The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks

by Robertson Davies

  -XXXIII-

  • SUNDAY •

  A sticky dull day; I awoke with the bedclothes sticking to me, my clothes stuck to me, and whenever I arose from a varnished chair there was an audible sound as my trousers tore themselves from the seat. Bathing and fanning were futile; the only thing to do was to keep still and suffer, but this palled during the afternoon and I climbed a hill and looked down over the town; steam rose from it and here and there church spires and factories rose shadow-like above the vapour bath…. What I always say about the Canadian climate is that it saves us millions of dollars in travel; we can freeze with the Eskimo, or sweat with the Zulu, or parch with the Arab, or drench with the Briton, and all in our own front gardens. Sometimes we even have some really beautiful weather, but not often enough to spoil us.

  • MONDAY •

  To the movies this evening and saw a double feature—the first part of which was good, and the second part so bad as to be hugely entertaining. It contained, among other things, the briefest conversion ever witnessed on stage or screen; a priestess of the Sky Goddess (who performed her religious duties by wriggling her caboose in a provocative manner and tossing gardenias to handsome strangers) was told about the Fatherhood of God by an aged beachcomber in thirty seconds; she immediately rushed to her co-religionists, who were preparing to roast the hero, and shouted “Big Ju-Ju him say no kill”, and at once all the amateur cooks knelt, while a shower of rain fell and put out the sacrificial fire. I laughed myself into a serious state of debility during this exhibition, which involved the services of some of the worst actors to be seen anywhere, even on the screen.

  • TUESDAY •

  A man was asking me for information about Dr. Guillotin. I know little about him, except that he was a physician; that he was fifty-one when he came into prominence in 1789, and that he persuaded the French Constituent Assembly to adopt the killing-machine which we connect with the Revolution. “My machine will take off a head in a twinkling, and the victim will feel nothing but a sense of refreshing coolness,” he said to that body. Contrast the humanity of Guillotin with the malignity of the inventor of the electric chair, who causes his victim a sudden sense of intolerable heat; rightly is the chair called “the hot squat.” … Death by the guillotine was not immediate, by the way; several of the bodies struggled and attempted to rise after the knife had fallen, and there is a horrifying and well-authenticated account of the head of one nobleman which was seen to wink as it lay in the basket.

  • WEDNESDAY AND ST. EMMA THE STEATOPYGITE •

  A day of intense heat and demanding work coincided, reducing me to a condition of dripping exhaustion, and furious rebellion against the clothes the male is expected to wear under such circumstances. I am forced to the conclusion that ours is a Lost Age, a period of transition between one great historical epoch and another, and that one of the surest proofs of our moral, spiritual and aesthetic inadequacy is the sartorial thralldom in which men are held. Women—the fattest, oldest and most repulsive—strip for the heat; men—however emancipated they may be in other ways—continue to wear a collection of hot, foolish and ugly garments, designed to bind and chafe at every possible point. These are mad, bad, degenerate days, and no good will come of them, mark my words.

  • THURSDAY •

  Hullabaloo today about the results of the British General Election, which is interpreted in some circles as a mighty triumph for the Common Man. I suppose it is, for it has turned out of office Winston Churchill, who certainly ranked high among the Uncommon Men of our times. I confess that I find the modern enthusiasm for the Common Man rather hard to follow. I know a lot of Common Men myself, and as works of God they are admittedly wonderful; their hearts beat, their digestions turn pie and beef into blood and bone, and they defy gravity by walking upright instead of going on all fours: these are marvels in themselves, but I have not found that they imply any genius for government or any wisdom which is not given to Uncommon Men…. In fact, I suspect that the talk about the Common Man is popular cant; in order to get anywhere or be anything a man must still possess some qualities above the ordinary. But talk about the Common Man gives the yahoo element in the population a mighty conceit of itself, which may or may not be a good thing for democracy which, by the way, was the result of some uncommon thinking by some very uncommon men.

  • FRIDAY •

  Papers full of the British election. For the first time, so far as I know, mention is made of Mr. Attlee’s “attractive, blue-eyed, youthful wife.” It is a continual source of astonishment to me that prominent men always seem to be married to exceptional and attractive women. I recall how attractive Mrs. Baldwin seemed to be to the press when Honest Stan went to Downing Street; Mrs. Chamberlain, also, was a woman in a thousand. The charitable conclusion, of course, is that these wonderful women make their husbands great, and keep in the background while the simpleminded fellow enjoys all the fun…. I wonder if the day will ever come when the wife of a new prime minister or president is described thus: “Mrs. Blank is a dumpy, unattractive woman, who dresses in the worst possible taste, and has frequently embarrassed her husband by her inept remarks in public places; it is generally recognized that he would have achieved office years ago if she had not put her foot in it on so many important occasions.”9 … But no: it is a cherished legend that the wives of eminent men are composed of equal parts of Venus and Juno.

  • SATURDAY •

  To a picnic this afternoon, and had a lot of fun with an echo. There is nothing to compare with an echo for making a man feel god-like; he shouts to the skies, and a great voice returns from the distant hills. But do men ever shout god-like remarks at echoes? No! They shout “Phooey!” and “Boob!” and such-like vulgarities. Once, when I was a mere youth, I belonged to a choral society which rendered an echo-song by Orlando di Lasso, dating from the 16th century, and which consisted wholly of one part of the choir shouting Italian equivalents of Phooey and Boob at the other, with an occasional Ha Ha thrown in to give an air of gaiety. Man’s treatment of echoes is continued in his treatment of radio; having conquered the air to a point where the precepts of the great prophets, and the music of the supreme musicians, might flow over the whole earth, man devotes his invention to elaborations upon the Phooey and Boob theme, with an occasional mention of breakfast food and soap. I dread the day when the First Cause, disgusted with man, will Itself shout Phooey and Boob, and throw our whole Universe down some cosmic drain.

  -XXXIV-

  • SUNDAY •

  Visited some people at a summer cottage today and, as often happens on these occasions, arrived just as there was a lot of hard work to be done. This time it was shifting a bathing float from the beach to the water, and we did it by the method used to build the Pyramids—slave power. After an hour of heaving and straining the accursed thing was in the water and I escaped with nothing more than a cut thumb and a great deal of mud on my person; some of the other guests were in far worse condition. We had earned our tea many times over, and the obvious jubilance of our host did little to cheer us…. A summer cottage can be a love-some thing, God wot! but not unless it has proper plumbing. I am no lover of those old and picturesque privies which have assumed the gravity-defying obliquity of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Employing a special form of Yoga I transcend the physical side of my nature and avoid them utterly.

  • MONDAY •

  An extremely hot day, which I spent on the train surrounded by fractious children, prostrate old ladies and all the usual victims of a temperature of 92 degrees…. Had a two-hour wait at a small junctional point, so I strolled about, viewing the town, and musing idly on the architectural hideousness of Ontario. This town had tried to smarten itself by hacking down most of its trees, giving an indescribable impression of ravagement, like the skull of a woman who has gone bald through a fever.

  • TUESDAY •

  Even hotter today, a fact which was drawn to my attention by several boobs who asked me if it was hot enough for me. I enjoye
d the heat, and took three tepid baths; sometimes I think that I might do well to move to a semi-tropical country; people who do so are said to become lackadaisical, losing their initiative; but I lose my initiative in cold weather, so perhaps it would work the other way for me, and I would become a demon of energy.

  • WEDNESDAY •

  Bruce Hutchison, I see, hotly denies the charge which someone has made that Canadians have no sense of humour. Canada, says he, invented the story about the little boy who got his head stuck in a chamber-pot and had to be taken to a tinsmith to get it off. I wonder what makes him think so. I have a book which quotes the story, at great length, from an English work published in the 1860’s and I have seen it in at least one American collection…. But Hutchison may be right about our national sense of humour, for when once we take up a joke, we never let it go. Old, crippled jokes, worn out in the Barren Lands and the outermost stretches of the Antipodes come to Canada at last, sure that they will have a happy home here for at least a century, and will raise a laugh from affectionate familiarity, if for no other reason. “Not Original, But Faithful To Death” is our motto in matters of humour. We like a joke to go off in our faces, like an exploding cigar, and then we can laugh heartily and get back to glum platitudes again. This characteristic is particularly noticeable in Parliament.10

  • THURSDAY •

  Did some painting this afternoon; this is one household chore which I really do well. Ability as a housepainter and a passion for musical comedy are two characteristics which I share with the late Adolf Hitler—the only two, I believe…. What is more, I can paint without drinking milk; most professional housepainters seem to live entirely on milk; and I believe that they regard it as a potent charm against painter’s colic. I once painted a whole building (a two-storey henhouse) without consuming any liquid beyond a glass or two of water. But last time I had professional decorators in my house they left eighteen milk bottles in it. They were especially fond of chocolate milk and every now and then, in hot weather, a bubble in my paintwork breaks, and emits a long-imprisoned belch of chocolate.

  • FRIDAY •

  This evening a friend of mine, who has recently become a keen amateur of astrology, attempted to cast my horoscope. According to his calculations, I have missed my vocation; I should either have been a postman or a real-estate agent. He also told me that in order to be in tune with my astrological influence, I should dress in pinks, pale blues and yellows; he warned me against over-indulgence in food and drink and a tendency toward diseases of the digestive machinery; he told me my lucky gem and my lucky flower; he told me that if I worked hard (either as a postman or a real-estate agent) I should eventually enjoy a measure of success. I treated him with the derision he deserved…. Although I have no use for people who try to draw up astrological charts with a little knowledge gained from popular books on the subject, I cannot see why astrology should not be given a measure of credence. To believe in it demands an act of faith, but think of all the other things, no less improbable, we believe on acts of faith! If we believe in the findings of astronomers and theologians and physicists, who are always proving each other wrong, I don’t see why we should not believe astrologers, who are quite often right.11

  • SATURDAY •

  As I was cutting my grass today, a passer-by said, “Hullo; are you cleaning up your yard?” By this I knew him to be a Canadian of at least three generations’ standing, for no other English-speaking race uses the word “yard” to describe a lawn, surrounded by flower beds. To me a yard is a small enclosed area, perhaps paved, in which clothes are lined. I looked the word up in my dictionary, and found that the use of yard to describe a garden was labelled as dialect. Presumably it came to Canada many years ago, and took root here. The true Canadian would describe the gardens of Versailles as “Louis XIV’s front yard,” without any sense of insufficiency…. The exact opposite of our national habit may be observed in England where any grassless, desolate, junk-filled bit of vacant ground is called “the garden.” … Another word which persists in Canada and the U.S. is “stoep” for a sitting-out place, although most of us now use the elegant Portuguese word “verandah.” Thus a Canadian of the uncompromising old stock sits on his stoep and looks at his yard, whereas his more cosmopolitan children sit on the verandah and look at the garden. If the verandah roof leaks, it may also be called a “loggia.”

  -XXXV-

  • SUNDAY •

  Attended a small gathering this evening where one of the guests went frankly and unashamedly to sleep and put in a good two hours on a sofa; I hasten to add that this was not alcoholic stupor, but fatigue, caused by giving aid and comfort at a children’s party earlier in the day. The incident reminded me of a shameful evening in my own life when I went sound asleep while Prof. Ralph Flenley was explaining some obscure aspects of the Napoleonic wars. To contradict a professor is enough to make him hate you, but to go to sleep while he is talking curdles the milk of human kindness in his breast.

  • MONDAY •

  Since the war the mortality among animals, domestic and wild, has surely doubled. Last Friday and Saturday I passed a dead hen, two dead cats, a groundhog which had been called home, and a spaniel which was noisily engaged in making its way toward Abraham’s bosom. Today I spied a brown shape on the road which I could not identify, and I asked the lady who was driving me to stop; she did so, and I found that it was a porcupine. I pointed out to her that the animal showed no sign of having died a violent death, and might have had heart-disease; she replied that it looked somewhat run-down to her. I ignored this cheap raillery, and examined the corpse; the porcupine is not a lovely object, and lacks dignity in death.

  • TUESDAY •

  Was talking to a man tonight who had seen service with the R.A.F. in Africa, in Sierra Leone. He tells me that in that part of the world a young woman’s dowry is likely to be reckoned in sewing-machines, which she buys with the pay which she received in return for special services rendered to the white troops. A girl with six or seven sewing-machines can afford to pick and choose among the eligible young men of her own race. The custom of the dowry has virtually died out among all except the most wealthy, in our Anglo-American civilization. A young man who takes a wife must choose her for her beauty of character, or of figure, alone. He stands to get nothing else with her except the expenses inseparable from housekeeping and raising a family. The average Canadian bridegroom cannot even count on six sewing-machines. It’s the man who pays, and pays, and pays.

  • WEDNESDAY •

  A hullabaloo has arisen because a Cabinet Minister told some union representatives to get the hell out of his club, where they were pestering him as he tried to eat a sandwich. The heart of many an industrialist has warmed to this man as they have longed to say the same thing themselves on many occasions, but feeling in labour circles is intense…. As a politician myself (leader, secretary and permanent executive of Marchbanks’ Humanist Party) I understand the Minister’s action perfectly. There comes a time in every man’s life when he wants to tell somebody who is pestering him to go to hell, and if he does not indulge the whim he is likely to get psychic strabismus, which, in its turn, leads to spiritual impotence. And spiritual impotence is the curse of our country as it is.

  • THURSDAY •

  I see that Alfred Hitchcock intends to make a film version of Hamlet, only he will change it about considerably, and will leave out the poetry; Cary Grant is to star in this masterpiece. I can just see it; Hamlet will no longer be a Prince, but a truck-driver in a small American town; he will be ultra-democratic, and everybody will call him “Ham.” … Of course the Hays Office could never permit a film version of the Shakespearean Hamlet, because its theme is too closely bound up with incest to be tolerable to the pure minds of moviegoers. The movies insist that a good boy must love his dear old Mom, but wisely, and not too well.

  • FRIDAY •

  This is the time of year when households are shaken to their foundations by the annual Pi
ckle War. There was a time when the only limit on the amount of pickles “done down” each year was that imposed by the physical endurance of the sweating squaws. When women began to faint and fall into the seething cauldrons of Chili Sauce, the time had come to call a halt (unless you happened to like Chile Con Carne, and hired girls happened to be cheap). But with sugar rationed, the problem is now how much of each pickle is to be made? Personally, I favour Marchbanks’ Peach Pickle, which is made thus: put half a fine peach in the bottom of a brandy glass, add two fingers of brandy, two teaspoonfuls of sugar, and fill up with cream; drink at once. A simpler version is this: sugar a peach lightly, put it in a brandy glass, add two fingers of cream and fill up with brandy; drink at once. Or here is a quick recipe for lazy cooks; eat a peach, and immediately drink a tumblerful of brandy. The last has the advantage of conserving the sugar, and is highly recommended for this reason, I understand. Marchbanks’ Peach Pickle is guaranteed to add zest to the simplest meal; it is also the quickest pickle you ever had.

  • SATURDAY •

  To the movies tonight, and was given a seat next to a woman who brought a baby, which was certainly not more than eight months old. It was suffering with gas on its stomach, so she had laid it upside down over her knees, and was rolling it to and fro as she watched the picture…. So I moved to a seat next to an elderly woman who was enjoying the film in her bare feet; she had a pair of shoes, but she held them in her lap—to save them, I suppose. These incidents made me thankful for Rita Hayworth who was young, beautiful, clothed, right side up, and apparently in excellent health.

  -XXXVI-