“’Happy is he and more than
wise
Who sees with
wondering eyes and clean
The world through all the
grey disguise
Of sleep and custom
in between.
Yes; we may pass the heavenly
screen,
But shall we know
when we are there?
Who know not what these dead
stones mean,
The lovely city
of Lierre.’”
Here the train stopped abruptly. And from Mechlin
church steeple we heard the half-chime: and Joris
broke silence with “No bally hors D’OEUVRES
for me: I shall get on to something solid at
once.”
L’Envoy
Prince, wide your Empire spreads,
I ween,
Yet happier is that
moistened Mayor,
Who drinks her cognac far from fine,
The lovely city of Lierre.
The Mystery of a Pageant
Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed
on to take a small part in one of those historical
processions or pageants which happened to be fashionable
in or about the year 1909. And since I tend,
like all who are growing old, to re-enter the remote
past as a paradise or playground, I disinter a memory
which may serve to stand among those memories of small
but strange incidents with which I have sometimes
filled this column. The thing has really some
of the dark qualities of a detective-story; though
I suppose that Sherlock Holmes himself could hardly
unravel it now, when the scent is so old and cold
and most of the actors, doubtless, long dead.
This old pageant included a series of figures from
the eighteenth century, and I was told that I was
just like Dr. Johnson. Seeing that Dr. Johnson
was heavily seamed with small-pox, had a waistcoat
all over gravy, snorted and rolled as he walked, and
was probably the ugliest man in London, I mention
this identification as a fact and not as a vaunt.
I had nothing to do with the arrangement; and such
fleeting suggestions as I made were not taken so seriously
as they might have been. I requested that a row
of posts be erected across the lawn, so that I might
touch all of them but one, and then go back and touch
that. Failing this, I felt that the least they
could do was to have twenty-five cups of tea stationed
at regular intervals along the course, each held by
a Mrs. Thrale in full costume. My best constructive
suggestion was the most harshly rejected of all.
In front of me in the procession walked the great Bishop
Berkeley, the man who turned the tables on the early
materialists by maintaining that matter itself possibly
does not exist. Dr. Johnson, you will remember,
did not like such bottomless fancies as Berkeley’s,
and kicked a stone with his foot, saying, “I
refute him so!” Now (as I pointed out) kicking
a stone would not make the metaphysical quarrel quite
clear; besides, it would hurt. But how picturesque
and perfect it would be if I moved across the ground
in the symbolic attitude of kicking Bishop Berkeley!
How complete an allegoric group; the great transcendentalist
walking with his head among the stars, but behind
him the avenging realist pede claudo, with uplifted
foot. But I must not take up space with these
forgotten frivolities; we old men grow too garrulous
in talking of the distant past.
