Part 3 (1/2)

Sunday: Off on my annual holiday today, to the United States for the first time since 1958 Crossed the St Lawrence on a ferry, in colass eye what they were; ”Sand fleas,” he replied laconically Did not believe hiht in a hotel in the Adirondacks, which is faed horses there Many relics of hi his raincoat, rucksack, and a horseshoe which ittily labelled as ”not from one of his horses” Reflected that I havea bed in which Queen Elizabeth never slept, a pen which was not used to sign the Treaty of Versailles, and a cake which was not burned by King Alfred Take this negative attitude toward antiques, and we all are richer than we ever iined

Monday: On the road all day, with pauses for refreshment and to look at dubious antiques Visited the New York State Capitol at Albany, and saw a drum displayed in its entrance-hall which had been seized from the British in the Revolutionary War Was filled with a wild iain, and run like hell for the Canadian border, but as I had just finished lunch I decided that it would not really be a practicable plan Pressed onward, and gaped in anificent palaces which line the Hudson River Wanted to visit President Roosevelt's former home at Hyde Park, but for some reason it was closed Stopped for dinner at Tarrytown, and in the Florence Hotel there had an adventure so frightful that I shall not even confide it to the private pages of this Diary Never, since Mr Pickwick found himself trapped in the bedchamber of the Lady with Curl Papers, has a traveller suffered so acutely and so undeservingly

Tuesday: Entered New York this ; it cost ht rather expensive; I a However, when one is travelling, one must expect to spend a certain aarden of the Museu could be, for in addition to serving a top-notch lunch these enlightened Americans permit one to have a bottle of their own California wine at meals In spite of this freedohtly drunk, round, or hack at the modern statuaryAfterward rode in Central Park in an open carriage (I am essentially a barouche man, and have never really accepted the motor car) and the driver attempted to cheat ument I drew myself up: ”Shall we submit this to the arbitrament of a constable?” said I ”Aw Cheest!” he said, and drove away New York, I perceive, contains al heard many travellers' tales of the dreadful deceptions practised upon strangers in New York, I walked about the city today expecting to be accosted by old bricks, or possibly the controlling interest in Brooklyn Bridge However, nothing of the sort happened Decided that perhaps my appearance was too urbane, so this afternoon I tried chewing a straw and saying, ”Wal I swan to thunderation!” every ti Still no rush of confidence eratedThe shops are full of things to buy -- possibly too full At any rate I suffer from a sensation of surfeit when faced with soI am content to stroll about the streets and admire the beauty of the wo none the less Strawberry shortcake is standardized, but nobody ever gets too much of itAnd the charet a glass of beer without resorting to a stinking pest-hole called a Beverage Roo whatever sights came my way Looked into the Teht it vastly more beautiful than St Patrick's, which, by the way, is having its face washed, and nothing can be seen of the outside of it but scaffolding and irritable, plethoric pigeonsSaw also a n which read ”Indict Senator Bilbo; UNO and World Govern that a country where eccentricity is a matter for reproach is in peril, I tried not to stare at hieneral appearance ofto a lady this afternoon who said, ”Have you been to the theatre yet, Mr Marchbanks?” I replied, as politely as I could: ”Madam, when I am in a city which possesses a theatre I am on hand whenever it is open to the public I consider the theatre to be theand ecstatic of hu Does that answer your question?” She fled in dis

Friday: Henceforth, when anyone asks me ”Were you in 'Twenty-One' when you were in New York?” I shall say that I was, buta New Yorker took me to dinner, and as we discovered a mutual passion for Chinese food he whisked me to 21 Mott Street, an unimpressive establishment in Chinatohere I ate such food as only the Gods and a few particularly favoured ed to taste After a careful inspection of the hteen, and eat it all ourselves This we did, aug it with many bowls of rice and uncounted cups of delicious Chinese tea (At least, I stopped counting after enial soul and I waded through such a mass of fried shrier, soybean and crisp noodles as I never saw before in my life, while our female companions picked away daintily (in the way of women) at a few poor trifles provided for them After this ent for a ride on the Staten Island ferry, to enjoy the air and contemplate our inward bliss

Saturday: Left New York today Passed through a ghost town called Piercefield, which contained hosts go there to get a little preli I don't knohy they coe in the USA when Piercefield is wide openPicnic lunch, and tried to open some bottles of root beer with a penknife, with the usual explosive, sticky, et a decent lunch at an hotel, and had no trouble in finding an excellent one Why is it, I wonder, that the hotels even in New York State villages are so , and better provided with food than those in quite large Canadian cities? Consumed steak and lemon pie not far belo York standardsOn into the Adirondacks for the night and slept aht a Welshman or a Scot Mountains, like the sea, are in the blood

- XXVIII -

Sunday: Some important atomic bomb tests were held today, but no consequences were observable inthe end of everything, and had ly I burned a few letters which I did not wish to have vaporized; e are all reduced to atoms, who can tell what atoh space? I put a few of my more prized possessions in prominent places so that they would be vaporized as prominently and showily as possible I threw a few bricks and rocks into ht be painful Then I spent ason a sofa so that if necessary, Ihappened

Monday: Cutthat the atoht settle all such problems forever As I plodded back and forth I reflected miserably upon my own political rootlessness, in a world where politics is so important When I am with Tories I am a violent advocate of reform; when I am with reformers I hold forth on the value of tradition and stability When I am with communists I become a royalist -- almost a Jacobite; when I am with socialists I am an advocate of free trade, private enterprise and laissez-faire The presence of a person who has strong political convictions always sendsoff in a directly contrary direction Inevitably, in the world of today, this will bringsquad sooner or later Maybe the fascists will shoot me, and maybe the proletariat, but political contrariness will be the end of er, er not back for breakfast; that cat treats its ho It is a constant source of surprise and indignation toletters, nobody ever writes to overnment handouts, addressed to me by chair-warmers at Ottawa and Toronto; there were the usual printed appeals urging ive my life in the cause of soive , or convert ation; there were thick reprints of speeches delivered by the presidents of insurance coate the unsatisfactoriness of modern underpants, in which (she says) electrician's tape is used instead of elastic But not a word addressed to

Wednesday: Still no Tiger; worried about her Enquired of some children if they had seen her ”Perhaps she has wandered off with the Toreatly Wandered off with the Toht! What a revelation of feline delinquency! Do the To cats -- White Slavery in the cat world? At night, when all is still and the human world lies wrapped in sleep, do raffish crews of roistering To their silkyinnocent little pussies to a Fate Worse Than Death? Is Tiger at this very round Haunt? Surrounded by every luxury -- fish-skeletons galore, Jersey creas, catnip unlimited -- does she ever think of her siarden? I shall advertise for her

Thursday: Answer to er ”Did youse lose a cat?” said a voice over the phone ”What kind of cat have you got?” I countered ”Kind of a yalla cat,” said the voice ”My cat was not yellow,” I replied indignantly, and hung upI see by the paper that an Aentleman called Mr Walter Littlefield does not like the expression ”the coests that we adopt the word made famous by the sixteenth century ood idea, but it won't work It would be vulgarized out of all recognition in six months Not merely Everyman, but ”Jake Q Everyman” would appear in print, and on the very first Mother's Day ould be asked to send carnations to ”Everyot a lot of free meals on my press-card when I was in New York; apparently he believes that legend that a newspaper writer has only to go into an expensive restaurant, eat himself out of shape, drink the bar dry, and then present his press-card in order to have the proprietor fall on his neck in gratitude It is not true When in New York I did have a sandwich in a rill, and did present my press-card when the bill arrived, but I had to pay all the same It was not until I was outside that I realized that I had presented not my current press-card, but an old one which I had preserved for sentimental reasons from the days when I was the entire editorial staff on the Skunk's Misery Trombone, a lively little paper with a rather limited circulation I suppose the restaurant proprietor had never heard of it; he was an uncultivated type, and addressed all his custo would be gained by arguing with hi in logic

Saturday: Tiger is hoain! She had not run off with the Toms but had, I suppose, lost her way in one of her tree-cli expeditions and had passed a coe by the condition of her coat) brushed her, as well Reproached her bitterly for all the anguish of spirit she had causedPassed the afternoon cleaning ean stables, had an easy task in comparison Ran to and fro with driblets of coal; piled hich had been lying under coal; resurrected and vieith dish present-day coal is as a heater, it has one undeniable characteristic -- it is dirtier, and gets into more obscure corners, than any coal ever previously sold Finished the afternoon looking like Old Black Joe, and with a dise hty to remove I suppose I shall have to bury it by stealth in the flower beds

- XXIX -

Sunday: Tiger,fro animals and children in hot weather This is an intolerable nuisance, for when she ran away she was beautifully housebroken, and now she has forgotten her good ive a warning shriek when the demon seizes it, and one can then rush it to the proper quarter, strengthening its er is crafty, and watch her as I will, she always evadesher little surprise in a corner, or under a chair I think she likes to seethe floor-cleaner and disinfectant, and soliloquizing in Old Testae

Monday: To visit soe, and had a very fine ride on the river in a power boat When speaking to the owners of boats I beco their property called anything but ”craft,” and turn green if one speaks of a ”boat-ride” I aood at shoving the boat away fro at ropes e return to the dock True, I co race, but not very recently; when Caesar approached the shores of Britain several members of the Marchbanks family painted themselves blue and set out in their coracles to drive hi to some miscalculation they failed to do it But a coracle is a round affair, more like a soup-plate than a boat, and since the introduction of banana-shaped craft no Marchbanks has ever been anything but a land-lubber

Tuesday: Greatly relieved that the Do a punishable offence I have been a teacup reader for soet tea only once a week, on Sunday evening, and they invariably ask me to read their cups This I do, on a so treats which I know about and they don't; predicting success in school tests of one sort and another; prognosticating dire reprisals if they do not amend certain bad habits Nor is my practice entirely on this humble level I once told fortunes for charity at a church bazaar, and did a roaring trade The things a good fortuneteller must always bear in irl or a child, according to age; (2) everybody is short of ardless of income, and likes to be told that they will find row older, which is likely to prove true; (3) a stroke of good fortune is likely to come to everybody within three months, and may confidently be predicted; (4) nobody believes utterly in fortune-tellers, and very few people utterly disbelieve in theer is not better, so I took her to the veterinary this evening He diagnosed her case as one of garbage-eating; when she ran away she ave me soive pills to a cat; you suddenly draw the cat's head backward, pry open its mouth, shove the pill down into its stomach with a pair of forceps, and whisk the pill briskly around in its insides Then you let go, and the cat uses language that scorches its whiskers I decided that I would use the alternative method, which is to powder the pill and slip it slyly into the cat's food A ht to the seat of the trouble with a sick cow, and giving pills like baseballs to Percheron stallions, er, but I am not in his class as a beast-tamer, and I know it ”A cat is no fool, and she may resent this,” he said: I knew that, too

Thursday: A itation because he thought that there should be hts, and that they should be turned on earlier ”Young people park in cars in those dark places and The Dear knohat goes on,” he said, tre him about Chastity, and how she that has that is clothed in complete steel, but he did not seem to put as much faith in Chastity as in ElectricityI wonder why people always think that dreadful things happen in the dark? When I look back over my own past, and examine my police record and my conscience, I find that the peak-hours of Sin in my wild youth were between 11 am and 2:30 pm If I were a Puritan, I would not worry about parked cars, where nothing much happens beyond the conventional slap-and-tickle which is virtually obligatory in youth; but I would creep abroad atbehind the lace curtains of sober houses on quiet, tree-lined streets It is there that I would find things to o dry and my eyes pop

Friday: I have for many years cherished an unfashi+onable admiration for that unpopular man Prince Albert, Victoria's Prince Consort Not only did he devise the Prince Albert coat, which was one of the best garments of ood ideas He was, for instance, a founder and patron of the Society for Iht that it was a shame that a lot of people lived in poky, dark, nasty little houses, and he tried to do so at this hour! Not only the Industrial Classes but virtually everybody nowadays who builds a house or buys one built during the last twenty-five years, is living in a house which, though it may not be dark, is unquestionably poky Perhaps never, since the era of the Mud Hut, has do costs at a higher one The more civilized we become, the smaller our houses are They may be convenient in so in everybody else's lap and spitting in everyone else's hair And why should space be so dear in a country as big as this?

Saturday: I see that a girl as in the Ha that twelve of the sixty-two contestants wore ”falsies” to give greater impressiveness to their pectoral development This reminded me of the fact that before the war the cadets at the Royal Military College wore ”falsies” also, concealed in their scarlet tunics, in order to add a few inches to their chests I have seen many a convex cadet remove his tunic, only to reveal that he was concave This was standard military practice until the red tunic went out, about the ti cavalry officer was saved froai, or hill-tribesman's snickersnee, had becoht lurk beneath the blouse of a battledress and the s for the pectorally bald are still sold by the principal military outfitters, I a a sermon by an eminent Montreal divine on the subject of frivolity, of which the divine disapproved Pleasure, he said, was a legitio so far as to say that people needed pleasure in their lives; but he warned ainst frivolity This interested me so much that I looked up the word in ht -- ”trivial, e in character and depth of concentration” were only a few of the scathing cohed heavily, for my schoolmasters used to accuse me of frivolousness; my inclination toward untiroith the years If I tended toward frivolity as a boy, I aroup of children playing school today; it seeaely Not reat deal of spanking, asking per sent to the principal The ot that by sheer physical prowess and the smaller ones were reduced to sub school when a child with a group of Roiven the prized role of Sister Mary Somebody, who must have been an uncommonly severe disciplinarian As a mere Protestant, I was only allowed to be the janitor; froh for you, Sister?” whereupon Sister Mary Soive me a stately nod of the head I soon tired of the limited possibilities of the janitor's part and went off to play by , cuffing and scolding

Tuesday: Business took me to Toronto today, and I was ahway Most of theh from time to time one saw a defunct rabbit, a squashed squirrel or a jellied groundhog Why are skunks hway than other animals? Is it because skunks, for thousands of years, have been used to stopping everything by sheer force of personality, and have not yet accustoe? Certainly it is a lesson in the s to see a skunk, once nobly rizzled fur -- by the roadside But it cannot be said of skunks, as it is ofof skunks, was it on purpose that the City of Toronto arranged that symphony of vile effluvia which assaults the nostrils on Fleet Street? Gas works, tannery, glue atelier and soap-rendering emporium all unite in a ferocious stench co roses washed with dew

Wednesday: My garden is a failure again this year My round; my casobans (which should be like trees by now) are sickly shoots; a cow appears to have nested in the re well arelike Jack's beanstalk and seem likely to push doallAnd do I care? No! If Nature doesn't want to co-operate with me she knohat she can do

Thursday: Because there is to be an Orange Walk tomorroas drawn into a discussion of the Battle of the Boyne by two arded it as a matter of the utmost contemporary importance But I soon found that the Battle of the Boyne they were talking about was not the one I learned about in school; my Boyne was ht on July 1, and not on the Glorious Twelfth; and inWilliam's forces were principally colish troops, and not of valiant Ulsterht to have so to do with the fact that he had 35,000James to run ahich ise if not precisely valiantButabout an entirely different fight I quoted them Bernard Shaise dictu; neither did Martin Luther” But they would pay no attention If ere all robbed of our wrong convictions, how ee Walk today I had to go to Toronto again and e the set, deterht for their convictions and rather hoped they would Some of them carried bottles of fife-oil; this is a special lubricator which you drink yourself and then blow into the fifeArrived in Toronto, which is the Roe Order, too late to see the parade there, though I kept , and even saw an Orangeinfant, so covered in rosettes and ribbons that it could hardly breatheIt was a hot, exhausting day, and during the afternoon I was forced to refresh e Pekoe tea

Saturday: Should have worked in arden, but lay in a deck-chair and read Daardening enthusias, fails me, and I make my annual discovery that a weed is just as pretty as a flower if you look at it the right waySo when I was a boy, and I know that many people suffered in the same way Indeed, a friend of arden in his home town for two years in succession, and that this triu labour of my friend and his brothers and sisters Thus it is in many families; the father is the planner and overseer; the children are the toilers and fieldhands; and fros Gardening is an undeh the flowerbeds, weeding and grovelling like the beasts that perish; so the flowers There is the garden-lord and the garden-serf When we are all socialists gardens will vanish from the earth

- xxxI -

Sunday: I do not like showerbaths I am a Wallower, a prone Cleanser Still, I admit that showers save time When I have climbed into the tub with a few books I have withdrawn fro I have not an hour to spare, so I take showers But as soon as I have put myself under the spray, violent hydraulic activity breaks out everywhere in the Towers; laundry-tubs are filled, toilets are flushed, teeth are cleaned, drinks are drawn, hoses are set to work and everything that can possibly be done ater is done i cold, and as I screaain; parboiled, I work the taps feverishly, and instead of improvement, all water ceases to flow; I put eant-major; other voices roar back at araAt soe to step on the soap, and I a of the shower, as in a street-car, or possibly getting a lineman's safety-harness from the Bell Telephone Company Shoill be the death of hty boys used to shout an offensive rhy rats -- of chewing theer-snaps, in fact Today I read that Captain C L Cameron, the explorer, ate rats not merely from necessity, but because they were excellent food Heof breadcrumbs, herbs, and the liver and heart of the animal, and then roasted his rat for a few minutes in a hot oven; he declared the flavour to be delicious and said it was not unlike snipe Which just shows that we are h a foolish prejudice There are constant complaints about the number and destructiveness of rats We have merely to declare the rat a table delicacy and it will immediately become hard to raise, like turkey, and will only eat expensive special fodder, like et rid of dandelions is to declare theile as orchids; the same technique would ith rats

Tuesday: While looking for some other information in a book this afternoon, I stumbled upon an account of the early history of coffee, which apparently first invaded Europe in the guise of a valuablea certain cure for ”consu's Evil and Hypochondriac Winds” Furthermore, it was said that ”It so incloseth the orifice of the stoood to help digestionit htsoland in 1652 than they lish brew is a certain provoker of hypochondriac winds and makes the heart heavy I do not suppose that anyone will ever discover why the English cannot make coffee, while the Americans cannot make tea It is one of those mysteries of racial constitution, like the fact that a Frenchentle so looks like a jackass

Wednesday: The faces of several politicians appeared pro, as they are importantblank lot of ht look like anything at all except an ordinary e collars, fantastic heads of hair, whiskers of extravagant growth and cut, monstrous noses -- all marked them as creatures of a vaster world than that of the ordinary citizen But the characteristic UN face of today is a large, fleshy surface, like a watermelon, with peepy, withdrawn eyes and a mouth like a post-operative scar It is to these that the fate of the world is confided They look like ed in some difficult, shady branch of accountancy Which, of course, is precisely what they are

Thursday: Had to write a letter in a great hurry today, and as I was far from any supply of the paper I a woht me a box of tiny sheets folded in the s and cats playing with balls of wool I suppose I move in a very restricted circle, and am not abreast of modern fashi+ons in these ht on such paper My whole ritted my teeth and wrote my note, but when I sealed the envelope lue on the flap had been inated with an extremely sweet flavour which my benefactress told lue now comes in several delicious flavours If this is really true, it is clear that the country needs a special sta a picture of the Posties and rolue on the stain a whole new field in philately

Friday: My ignorance often appals me It appears that since 1934 there has been a science called Sociometry, of which I have not heard until today Socio with people It decides your Sociometric Status, which is ”the extent to which you are accepted by the group” (What group? Oh, any group ofwhom you may find yourself at the time you have your status taken) and also your Socio whom-you-like and who-likes-you Usually Sociometry is practised on children, as adults do not readily put up with such nonsense For myself, I could cheerfully endure the news that my Sociometric Status was a low one, for I do not consider popularity to be important, and the base trade at which I earn oal for enerally like people who like ht Life is a ree than the practitioners of Socioives it salt

Saturday: Took part in a sing-song, and in thethe words of a song have, the more popular it is likely to be This is especially the case with Spirituals; I sang about the Big Wheel going by faith, and the Little Wheel going by the Grace of God, and I sang about Bones, Dry Bones, and I sang endlessly that I wasn't goin' to grieveI reflected that in all of this hokuht up, and which has been theof my life But I can see that a Spiritual which atteinal Sin, the Fall of Man, or Predestinate Grace, would probably not be very catchy

- xxxII -

Sunday: Not long ago a friend of e, and found a ed himself about two months before; what is more he had been cut down She is deeply anxious to know (a) why he hanged hied; (c) who cut hie that appealed to his s It is thus that life falls short of the movies; in a film she would have immediately have been accepted by the detective in the case as a full partner and would have shared his risks of life and liow, and the full story was in the newspapers But the real-life detective never even asked her to sit all night in the haunted garage and shoot on sight anyone who caination on the part of detectives, who never seem to catch anybody, anyway

Monday: Visited some people today who had justa circu where the varnish was tacky, not leaning where the paint et, and not falling too often into buckets of decorators' paste They had moved in, driven by necessity, before the workmen had finished, and the work a party of painters and decorators likes better than a large house all to theracious life, occasionally doing a little work The only way to oust them is to move in on top of them, and let the children play with all their htThis unhappy couple had only two points at which they could light; one was bed and the other was the verandah All things concurring, they should have the workmen out before the snow flies