Chapter IX

I went back to my chambers and told my man to pack a single portmanteau. There were just three hours before the boat-train. Before I left I wrote ten letters....

No. 10. MR. G. BERNARD SHAW

_Fragment from an Unwritten Play_

MAHOMET THE PROPHET

+ACT II+

_The library of the Prophet’s house at Medina. As the audience is looking straight into a corner, only two walls are seen. The right wall contains two high windows, through which much blue sky is visible; between them_ +MAHOMET+ _is seated, with his back to the audience, at a handsome oak writing-desk. At the far end of the left wall is a door, and along the rest of its length runs a long blue divan, piled with multicoloured cushions, on which recline_ +AYESHA+, _a slender girl with deep black eyes, pale cheeks, and golden hair, and two others of the Prophet’s eighty wives. They are drinking coffee from brass bowls and turning over the pages of illustrated magazines. The floor is strewn with rich rugs._

_After five minutes’ silence the Prophet stretches his arms, rises, and turns round. He is a fleshy man with huge head, hands, and feet. His eyes are red, his nose imperious, and his beard covers half his chest. He walks up and down nervously jerking his hands, then stands still, right centre._

+MAHOMET+: Well, well, my poor dead Khadija!

+THE WIVES+: We think you might have the decency to refrain from mentioning our predecessor in front of us.

+MAHOMET+: Don’t be absurd, my dears. You, Ayesha, ought to have had more sense. You ought to know that my feelings are perfectly natural. Here has the army just been cutting up the big summer caravan to Mecca, chock-full of all the latest things from Constantinople. I have become the biggest property-owner in Arabia; and you refuse to let me lament the death of Khadija, who used to run the grocery-shop with me. Your behaviour is monstrous. I shall present you all at Christmas with complete editions of August Strindberg.

+AYESHA+ (_screaming_): No, no, anything rather than that!

+MAHOMET+: Well, mend your manners then. It is simply intolerable that I should drudge like a slave working up this prophet business for a pack of ungrateful women, and then get treated like this. (_Enter_ +ABU+, _a white-bearded servant, with a card on a tray_.) Schopenhauer was right ... or was it Weininger?

+ABU+ (_advancing_): Weininger, sir. I am sure that is correct, sir. I know his book very well. I used to read it to my poor wife, sir, when she was in her last illness. (_Wipes his eyes_.) It was a great solace to her.

+MAHOMET+ (_taking the card and looking at it_): I thought I had told you I was not at home. I am supposed to be at the front.

+ABU+ (_turning to go_): Very well, sir.

+MAHOMET+: Here, come back. Is there any news from Mecca?

+ABU+ (_rubbing his head_): Oh, yes, sir! I quite forgot, sir. The excitement of the moment, I suppose, sir. Mecca was taken last Sunday, sir. It was dark, sir, and your men ran into the town by mistake. The other side had run out of it by mistake. Yes, it must have been an exceedingly dark night, sir.

+MAHOMET+: Any converts?

+ABU+: Well, sir, it is like this, sir; there were not many left when your honour’s men had finished. A few children, perhaps. But the general who was impersonating your honour had a great reception from the troops. (_Goes out._)

+MAHOMET+ (_to_ +AYESHA+): Abu is really getting ridiculous. We cannot possibly keep the old fool any longer; he may give me away at any time if he goes on like this. Why the devil can’t you put an advertisement for a servant in the paper as I asked you to?

+AYESHA+ (_sulkily_): Where would you be if I left off writing your wretched old Koran for you?

+MAHOMET+: Precisely where I am, my dear. You are not indispensable. Anybody else could easily continue my Koran. In fact I think it would actually be a good thing to make a change. All those disgusting things you’ve put in about women, and so on. They really revolt me with their tactlessness.

(_There is a great noise at the door, which suddenly gives way and lets in a tall, restless, thin man with a high forehead and a forked red-grey beard. He is dressed in a fawn-coloured all-wool coat and knickerbockers and wears a red tie. He nods his head sideways with a gay smile, rubs his hands and takes up his stand with his back to the corner._ +MAHOMET+ _and the women all stare at him in amazement, for they have never seen a dramatist before_.)

+THE DRAMATIST+: Come along, Prophet, brighten up. You must certainly know my name. I think this inhospitality is perfectly disgraceful. (+MAHOMET+ _makes a threatening move towards him_.) No, no, don’t bother about ringing for coffee for me. I don’t drink your barbarous poisons. Don’t you think you might introduce me to the ladies, Mahomet?

+MAHOMET+ (_to the women_): Go to your rooms at once. I cannot possibly let you listen to the conversation of this pernicious Englishman.

(+AYESHA+ _and the others, with evident reluctance, get up and file through the door, the last shutting it behind her_.)

Well, sir, to what do I owe this most unwarrantable intrusion?

+THE DRAMATIST+: Now, now, my friend, you can’t come it over me like that. I shall blacken your character thoroughly if you are not careful. The truth is, that I came here for the simple reason that though I have frequently put my own name into my characters’ mouths, I have never hitherto actually introduced myself as a person in one of my plays. After all, when you come to think of it, my habit of expressing my sentiments through invented characters has been utterly fantastic. And, besides, some of these confounded actors have made hay with the parts by trying to turn them into other people. One of these days I shall have to start a school for actors. No actor ought to be under eighty years of age. Men younger than that always will insist on interposing their own personalities between the author and his public. What I want is some one who will speak my lines. What on earth do people think my plays are for? I wasn’t born in order that a lot of stupid mummers should have an opportunity of parading their temperaments in public. At all events, here I am, you old reprobate (_takes out his watch and looks at it_), and I propose to talk to you for your good----

+MAHOMET+ (_groaning and sinking on divan_): But what do you want to write a play about me for? I have never done you any harm. I am only a poor prophet, earning an honest living. My Arabians are a simple, unsophisticated people, and they have never seen a play in their life, except my butler, who is merely a menial and doesn’t count.

+THE DRAMATIST+: Now, really, my dear Prophet, this is the basest ingratitude. Why, in most of my plays the characters have had to tolerate a simple honest Englishman introduced into their midst. I can assure you that if I had sent you one of those instead of very kindly coming myself, you would have found him much duller company than you are finding me. Upon my oath, I think you ought to pay me for letting you off so lightly.

+MAHOMET+ (_blubbering_): But why do you want to drag me into it at all? Especially as my dislike of art is notorious.

+THE DRAMATIST+ (_elevating his eyebrows_): Well, my friend, if you insist, I will tell you; but your blood be upon your own head. You have about you several characteristics that make it inevitable that sooner or later I should nobble you. In the first place you are exceedingly well known; in the second place you are a humbug and an impostor; in the third place you are a shameless polygamist; and, in the fourth place, if you refer to any decent encyclopædia, you will find that you are probably an epileptic, like Cæsar and Napoleon. I ask, have you the atrocious conceit to think that you have a right to escape what Cæsar and Napoleon have had to submit to? Why, my dear sir, the thing is perfectly preposterous. I wonder you aren’t ashamed of yourself. I shall really have to write to the _Times_ about you.

+MAHOMET+: Wallah, Billah, Allah, Bismillah! (_He falls to the ground, foaming at the mouth._ +THE DRAMATIST+ _rings bell in the wall_. +ABU+ _enters_.)

+THE DRAMATIST+: My friend, your master seems a little indisposed.

+ABU+: Yes, sir. So it appears, sir. Very sad, sir. Unavoidable tragedy of our time. Clash of ideas, sir, and so on.... (_Picks up the_ +PROPHET+ _and props him against divan_. +THE DRAMATIST+ _goes out_.)

+MAHOMET+ (_recovering his senses_): My God, Abu, where am I?... I’ve had a good many visions and revelations, but never one quite so bad as this!

+CURTAIN+

HOW THEY WOULD HAVE DONE IT

No. 1. IF WORDSWORTH HAD WRITTEN “THE EVERLASTING MERCY”

Ever since boyhood it has been my joy
To rove the hills and vales, the woods and streams,
To commune with the flowers, the beasts, the birds,
And all the humble messengers of God.
And so not seldom have my footsteps strayed
To that bare farm where Thomas Haythornthwaite
(Alas! ’tis now ten years the good old man
Is dead!) wrung turnips from the barren soil,
To keep himself and his good wife, Maria,
Whom I remember well, although ’tis now
Full twenty years since she deceased; and I
Have often visited her quiet grave
In summer and in winter, that I might
Place some few flowers upon it, and returned
In solemn meditation from the spot.
In the employment of this honest man
There was a hind, Saul Kane, I knew him well,
And oft-times ’twas my fortune to lament
The blackness of the youth’s depravity.
For when I came to visit Haythornthwaite
The good old man, leaning upon his spade,
Would say to me, “Saul Kane is wicked, sir;
A wicked lad. Before he cut his teeth
He broke his poor old mother’s heart in two.
For at the beer-house he is often seen
With ill companions, and at dead of night
We hear him loud blaspheming at the owls
That fly about the house. I oft have blushed
At deeds of his I could not speak about.”
But yet so wondrous is the heart of man
That even Saul Kane repented of his sins--
A little maid, a little Quaker maid,
Converted him one day. “Saul Kane,” she said,
“Dear Saul, I pray you will get drunk no more.”
Nor did he; but embraced a sober life,
And married Mary Thorpe; and yesterday
I met him on my walk, and with him went
Up to the house where he and his do dwell.
And there I long in serious converse stayed,
Speaking of Nature and of politics,
And then turned homeward meditating much
About the single transferable vote.

No. 2. IF SWINBURNE HAD WRITTEN “THE LAY OF HORATIUS”

_N.B.--Read this aloud, with resonance, nor examine too closely the meaning_

May the sword burn bright, may the old sword smite, that a myriad
years have worn and rusted?
May an old wind blow where the young winds go immaculate over the
eager land?
May faded blossoms on ripening bosoms flame with lust as of old they
lusted,
Or the might of a night take flight with the white sweet arms of a
dead Dionysian band?
Ah, nay! for the rods of the high pale gods the power of the past
have spilled and broken
And over the fields the amaranth yields her guerdon of gossamer,
bitter as rue,
And the desolate blind sad ghost of the wind falters and fails as a
word that was spoken
Long since of a fire and a blazing pyre of perjured monarchs and
kings untrue.[1]

The sword may smite and the keen sword bite though the clouds in the
sky be clouds of peril,
Though the Teuton glance at the flanks of France and the hand of
Fate be a hand unseen,
For the brave man’s[2] arm was swift to charm and the coward’s arm
was weak and sterile
Or ever the Saxon galleons swam to England[3] over the waters green
And over the high Thessalian hills the feet of the maidens fail and
falter,
Samian waters and Lemnian valleys, Ithacan rivers and Lesbian seas,
And the god returning with frenzy burning foams at the foot of a
roseless altar,
And dumb with the kiss of Artemis and the berries of death the
virgin flees.

_With persistence and luck the reader, after eighty verses or so, would have come to something as specific as this_:

For the triumph of the trampling of the nations And the laughter of
the loud Etrurian[4] gates
And the thunder of a host of desolations And the lightning of an
avalanche of hates
Never daunted thee or made thy cheek the paler
On the bridge which thou didst hold as held the fleet
Drake, our own superb Elizabethan sailor,
Yea, and drove the bloody tyrant from his seat.

No. 3. IF MR. MASEFIELD HAD WRITTEN “CASABIANCA”

“You dirty hog,” “You snouty snipe,”
“You lump of muck,” “You bag of tripe,”
Such, as their latest breaths they drew,
The objurgations of the crew.
---- ---- ---- they roared
As they went tumbling overboard,
Or frizzled like so many suppers
All along the halyard scuppers.
“You ----” ... the last was gone,
And Cassy yelled there all alone.
(He thought the old man was on the ship.)
“Father! this gives me the fair pip!”

“My God, you old vagabone,” he cried,
“If only I....” No voice replied;
Only the tall flames higher sprang,
Amid the spars, and soared and sang,
Only along the rigging came
God’s great unfolding flower of flame,
And Love’s divine dim planet shed
Her radiance on the many dead;
And past the battling fleets the sea
Stretched to the world’s edge tranquilly,
Breathing with slow, contented breath
As though it were in love with Death,
As it has breathed since first began
Man’s inhumanity to man,
As it will do when like a scroll
All the heavens together roll.
There’s that purple passage done
And I have one less lap to run.

Dogs barked, owls hooted, cockerels crew,
As in my works they often do
When, flagging with my main design,
I pad with a descriptive line.
Young Cassy cried again: “Oh, damn!
What an unhappy put I am!
Will nobody go out and search
For dad, who’s left me in the lurch?
For dad, who’s left me on the poop,
For dad, who’s left me in the soup,
For dad, who’s left me on the deck.
Perhaps it’s what I should expeck
Considerin’ ’ow he treated me
Before I came away to sea.”

“Often at home he used to beat
My head for talking in the street,
Often for things I didden do,
He brushed my breeches with a shoe.
O! but I wish that I was home now,
Treading the soft old Breton loam now,
In that old Breton country where
Mellows the golden autumn air,
And all the tender champaign fills
With hyacinths and daffodils,
And on God’s azure uplands now
They plough the ploughed fields with a plough,
And earth-worms feel averse from laughter,
With hungry white birds following after.
And maids at evening walk with men
Through the meadows and up the glen
To hear the old sweet tale again.”

The deck was getting hot and hotter,
“Father!” he screamed, “you ---- rotter!”
The deck was getting red and redder,
And now he thought he’d take a header,
Now he advanced and now he funked it....
It had been better had he bunked it,
For as he wavered thus, and swore,
There came a slow tremendous roar.

Lord Nelson suddenly woke up.
“Where is Old Cassy and his pup?
‘Don’t know,’ you say? Why, strike me blind,
I s’pose I’d better ask the wind.”
He asked the wind; the brooding sky
At once gave back the wind’s reply:
“Wotto, Nelson!”
“Wotto, sonny?”
“Do you think you’re being funny?
Can’t you look around, confound you,
At all these fragments that surround you,
Thick as thieves upon the sea,
Instead of coming bothering me?”

_Or, alternatively, if you prefer his other method, it would run like this_:

And the flames rose, and leaping flames of fire
Leapt round the masts and made the spars a crown,
A golden crown as ravenous as desire.
“Father!” he cried, “my feet are getting brown.”
“Father!” he cried. The quiet stars looked down,
The flames rose up like flowers overhead.
He was alone and all the crew were dead.

No. 4. IF ALMOST ANY ELIZABETHAN HAD WRITTEN
“SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS”

Ask me not for the semblance of my loue.
Amidst the fountains of the christal Doue
Like to that fayre Aurora did she runne,
Who treads the beanies of the sweete morning sunne.
Forth from her head her hayres like golden wyre
Did spring; her amorous eyes were lampes of fire,
Bright as that torch their heauenly raies did mount
Wherewith fayre Hero lit the Hellespont,
Or as that flame which on the desert lies
When new-borne Phenix soareth to the skies.
Like wanton darts her eye-beames she did throw
From out her noble forehead’s iuorie bow
Whose Beauties great perfection would withstand
The skill of the most cunning painter’s hand.
Her virgin nose like Dians self did raigne
Amidst her vermell cheekes’ ambrosiall plaine;
Her busie lips twinne Rubies did appeare
From which her Voyce did come as Diamonds cleare;
Venus’ owne sonne would sigh to look beneath
At the straight pearlie pleasaunce of her teethe.
Like to fayre starres, or rather, like the sunne
Was her smooth Marble chinne’s pavilion,
Wherefrom her slender necke the eye did lead
To shoulders like twinne Lilies on a mead,
Whiter than Ledaes fethers or white milke,
As sweete as nectar and as softe as silke.
O, and her tender brests, they were as white
As snowie hills which Phebus’ beames doe smite
Engirt with azure and with Saphire veines....

(_Cetera desunt_)

No. 5. IF POPE HAD WRITTEN “BREAK, BREAK, BREAK”

Fly, Muse, thy wonted themes, nor longer seek
The consolations of a powder’d cheek;
Forsake the busy purlieus of the Court
For calmer meads where finny tribes resort.
So may th’ Almighty’s natural antidote
Abate the worldly tenour of thy note,
The various beauties of the liquid main
Refine thy reed and elevate thy strain.

See how the labour of the urgent oar
Propels the barks and draws them to the shore.
Hark! from the margin of the azure bay
The joyful cries of infants at their play.
(The offspring of a piscatorial swain,
His home the sands, his pasturage the main.)
Yet none of these may soothe the mourning heart,
Nor fond alleviation’s sweets impart;
Nor may the pow’rs of infants that rejoice
Restore the accents of a former voice,
Nor the bright smiles of ocean’s nymphs command
The pleasing contact of a vanished hand.
So let me still in meditation move,
Muse in the vale and ponder in the grove,
And scan the skies where sinking Phœbus glows
With hues more rubicund than Cibber’s nose....

(_After which the poet gets into his proper stride_)

No. 6. IF GRAY HAD HAD TO WRITE HIS ELEGY IN THE CEMETERY OF SPOON
RIVER INSTEAD OF IN THAT OF STOKE POGES

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The whippoorwill salutes the rising moon,
And wanly glimmer in her gentle ray,
The sinuous windings of the turbid Spoon.

Here where the flattering and mendacious swarm
Of lying epitaphs their secrets keep,
At last incapable of further harm
The lewd forefathers of the village sleep.

The earliest drug of half-awakened morn,
Cocaine or hashish, strychnine, poppy-seeds
Or fiery produce of fermented corn
No more shall start them on the day’s misdeeds.

For them no more the whetstone’s cheerful noise,
No more the sun upon his daily course
Shall watch them savouring the genial joys,
Of murder, bigamy, arson and divorce.

Here they all lie; and, as the hour is late,
O stranger, o’er their tombstones cease to stoop,
But bow thine ear to me and contemplate
The unexpurgated annals of the group.

There are two hundred only: yet of these
Some thirty died of drowning in the river,
Sixteen went mad, ten others had D.T.’s
And twenty-eight cirrhosis of the liver.

Several by absent-minded friends were shot,
Still more blew out their own exhausted brains,
One died of a mysterious inward rot,
Three fell off roofs, and five were hit by trains.

One was harpooned, one gored by a bull-moose,
Four on the Fourth fell victims to lock-jaw,
Ten in electric chair or hempen noose
Suffered the last exaction of the law.

Stranger, you quail, and seem inclined to run;
But, timid stranger, do not be unnerved;
I can assure you that there was not one
Who got a tithe of what he had deserved.

Full many a vice is born to thrive unseen,
Full many a crime the world does not discuss,
Full many a pervert lives to reach a green
Replete old age, and so it was with us.

Here lies a parson who would often make
Clandestine rendezvous with Claflin’s Moll,
And ’neath the druggist’s counter creep to take
A sip of surreptitious alcohol.

And here a doctor, who had seven wives,
And, fearing this _ménage_ might seem grotesque,
Persuaded six of them to spend their lives
Locked in a drawer of his private desk.

And others here there sleep who, given scope,
Had writ their names large on the Scrolls of Crime,
Men who, with half a chance, might haply cope,
With the first miscreants of recorded time.

Doubtless in this neglected spot is laid
Some village Nero who has missed his due,
Some Bluebeard who dissected many a maid,
And all for naught, since no one ever knew.

Some poor bucolic Borgia here may rest
Whose poisons sent whole families to their doom,
Some hayseed Herod who, within his breast,
Concealed the sites of many an infant’s tomb.

Types that the Muse of Masefield might have stirred,
Or waked to ecstasy Gaboriau,
Each in his narrow cell at last interred,
All, all are sleeping peacefully below.

* * * * *

Enough, enough! But, stranger, ere we part,
Glancing farewell to each nefarious bier,
This warning I would beg you take to heart,
“There is an end to even the worst career.”

No. 7. IF A VERY NEW POET HAD WRITTEN “THE LOTUS-EATERS”