Personal Pleasures by Rose Macaulay Page B
Authors: Rose Macaulay
Tags: Personal Pleasures
Ads: Link
the firstlings of the infant year. Jehovah collected firstborns, alike of men, beasts, and plants, saying, âThey are mine,â so the instinct has high and ancient origin.
There are a number of firstlings in this catalogue. They are pathetically cheap. Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence,
John Halifax, Gentleman
, Jerome K. Jerome,
The Way of an Eagle
, and a company of others, many of them ânice copies,â and all about three shillings apiece. Does anyone buy them? I could, for my part, read lists of modern firsts for ever, and remain as full in purse as when I began; I never feel âthey are mine.â I could wish that catalogues contained nothing else, and were not, instead, alive with more perilous seductions.
How these lure one down the page! We are arrived at the Pâs; PEZRON (M.)
The Antiquities of Nations; English by Mr. Jones
, 8vo. calf, stained, 1706. PLAYS. Samuel Foote, calf gilt, cracked, label missing,
8s 6d
, 1799. PLINY.
Naturall Historie of
C.
Plinius Secundus. Trans, by Philemon Holland, very worn
. ⦠POL-WHELE (R.)
The Influence of Local Attachment with respect to Home
, joint cracked, 4s
6d
. POPISH CRUELTY EXEMPLIFIED
in the various Sufferings of Mr. Serres & several other French Gentlemen, done into English by Claud DâAssas
, calf, a few leaves stained, 5s
6d
, 1723. â¦
And so down to Zola and Zoology, the former of which seems to remain a bore, even in a catalogue, while the latter is so enticing that to read the names of its dryest manuals is a stimulant.
A stimulant: yes, the word is apt. To read these catalogues is like drinking wine in the middle of the morning; it elevates one into that state of felicitous intoxication in which one feels capable of anything. I must control myself, and not write to booksellers in haste: there must be a gap between the perusal ofthe catalogue and my postcard. Drinking, said Dr. Johnson, should be practised with great prudence; one must have skill in inebriation. A man without such skill will undertake anything. ⦠I will wait until the effects are worn off, and then write a postcard sober, temperate, moderate, brief, restrained. â¦
But, while I wait, those more intemperate than myself will have rushed in and bought
Mathematicall Magick
, the
New World in the Moon
, the
Theatre of Insects
, and the
Silkewormes
. It is obvious that I cannot wait. Probably I should telephone. â¦
I need a new bookshelf. I am short of money. I could have read all these books in the British Museum; some of them even from the London Library. In short, I am sober again. But I am glad that I was drunk.
Bulls
How agreeable to watch, from the other side of the high stile, this mighty creature, this fat bull of Bashan, snorting, champing, pawing the earth, lashing the tail, breathing defiance at heaven and at me, crooning in ignoble rage (for rage is always ignoble when both causeless and ill directed). How mighty are his sinews, how stout and fierce his horns, how fiery his nostrils, how strong and huge his thews! Did he that made the lamb make him? He is a very king of cows. One sees him roaming the great prairies, lord of a herd, rounded up by cowboys with cracking whips.
That lordly Bull of mine. â¦
How loudly to the hills he croons
,
That croon to him again!
And now here he stands, so near and yet so far, his heart hot with hate, unable to climb a stile.
But suppose that, using his horns as battering-rams, he should rush at it and break it down?
Candlemas
The parroco came before each Candlemas Day to bless the house. He would walk about it, sprinkling holy water, and he would bring each year a tall and lovely candle of entwined and multi coloured wax, which he had blessed. We had, too, a number of little candles, made of long spirals of coloured wax twisted close and coiled up like a snake, to be uncoiled as they burned down. They were red and green and yellow and blue, and of great beauty. We took them out with us for our
There are a number of firstlings in this catalogue. They are pathetically cheap. Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence,
John Halifax, Gentleman
, Jerome K. Jerome,
The Way of an Eagle
, and a company of others, many of them ânice copies,â and all about three shillings apiece. Does anyone buy them? I could, for my part, read lists of modern firsts for ever, and remain as full in purse as when I began; I never feel âthey are mine.â I could wish that catalogues contained nothing else, and were not, instead, alive with more perilous seductions.
How these lure one down the page! We are arrived at the Pâs; PEZRON (M.)
The Antiquities of Nations; English by Mr. Jones
, 8vo. calf, stained, 1706. PLAYS. Samuel Foote, calf gilt, cracked, label missing,
8s 6d
, 1799. PLINY.
Naturall Historie of
C.
Plinius Secundus. Trans, by Philemon Holland, very worn
. ⦠POL-WHELE (R.)
The Influence of Local Attachment with respect to Home
, joint cracked, 4s
6d
. POPISH CRUELTY EXEMPLIFIED
in the various Sufferings of Mr. Serres & several other French Gentlemen, done into English by Claud DâAssas
, calf, a few leaves stained, 5s
6d
, 1723. â¦
And so down to Zola and Zoology, the former of which seems to remain a bore, even in a catalogue, while the latter is so enticing that to read the names of its dryest manuals is a stimulant.
A stimulant: yes, the word is apt. To read these catalogues is like drinking wine in the middle of the morning; it elevates one into that state of felicitous intoxication in which one feels capable of anything. I must control myself, and not write to booksellers in haste: there must be a gap between the perusal ofthe catalogue and my postcard. Drinking, said Dr. Johnson, should be practised with great prudence; one must have skill in inebriation. A man without such skill will undertake anything. ⦠I will wait until the effects are worn off, and then write a postcard sober, temperate, moderate, brief, restrained. â¦
But, while I wait, those more intemperate than myself will have rushed in and bought
Mathematicall Magick
, the
New World in the Moon
, the
Theatre of Insects
, and the
Silkewormes
. It is obvious that I cannot wait. Probably I should telephone. â¦
I need a new bookshelf. I am short of money. I could have read all these books in the British Museum; some of them even from the London Library. In short, I am sober again. But I am glad that I was drunk.
Bulls
How agreeable to watch, from the other side of the high stile, this mighty creature, this fat bull of Bashan, snorting, champing, pawing the earth, lashing the tail, breathing defiance at heaven and at me, crooning in ignoble rage (for rage is always ignoble when both causeless and ill directed). How mighty are his sinews, how stout and fierce his horns, how fiery his nostrils, how strong and huge his thews! Did he that made the lamb make him? He is a very king of cows. One sees him roaming the great prairies, lord of a herd, rounded up by cowboys with cracking whips.
That lordly Bull of mine. â¦
How loudly to the hills he croons
,
That croon to him again!
And now here he stands, so near and yet so far, his heart hot with hate, unable to climb a stile.
But suppose that, using his horns as battering-rams, he should rush at it and break it down?
Candlemas
The parroco came before each Candlemas Day to bless the house. He would walk about it, sprinkling holy water, and he would bring each year a tall and lovely candle of entwined and multi coloured wax, which he had blessed. We had, too, a number of little candles, made of long spirals of coloured wax twisted close and coiled up like a snake, to be uncoiled as they burned down. They were red and green and yellow and blue, and of great beauty. We took them out with us for our
Similar Books
