Mince Pie

A Japanese Bachelor

The first obligation of one who lives by writing is to write what

editors will buy. In so doing, how often one laments that one cannot

write exactly what happens. Suppose I were to try it--for once!

I have been lying on the bed--where the landlady has put a dark blue

spread, instead of the white one, because I drop my tobacco

ashes--smoking, and thinking about a new friend I met today. His name is

Kenko, a Japanese bachelor of the fourteenth century, who wrote a little

book of musings which has been translated under the title "The

Miscellany of a Japanese Priest." His candid reflections are those of a

shrewd, learned, humane and somewhat misogynist mind. I have been lying

on the bed because his book, like all books that make one ponder deeply

on human destiny, causes that feeling of mind-sickness, that swimming

pain of the mental faculties--or is it caused by too much strong

tobacco?

My acquaintance with Kenko began only last night, when I sat in bed

reading Mr. Raymond Weaver's very pleasant article about him in a

recent _Bookman_. My last act before turning out the light was to lay

the magazine on the table, open at Mr. Weaver's essay, to remind me to

get a copy of Kenko the first thing this morning. Happily to-day was

Saturday. I don't know what I should have done if it had been Sunday. I

felt that I could not wait another day without owning that book. I

suspected it was a good deal in the mood of another bachelor, an

Anglo-American Caleb of to-day--Mr. Logan Pearsall Smith, whose

whimsical "Trivia" belongs on the same shelf.

This morning I tried to argue myself out of the decision. It may be a

very expensive book, I thought; it may cost two or three dollars; I have

been spending a lot of money lately, and I certainly ought to buy some

new undershirts. Moreover, this has been a bad week; I have never

written those paragraphs I promised a certain editor, and I haven't paid

the rent yet. Why not try to find the book at a library? But I knew the

only library where I would have any chance of finding Kenko would be the

big pile at Fifth avenue and Forty-second street, and I could not bear

the thought of having to read that book without smoking. I felt

instinctively (from what Mr. Weaver had written) that it was the kind

of book that requires a pipe.

Well, I thought, I won't decide this too hastily; I'll walk down to the

post office (four blocks) and make up my mind on the way. I knew

already, however, that if I didn't go downtown for that book it would

bother me all day and ruin my work.

I walked down to the post office (to mail to an editor a sonnet I

thought fairly well of) saying to myself: That book is imported from

England, it may be a big book, it may even cost four dollars. How much

better to exhibit the stoic tenacity of all great men, go back to my

hall bedroom (which I was temporarily occupying) and concentrate on

matters in hand. What right, I said, has a Buddhist recluse, born either

in 1281 or 1283, to harass me so? But I knew in my heart that the matter

was already decided. I walked back to the corner of Hallbedroom street,

and stood vacillating at the newsstand, pretending to glance over the

papers. But across six centuries the insistent ghost of Kenko had me in

its grip. Annoyed, and with a sense of chagrin, I hurried to the subway.

In the dimly lit vestibule of the subway car, a boy of sixteen or so sat

on an up-ended suitcase, plunged in a book. I can never resist the

temptation to try to see what books other people are reading. This

innocent curiosity has led me into many rudenesses, for I am

short-sighted and have to stare very close to make out the titles. And

usually the people who read books on trolleys, subways and ferries are

women. How often I have stalked them warily, trying to identify the

volume without seeming too intrusive. That weakness deserves an essay in

itself. It has led me into surprising adventures. But in this case my

quarry was easy. The lad--I judged him a boarding school boy going back

to school after the holidays--was so absorbed in his reading that it was

easy to thrust my face over his shoulder and see the running head on the

page--"The Light That Failed."

I left the subway at Pennsylvania Station. Just to appease my

conscience, I stopped in at the agreeable Cadmus bookshop on

Thirty-third street to see if by any chance they might have a

second-hand copy of Kenko. But I know they wouldn't; it is not the kind

of book at all likely to be found second-hand. I tarried here long

enough to smoke one cigarette and pay my devoirs to the noble profession

of second-hand bookselling. I even thought, a little wildly, of buying a

copy of "The Monk" by M.G. Lewis, which I saw there. So does the frenzy

rage when once you unleash it. But I decided to be content with paying

my devoirs to the proprietor, a friend of mine, and not go on (as the

soldier does in Hood's lovely pun) to devour my pay. I hurried off to

the office of the Oxford University Press, Kenko's publishers.

It should be stated, however, that owing to some confusion of doors I

got by mistake into the reception room of the Brunswick-Balke-Collender

Billiard Table Company, which is on the same corridor as the salesroom

of the Oxford Press. It was a pleasant reception room, not very bookish

in aspect, but in my agitation I was too eager to feel surprised by the

large billiard table in the offing. I somewhat startled a young man at

an adding machine by demanding, in a husky voice, a copy of "The

Miscellanies of a Japanese Priest." I was rather nervous by this time,

lest for some reason I should not be able to buy a copy of Kenko. I

feared the publishers might be angry with me for not having made a round

of the bookstores first. The young man saw that I was chalking the wrong

cue, and forwarded me.

In the office of the Oxford Press I met a very genial reception. I had

been, as I say, apprehensive lest they should refuse to sell me the

book; or perhaps they might not have a copy. I wondered what credentials

I could offer to override their scruples. I had made up my mind to tell

them, if they demurred, that I had once published an essay to prove that

the best book for reading in bed is the General Catalogue of the Oxford

University Press. This is quite true. It is a delightful compilation of

several thousand pages, on India paper. But to my pleasant surprise the

Oxonians seemed not at all surprised at the sudden appearance of one

asking, in a voice a little shaken with emotion, for a copy of the

"Miscellanies." Mr. Campion and Mr. Krause, who greeted me, were

kindness itself.

"Oh, yes," they said, "we have a copy." And in a minute it lay before

me. One of those little green and gold volumes in the Oxford Library of

Prose and Poetry. "How much?" I said. "A dollar forty." I paid it

joyfully. It is a good price for a book. Once I wrote a book myself that

sells (when it does sell) at that figure. When I was at Oxford I used to

buy the O.L.P.P. books for (I think) half a crown. In 1917 they were

listed at a dollar. Now $1.40. But I fear Kenko's estate doesn't get the

advantage of increased royalties.

The first thing to do was to find a place to read the book. My club was

fifteen blocks away. The smoking room of the Pennsylvania Station, where

I have done much reading, was three long blocks. But I must dip into

Kenko immediately. Down in the hallway I found a shoe-shining stand,

with a bowl of indirect light above it. The artist was busy in the

barber shop near-by. Admirable opportunity. I mounted the throne and

fell to. The first thing I saw was a quaint Japanese woodcut of a buxom

maiden washing garments in a rapidly purling stream. She was treading

out a petticoat with her bare feet, presumably on a flat stone. In a

black storm-cloud above a willow tree a bearded supernatural being, with

hands spread in humorous deprecation, gazes down half pleased, half

horrified. And the caption is, "Did not the fairy Kum lose his

supernatural powers when he saw the white legs of a girl washing

clothes?" Yet be not dismayed. Kenko is no George Moore.

By and bye the shoeshiner came out and found me reading. He was

apologetic. "I didn't know you were here," he said. "Sorry to keep you

waiting." Fortunately my shoes needed shining, as they generally do. He

shined them, and I still sat reading. He was puzzled, and tried to make

out the title of the book. At that moment I was reading:

One morning after a beautiful snowfall I sent a letter to a friend's

house about something I wished to say, but said nothing at all about

the snow. And in his reply he wrote: "How can I listen to a man so base

that his pen in writing did not make the least reference to the snow!

Your honorable way of expressing yourself I exceedingly regret." How

amusing was this answer!

The shoeshiner was now asking me whether anything was wrong with the

polish he had put on my boots, so I thought it best to leave.

In the earlier pages of Kenko's book there are a number of allusions to

the agreeableness of intercourse with friends, so I went into a nearby

restaurant to telephone to a man whom I wished to know better. He said

that he would be happy to meet me at ten minutes after twelve. That left

over half an hour. I felt an immediate necessity to tell some one about

Kenko, so I made my way to Mr. Nichols's delightful bookshop (which has

an open fire) on Thirty-third Street. I showed the book to Mr. Nichols,

and we had a pleasant talk, in the course of which she showed me the

five facsimile volumes of Dickens's Christmas books, which he had

issued. In particular, he read aloud to me the magnificent description

of the boiling kettle in the first "Chirp" of "The Cricket on the

Hearth," and pointed out to me how Dickens fell into rhyme in describing

the song of the kettle. This passage Mr. Nichols read to me, standing

in front of his fire, in a very musical and sympathetic tone of voice

which pleased me exceedingly. I was strongly tempted to buy the five

little books, and wished I had known of them before Christmas. With a

brutal effort at last I pulled out my watch, and found it was a quarter

after twelve.

I met my friend at his office, and we walked up Fourth Avenue in a flush

of sunshine. From Twenty-fourth to Forty-second Street we discussed the

habits of English poets visiting this country. At the club we got onto

Bolshevism, and he told me how a bookseller on Lexington Avenue, whose

shop is frequented by very outspoken radicals, had told him that one of

these had said, "The time is coming, and not far away, when the gutters

in front of your shop will run with blood as they did in Petrograd." I

thought of some recent bomb outrages in Philadelphia and did not laugh.

With such current problems before us, I felt a little embarrassed about

turning the talk back to so many centuries to Kenko, but finally I got

it there. My friend ate chicken hash and tea; I had kidneys and bacon,

and cocoa with whipped cream. We both had a coffee *****. We parted

with mutual regret, and I went back to the Hallbedroom street, intending

to do some work.

Of course you know that I didn't do it. I lit the gas stove, and sat

down to read Kenko. I wished I were a recluse, living somewhere near a

plum tree and a clear running water, leisurely penning maxims for

posterity. I read about his frugality, his love of the moon and a little

music, his somewhat embittered complaints against the folly of men who

spend their lives in rushing about swamped in petty affairs, and the sad

story of the old priest who was attacked by a goblin-cat when he came

home late at night from a pleasant evening spent in capping verses. I

read with special pleasure his seven Self-Congratulations, in which he

records seven occasions when he felt that he had really done himself

justice. The first of these was when he watched a man riding horseback

in a reckless fashion; he predicted that the man would come a cropper,

and he did so. The next four self-congratulations refer to times when

his knowledge of literary and artistic matters enabled him to place an

unfamiliar quotation or assign a painted tablet to the right artist. One

tells how he was able to find a man in a crowd when everyone else had

failed. And the last and most amusing is an anecdote of a court lady who

tried to inveigle him into a flirtation with her maid by sending the

latter, richly dressed and perfumed, to sit very close to him when he

was at the temple. Kenko congratulates himself on having been adamant.

He was no Pepys.

I thought of trying to set down a similar list of self-congratulations

for myself. Alas, the only two I could think of were having remembered a

telephone number, the memorandum of which I had lost; and having

persuaded a publisher to issue a novel which was a great success. (Not

written by me, let me add.)

I found my friend Kenko a rather disturbing companion. His condemnation

of our busy, racketing life is so damned conclusive! Having recently

added to my family, I was distressed by his section "Against Leaving Any

Descendants." He seems to be devoid of the sentiment of ancestor worship

and sacredness of family continuity which we have been taught to

associate with the Oriental. And yet there is always a current of

suspicion in one's mind that he is not really revealing his inmost

heart. When a bachelor in his late fifties tells us how glad he is never

to have had a son, we begin to taste sour grapes.

I went out about six o'clock, and was thrilled by a shaving of shining

new moon in the cold blue winter sky--"the sky with its terribly cold

clear moon, which none care to watch, is simply heart-breaking," says

Kenko. As I walked up Broadway I turned back for another look at the

moon, and found it hidden by the vast bulk of a hotel. Kenko would have

had some caustic remark for that. I went into the Milwaukee Lunch for

supper. They had just baked some of their delicious fresh bran muffins,

still hot from the oven. I had two of them, sliced and buttered, with a

pot of tea. Kenko lay on the table, and the red-headed philosopher who

runs the lunchroom spotted him. I have always noticed that "plain men"

are vastly curious about books. They seem to suspect that there is some

occult power in them, some mystery that they would like to grasp. My

friend, who has the bearing of a prizefighter, but the heart of an

amiable child, came over and picked up the book. He sat down at the

table with me and looked at it. I was a little doubtful how to explain

matters, for I felt that it was the kind of book he would not be likely

to care for. He began spelling it out loud, rather laboriously--

"Who was this fellow?" he asked.

"He was a Jap," I said, "lived a long time ago. He was mighty thick with

the Emperor, and after the Emperor died he went to live by himself in

the country, and became a priest, and wrote down his thoughts."

"I see," said my friend. "Just put down whatever came into his head,

eh?"

"That's it. All his ideas about the queer things a fellow runs into in

life, you know, little bits of philosophy."

I was a little afraid of using that word "philosophy," but I couldn't

think of anything else to say. It struck my friend very pleasantly.

"That's it," he said, "philosophy. Just as you say, now, he went off by

himself and put things down the way they come to him. Philosophy. Sure.

Say, that's a good kind of book. I like that kind of thing. I have a lot

of books at home, you know. I get home about nine o'clock, and I most

always read a bit before I go to bed."

How I yearned to know what books they were, but it seemed rude to

question him.

He dipped into Kenko again, and I wondered whether courtesy demanded

that I should order another pot of tea.

"Say, would you like to do me a favor?"

"Sure thing," I said.

"When you get through with that book, pass it over, will you? That's the

kind of thing I've been wanting. Just some little thoughts, you know,

something short. I've got a lot of books at home."

His big florid face gleamed with friendly earnestness.

"Sure thing," I said. "Just as soon as I've finished it you shall have

it." I wanted to ask whether he would reciprocate by lending me one of

his own books, which would give me some clue to his tastes; but again I

felt obscurely that he would not understand my curiosity.

As I went out he called to me again from where he stood by the shining

coffee boiler. "Don't forget, will you?" he said. "When you're through,

just pass it over."

I promised faithfully, and tomorrow evening I shall take the book in to

him. I honestly hope he'll enjoy it. I walked up the bright wintry

street, and wondered what Kenko would have said to the endless flow of

taxicabs, the elevators and subways, the telephones, and telegraph

offices, the newsstands and especially the plate-glass windows of

florists. He would have had some urbane, cynical and delightfully

disillusioning remarks to offer. And, as Mr. Weaver so shrewdly says,

how he would enjoy "The Way of All Flesh!"

I came back to Hallbedroom street, and set down these few meditations.

There is much more I would like to say, but the partitions in hall

bedrooms are thin, and the lady in the next room thumps on the wall if I

keep the typewriter going after ten o'clock.