Over the Plum Pudding Part 17

"But as for poets," said Eisenberg, turning to me, "I should like to tell you about Gregory--the poet Gregory. Did you ever hear of him?"

"No," said I.

"Ah! See then!" cried Eisenberg. "It proves my point. He is unknown already, and all for why? Because his poems were printed, for until they were printed they were not unknown."

"Magnificently put!" cried the shoemaker.

"Logical as logic itself!" said the innkeeper.

"And what is the story of Gregory?" I asked, interested hugely and almost as enthusiastic over the whimsical wisdom of the keysmith as his fellow-wiseacres.

"Gregory," said Eisenberg, "was the first name. His last name I shall not give you for two reasons. The first reason is that, if I gave it to you, I should betray a confidence reposed in me by his family. The second reason is that I have forgotten it. That is the sad part of it all. When a name begins to be forgotten by one, or even two persons, its trip to oblivion is rapid. Even I, who used to worship him as a poet, have forgotten the name he made for himself."

The keysmith sighed sorrowfully as he spoke, and I began to believe with him, though without knowing the reason therefor, that Gregory's cause was indeed a lost one. There was silence for a full minute, during which Eisenberg puffed thoughtfully upon his empty pipe, blowing imaginary clouds of smoke out into the air, and then he spoke.

"Gregory was not of high birth, but early in life his parents saw that he was not destined to follow successfully the career of a peasant. He was of an inquiring mind. He was not content to know that gra.s.s was green and water wet. He wished to know why gra.s.s was green and water wet, and when, in response to questions of this nature, his father, a practical person, would send him out to the stables to milk the cows, or to the grindstone to sharpen the scythe, Gregory's soul revolted within him. 'You will never make a peasant,' said his father. 'Not a peasant of the fields,' the boy replied, 'but a peasant of learning, perhaps. I would not mind milking the cow of knowledge, and filling the pail of my mind with lactated information; nor should I mind sharpening my wits upon the grindstone of thought.' And at these words his father would stare at him and say that one who had such command of mysterious language did not need Greek to conceal his thoughts from his hearers; and he would add an invitation, which Gregory perforce always accepted, to retire to the f.a.got-room with him and receive corporal punishment at his hands. So it went for several years, during which Gregory read everything that came within reach, until finally one morning he said to his father: 'Why do you persist in making a peasant of me when I wish to be a poet? What is the odds to you? Nay, more, father, do not the words peasant and poet both begin with a P and end with a T? What difference can it make if the ends be the same?'--which so enraged his father that Gregory was disowned by him, and another boy adopted in his place.

"Then Gregory came here to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and at a time when Rudolf von Pepperpotz, the solemn Baron of Humpfelhimmel, happened to stand in need of a secretary and librarian. How it came about that Gregory was so unfortunate as to obtain the position is neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that he became the secretary and librarian of the Baron, and from that time on he was happy. He lived among books, and while at times he found his duties arduous, he was nevertheless content, for he was a philosopher."

"I'd rather be content than eat," said the innkeeper.

"Indeed, yes," said Otto, "for entertainment is better than dyspepsia, and poor eating comes more of the one than the other."

"By careful economy," continued Eisenberg, "Gregory soon managed to ama.s.s a little fortune, and then he felt he might safely venture to write a little himself, and he did so. He wrote poems about the moon, odes to commonplace things, like scissors and dust-pans, but he was wise enough not to publish any of his verse. Then he married, and occasionally he would recite his verses to his wife, who said they were magnificent. She in turn repeated them to her friends, and they said, as she had, that they were unsurpa.s.sed. Still Gregory would not print them, though it soon got noised about that he was a great poet. And so it went. Finally, finding himself subjected to great temptation to print his writings, he put everything he had written into a casket, and, having a small closet constructed in the walls of his house, he placed the casket in that closet, locked the iron door upon it and threw away the key. Time went on, and people daily, their curiosity excited, talked more and more of Gregory's poetry; they even sent delegations to him, requesting him to have his rhymes printed, but he was faithful to his resolution, and when he died he was looked upon as a great writer, without having printed a line. Time pa.s.sed and his reputation grew.

Three generations pa.s.sed by. His children and their children and their children's children came, lived, and died, and constantly his fame increased, and people said, 'Ah, yes; so and so is a great poet, but the poems of Gregory! You should have heard them. They were sublime.'

"But two years ago there came an unhappy day. Some one laughed at the mention of Gregory's name and cast doubt upon the tradition that he had written, and his great-grandson, foolishly, I thought, and recklessly, as has since been proved, offered to prove the truth of the tradition by opening the closet which for a century had remained closed, and publishing the writings of his ancestor. I was sent for as keysmith to open the door, and when it was opened there stood the casket, and in the casket were found the poems.

"'Let that suffice,' said I to his great-grandson. 'You have proved your point.'

"'I will prove it to the world,' said he. 'I will publish the poems.'"

Here Eisenberg sighed.

"He did so," he resumed mournfully, "and another idol was shattered. The poems were the worst you ever read, and from that time on the name of Gregory the poet began to sink into oblivion, where it now lies. Had his descendants been less weak, his name would still have remained a household word, such is the force of tradition. As it is, the printed volume is the best testimony that the great poet Gregory was nothing but a commonplace rhymester whose name was not worthy of remembrance.

"And that, sir," concluded Eisenberg, bowing politely to me, "is why I say that a poet who does not publish runs less risk of failing as a poet than he who does publish."

And I? Well, how could I deny that Eisenberg was right? He had proved his point only too well, and even that night, on my return home, I went to my little portfolio and utterly destroyed the dozen or more poems I had written that day. If you will take my word for it, you will think them greater than you might if you insisted upon reading them.

"What think you?" asked Hans, as we went home? "Are they not wise?"

"Wiser than the Three Men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl," said I, "for I do not believe that Otto, Eisenberg, or Jurgurson would go to sea at all."

"True," was Hans's comment, "for as Otto well says in one of his maxims, 'For a sailor with his sea-legs on there is nothing like the sea, but for a shoemaker who lives by shoes alone, dry land is by much the solider foundation.'"

The Loss of the "Gretchen B."

The Loss of the "Gretchen B."

A TALE OF A PIRATE GHOST, FOUND FLOATING IN A WATER-BOTTLE.

I

THE DISCOVERY

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative I]

t was a very pleasant evening in July. Hans Pumpernickel, who had just laid down the duties of Mayor of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, after having filled that lofty office for eight years, was walking with me along the river-front at its busiest point.

"Let us go out on the wharf," said Hans, as we neared its entrance.

"When I was a small boy I used to take pleasure in sitting upon the twine-piece of the wharf and letting my legs dingle over."

I scratched my head for a moment before I saw exactly what he meant by "twine-piece" and "dingle."

"You speak English very well, Pumpernickel," said I; "but what you should have said was 'string-piece' and 'dangle,' not 'twine-piece' and 'dingle.'"

"But," he protested, "is not a piece of twine a piece of string?"

"Yes," I replied; "but--"

"Then why may not a 'twine-piece' be a 'string-piece'? And as for 'dingle,' is it not the present tense of the verb 'to dingle'? Dingle, dangle, dungle--like sing, sang, sung? You would not say 'letting him sang'--it would be 'letting him sing'; wherefore, why not say 'letting my legs dingle over,' and avoid saying 'letting my legs dangle over'?"

"Oh, well, have it your own way," said I; and, having reached the end of the wharf, we sat down there, and shortly found our legs "dingling" over the water in the most approved style.

"It is a hard sort of a seat," said I, after a moment or two of silence, as we gazed upon the river flowing by.

"True," said Hans, philosophically, "though it is not made of hard wood.

Let us take a boat and have a row."

I agreed, and we hired a small skiff and paddled idly down the stream.

We had not gone far when the bow of our craft b.u.mped up against something which sc.r.a.ped against the side of the boat as we pa.s.sed.

"What was that?" said Pumpernickel.

"I don't know," said I, indifferently. "Nothing, I guess."

"What nonsense you talk sometimes!" he retorted. "It must have been something. We'll retreat and see."

Suiting the action to the words, Hans backed water with his oars, and in the dim light of the moon we soon descried the object of our search--a curious old earthen vessel floating in the river, bobbing up and down very much like a buoy. It looked like a water-bottle of two centuries ago, and, indeed, upon investigation turned out to be such.