of the public, he was assigned to interview the sailors immediately after the tremendous naval battle of
Jutland. He found a bluejacket who had been sent aloft and kept there during the fearful engagement, when shells weighing half a ton came hurtling through the air and when ships blew up around him. Thinking he would get a marvellous “story” out of this sailor, Mr. Noyes asked him to describe his sensations during those frightful hours. All the man said was, “Well, of course, I had to miss my tea!”
XVI
THE WEATHER
Nearly all the great poetry of the world, ancient and modern, has been written in Europe. This fact should never be forgotten in reading literature that alludes to the weather. The reason every one talks about the weather is not that the average person has nothing else to say; it is that the weather is usually the most interesting topic available. It is the first thing we think of in the hour of waking; it affects our plans, projects and temperament.
When I was a little boy at school there was a song sung in unison called “Hail, Autumn, Jovial Fellow!” It seemed to me to express correctly the true character of autumn. It was not until I had reached maturity in years that I discovered that the song, as judged by the world’s most famous writers, was a misfit. Instead of autumn’s being jovial, it was dull, damp, dark, depressing. To be sure, I never really felt that way about it; the evidence of my eyes was in favour of the school song, but, as the great poets had given autumn a bad reputation, I supposed in some way she must have earned it.
Still later I learned that Goethe was right when he said that in order to understand a poet you must personally visit the country where he wrote. Literary geography is seldom taught or seriously considered, but it is impossible to read famous authors intelligently without knowing their climatic and geographical environment. So keenly did I come to feel about this that I finally prepared a cardboard map of England, marking only the literary places, and I required my students to become familiar with it. One of them subsequently wrote me a magnificent testimonial, which I have often considered printing on the margin of the map.
Dear Mr Phelps—I have been bicycling all over England this summer, and have found your Literary Map immensely useful. I have carried it inside my shirt, and I think on several occasions it has saved me from an attack of pneumonia.
There are millions of boys and girls studying Shakespeare in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand; the poet’s frequent allusions to the climate and the weather must seem strange.
That you have such a February face.
February “down under” is midsummer. Southern latitudes give the lie to Shakespeare’s metaphors.
The reason autumn has so bad a name in the world’s poetry and prose is that autumn in Northern Europe is a miserable season. In London, Paris, Berlin, November (and often October) is one of the worst times of the year. A chronically overcast sky, a continual drizzle, a damp chill even on mistily rainless days, combine to produce gloom. The first autumn and winter I spent in Paris revised my notions of those two seasons. As an American, I had thought of the difference between summer and winter as a difference only in temperature; I reasonably expected as much sunshine in autumn and winter as in summer. A typical January day in New York is cold and cloudless.
Well, in Paris the sun disappeared for weeks at a time, and on the rare occasions when it shone people ran out in the street to look at it. One of the worst jokes in the world is the expression, “sunny France.” The French themselves know better. François Coppée wrote of the “rare smiles” of the Norman climate, and Anatole France, describing a pretty girl, wrote “Her eyes were grey; the grey of the Paris sky.”
For the same reason “Italian skies” have been overpraised, because their eulogists are English or French or German. The Italian sky is usually so much better than the sky of more northerly
European localities that it seems good by contrast. Now, as a matter of fact the winter sky over Bridgeport, Conn., is superior in brightness and blueness to the sky over Florence or Venice.
November, one of the best months of the year in America, is dreaded by all who live in France, England or Germany. Walking in New Haven one brilliant (and quite typical) day in mid-November, exhibiting the university and city to a visiting French professor, I enquired, “What do you think of our November climate?” He replied, “It is crazy.”
A strange thing is that Bryant, born in the glorious Berkshires of western Massachusetts, where autumn, instead of being pale and wet as the European poets have described it, is brilliant and inspiring, all blue and gold, did not use his eyes; he followed the English poetical tradition.
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year.
James Whitcomb Riley used the evidence of his senses, and wrote an autumnal masterpiece.
O it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best....
They’s something kind o’ hearty-like about the atmosphere
When the beat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a picture that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.
One difference between the temperament of the typical Englishman and the typical American is caused largely by the climate, and foreigners in writing books about us should not forget
the fact If nearly every morning the sky were overcast and the air filled with drizzle, we might not be quite so enthusiastic.
On the other hand, the early spring in England and France is more inspiring than ours, perhaps by reason of the darkness of winter. It comes much earlier. Alfred Housman says:
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.
In our Northern American States a blossoming fruit tree at Eastertide would be a strange spectacle.