at this table—
My wish is never to leave London—
There isn’t a woman amongst us who hasn’t committed adultery—
And — mine — they
turned such a lovely pink!—
But Mrs. Birthright belonged to the old school—
She always spoke of her life as if she had “not been there”
had caused more scandal! —
And she was unassailable—
The only thing that gave her away for the least of her peccadilloes—
Was the stamp of royalty she bore upon her—
It never wore off—
More queenly than the queen as I watched her age—
She never faded—
but receded — somehow — ceremoniously—
Behind her regal presence
The avoidance of wrinkles had made her callous to the expression of the emotions—
And she was so damnably kind—
But when we reviewed the moral of the after-war
I could see as a cloud drifted across her eyes—
That she regretted having at least wasted—half her time.
The finest analysis of the moral order—
Is in these older women’s eyes
You can see them thinking
How frightfully unnecessary were all those lies—
From so many degrees of virtue — those women who mustn’t be found out — and the women who came to do it in Paris — and the apostles of England’s new criminal offence—
How different it all is—
They usen’t to dare
be seen with a man—
And now if there is no man they must at least consort with “something” that wears half his clothes.
And even the Night has lost its prohibitive mystery having become — the frenetic nursery of youth.
The jailor-mother has disappeared — and the problem of enforcing chastity.
“My dear that ‘difficult’ period with our girls—”
Galahadism for our boys?
They have solved the sex question.
Nothing much need happen all you have to do is to keep ’em jumpin’
And cocktails make fine wooers — but they take all the kick out of love philtres—
If we are to preserve our Civilisation we must avoid climax—
Keep ’em jumpin’—
And jazz is such a stimulus to memory—
right back to when you were nothing but steam in a coal forest—
We can recapitulate our reproductive history—
through the saxophone—
without an effort!
You can remember everything only you don’t know what it was—
Everything’s changed—
But nothing officially— That gives us the slant on political freedom— Everyman his own soul — if he won’t mention it. The Bolshevik — is such a mutt he can’t play—
So he doesn’t want anyone else to — they’ll have Pegasus cleaning out his own stable—
Moral social and intellectual supremacy — is the sense of humour
Well — the King hasn’t got a sense of humour—
No but that’s just our sense of humour—
And Bernard Shaw hasn’t got a sense of—
No but believe me it was one — twenty-five years ago—
Dekobra bagged his Bolshevist—
When their minister crossed himself and muttered his prayers when the peeress proposed to him—
This was long before the war when only the aristocracy explained themselves—
It was about the time that George Moore—
Said dear lady — Asterisk
I should so much like to have you — –
“No?”—
– — well perhaps another cup — thank you!
This stirred the London intelligentsia up—“So brilliantly cas-
ual — ”
And then there were all those eminent beauties
Chewing the cud of the latest divorce scandal—
And Eve got up and stamped
What’s the use of all this humbug?
Tearing that poor woman to shreds
George Moore — has forgotten how to read — he says nobody has got any talent any more — George Moore knows that he knew how to write — because his father was a gentleman — and then he stuffed all his mistresses with “literature”—
None of them ever came forward to explain what really happened — they belonged to the generations of women who suffered in silence—
And now he himself lies buried in the last Bustle—
The highest culture of the upper classes is the study of the lower classes through art.
Creation, simply — was destroyed by the concept Art.
Art is a grimace of creation.
Creation — is the making — –
Art is the aping — —
A critic who should say— Men are as yet so inexperienced that they are in all their most practiced pursuits — ignoramuses—
That even great literature is the supreme confession of ignorance — and that love is a factory — where all employees bungle their jobs—
But take heart — and do not kill that critic — for he will also explain it to you—
That it is not you the individual that is inadequate—
But tradition—
There is certain proof that love is a closed book — for if it were not so— Novels would not be written—
If the engineering of love were acquired—
The sex-psychology of our era would become immediately meaningless
IN MAINE: GREEN’S COLONY
For Maine is clean.
There are no corners where it may hide, space patrols every side of every house, and has not so far separated them that the eye of your neighbour’s window — cannot pierce the eye of your own. There they are always sweeping something away, they are always shaking something out, they trade, they bank, they “ever” prosper in a modest way—
That Satan still — some mischief “may not” find — for idle hands to do.
There is nothing more rigidly occidental than the deportment of Maine—
Yet Maine is always backing away from an onslaught with prohibiting and perpendicular palms — as in a certain oriental dance.
It is certain that Maine has never known it—
Maine has never unbent — to behold itself into the inner mirror of its consciousness.
Maine still wears corsets and starches, whitewashes because of what is underneath.
But Maine has never routed its origin — that impetus that stirred the steaming swamps to life — it has retained the tradition, and swept it off, onto his neighbour’s grass plot.
But I know that when I tried to smoke in the son’s den, which had been converted into a lodger’s room, the eye of the opposite window was fully aware.
The den had a different atmosphere than the rest of the house, sporting a rep drapery, where the mystifications of adolescence positively lurked and a volume of Plutarch’s Lives in which
I read—
“It is dangerous — to incur the enmity of a people who have the gift of song—”
John Straher was about 50—he had his own land, and sent his wife and family away on vacations, but John was not above doing a little sweeping, or a little chopping to oblige a neighbour.
He was so well preserved that it was a foregone conclusion that in another ten years he would blossom into that belated adolescence of the 100 percent clean American, who fumbles at young women with the postponed courage, the desperation of dissolution.
He would probably find his affinity.
It is doubtful however if John Straher would ever grow up to such a word — he had once travelled with the circus as a sword swallower — he could even now — my impression is a little vague — but I believe it was — push a grass blade up one nostril and pull it down the other — he could appreciate — he could drive a fast horse and buggy in a jaunty manner but he could not speak.