CHAPTER XIV
For their after-luncheon coffee the party generally
adjourned to the library. Its windows
looked east, and at this hour of the day it was the coolest place in the whole
house. It was a large room, fitted,
during the eighteenth century, with white painted shelves of an elegant
design. In the middle of one wall a
door, ingeniously upholstered with rows of dummy books, gave access to a deep cupboard,
where, among a pile of letter-files and old newspapers, the mummy-case of an
Egyptian lady, brought back by the second Sir Ferdinando
on his return from the Grand Tour, mouldered in the darkness. From ten yards away and at a first glance,
one might almost have mistaken this secret door for a section of shelving
filled with genuine books. Coffee-cup in
hand, Mr Scogan was standing in front of the dummy
bookshelf. Between the sips he
discoursed.
'The bottom
shelf,' he was saying, 'is taken up by an Encyclopaedia in fourteen
volumes. Useful, but a little dull, as
is also Caprimulge's Dictionary of the Finnish
Language. The Bibliographical
Dictionary looks much more promising.
Biography of Men who were Born Great, Biography of
Men who Achieved Greatness, Biography of Men who had Greatness Thrust upon
Them, and Biography of Men who were Never Great at All. Then there are ten volumes of Thom's
Works and Wanderings, while the Wild Goose Chase, a Novel, by an
anonymous author, fills no less than six.
But what's this, what's this?' Mr
Scogan stood on tiptoe and peered up. 'Seven volumes of the Tales
of Knockespotch. The Tales of Knockespotch,'
he repeated. 'Ah, my dear Henry,' he
said, turning round, 'these are your best books. I would willingly give all the rest of your
library for them.'
The happy
possessor of a multitude of first editions, Mr Wimbush
could afford to smile indulgently.
'Is it
possible,' Mr Scogan went on, 'that they possess
nothing more than a back and a title?'
He opened the cupboard door and peeped inside, as though he hoped to
find the rest of the books behind it. 'Phooh!' he said, and shut the door again. 'It smells of dust and mildew. How symbolical! One comes to the great masterpieces of the
past, expecting some miraculous illumination, and one
finds, on opening them, only darkness and dust and a faint smell of decay. After all, what is reading but a vice, like
drink or venery or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one
reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.
Still - the Tales of Knockespotch ...'
He paused,
and thoughtfully drummed with his fingers on the backs of the non-existent,
unattainable books.
'But I
disagree with you about reading,' said Mary.
'About serious reading, I mean.'
'Quite
right, Mary, quite right,' Mr Scogan answered. 'I had forgotten there were any serious
people in the room.'
'I like the
idea of the Biographies,' said Denis.
'There's room for us all within the scheme; it's comprehensive.'
'Yes, the
Biographies are good, the Biographies are excellent,' Mr Scogan
agreed. 'I imagine them written in a
very elegant Regency style - Brighton Pavilion in words - perhaps by the great
Dr Lemprière himself.
You know his classical dictionary?
Ah!' Mr Scogan
raised his hand and let it limply fall again in a gesture which implied that
words failed him. 'Read his biography of Helen; read how Jupiter, disguised as
a swan, was "enabled to avail himself of his situation" vis-à-vis
Leda. And to think that he may have,
must have written these biographies of the Great! What a work, Henry! And, owing to the idiotic arrangement of your
library, it can't be read.'
'I prefer
the Wild Goose Chase,' said Anne.
'A novel in six volumes - it must be restful.'
'Restful,'
Mr Scogan repeated.
'You've hit on the right word. A Wild
Goose Chase is sound, but a bit old-fashioned - pictures of clerical life
in the fifties, [ i.e. eighteen-fifties.] you know; specimens of the landed gentry; peasants
for pathos and comedy; and in the background, always the picturesque beauties
of nature soberly described. All very good and solid, but, like certain puddings, just a little
dull. Personally, I like much
better the notion of Thom's Works and Wanderings. The eccentric Mr Thom of
Thom's Hill. Old Tom Thom, as his
intimates used to call him. He spent ten
years in Tibet organizing the clarified butter industry on modern European
lines, and was able to retire at thirty-six with a handsome fortune. The rest of his life he devoted to travel and
ratiocination; here is the result.' Mr Scogan tapped the dummy books. 'And now we come to the Tales of Knockespotch.
What a masterpiece and what a great man!
Knockespotch knew how to write fiction. Ah, Denis, if you could only read Knockespotch you wouldn't be writing a novel about the
wearisome development of a young man's character, you wouldn't be describing in
endless, fastidious detail, cultured life in Chelsea and Bloomsbury and
Hampstead. You would be trying to write
a readable book. But then, alas! owing to the peculiar arrangement of our host's library, you
never will read Knockespotch.'
'Nobody
could regret the fact more than I do,' said Denis.
'It was Knockespotch,' Mr Scogan
continued, 'the great Knockespotch, who delivered us
from the dreary tyranny of the realistic novel.
My life, Knockespotch said, is not so long
that I can afford to spend precious hours writing or reading descriptions of
middle-class interiors. He said again,
"I am tired of seeing the human mind bogged in a social plenum; I prefer
to paint it in a vacuum, freely and sportively bombinating.'
'I say,'
said Gombauld, 'Knockespotch
was a little obscure sometimes, wasn't he?'
'He was,'
Mr Scogan replied, 'and with intention. It made him seem even profounder than he
actually was. But it was only in his
aphorisms that he was so dark and oracular.
In his Tales he was always luminous.
Oh, those Tales - those Tales!
How shall I describe them?
Fabulous characters shoot across his pages like gaily dressed performers
on the trapeze. There are extraordinary
adventures and still more extraordinary speculations. Intelligences and emotions, relieved of all
the imbecile preoccupations of civilized life, move in intricate and subtle
dances, crossing and recrossing, advancing,
retreating, impinging. An immense
erudition and an immense fancy go hand in hand.
All the ideas of the present and of the past, on every possible subject,
bob up among the Tales, smile gravely or grimace a caricature of themselves, then disappear to make place for something
new. The verbal surface of his writing
is rich and fantastically diversified.
The wit is incessant. The ...'
'But
couldn't you give us a specimen?' Denis broke in - 'a concrete example?'
'Alas!' Mr Scogan replied.
'Knockespotch's great book is like the sword Excalibur. It remains stuck fast in this door, awaiting
the coming of a writer with genius enough to draw it forth. I am not even a writer,
I am not so much as qualified to attempt the task. The extraction of Knockespotch
from his wooden prison I leave, my dear Denis, to you.'
'Thank
you,' said Denis.