Here are Ladies

J >> James Stephens >> Here are Ladies

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The old gentleman smiled very genially and went out. The assistant
suggested that he had a terrible lot of old "guff," but I did not agree
with him.

VII

Between impartial sips at his own and my liquor the old gentleman
perused the small volume which he had taken from my pocket. After he
had read it he buttoned the book in his own pouch and addressed me with
great kindness--

"In some respects," said he, "poets differ materially from other
animals. For instance, they seldom marry, and when they do it is only
under extreme compulsion.--This is the more singular when we remember
that poets are almost continually singing about love. When they do
marry they instantly cease to make poetry and turn to labour like the
rest of the community.

"It has been finely said that the poet is born and not made, but I
fancy that this might be postulated of the rest of creation.

"Many people believe that all poets arise from their beds in the middle
of the night, and that they walk ten miles until they come to a
hillside, where they remain until the dawn whistling to the little
birds; but this, while it is true in some instances, is not invariably
true. A proper poet would not walk ten miles for any one except a
publisher.

"The art of writing poetry is very difficult at first, but it becomes
easy by practice. The best way for a beginner is to take a line from
another poem; then he should construct a line to fit it; then, having
won his start, he should strike out the first line (which, of course,
does not belong to him) and go ahead. When the poet has written three
verses of four lines each he should run out and find a girl somewhere
and read it to her. Girls are always delighted when this is done.
They usually clasp their hands together as though in pain, roll their
eyes in an ecstasy, and shout, 'How perfectly perfect!' Then the poet
will grip both her hands very tightly and say he loves her but will not
marry her, and, in an agony of inspiration, he will tear himself away
and stand drinks to himself until he is put out. This is, of course,
only one way of being a poet. If he perseveres he will ultimately
write lyrics for the music halls and make a fortune. He will then wear
a fur coat that died of the mange, he will support a carnation in his
buttonhole, wear eighteen rings on his right hand and one hundred and
twenty-seven on his left. He will also be entitled to wear two
breast-pins at once and yellow boots. He will live in England when he
is at home, and be very friendly with duchesses.

"Poetry is the oldest of the arts. Indeed, it may be called the parent
of the arts. Poetry, music, and dancing are the only relics which have
come down to us from those ancient times which are termed impartially
the Golden or the Arboreal Ages. In ancient Ireland the part played by
the poet was very important. Not alone was he the singer of songs, he
was also the bestower of fame and the keeper of genealogies, and,
therefore, he was treated with a dignity which he has since refused to
forget. When a poet made a song in public, it was customary that the
king and the nobility should divest themselves of their jewels, gold
chains, and rings, and give this light plunder to him. They also
bestowed on him goblets of gold and silver, herds of cattle, farms, and
maidservants. The poets are not at all happy in these constricted
times, and will proclaim their astonishment and repugnance in the
roundest language.

"A few days ago I was speaking in Grafton Street to a poet of great
eminence, and, with tears in his voice, he told me that he had never
been offered as much as a bracelet by any lady. Times have changed;
but for the person who still wishes to enter this decayed profession
there is still every opportunity, for poetry is only the art of cutting
sentences into equal lengths, and then getting these sentences printed
by a publisher. It is in the latter part of this formula that the real
art consists.

"There are a great many poets in Ireland, particularly in Dublin. In
an evening's walk one may meet at least a dozen of this peculiar
people. They may be known by the fact that they wear large, soft hats,
and that the breast-pockets of their coats have a more than noticeable
bulge, due to their habit of carrying therein the twenty-seven
masterpieces which they have just written. They are very ethereal
creatures, composed largely of soul and thirst. Soul is a far-away,
eerie thing, generally produced by eating fish."

The old gentleman borrowed the price of a tram home; but as he
instantly stood himself a drink with it, I was forced to relend him the
money when we got outside.

VIII

The old gentleman was in a very bad temper when I arrived. He had a
large glass of porter in his hand--a pint, in fact--and he was gazing
on this liquid with no great favour. I was a little surprised at his
choice of a drink, for I had never before known him care for any other
refreshment than spirits; but I did not like to make any reference to
the change. Looking thus, with great disgust, upon his pint, he began
to talk with some asperity about the English nation.

"The ways of Providence," said he, "are indeed inscrutable, else why
should there be such things in the world as lobsters, gutta-percha,
ballet-dancers, and Englishmen? These four objects, and some
others--notably water, tram-cars, and warts--I can find no necessity
for in nature; but there must be some reason for such, or else they
could not have arrived at the more or less mature stage of development
at which they are found.

"If we apply the canons of the Pragmatic philosophy to these objects we
will arrive at some conclusion which, although it may not justify their
existence, will give a hint as to their expediency. The question to be
put to any doubtful fact in nature is this--'What is your use?' and the
reality of the fact is in ratio to the degree of usefulness inhering in
it. Thus treated, most of the objects to which I have referred may be
able to adduce some excuse for their existence. A lobster may aver
that if he were not alive his absence would be a severe blow to the
lobster-pot industry, and would throw many respectable families on the
already-overburdened rates. Gutta-percha might plead that it has
aspired through many millions of ages to a maturity which would enable
it to rub out lead-pencil marks. Ballet-dancers would have a great
deal to say for themselves, possibly on moral grounds; but I really see
no reason for Englishmen.

"I have said that an object is real in ratio to its usefulness. If we
examine an Englishman thus pragmatically we must discover that his
usefulness is zero, and we are then forced to inquire why he exists at
all, for he does undoubtedly exist, as witness this pint of porter
which I hold in my hand, and which I do hold in my hand solely on
account of the unexplainable existence of Englishmen.

"I may say at once that I never indulge in this particular form of
refreshment, against which I have nothing further to charge than it
does not agree with my system, but I am no bigot in such matters, and
can quite willingly believe that lower natures and less cultivated
palates may take pleasure in secreting this inordinately lengthy
liquid. I cannot avoid the belief that any liquid which may be imbibed
by the imperial pint is an essentially gross drink, and one unfitted
for persons of a high culture. Nor can I find in nature that any of
the more specialised organisms take their drink in such extravagant
quantities. Camels, who, I am informed, are a very well-behaved and
moral race leading rigorous and chaste lives in a desert, do drink
deeply, but their excess is more apparent than real, for Providence in
an aberration endowed these folk with more stomachs than the average
person possesses, and the necessity for filling these additional
cisterns accounts for and justifies their liberal use of moisture.
Worms, on the other hand, are a folk for whom I have very little
reverence and no affection. I am not aware whether they are all
stomach or all neck, but from their corner-boy expression I am inclined
to fancy that worms would drink pints if they could. Happily, this
disgusting exhibition is forbidden by the imperfect state of their
civilisation and the inelastic quality of their environment.

"But this is beside the point. My grievance is, that in my old age I
am forced to drink porter which disagrees with my liver, and am
compelled to abstain from spirits which have a sustaining and medicinal
effect on that organ, and this deprivation is solely due to the
unnatural and inexplicable existence of Englishmen. It may be that
nature grew Englishmen for the sole purpose of interfering with my
organs, and so, by modifying my teaching in accordance with my diseased
interior, nature may be striving to evolve a new culture wherein bile
will have a rare ability. If this is so, then I am not at all obliged
to nature for singling me out as the instrument of her changes; if it
is not so I can only confess my ignorance and wash my hands of the
matter.

"Mark you, it was only during my lifetime that an exorbitant tax was
placed on whisky. Before my era the interference with this refreshment
was of the most tentative and apologetic description.

"I can remember, and I do remember with dismay, the time when whisky
was purchaseable at two bronze pennies for the naggin, but now one may
discharge a ruinous impost for the privilege of imbibing one poor
fourth of that happy measure.

"This has been brought about by the continuous interference of
Englishmen with my liquor. Time and again they have added additional
difficulties to my obtaining this medicinal refreshment, and, while I
am compelled to bow my head to the ideas of nature for the improvement
of our race, I am often inclined, having bowed it, to charge goat-like
at these intolerable people and butt them off the face of the earth
into the nowhere for which their villainous and ungenial habits have
fitted them. Otherwise, by their future exactions I may be brought to
the drinking of benzene or printer's ink for lack of a fortune
wherewith to purchase fitter refreshment."

Having said this with great fury, the old gentleman laid down his
untasted pint and stalked out. The acolyte behind the counter made a
sympathetic clicking noise with his tongue and sold the pint to another
man.--He probably did this thoughtlessly, and I did not care to
embarrass him by remarking on it.

IX

I met the old gentleman marching solemnly across Cork Hill. There was
a tramcar in his immediate rear, a cab in front of him, an outside-car
and a bicycle on his right hand, and a dray laden with barrels on his
left. The drivers of all these vehicles were entreating him in one
voice to stroll elsewhere. He looked around and, observing that
matters were complicated, he opened his umbrella, held it over his
head, and awaited events with the most admirable fortitude. When I had
escorted him to the pavement, and further to his own hostelry, he
seized the third button of my waistcoat and spake as follows:--

"It is an admirable example of the wisdom of nature that she has
refrained in every case from equipping her creatures with wheels
instead of legs, and she might easily have done this. So far as I am
aware there are but four methods of progression in nature--these are,
flying, swimming, walking and crawling. None of these are performed
with a rotary motion, and all are admirably adapted to the people using
them, and are sufficiently expeditious to suit their needs.

"There is no doubt that the most primitive of movements is that of
crawling, and by this method of progression, one is brought into an
intimate contact with the earth which cannot fail to be beneficial. I
do not see any real difficulty in the way of our again becoming a race
of happy and crawling people. The initial essay towards this end is to
shed our arms and legs as useless incumbrances, and then to aim at a
stronger growth of jaw and cranium. Among certain organisms it will be
found that the jaws are the most immediately useful parts of the body,
performing the most varied and delicate functions with the greatest
ease. A dog, for example, will, with the one organ, play with a ball,
kill a cat, or nip the calf of a Christian, and, when the moon is high,
he can make a noise with his mouth which is as loud and quite as
melodious as the professional clamour of a ballad-vocalist.

"One of the greatest evils of civilisation is the longing for speed,
which, within the past hundred years, has developed from a simple vice
to a complicated mania. Long ago men were accustomed to use their legs
in order to propel themselves forward, and, when greater speed was
necessary, they assisted their legs with their hands--this was coeval
with, or shortly after, the arboreal age. Next came the hunting epoch,
when some person, probably a commercial traveller, dropped off a tree
on to a horse's back, and finding the movement pleasant he informed his
companions of his adventure and demonstrated to them how it had been
performed. It is from this occurrence we may date the degradation of
the human race and the industry of horse-stealing. There followed the
pastoral age, when nuts were, more or less, abandoned as a food and
tillage became general. The necessity for conveying the crops from the
field to the camp excited some lazy individual to invent a cart, and,
thus, wheels came into use and the doom of humanity as an instinctive
and natural race was sealed.

"While we walked on our own legs we were natural and instinctive
creatures, open to every impression of nature and able to tell the time
without clocks, but when we adopted mechanical methods of progression
we became unnatural and mechanical people, whizzing restlessly and
recklessly from here to yonder, for no purpose save the mere sensual
pleasure of movement, and we are at this date simply debauched by
travel and have shortened the world to less than one-tenth of its
actual size as well as destroying our abilities for simple and rational
enjoyment.

"If we continue using these artificial means of locomotion there is no
doubt that the race will become atrophied in the legs but with
extraordinary results. The spectacle of an egg-shaped humanity
squatting painfully on engines is not a pleasant one to contemplate,
nor is the prospect of a world wherein there will be neither breeches
nor boots good for the moralist or economist to dwell upon.

"In order to conserve the happiness of the world every inventor should
be squashed in the egg, more particularly those having anything to do
with wheels, cogs or levers. The wheel has no counterpart in nature,
and is unthinkable to any but a diseased and curious mind. Man will
never more be happy until he has broken all the machinery he can find
with a hammer, and has then thrown the hammer into the sea; and then he
can, by experiment, become almost as rooted in the earth as a tree or
an artesian well. It is a bad thing to have an indefinite horizon. It
is a good thing to grow knowing one part of the world as thoroughly as
one knows the inside of one's boots. Legs make for nationality,
patriotism, and all the virtues which centre in locality. Wheels make
for diffuseness, imperialisms, cosmopolitanisms. By the use of legs
humanity has stalked into manhood. By the use of wheels we are rapidly
rolling into a race of commercial travellers, touts, gad-abouts, and
members of parliament, folk with the hanging jaws of astonishment, avid
for curios, and with mental, moral and optical indigestion.

"I believe that the Spanyols and Mandibaloes, two Mongol races
inhabiting the countries at the rear of the Great Chow Desert, were the
first people to deal largely with wheels. The men of these nations
were used, when travelling, to affix two small wheels upon their
shoulder blades, and on coming to any slight incline in their path they
would curl up their legs, lie on their backs and free-wheel as
distantly as the slant of the ground permitted, greatly, no doubt, to
the astonishment of less sophisticated people. But, knowing their
habits, their enemies were wont to lie in wait at the bottoms of hills
and slopes, and when a Spanyol or Mandibaloe came wheeling down a hill
with his legs up he was killed before he could regain a less
complicated position, or one more fitted for defence or offence. Thus,
these races became rapidly extinct, and are now only remembered by the
tracks as wide as a man's shoulderblades which are occasionally found
in parts of the post-tertiary formation."

The old gentleman released the third button of my waistcoat which he
had held for so long and stepped with me out of the hostel. As it had
begun to rain he carefully folded up his umbrella, tucked it under his
arm, and strode rapidly down the street. Some small boys followed him
for a little time singing, "We are the boys of Wexford who fought with
heart and hand," but I drove these away.

X

He wiped his face with a large, red pocket-handkerchief, pursed his
lips, shut one eye, and, with the other, he critically observed the
remnant of his liquor. After a moment of deep consideration he smiled
delightfully and said he thought it was all right. The apothecary
behind the counter smiled also as one gratified and suggested that
there was not much of that at the North Pole, and, after a little
discussion on this point, the old gentleman addressed me in the
following words:--

"I do not understand what necessity impels people to the discovery of
something, which, if it has any existence at all, has only an
idealistic existence, and which, when it is discovered, cannot be
utilised in any possible direction. Utility is the first attribute of
all terrestrial bodies. A stone, for instance, is a useful inorganic
substance--it can be built into a house, or thrown at a duck, or, when
ground into sand, it can be, and is, sold as sugar by a grocer. It is
constantly being utilised in one or other of these directions; and so
with all other objects. But the necessity for a North or a South Pole
has yet to be demonstrated.

"The statement that the North Pole was put there by the Castle
authorities is one which I do not believe, for I am assured that at
every period of the world's history there has been a North and a South
Pole, which, surrounded as they were by snow-clad countries, icebergs,
cold water and whales, were too remote and inhospitable to tempt the
average civilian to journey there.

"The only thing which grows in the Polar regions is ice, and this is
generally found in almost tropical profusion and rankness, growing
sometimes to the height of several hundred feet, none of which wear
boots. Polar bears and Esquimos are also found there, but in scattered
and inconsiderable quantities. These two races spend most of their
time chasing each other in order to keep themselves warm, which they do
by degrees which are often registered on a barometer. They also eat
each other and get scurvy. Outside of these relaxations their
existence is stagnant and unexciting. I sometimes fancy that if I had
the misfortune to be born a polar bear or an Esquimo I would not have
been a patriot.

"I have no esteem for ice in other than easily portable quantities.
Some small pieces to pack around fish, a particle to drop into a glass
of lager beer--that is all the ice which I can regard patiently or
leniently; but a continent composed entirely of ice and polar bears
tempts me to believe that Providence is subject to aberrations.

"It is supposed to redound to the credit of a nation when one of its
citizens resolves to discover some inaccessible and futile place, and
proceeds to do so in the most fantastic manner. The inhabitants of
that country who remain at their work and continue to pay their rates
are expected to be in a condition of wild enthusiasm and delight at the
adventure.--My own impression is, that the majority of people take no
more than a tepid interest in these forlorn adventures, and are but
imperfectly convinced of the sanity of the adventurers; and this is the
more particularly noticeable when the quest is for something so
intangible and unmarketable as a North Pole. Why need they go so far
afield for their excitement? Every discoverer is a detective. He
traces missing places, and there are cartloads of Poles in their own
countries waiting for explorers.

"The habit of seeking for a North Pole is one of only comparative
antiquity. Its conception is well within the historic era, and must,
therefore, be classed as an acquired habit and one not inherent in man.
I have not observed that any other animals are addicted to this
peculiar expeditionary craze. It is true that many species of birds
migrate annually from these shores, and, although their departures are
usually chronicled in the newspapers, it must not without further
evidence be inferred that these birds have gone to look for the North
Pole. They may, as a matter of fact, have left this country to avoid
being arrested, for here one is continually being arrested. The
evidence in favour of the North Pole theory as regards birds is, that
nobody knows where they have gone to, and that as the rest of the earth
is round and densely populated their arrival would be noted somewhere
as their departure was, but their arrival not being so noted, and as
they must be somewhere, the process of eliminating all possible places
leaves nowhere but the North Pole as their objective. Now birds are a
very intelligent and strenuous race of people who build nests in trees
and have often five eggs at a time, and I believe that they leave these
countries because their nests are full of broken egg-shells, and
because the winter is setting in, and because they dislike cold
weather; and, thus disliking cold weather, it is unlikely that they
would fly to the North Pole where the cold is very intense, and where,
moreover, there is little food to be found, saving polar bears and
Esquimos, a form of victual for which birds have only the scantiest
relish. My own impression is, that these birds when out of sight of
land are enabled by a mechanism with which we are not yet familiar, to
convert themselves into fishes, or, alternatively, that they know the
whereabouts of Tir na n-Og and go there, or else that they do not go
anywhere at all but are simply translated into the Fourth Dimension of
Space, and are, thus, flying, nesting and mating all around us in a
medium which our eyes are too gross to penetrate.

"From a perusal of the evening papers I observe that the discoverer of
the North Pole is an American citizen with a complicated pedigree, a
long beard and a red shirt, all of which he hoisted to the top of the
Pole and left there for subsequent identification. I fear this was a
thoughtless action on his part because the Esquimos who live habitually
at the North Pole, but have not discovered it, will, while his back is
turned, take to wearing his shirt in turn. They are a communistic
people, I fancy, and no shirt will survive communism. Also, seeing the
fuss which is being made of their Pole, they may either hide it or sell
pieces of it to tourists as remembrancers.

"The explorer should have cached his shirt and other memorials at the
foot of the Pole, built a cairn upon it, and shook cayenne pepper on
top of all to keep bears away--but it is useless to advise explorers."

The ancient hereupon made a significant gesture to the curate, who
misinterpreted it, and brought more than he had required. He was very
much perturbed, for, as he explained, he had forgotten to bring his
purse with him. He consented, however, to use my purse for his needs,
and, after paying his shot, he, in an abstracted and melancholy manner,
put the change in his trouser pocket. There was only one shilling in
the purse so I did not like to draw his attention to the mistake. He
very genially returned my purse, and said he had conceived a great
liking for me.

XI

When the old gentleman came in I noticed at once that he was out of
humour. He had a large scar on his chin, and three pieces of newspaper
on his cheeks. He discharged the contents of my tobacco pouch into a
pipe which had a holding capacity of one and a half ounces, and then he
became more cheerful--

"I dislike extremely," said he, "the impertinent interference with
nature which men are nowadays guilty of. Not content with clamping our
feet in leathern boxes, our legs in cloth cylinders, our trunks in a
variety of wrappings of complex inutility, and then inserting our heads
into monstrous felt pots, we even approach ourselves more minutely and
scrape the very hair from our faces which nature has sown there for
purposes of ornament and protection; with the result, that it is
difficult for a short-sighted person to distinguish rapidly the sex of
the people with whom he comes in contact saving by a minute and tedious
examination of their clothing.

"This habit of shaving is one which is entirely confined to man. It is
the one particular habit that he holds apart from all other animals,
and, indeed, it is not an accomplishment upon which he need pride
himself, for in parting with his beard he has sacrificed the only
pleasant-looking portion of his face.

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