The Wooden Horse

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 624, 28 March 1929, Page 8

The Wooden Horse

Aw Occasional Column And with great lies about his wooden horse Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course. — 3. it. Flecker, IT appears from a letter in “The Observer,” seeking for literary and historical references to the oyster, that Hector Bolitho is interested in the oyster. Well, I am. all for Mr Bolitho and for Somers, in “Etiquette,” who Longed to lay him down upon it** shelly bed, and stuff: u* had often eaten oyster*, bnt had never had enongh. I am not insecurely identifying Mr Jiotttho’s interest in the oyster with Somers’s, but declaring myself on the pkS© of both; for it is c-lear that Mr JJolitho is not advertising an appetite. The exact nature of bis bond erf sympathy with the oyster may remain S secret, Hke the secret of Dr Johnson's passion for orange-peel; but the attachment is laudable. Coleridge (or Lamb) thought no man base who loved apple-dumplings, or, it may be, gave up for lost any man who did not tore them. It worried Lamb that,’ as he grew older, he had to confess “a lees and less relish for those innocuous cates.” To Coleridge, then, or Lamb, or both, love of apple-dump--11 tig a seemed either proof positive or proof presumptive of some degree of virtue; and oysters are indicators as reliable. There was a poet called Gerard de Nerval who loved a lobster and kept him as a pet and led him about on a silver chain. This showed only perversity. Had he kept bees or tended a pot-plant or cherished oysterg in a tank it had been better for him. As it was, he perished miserably. Be sure, if Mr Bolitho has a pet, it is not a lobster on a silver chain. One does not write to “The Observer,” concerned about the oyster in history and literature, while a lobster twitches and claws at one’s trouser-leg to signal the time for a promenade. I am glad to have remembered Gerard de Nerval, though, because his singularity reminds me of the' less morbid but as astounding freaks of other literary men. There was, for example, Thomas Day, the author of "Sandford and Mertcm,” who wanted a wife "with a taste for literature and science, for moral and patriotic philosophy" and “simple as a mountain girl, in her dress, her diet, and her manners, fearless and Intrepid as the Spartan wives and Roman heroines,” but thought himself -unlikely to pick her up in the ordinary way. He consequently decided to train this “not Impossible she” himself, chose two orphans, whom he named Sabrina and Lucretia, and educated them according to his own ideas. Lucretia’s invincible stupidity in the, early stages of her preparation saved her from its final rigours and was no bar to her success as a milliner’s apprentice and her marriage with a respectable linendraper; but Sabrina showed such amenability to the process that she did not fail until its last tests were applied. Day was disappointed, at last, to find her wanting in fortitude. he. diynoed melting sealipg-

wax upon her arms sue did not endure u nor When he fired atTher petticoats pistols which she believed to be charged with, ball could she help starting aside or suppress her screams.” He turned from one who was after all so infirm to Honora Snevd . . . and from Honora to her sister Elizabeth . . . and from Elizabeth to Miss Milnes. of Wakefield, strongly recommended to hir* by his friend Dr Small, of Birmingham. He married her, her falling short, by a little, of the hardiness of a mountain girl being compensated by her satisfying perfectly two new requirements, that she shonld have “white and large arms” and “wear long petticoats.” She had. saifi Dr Small; she did, said Dr Small—“uncommonly long.” Mrs Day was a devoted wife, inconsolable when her husband died. Beckford, the rich and eccentric author of “Vathek,” tolerated no intruders upon the magnificent solitude of his estate at Fonthill. A cousin of W. P. Frith, the artist, vowed that he would walk its gardens and penetrate to the house. He watched and waited and at last sneaked in, came on a man whom he thought a gardener and found to be Beckford, and was most hospitably entertained. He viewed the collections—pictures. statuary, armour, and jewels—dined with Beckford in state, and talked an enchanted night away till eleven o’clock, when Beckford left the room. Waiting in a doze before the fire for his host’s return, he suddenly woke to find a footman putting out the lights. “Where i 3 Mr Beckford?” “Mr Beckford has gone to bed.” The footman showed the way to the front door. “Mr Beckford ordered me to present his compliments to you, sir. and I am to say that, as you found your Way into Fonthill without assistance, you may find your way out again as best yon can; and he hopes you will take care to avoid the bloodhounds that are let loose in the grounds every night.” Mr Frith’s cousin climbed the nearest tree and waited for the dawn. “I never did a single wise thing,” said Walter Savage Eandor, ”ln the whole course of my existence, although I have written many which have been thought such.” He threw his cook out of the window for spoiling a dinner. The fellow lay groaning, with a limb broken. Landor looked out and exclaimed; “Good God! I forgot the violets! ” The mathematician Charles Babbage practised an Infallible precaution against the risks of catching cold through sleeping without a nightcap. When unexpectedly obliged to sleep away from home and to do without one, he was always careful to tie a bit of packthread tightly round his head. *T go to sleep imagining that I have a nightcap on; consequently I catch no cold at an.” Ben Jonson used to Tie awake starring at his big toe. Balzac dressed himself up Tike a monk to write. Peacook would scarcely allow Ms household any matches. Professor Newton, the great Cambridge zoologist, objected to trams. Each morning, in tussore silk gown, plaid trousers, and top hat, he walked from Magdalene tit! he picked up the tram-lines, between which he then walked or stalked with a terrible majesty, that forbade any driver to overtake him, till he turned aside towards the Museum. Captain Fitroy very nearly declined to accept Charles 'Darwin sm the naturalist for the voyage of tha Beagle, disliking and distrusting tho chape of bis nose. J. H. E. 8.