The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks

  • MONDAY •

  A cold, wet, foggy day—a sort of Indian winter; people who have gone about during the fine weather gloating that we should pay for it later are in the seventh heaven of delight because of the fulfilment of their prophecy. Business took me to Toronto, the Ontario Babylon, and in an odd moment, I tried to buy a copy of Edmund Wilsons latest book,1 but was told it had been banned from sale in Canada. Why? And by whom? Why is it that my government, which takes anything up to eighteen months to check and return my Income Tax form, can tell me what I may not read within a fortnight of the book’s publication? I should like to know whether the official who banned this book read it through? I should like to know whether he knows anything about Edmund Wilson and his work? I should like to know what, specifically, he objected to in the book which he banned? Is this official a critic? What education has he had? I imagine him as a little man with thin lips and rimless spectacles who does not read himself (his real job is checking invoices for the Customs) but who acts on suggestions from professional sin-sniffers—a class abounding in our fair land.

  • TUESDAY •

  Train-travel tonight, and I sat up in a daycoach, reading. Everyone else, however, was disposed to sleep, and curled up in astonishing contortions on the seats; they looked as though they had all eaten toadstools, and died in agony. A young airman across the aisle from me took off his tunic, his tie and his boots, scratched himself as thoroughly as decency allowed, and laid himself down with his feet under my nose; I tapped the feet with my book; and he moved them a little nearer to himself, but they were still plainly visible out of the corner of my eye. A soldier nearby stuck his clenched fist into his mouth, which gave his snores a hollow bassoon-like quality. The women, for the most part, tucked their heads out of sight and elevated their hind-quarters, like Mohammedans praying. The air was heavy with the frowsy, dead stench of sleeping humanity. I sat bolt upright, feeling like the only reveller at a wake, and read the night through, starting nervously whenever the owner of the socks kicked in his sleep, or when the fist-sucker seemed in danger of strangulation, or when one of the women groaned. Toward morning they all looked greenish-gray, which added nothing to the charm of the scene.

  • WEDNESDAY •

  As I was slicing some bread this morning there was a ring at my door, and I opened it to find an ugly-faced ruffian with a heavy paunch standing on the mat. “D’yuh own this house or rent it?” he demanded. “Who wants to know?” I asked. “I do,” said Pauncho; “this house had oughta be insulated, and if yuh don’t own it there’s no good my wastin’ time talkin’ to yuh.” I disembowelled him neatly with the breadknife, and called the Sanitation Department to come and clear away the mess…. I am often amazed that reputable firms, anxious to sell their products, will permit underbred, impudent, discreditable, rascally slubberdegullions to go from house to house, losing friends and alienating people from them. Nowadays, when there are so many government snoops and stool-pigeons asking questions everywhere, mere hawkers of potato-peelers, loose-leaf encyclopaedias, and patent jam-jar rings think that they may adopt the same insulting tone. Consumption, cancer and the pox are all said to be on the increase in this country, but in my opinion the disease of bad manners is outstripping them all.

  • THURSDAY •

  Visited the dentist today, and as I was a few minutes early I had a chance to look around his waiting-room and make a few Holmes-like deductions from what I saw. Like all dentists, he is apparently a slow reader, for magazines which other people discarded in the 1942 salvage drive are just beginning to find their way to his table. Examined his diplomas carefully. Why do all the boss-dentists who sign these things write so illegibly? A man who cannot control a pen any better than that is surely a dangerous fellow to be poking around in one’s mouth with the nut-picks and tiny power-driven grindstones which dentists use. Lying on the table was a parcel which obviously contained a pound box of a popular brand of candy, left there by the patient who was at that moment in the monster’s clutch. “Aha,” I thought; “a woman, obviously, and a self-indulgent woman at that; probably fat.” But when the door opened the candy was claimed by a big bruiser in a leathern jerkin, who had been getting his snappers put in condition for a delicious feast of nougat, chocolate creams, fudge, and caramels. There are times when I think that Sherlock Holmes was a fraud.

  • FRIDAY •

  My furnace passed peacefully away in its sleep last night; I could have prolonged its life with a transfusion of coke, but I thought it better not to do so; its temperature had risen to 82 degrees2 and I was sweltering, so I let nature take its course. The obsequies will be celebrated very quietly by the ash-man…. Thus ends another winter’s epic struggle, and as I watched my old enemy grow colder and colder this morning, I was able to think of him with the magnanimity of a victor. He did all he could to outwit me, but science, skill, experience, and superior brainpower were on my side. When I hung up my long poker and my clinkerhook, my scraper and my shaker, and put the shovel in the corner, there was triumph in my heart, but a little sadness too…. My furnace now being extinct, and invalid as a source of grief and irritation to me, I masochistically turn my attention to my garden. I am learning about gardening in the only practical way—by experience. Last year I planted $3.45 worth of flower seeds, all in five-cent packages, and not one single bloom rewarded my efforts. Maybe my method was wrong. My desire was to have a garden which might be described as “a riot of bloom,” and so I mixed all my sixty-nine packets of seeds in a big bowl and sowed them broadcast through the flower beds; all I got was the usual riot of weeds. But once again I am filled with hope for my garden. Upon the pleasures of the past the sun never sets, and over its horrors the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy.

  • SATURDAY •

  Was trying to explain about Hitler to some children today; he was, I said, a very bad man. “Was he the kind that wanted his custard before he’d eaten up all his meat and vegetables?” one of them asked. I said that his sins had been even more scarlet than that, but was unable to abridge the iniquities of the Third Reich to nursery terms, for fear of putting ideas into their heads…. It turned cold tonight, and as my fireplace was inadequate for my wants, I had to relight my furnace. I make no bones about it; this was an humiliation which I found hard to swallow. The furnace giggled and sniggered and made thumping noises all evening, just to let me know that it was there, and had not finished with me yet.

  -XV-

  • SUNDAY •

  The press of the times forced me to work today, just as though it were any Monday or Tuesday, which afflicted me abominably. I hate work, regarding it as the curse of Adam, and am fully in sympathy with the medieval view that work is an ignoble way of passing the time, beneath the dignity of anyone of fine feelings or intelligence. However, as there was no escape, I pushed my pen and punched my typewriter all day, and all evening till bedtime, taking time off only for a short walk. When I returned, my furnace had gone out. Tired of being checked, it yielded up the ghost, leaving only a mass of clinkers in the firepot. Addressed myself to the task of relighting it, and at last, when I was worn to a nubbin and hysterical with exasperation, the new fire was ready, and in time a gentle warmth stole through the house.

  • MONDAY •

  Tonight to the movies to see a Noel Coward film3 of which I had heard and read a variety of conflicting criticisms. I enjoyed it very much, but I can understand that many Canadians would not care for it because it dealt with a kind of English life which is unfamiliar to most people here. So far as acting, directing and humour were concerned, I thought it far beyond all but the best Hollywood products…. Right behind me was a fellow who had brought his deaf and blind fiancée to the films, and he explained every piece of action to her in detail, and repeated all the dialogue as well. I thought the girl was dumb, too, but whenever anything particularly moving came on the screen, she said “Jeeznitawful,” which I interpreted as an expression of emotion…. When this picture was sho
wn in Ottawa, there was a newspaper controversy about the accent in which the characters spoke, which refined Bytowners thought common. It is interesting that most Ontario people suffer from the delusion that they speak without an accent of any kind, and that corruption of the King’s English exists only outside the confines of this blessed spot, this earth, this Ontario.

  • TUESDAY •

  Looked out of an upstairs window this morning and saw a squirrel apparently fast asleep on the roof of my woodshed; when I returned five minutes later it was still dozing peacefully in the sun. I did not know that squirrels ever rested in this lazy way; I thought that only the more highly developed mammals, like man, had enough sense to keep still for long periods when the weather was fine…. A friend who wants to save my soul has sent me three tracts, which I have added to my collection of works of edification. One of them tells of a “devoted Christian businessman” who was knocked down by a truck, and called his family about him for a deathbed orgy; to all of them he said “Good-night” except Charlie, the Black Sheep; to Charlie he said “Good-bye” in such a significant manner that Charlie was soon brought to his knees, “crying out in agony of soul” and repenting. “Charlie is now a preacher of the Gospel,” says the tract, triumphantly…. Another is about a wicked sea-captain who repented on his deathbed in time to be saved; a cabin-boy with a Bible completed the job just in the nick of time. The eventual profession of this boy is not mentioned.

  • WEDNESDAY •

  Woke early this morning, looked out my window, and saw snow descending in large wet flakes; later, when I had summoned up the energy to get out of bed, the sun was shining brightly; as I sat down to breakfast, the skies clouded and it began to rain. This reminded me of Sir William Watson’s painful lines:

  April, April,

  Laugh thy girlish laughter;

  Then, the moment after,

  Weep thy girlish tears.

  I have long thought that these displays of meteorological hysterics might better be described thus:

  Idiot April,

  You dribble and grin;

  Calm yourself, April,

  Wipe off your chin.

  This in turn reminded me of the girl in Schubert’s song who laughed and wept by turns, and didn’t know why, but coyly suspected that she must be in love. I have known plenty of girls who were in love, in my time, and I never saw one yet who behaved in this uncertain manner; they all looked like the cat who had just swallowed the canary.

  • THURSDAY •

  Attacks on my peace of mind are unpleasantly common this week. Today a man presented me with a volume called Seven Years Street Preaching in San Francisco, California, Embracing Triumphant Death Scenes. He said that he thought I needed it more than anybody…. It has its lively side: I am particularly impressed with the author’s observations on an auctioneer whom he saw in San Francisco: “If we could get ministers to cry aloud as earnestly over living immortal souls as this man does over spoiled cheese at two cents a pound, what a waking up they would produce among the sleeping thousands of this land!” … The triumphant death scenes are very choice, particularly those of Orlando Gale and Romeo Darwin, both of Ohio, and I am amazed that dying women and men should be able to find breath to make such long and involved speeches. I notice that the author has little hope for those who died outside the Methodist faith, and is particularly scathing about the Church of Rome. Upon the whole I judged that the writer of this book has never been exceeded in zeal, even by auctioneers selling spoiled cheese.

  • FRIDAY •

  Paid a visit today to the liquor store, that mighty democratic institution, where I hobnobbed with high and low, rich and poor, clergy and laity for twenty minutes or so, while waiting my turn. Was not pleased to see a little girl there with her mother; the child could not have been more than four years old. Now was it her mother’s fault, that desire for a bottle of Ontario wine caused her to bring her child into that crowd, or the fault of our fatherly government, which makes the purchase of liquor so complex an undertaking? How long will it be before they learn to treat liquor sensibly in this country?

  • SATURDAY •

  Meant to do some gardening this afternoon, but as a heavy snowfall made it impossible, I enjoyed a pleasant swoon on a sofa for a couple of hours, and arose much refreshed…. Then to a party, where I showed my prowess at those games where you have to fill out forms saying who Cain’s wife was, and whether it was Lincoln or Petrillo4 who said “We must save the Union at all costs.” I like games of that sort; the games I hate are those where somebody comes into the room and says that his first is in coffee but not in tea, and his second is in India but not in Canada, and so forth, until he has told you everything except what you want to know, namely, when the refreshments are going to appear.

  -XVI-

  • SUNDAY AND METABOLISM OF ST. PANCREAS •

  To the zoo this afternoon, and watched some boys who were busy trying to goad the bear into a display of temper. Reflected that their bravery depended entirely upon the strength of the wire around the bear-pen, and wished that the prophet Elisha would suddenly appear and repeat his vindictive trick as described in 2 Kings ii; of all created creatures, there is surely none capable of such bone-headed, thoughtless cruelty as a healthy growing boy…. Looked at some owls which sat blinking and solemn in the daylight; a friend who was with me turned to me and said, “If you put that big one in an expensive suit and sat him behind a desk he could do as well as the manager of any business in the country.”

  • MONDAY •

  Saw seeds for sale in a shop today, and was sorely tempted. Every spring I have to fight the desire to go on a seed-buying spree; it has been my lifelong habit to plant three seeds where one would do, and I usually buy several packages of everything, including watermelon and century plant. I love the gay pictures on the little envelopes, and the brave, boastful directions on the back of each package. “Sow in open soil when all danger of frost is past”; “plant in a cold frame and set out in June”; “separate until plants are one-sixteenth of an inch apart”—I know all the directions, and could write a gardening-book myself. The only trouble is that I am rarely able to grow any flowers, because I always forget what I have planted, and when the time comes to thin the flowers, I never can tell them from the weeds.

  • TUESDAY •

  Sent a telegram today containing the word “critic.” Had a hard time convincing the girl who took my message that such a word existed, and that I did not mean “cricket.” Later on I went into a bookshop and asked for Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of A Little Town. And—so help me, Jimmy Johnson—the girl in the shop had never heard of it! One of the finest, if not the finest, book ever written about Canadian life, read all over the world and translated into several foreign languages, and she had never heard of it! What do these people learn at school? What occupies the chamber in their minds where miscellaneous information should be stored? How do they manage to get through life without finding out anything? And how do these intellectual shut-ins ever get jobs?

  • WEDNESDAY •

  I may not be able to grow flowers, but my garden produces just as many dead leaves, old overshoes, pieces of rope and bushels of dead grass as anybody’s and today I bought a wheelbarrow to help in clearing it up. I have always loved and respected the wheelbarrow; it is one wheeled vehicle of which I am perfect master. I cannot drive a car, I fall off bicycles, and the only time I tried to get into a wheelchair it tipped forward and threw me out. But with a wheelbarrow I am any man’s equal.

  • THURSDAY •

  Several of my friends who are zealous in the temperance cause are back from Toronto today with sore throats—the result of their impromptu serenade of the Premier at Queen’s Park yesterday. They tell me that they sang the four verses of Fight the Good Fight at least seventeen times, while the depraved, rum-loving M.P.P.s sat in their velvet chairs roaring, “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest,” and “They took the ice right off the corpse and put it in the b
eer,” and other gems of pot-house psalmody…. A dog-breeder tells me that the Mexican Chihuahua is given gin in puppyhood to stunt its growth. I knew that Hollywood child actors were given gin for this purpose, but I never before heard of a dog being shrunk with gin. Perhaps that accounts for the permanently sozzled expression of the Chihuahua, and its peculiar bark, which sounds so much like a hiccup.

  • FRIDAY •

  A conference which is going on now has caused the papers to be filled with cartoonists’ ideas of what personified Peace looks like; she is either an iron-jawed, gimlet-eyed female with a bust like the prow of a destroyer, or she is a droopy, big-eyed miss with no bosom at all, who looks as though she lived entirely on marsh-mallows; in both cases she wears a garment equally suggestive of a modest girl’s nightie, and the glory that was Greece. Why should Peace be such a pill? … I am going to import one of those pretty little owls from Greece; they are about a foot high, and extremely fetching in appearance. They are the true owls of Minerva, and very intelligent; they say “Whoo!”5 in Greek…. I get a good deal of mail, but little of it is personal, and none of it is interesting. The strangest people and institutions choose to send me letters. The railways, for example, keep sending me messages boasting about how much money they have made, which I think dreadfully bad taste. What would they think of me if I sent them letters saying, “Last year, after paying all bills and charges, Marchbanks had $7.68 to spend as he liked.” They would be disgusted; so am I.