you must base your calculations on the Golden Number, the Julian year, sidereal time, the helix of the parallax, and whether or not the Virgin has entered the house of Ram. It brought back the sensations which overcame me years ago when I tried to read Chaucer’s treatise on the use of the astrolabe. It gave me a new reverence for photographers, and convinced me forever that they are mightier fellows than mere painters. A painter, like Rubens or Velasquez, is just a chap with a knack; a photographer is a blood brother to the Astronomer Royal.
• O F P ROGRESSIVE C OMMENDATION •
I WAS READING Dorothy Dix this afternoon; she says that it is permissible for a young man to tell a girl he knows fairly well that she has pretty ankles; from this I assume that the better he knows her the higher he may praise her.
• O F P APER H ANGING •
I UNDERTOOK a long-deferred job of paper-hanging thisafternoon; there is a knack to this work which I have not fully mastered. It looks simple enough; the paperhanger slops a lot of paste on a length of paper, throws it carelessly at the wall, gives it some swipes with a brush, and after a few repetitions of this child’s play, the room is done. Unfortunately I was working on a ceiling, and no sooner had I fastened a bit of paper at one end than the other end descended with slow grace, like a ballet dancer, and stuck to my head. What I needed was a ladder on wheels, and somebody to push me rapidly back and forth, as I stroked the paper. Lacking this convenience, I got into some postures which reminded me of the famous statue of Laocoon struggling with the serpents. When the job was done, it lacked that rather characterless professional smoothness; at night the wrinkles catch the light in a manner which will undoubtedly soon be all the rage with professional decorators. “Marchbanks Log Cabin Style,” it will be known as.
• D ESIRING T HIS M AN ’ S A RT AND T HAT M AN ’ S S COPE •
I WENT TO THE country with some children to get pussy-willows the other day. They asked me how the pussy-willows became woolly? I did not know, but made up some quaint lies which pleased them. Psychologists frown on such conduct, I know, but I can’t help it. Sometimes, however, I wish that my only ability did not lie in the direction of concocting untruths of one sort and another. I wish that I were a great wood-carver, or a wonderfully minute jeweller, or a bookbinder—somebody who can make something satisfying with his hands. In an earlier age I suppose I would have been a professional story-teller, sitting in the market place, spinning yams and asking for alms—rightly despised by all the craftsmen who had tangiblewares to sell.… But one must not quarrel with one’s fate, and as it has pleased Providence to make me a sort of accredited prevaricator I must be content.
• O F D ISCONTENT W ITH O NE ’ S A PPEARANCE •
W HY IS IT that people never like pictures of themselves? Earlier today I had a chance to observe a large group who were looking at a number of pictures in which they appeared in various guises, and while they agreed that admirable likenesses of everyone else had been caught they were deeply dismayed by their own faces and forms. Do we all cherish an ideal likeness of ourselves in our bosoms? Do we, when we peep into the mirror, refuse to see the wrinkled necks, the ant-eater noses, the cauliflower ears, the wens and bubukles which are indubitably our own? Or is it that we are all so discontented that we cannot bear the hideous forms with which nature, unwise eating and tight boots have endowed us? Or are we distressed that such horrible scarecrows should house such elegant souls as we know ours to be? I cannot answer these questions. I only know that I have never seen anyone look at a picture of himself with unalloyed pleasure.… No, madam, I did
not
mean anything personal by my remarks about wrinkled necks.… Oh, very well! If the cap fits, wear it.
• H E E NLARGES THE S
• O F P ROGRESSIVE C OMMENDATION •
I WAS READING Dorothy Dix this afternoon; she says that it is permissible for a young man to tell a girl he knows fairly well that she has pretty ankles; from this I assume that the better he knows her the higher he may praise her.
• O F P APER H ANGING •
I UNDERTOOK a long-deferred job of paper-hanging thisafternoon; there is a knack to this work which I have not fully mastered. It looks simple enough; the paperhanger slops a lot of paste on a length of paper, throws it carelessly at the wall, gives it some swipes with a brush, and after a few repetitions of this child’s play, the room is done. Unfortunately I was working on a ceiling, and no sooner had I fastened a bit of paper at one end than the other end descended with slow grace, like a ballet dancer, and stuck to my head. What I needed was a ladder on wheels, and somebody to push me rapidly back and forth, as I stroked the paper. Lacking this convenience, I got into some postures which reminded me of the famous statue of Laocoon struggling with the serpents. When the job was done, it lacked that rather characterless professional smoothness; at night the wrinkles catch the light in a manner which will undoubtedly soon be all the rage with professional decorators. “Marchbanks Log Cabin Style,” it will be known as.
• D ESIRING T HIS M AN ’ S A RT AND T HAT M AN ’ S S COPE •
I WENT TO THE country with some children to get pussy-willows the other day. They asked me how the pussy-willows became woolly? I did not know, but made up some quaint lies which pleased them. Psychologists frown on such conduct, I know, but I can’t help it. Sometimes, however, I wish that my only ability did not lie in the direction of concocting untruths of one sort and another. I wish that I were a great wood-carver, or a wonderfully minute jeweller, or a bookbinder—somebody who can make something satisfying with his hands. In an earlier age I suppose I would have been a professional story-teller, sitting in the market place, spinning yams and asking for alms—rightly despised by all the craftsmen who had tangiblewares to sell.… But one must not quarrel with one’s fate, and as it has pleased Providence to make me a sort of accredited prevaricator I must be content.
• O F D ISCONTENT W ITH O NE ’ S A PPEARANCE •
W HY IS IT that people never like pictures of themselves? Earlier today I had a chance to observe a large group who were looking at a number of pictures in which they appeared in various guises, and while they agreed that admirable likenesses of everyone else had been caught they were deeply dismayed by their own faces and forms. Do we all cherish an ideal likeness of ourselves in our bosoms? Do we, when we peep into the mirror, refuse to see the wrinkled necks, the ant-eater noses, the cauliflower ears, the wens and bubukles which are indubitably our own? Or is it that we are all so discontented that we cannot bear the hideous forms with which nature, unwise eating and tight boots have endowed us? Or are we distressed that such horrible scarecrows should house such elegant souls as we know ours to be? I cannot answer these questions. I only know that I have never seen anyone look at a picture of himself with unalloyed pleasure.… No, madam, I did
not
mean anything personal by my remarks about wrinkled necks.… Oh, very well! If the cap fits, wear it.
• H E E NLARGES THE S
Similar Books
