Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 372
AFTER ALL — it’s Christmas. It may seem to us the most distressed, the most tragic Christmas of the ages — Christmas in a world of disaster never known before. But yet, it’s Christmas. And we ought to keep it so, as the old glad season of good will towards man, and kindliness and forgiveness towards everybody. Notice, towards everybody — even towards Adolf Hitler. What? You say you’d rather boil him in oil — oh, but, of course, I include that; boil him, and then forgive him boiled. So with all the Germans — I’d like to drown them all in the Rhine, and then forgive them and send the Rhine to the wash.
A tragic Christmas — and yet, I don’t know. When I begin to think of it, I am not sure whether it is tragic. Tragedy passes away and is gone. But for the things that do not pass away, the permanent forces in human life, perhaps this Christmas is to be for us the most ennobling, the most inspiring of all there have been since the first Christmas announced salvation to the world.
I am thinking here of what has been done in England — the steady heroism of a whole nation that has gone out as a new light to lighten the world. This inspiration from England may prove, and I think it will, the first guidance towards a new world.
And when I say England, I must at once explain that I include Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland and, naturally, the Isle of Man. People are so touchy on this point, especially since the war began, that I should not wish to hurt anyone’s feelings. When I speak of England and an Englishman, to me every Manxman is an Englishman, and every Welshman a Scotsman, and both Englishmen. For what else can one say? You can’t say ‘a British’; that’s not sense; nor a ‘Briton,’ because that means an Ancient Briton, stained blue, and studying with an axe to be a qualified Druid. Let him stay in the mistletoe; we don’t want him.
So in the sense I mean, we can say that the word ‘Englishman’ has taken on for the world a new meaning. Some people saw it long ago. W. S. Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan, showed it to us fifty years back in his immortal verse:
‘For he might have been a Russian,
A Turk or else a Prussian,
Or an Ital-ey-an.
But in spite of all temptation
To belong to another nation,
He was born an Englishman.’
People thought at the time that this was meant to be funny, and laughed at it. But we see now that Gilbert was just stating the quiet truth and was laughed at for it, as humourists always are.
‘He was born an Englishman.’...Who wouldn’t be? — And all the world is being reborn into that heritage — which is the real, the spiritual meaning of this Christmas.
For me, I must have it so. For I cannot let Christmas go. Christmas has always seemed to me a day of enchantment, and the world about us on Christmas Day, for one brief hour an enchanted world. On Christmas morning the streets are always bright with snow, not too much of it nor too little, hard-frozen snow, all crystals and glittering in the flood of sunshine that goes with Christmas Day...If there was ever any other Christmas weather I have forgotten it...Only the memory of the good remains.
Into this enchanted world I step on Christmas morning, to walk the street and meet and greet at once, it seems, an enchanted friend. God bless the fellow! How happy and rosy and friendly he looks, as he draws off his glove to shake my hand — rosy and handsome in his silk hat (why doesn’t he wear it every day?) and his white neckerchief...He must be sixty if he’s a day, but on Christmas morning he looks a boy again, and he and I are back at school together. I must see more of him; true, I saw him at the club yesterday but he didn’t look like this; something grouchy about him, taciturn sort of fellow — but on Christmas morning? I can see him as he really is...But I no sooner leave him than I seem to run into half a dozen like him — the street seems full of them, all silk hats and white neck-cloths...and ‘Merry Christmas!’ here and ‘Merry Christmas!’ there...old boys hauling sleighs with little granddaughters done up in furs...or with a little convoy of grand-nieces and grand-nephews. ‘Merry Christmas, children!’...Upon my word, I hadn’t realized what a pleasant lot of friends I had.
No doubt you feel the same enchantment as I do? And it follows you all through Christmas Day — at the dinner with the enchanted turkey, with everyone a good fellow, and every good fellow wearing a tissue-paper hat...the dinner followed by an enchanted sleigh-ride...with old friends — and meeting new people as you go — and everyone of them so delightful — the world so generous, so bright...And then somehow the brightness passes, the light fades out, and it’s to-morrow. You are back in the dull world of every day — anxious — suspicious — every man for himself — friends? Which of them would lend me fifty dollars — come, I’ll make it five!
This enchantment of Christmas always seems to me to be a part of that super-self, that higher self that is in each of us — but that only comes to the surface in moments of trial or exaltation and in the hour of death. The super-self is always within call, and yet we cannot call it. I don’t mean here the thing called the sub-conscious self, that evil, inward thing, that can take my sleeping hand and write upon a slate, that can tell me where I lost my umbrella, or through a psycho-analyst betray by my dreams that for years I have had a complex to murder my aunt...Not that hideous stuff; nor any of the ‘complexes’ and ‘behaviours’ and ‘reactions,’ the new hideous brood of the new Black Art. Oh no, I mean something infinitely more open, more above-board, more radiant than that...the light that shines in people’s eyes who clasp hands and face danger together...the surge of sacrifice within the heart that lifts the individual life above itself...
All lovers — silly lovers in their silly stage — attain for a moment this super-self, each as towards the other. Each sees in the other what would be there for all the world to see in each of us, if we could but reach to it. ‘She thinks he’s just wonderful,’ say her mocking friends. ‘He thinks she’s an angel,’ laugh his associates. She is an angel, and he is wonderful — till the light passes and is gone. ‘All the world loves a lover’ — of course; one can see easily why.
It is towards this higher self — not as momentary exaltation — but as sustained endeavour, that this Christmas of disaster is calling us: ‘Come up!’ it beckons. ‘You must. There is no other way. This is the salvation of the world — come!’...And on the answer is staked all the future of mankind.
For this altered world is not like anything that went before. Think back, as all people even in middle life can do, to what the world was like while world-war was just a dream, the vague theme of a romance. To realize this alteration, come back with me in recollection, to church together — to an evening service, on Christmas Eve...Quiet and dim the church seems, the lights low — and from the altar comes the voice, half reading, half intoned, and from the dimness of the body of the church the murmur of the responses...Give peace in our time, O Lord...Peace! why, it was always peace! What did we know then of world war, of world brutality, of the concentration camp and the mass-slaughter of the innocent...
The responses echo back — because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O God...but what meaning could the words convey? Nothing, or little — just a compliment murmured in the dark...Strengthen her that she may vanquish and overcome all her enemies...yes, but what enemies, had she? Only a few poor Matabeles and Afridis, and such...Vanquish them? Yes, of course, but then teach them to play cricket and mix a gin-fizz, and be part of the British Empire and ride in a barouche at a Jubilee, and then go out and help us conquer more...
From plague and famine...The voice is intoning the Litany now, the prayer for deliverance...from plague, pestilence and famine, from battle and murder and from sudden death...and the murmured response through the church...Good Lord, deliver us...The words are old, far older than the rubric of the church that uses them, handed down from prayer to prayer, since the days of the Barbarian Conquests of Europe, when they first went up as a cry of distress, a supplication...But can the ear not catch, in this new hour, the full meaning that was here — the cry of anguish that first inspired the prayers...to show thy mercy upon all prisoners and captives...In this too is now an infinity of meaning, of sympathy, of suffering...and as the service draws to its close...while there is time...intones the voice from the half-darkness, while there is time...What? What is that he’s saying — while there is time? Does it mean it may be too late.
Not if we can listen, each of us, to the call, the inspiration of this darkened Christmas...this call to our higher selves. Up! Up! We have no other choice. We’ve got to.
GOODWILL FOR AMERICA I - CRICKET FOR AMERICANS
AT THE PRESENT hour all of us who are British are anxious to cultivate cordial relations with the United States. It has occurred to me that something could be done here with cricket. Americans, I fear, do not understand our national British game, and lack sympathy with it. I remember a few years ago attending a county match in England with an American friend, and I said to him at noon on Wednesday (the match had begun on Monday), ‘I’m afraid that if it keeps on raining they’ll have to draw stumps.’ ‘Draw what?’ he said. ‘Draw out the wickets,’ I answered, ‘and call the game ended.’ ‘Thank God!’ he answered. Yet this was a really big game, a county match — Notts against Hamps, I think, but perhaps, Bucks against Yorks. Anyway it was a tense, exciting game, Notts (or Bucks) with 600 runs, leading by 550, four wickets down and only another six hours to play.
Ever since that day I meant to try to put the game in a better light, so that people in America could understand how wonderful it is.
Perhaps I should explain that, all modesty apart, when I speak of cricket I speak of what I know. I played cricket for years and years. I still have a bat. Once I played in an All-Canada match at Ottawa before the Governor-General. I went in first in the first innings, and was bowled out by the first ball; but in the second innings, I went in last, and by ‘playing back’ quickly on the first ball, I knocked down the wickets before the ball could reach them. Lord Minto told me afterwards that he had never seen batting like mine before, except, perhaps, in India where the natives are notoriously quick.
Let me begin with a few simple explanations. Cricket is played with eleven men on a side — provided you can get eleven. It isn’t always easy to get a cricket team, and sometimes you have to be content with ten or nine, or even less. This difficulty of getting men for a side really arises from the fact that cricketers are not paid to play. They wouldn’t take it, or rather, they do take it when they can get it, but then they are professionals. This makes a distinction in English cricket as between players and gentlemen, although, as a matter of fact, a great many gentlemen are first-class players, and nowadays, at any rate, a good many of the players are gentlemen, and contrawise quite a number of the gentlemen are not quite what you would call gentlemen. I am afraid I haven’t brought out the distinction very dearly. Perhaps I may add when we play cricket in Canada there is no question of gentlemen.
So, as I say, although cricket is properly played with eleven on a side, it is often difficult to get enough. You have to be content with what you can bring and pick up one or two others when you get there. When I played in an All-Canada game at Ottawa we had nine at the start, but we got one more in the hotel and one in the barber shop. When the All-England team goes to Australia they easily get eleven men because that is different. That’s twelve thousand miles. But when it’s only from one village to the next it’s hard to get more than seven.
But let me explain the game. Cricket is played by bowling a ball up and down a ‘pitch’ of twenty-two yards (roughly sixty-six feet, approximately), at each end of which are set three upright sticks called wickets. A batsman stands just in front of each set of wickets, a little at the side, and with his bat stops the ball from hitting the wickets. If the ball hits the wickets he is out, but otherwise not. Thus if he begins on Monday and his wickets are not hit on Monday, he begins again on Tuesday; and so on; play stops all Sunday.
Of course, when you are looking on at a cricket match, you are not supposed to shout and yell the way we do over baseball on our side of the water in Canada and in the States. All you do is to say, every now and then, ‘Oh, very pretty, sir, very pretty!’ You are speaking to the batsman who is about two hundred yards away and can’t hear you. But that doesn’t matter; you keep right on, ‘Oh, well done, sir, well done.’...That day of the county match in England that I spoke of, my American friend heard an Englishman on the other side of him say, ‘Oh, very pretty! very pretty, sir.’ And he asked the Englishman, ‘What was very pretty?’ But, of course, the Englishman had no way of telling him. He didn’t know him. So he turned to me and asked. ‘What did he do?’ And I explained it wasn’t what he did, it was what he didn’t do. A great many things in good cricket turn on that — what you don’t do. You let the ball go past you, for instance, instead of hitting it, and the experts say, ‘Oh, well let alone, sir.’ There are lots more balls coming; you’ve three days to wait for one.
In the game of which I speak the really superb piece of play was this: The bowler sent a fast ball through the air, right straight towards the batsman’s face. He moved his face aside and let it pass, and they called, ‘Well, let alone, sir.’ You see if it had hit him on the side of his face, he’d have been out. How out? Why, by what is called L.B.W. Perhaps I’d better explain what L.B.W. is. I forget what the letters exactly stand for, but we use them just as in the States you use things like P.W.A., A.A.C. and S.C.E. and R.I.P. You know what they stand for. Well, L.B.W. is a way of getting out in cricket. It means that if you stand in front of the ball and it hits you — not your bat, but you — you are out. Suppose, for instance, you deliberately turn your back on the ball and it rises up and hits you right behind in the middle of your body — out! L.B.W.
There was a terrible row over this a few years ago in connection with one of the great Test Matches between England and Australia. These, of course, are the great events, the big thing every year in the cricket world. An All-England team goes out once a year to play Test Matches in Australia, and an All-Australian team comes once a year for Test Matches in England. So far they only play Test Matches, but as soon as they know which is really best they can have a real match. Meantime they keep testing it out. Well, a few years ago, the Australians started the idea of bowling the ball terribly fast, and right straight at the batsman, not at the wickets, so as to hit him on purpose. Even if he started to run away from the wickets, they’d get him, even if he was half way to the home tent. I didn’t see it myself, but I understand that was the idea of it. So there was a tremendous row about it, and bad feeling, with talk of Australia leaving the British Empire. However, outsiders intervened, and it was suggested (the Archbishop of Canterbury, I think) that the rule should be that if the bowler meant to hit the man and put him out, then he wasn’t out, but that if he didn’t mean to hit and he hit him then he was out. Naturally the bowler had to be put on his honour whether he meant it. But that didn’t bother the Australians; they were willing to go on their honour. They’re used to it. In fact the English agreed, too, that when they got the ball in their turn they’d go on their honour in throwing it at an Australian.
That, of course, is the nice thing about cricket — the spirit of it, the sense of honour. When we talk of cricket we always say that such and such a thing ‘isn’t cricket,’ meaning that it’s not a thing you would do. You could, of course. There’d be nothing to stop you, except that, you see you couldn’t. At a cricket game, for example, you never steal any of the other fellows’ things out of the marquee tent where you come and go. You ask why not? Well, simply that it ‘isn’t cricket.’ Or take an example in the field and you’ll understand it better. Let me quote with a little more detail the case to which I referred earlier in the book. We’ll say that you’re fielding at ‘square leg.’ That means that you are fielding straight behind the batter’s back and only about twenty-five feet away from him. Well, suppose you happen to be daydreaming a little — cricket is a dreamy game — and the batter happens to swing round hard on a passing ball and pastes it right into the middle of your stomach. As soon as you are able to speak you are supposed to call to the bowler, ‘Awfully sorry, old man’; not sorry you got hit in the stomach, sorry you missed the chance he gave you; because from the bowler’s point of view you had a great opportunity, when you got hit in the stomach, of holding the ball against your stomach — which puts the batter out.
So you see when you play cricket there comes in all the time this delicate idea of the cricket spirit. A good deal of English government is carried on this way. You remember a few years ago that very popular Prime Minister who used to come to the House of Commons — and say, ‘I’m afraid, gentlemen, I’ve made another mess again with this business of Italy and Ethiopia; damned if I can keep track of them; that’s the third mess I’ve made this year.’ And the House wouldn’t vote him out of office. It wouldn’t have been cricket. Instead, they went wild with applause because the Prime Minister had shown the true cricket spirit by acknowledging that he was beaten, though, of course, he didn’t know when he had been licked. And, for the matter of that, he’d come all the way down from Scotland just for the purpose at the very height of the grouse season — or the fly season — anyway, one of those insect seasons that keep starting in Scotland when the heather is bright with the gillies all out full.
Looking back over what I have written above, I am afraid I may have given a wrong impression here and there. When I implied that the two batsmen stand at the wicket and stop the ball, I forgot to say that every now and then they get impatient, or indignant, and not only stop it but hit it. And do they hit it! A cricket ball is half as heavy again as a baseball and travels farther. I’ve seen Don Bradman, the Australian, playing in our McGill University stadium, drive the ball clear over the seats of the stadium and then over the top of the trees on the side of Mount Royal, and from there on. They had to stop the game and drink shandygaff while they sent a boy to get the ball. They almost thought of getting a new one.
