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DAVID COPPERFIELD
The story is told in the first person, by David Copperfield, though he is not born until the end of the first chapter. He has a remarkable memory, however, and remembers exactly how everyone looked and what everyone said during the argument between his mother, his aunt, and the doctor just before the delivery.
When David was born, he tells us, "The clock began to strike, and I began to cry simultaneously." This probably does not mean that David was struck by the clock. However, it sets the tone of the book, in which somebody is always getting beaten and crying, although people frequently cry without being hit.
David's father died six months before David was born. This is the way he puts it: "My father's eyes had closed upon the light of this world six months when mine opened on it." Not only is this more delicate but it is recommended to any author who is being paid by the word. David's mother is a beautiful, baby-faced creature who married her late husband when she was half his age, which is probably why he called her his better half. Whenever anyone says a harsh word, her eyes fill with tears, which may mean that they are small, and fill rapidly.
DAVID COPPERFIELD
David has a loyal friend in Peggotty, a plump nursemaid who is always hugging him and bursting the buttons off her dress. She is kept busy around the house, cooking, cleaning, and sewing on buttons.
Time passes. Once Peggotty takes David for a fortnight's visit to her brother's home, a fishing barge drawn up on dry land. It is almost as peculiar as people in it.
Returning home from the visit, David learns that his mother has married to a Mr. Murdstone. As Peggotty tells him, with characteristic delicacy, "You have got a pa!" Mr. Murdstone is tall, dark, handsome, and mean, and David takes an instant dislike to him. One senses the emergence of an Oedipus complex, but no reference is made to it, probably because Freud was born six years after the publication of David Copperfield. Equally obnoxious is Murdstone's sister, Miss Murdstone, an uninvited guest who sits around stringing steel beads and urging her brother to be firm with David, which he has every intention of being.
Time passes (and it has to, because the novel covers about thirty years). One day David is summoned home from Salem House school because of the death of his mother, which makes him a full-fledged orphan, like Oliver Twist and many other Dickens youngster who goes on to better things. Mr. Murdstone puts an end to his idling by sending the lad to London to wash bottles for the firm of Murdstone and Grinby. It is not David's idea of a promising career, and he is so unhappy that, as he says, "I mingled my tears with the water in which I was washing the bottles." Whether the solution was about fifty-fifty, or nearer sixty-forty, he fails to say. His Aunt Betsy comes to his rescue and suggests that he become a proctor, a profession which he is immediately enthusiastic about, though neither he nor the reader knows precisely what it is.
DAVID COPPERFIELD
While time passes, disclosures and deaths come thick and fast. The wretched and 'umble Uriah Heep forges Mr. Wickfield's name and 'makes off with Miss Trotwood's, i.e., Aunt Betsy's, money. When confronted with his crimes, Uriah ceases being 'umble and, as David remarks "throws off his mask." Without the mask, he looks worse than ever. Dear Dora dies, Ham loses his life in attempting to rescue a man from a shipwreck, whose corpse is washed up on the shore, turns out to be David's old friend Steerforth.
David goes abroad for three years, mailing back to England articles and books his course in shorthand has enabled him to write. All of them are gratefully accepted by publishers, probably because they are eager to get the foreign stamps for their collection. Returning home, rich and famous, David discovers to his amazement that he loves Agnes. He is even more amazed to find that Agnes loves him, too. It is the most amazing chapter in the book.
Happiness comes at last to David Copperfield. There would seem to be no more need for tears. But Dickens is not ready to throw in the towel, damp though it is. "Agnes," says David, "laid her head upon my breast and wept; and I wept with her, though we were so happy."
Although two chapters remain, let us leave them crying happily together and tiptoe away.
MUTINY AT THE PENTAGON
The good ship Pentagon was almost rocked by a mutiny when a Navy captain named "Buzz" Lloyd decided to challenge Pentagon regulations regarding the parking of cars in the parking space reserved for small automobiles.
I was invited by the fighting captain to attend his trial in the Pentagon traffic court where he was accused of parking his Chrysler in the small-car parking space. Captain Lloyd had deliberately parked his car in this space, because he felt that Pentagon was discriminating against American cars.
Apparently the only space which is never filled in the morning, according to the captain, is the small-car parking lot. Therefore, the captain maintains, the Pentagon is unwittingly encouraging the flow of gold out of the United States by forcing military officers to buy foreign cars so they can have a place to park. Rather than pay his fine, he decided to go to court and make a plea for the American automobile.
When I arrived in the courtroom with the captain, I found it was already crowded with lieutenants, commanders, colonels, and civilians, waiting to face the Federal Traffic Commissioner. All these officers, in charge of moving thousands of troops, ships, planes, and supplies, had parked in the wrong place around the Pentagon building, and had to appear in front of the Commissioner. Most of them pleaded guilty and were fined two dollars. Those who pleaded not guilty were asked to wait.
MUTINY AT THE PENTAGON
Lloyd had brought a photograph of the parking lot with him. Since he was the only one who looked as though he was going to fight, his case was put last on the docket. While we were waiting, I offered him two steel balls to play with, but he refused them, fearing that if the judge saw them it would prejudice the case.
Finally he was called before the bench. Standing ramrod stiff in the best naval tradition, the captain faced the judge. His accuser, a Pentagon policeman, stood a little to the side, a receipt for the ticket clutched in his hand.
'How do you plead?' the Commissioner asked.
'Not guilty,' the captain said.
The patrolman gave evidence that he did ticket the Chrysler which he found in the small-car parking lot.
Captain Lloyd did not deny the charge. But, clutching the photograph of the Pentagon lot, he made an impassioned plea against the small-car parking lot. He pointed out that no American small car, with the possible exception of the Metropolitan, could fit the specifications of what the Pentagon had designated a small car. A car had to be less than 160 inches in length and 61 inches in width. The Falcon, the Carvair, the American, the Rambler, and the Valiant could not be considered small cars by this rale. He said the small-car parking lot was full of Volkswagens, Renaults, Simcas, Fiats, and MGs. He told of attempts to stop the gold flow and cited the President's "Buy American" programme. He pointed out in the photograph that there was always room for foreign cars in the Pentagon parking lot, but none for the American cars. The judge studied Captain Lloyd's photograph carefully and he listened attentively to the captain's speech. Occasionally he made a note and finally, when the captain, fighting the greatest military battle of his earner, finished, the judge said, 'Thank you. I fine you two dollars.'
Captain Lloyd was told that if he still wanted to fight the small-car principle, he should park his car in the small-parking lot, only this time when he got a ticket he should take his case to the United States District Court in Alexandria. The Commissioner said he had no authority to rule on what constituted a small car at the Pentagon.
The captain paid his two dollars and, looking like Billy Mitchell after his court-martial, left the room. I will always remember his words as we said good-bye. 'I regret I have only one Chrysler to give to my country.'
DO INSECTS THINK?
In a recent book entitled The Psychic Life of Insects, Professor Bouvier says that we must be careful not to credit the little winged fellows with intelligence when they behave in what seems like an intelligent manner. They may be only reacting. I would like to confront the Professor with an instance of reasoning power on the part of an insect which cannot be explained away in any such manner.
During the summer, while I was at work on my treatise Do Larvae Laugh? we kept a female wasp at our cottage in the Adirondacks. It really was more like a child of our own than a wasp, except that it looked more like a wasp than a child of our own. That was one of the ways we told the difference.
It was still a young wasp when we got it (thirteen or fourteen years old) and for some time we could not get it to eat or drink, it was so shy. Since it was a female, we decided to call it Miriam, but soon the children's nickname for it — "Pudge" — became a fixture, and Pudge it was from that time on.
One evening I had been working late in my laboratory fooling round with some gin and other chemicals, and in leaving the room I tripped over a nine of diamonds which someone had left lying on the floor and knocked over my card catalogue containing the names and addresses of all the larvae worth knowing in North America. The cards went everywhere.
I was too tired to pick them to that height, and went sobbing to bed, just as mad as I could be. As I went, however, I noticed the wasp flying about in circles over the scattered cards. 'Maybe Pudge will pick them up,' I said half-laughingly to myself, never thinking for one moment that such would be the case.
DO INSECTS THINK?
When I came down the next morning Pudge was still asleep over in her box,, evidently tired out. And well she might have been. For there on the floor lay the cards scattered all about just as I had left them the night before. The faithful little insect had buzzed about all night trying to come to some decision about picking them up and arranging them in the catalogue box, and then, figuring out for herself that, as she knew practically nothing about the larvae of any sort except wasp-larvae, she would probably make more of a mess of rearranging them than if she left them on the floor for me to fix. It was just too much for her to tackle, and, discouraged, she went over and lay down in her box, where she cried herself to sleep.
If this is not an answer to Professor Bouvier's statement that insects have no reasoning power, I do not know what it is.
BOTTA FINDS NINEVEH
The Bible tells of God's chastisement of the Jews by the Assyrians, "the rod of mine anger," of the Tower of Babel and the splendours of Nineveh, of the seventy-year captivity and the great Nebuchadnezzar, God's judgement upon the "whore of Babylon" and the chalice of His wrath to be poured by seven angels over the lands along the Euphrates. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah pour forth their terrifying visions of the destruction to come upon "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of Chaldees" excellency that shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah," so that "wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses and dragons in their pleasant palaces" (Isaiah 13-19, 22). Was it but a legend, or could there be any historical proof?
Flat was the land between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, but here and there mysterious mounds rose out of the plain. Dust storms swirled about these protuberances, piling the black earth into steep dunes, which grew steadily for a hundred years, only to be dispersed in the course of another five hundred. The Bedouins who rested by these mounds, letting their camels graze on the meagre fodder growing at the base, had no idea what they might contain.
THE HEDLEY KOW
The people of the neighbourhood of Hedley, on the skirts of Blackburn Fell, west of Ravensworth, on the road to Tanfield, were frequently annoyed by the pranks of a boggle named Hedley Kow. He belonged to a family of goblins more mischievous than cruel. He did nobody any serious harm, but took delight in frightening them. To whomsoever he appeared he usually ended his cantrips with a hoarse laugh after he had played them some sorry trick.
The illy-willy Kow was a perfect plague to the servant girls at farm houses all round the fell. Sometimes he would call them out of their warm beds by imitating the voice of their lovers at the window. At other times he would open the milk-house door, and invite the cat to lap the cream, let down stitches in the stockings they had been knitting, or put their spinning wheel out of order. But his favourite trick was to take a shape of a favourite cow and to lead a milk-maid a long chase round the field before he would allow himself to be caught. After kicking and rowing during the whole milking time, he would at last upset the pail, and, slipping clear of the tie, give a loud bellow and bolt of tail on end, thus letting the girl know she had been the sport of the Kow. This trick of his was so common that he seems to have got his name from it, though to tell him from a real cow, folk called him Kow or Koo. Here is a story about this Hedley Kow.
THE HEDLEY KOW
There was once an old woman, Goody Blake, who lived in a little bit of a cottage and earned a scant living by running errands for her neighbours; she got a bite here, a sup there, making shift to get on somehow. She always looked as spry and cheery as if she had not a want in the world.
One summer evening, as she was trotting, full of smiles as ever, along the high road to her hovel, what she should see but a big pot lying in the ditch.
'Goodness me!' cried Goody, 'that would be just the very thing for me if I only had something to put in it. But it would be fine to put a flower in for my window; so I'll just take it home with me.'
And with that she lifted the lid and looked inside. 'Mercy me!' she cried in amazement. 'If it isn't full of gold pieces! Here's luck!' And so it was, brimful of great gold coins. She felt awful rich and wondered how she was to get her treasure home. At last she could see no better way than to tie the end of her shawl to it and drag it behind her like a go-cart.
THE HEDLEY KOW
Then she was a bit tired of dragging such a heavy weight and, stopping to rest a while, turned to look at her treasure. And lo! It wasn't a pot of gold at all! It was nothing but a lump of silver. She stared at it and rubbed her eyes. 'Well I never!' she said at last. 'And me thinking it was a pot of gold! But this is luck. Silver is far less trouble, easier to mind and not so easy stolen.' So she went off again planning what she would do, and feeling as rich as rich.
When she stopped to rest again and gave a look round to see if her treasure was safe, she saw nothing but a great lump of iron. 'Well I never!' said Goody. 'I must have been dreaming of silver. But this is luck. It's real convenient. I can get penny pieces for old iron, and penny pieces are a deal handier for me than your gold and silver!' So on she trotted full of plans as to how she would spend her penny pieces.
Once more she stopped to rest and, looking around, saw nothing but a big stone. 'Well I never!' she cried full of smiles. 'And to think I mistook it for iron. But here's luck indeed, me wanting a stone terrible bad to stick open the gate.' All in a hurry to see how the stone would keep the gate open, she trotted off down the road till she came to her own cottage.
MENAGERIE MANOR
Still another creature that gave us a certain amount of trouble in the early stages was Millicent, the Malabar squirrel. Malabars are the largest members of the squirrel family, and hail from India. They measure about two feet in length, with sturdy bodies and long, very bushy tails. Their undersides are saffron yellow, their upper parts a rich mahogany red, and they have very large ear-tufts that are like a couple of black sporrans perched on their heads. They are, like all squirrels, very alert, quick moving and inquisitive, but, unlike most squirrels, they do not have that nervous desire to gnaw everything with which they come into contact. The exception to this was, of course, Millicent. Her view was that nature had provided her with a pair of very prominent, bright orange teeth for the sole purpose of demolishing any cage in which she was confined. This was not from any desire to escape, because having gnawed a large hole in one side of the cage she would then move over to the other side and start all over again. She cost us a small fortune in repairs until we had a cage specially lined with sheet metal, and thus put a stop to her activities. However, feeling that she would miss her occupational therapy, we gave her large logs of wood, and she proceeded to gnaw her way through these, like a buzz saw.
MENAGERIE MANOR
At first, Millicent was anything but tame, and would not hesitate to bury her teeth in you finger, should you be foolish enough to give her a chance. We came to the conclusion that she was just one of those animals which never become tame. But then a peculiar thing happened: Millicent was found one day lying in the bottom of her cage in a state of collapse. She had no obvious symptoms, and it was a little difficult to tell exactly what was wrong with her. When I find an animal suffering from some mysterious complaint like this, I do two things: I give it an antibiotic and keep it very warm. So Millicent had an injection and was moved down to the Reptile House, for this is the only place where the heat is kept on throughout the summer months.
Within a few days Millicent was recovering satisfactorily, but was still languid. The extraordinary fact was the change in her character. From being acutely anti-human, she had suddenly become so pro-Homo Sapiens that it was almost embarrassing. You had only to open her cage door and she would rush out onto your arms, nibbling your fingers gently and peering earnestly into your face, her long whiskers quivering with emotion. She liked nothing better than to lie along your arm, as though it were the branch of a tree, and in this position doze for hours if you let her.
MENAGERIE MANOR
Since she was now such a reformed character, she was allowed out of her cage first thing each morning, to potter round the Reptile House. Millicent very soon discovered that the tortoise pen provided her with everything a self-respecting Malabar could want: there was an infra-red lamp that cast a pleasant, concentrated heat; there were the backs of the giant tortoises which made ideal perches; and there was an abundance of fruit and vegetables. So the giant tortoises would move ponderously round their pen, while Millicent perched on their shells. Occasionally, when one of them found a succulent piece of fruit and was just stretching out his neck to engulf it, she would hop down from his neck, pick up the fruit, and jump back on to the shell again before the tortoise really knew what was happening. When the time came that Millicent was well enough to return to the Small Mammal House, I think the giant tortoises were glad to see the back of her, for not only had she been an additional weight on their shells, but the constant disappearance of titbits from under their very noses was having a distressing effect on their nerves.
THE BRITISH RAJ IN INDIA
Images of the British raj in India are everywhere of late. On television returns, the divided rulers of Paul Scott's Jewel in the Crown sip their tea in scented hill stations and swap idle gossip in the palaces of local princes. We can savour all the hot intensities that blast a decorous English visitor the moment she steps ashore to be engulfed in a whirlwind of mendicants, elephants, snake charmers and crowds. The nine-hour production of an ancient Hindu epic poem, The Mahabharata, has lately been played to packed houses and considerable critical praise. Best-selling books like Freedom at Midnight re-create the struggle of two great cultures, mighty opposites with a twinned destiny, as they set about trying to disentangle themselves and their feelings before the Partition of 1947. Across the country, strolling visitors marvelled a few years ago at all the silken saris and bright turbans of the Festival of India and, even more, at the exotic world they evoke: the bejewelled splendour of the Mogul courts; dusty, teeming streets; and all the dilemmas confronting the imperial British as they sought to bring Western ideas of order to one of the wildest and most complex lands on Earth.
Behind all the glamour and the glory, however, lies one of history's mischievous ironies. For the raj, which did not begin until 1858 when the British government officially took over India from a private trading company, was in fact only the final act in a long, crooked and partly accidental drama. Much of the British empire, in fact, was acquired, according to a celebrated phrase, "in a fit of absence of mind."
THE BRITISH RAJ IN INDIA
When the London merchants of what became the East India Company first sent ships to the East in 1601, they were not bound for India at all but for the Spice Islands of the Dutch East Indies, and the English traders who set foot on the subcontinent a little later actually sought to avoid conquest. Directors back in London kept telling them that conquest would only cut into profits. 'All war is so contrary to our interest,' they reminded field employees in 1681, 'that we cannot too often inculcate to you our strictest aversion thereunto.'
But India was still part of the fading Mogul empire, which a century earlier had brought Muslim administrators and conquerors. Just to protect its ability to do business in a land already riddled with fierce animosities, the company found itself forced to defend trading posts with hired soldiers. Before long, the posts became cities (Calcutta, Bombay, Madras) and their soldier garrisons, small private armies. As assets and responsibilities mounted, the merchants, who had come out as supplicants bearing gifts to local princes for an inside track on trade, gradually became soldiers, and then became local rulers themselves.
THE BRITISH RAJ IN INDIA
But India was still part of the fading Mogul empire, which a century earlier had brought Muslim administrators and conquerors. Just to protect its ability to do business in a land already riddled with fierce animosities, the company found itself forced to defend trading posts with hired soldiers. Before long, the posts became cities (Calcutta, Bombay, Madras) and their soldier garrisons, small private armies. As assets and responsibilities mounted, the merchants, who had come out as supplicants bearing gifts to local princes for an inside track on trade, gradually became soldiers, and then became local rulers themselves.
By the time the company was disbanded in 1858, hardly more than a thousand British officers controlled India, an area the size of Europe in which 200 million people — about a quarter of them Muslim, but a majority Hindu — spoke more than 200 different languages. By then, the company had carried home such Indian terms as "bungalow", "verandah", "punch", "dungarees" and "pyjamas". They had also imported back to Britain many habits such as smoking cigars, playing polo and taking showers. Most of all, they had laid the foundation for, and forced the British government to get involved in, what was about to become the most ambitious, and the most anguished, empire in modern history.
THE NAVAHO
The ancient homeland of the Navaho Indians, created according to legend by the tribal gods, was bounded in the north by Ute Mountain, in the east by Pelada, in the west by San Francisco peaks in northern Arizona, and in the south by Mount Taylor, which rises above Laguna pueblo in New Mexico. All of these mountains are regarded as sacred. This vast territory includes largely mountain and desert terrain, together with some small but fertile valleys.
The Navaho, like their relatives, the Apache, are members of the widespread Athapascan linguistic family. The Athapascan language in modified form is in general use over the entire Navaho reservation, although many individuals speak Spanish, and an increasing number understand English, especially those educated in Government and mission schools.
According to native legend and tradition, supported to a certain extent by archaeological and linguistic studies, the people, now known as the Navaho and Apache entered the Southwest some time about 1200 to 1400 AD, following the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains from the far north. According to native legend the Navaho and Apache separated about four hundred years ago.
THE NAVAHO
The history of the Navaho Indians must be taken into account in the study of their foods. During their early roving life they were hunters and gatherers of wild foods. Being primarily hunters, the men killed deer, mountain goats, and buffalo, with bow and arrow, while they trapped practically all the smaller edible creatures of the region. Women gathered seeds, nuts, and edible plants which they preserved by drying. Fish, formerly abundant in the mountain streams, have always been tabooed as an article of Navaho diet. The Navaho also grew their crops as the Hopi do, using digging and planting sticks. They raised the same foods as their Pueblo neighbours — corn, two or more varieties of beans, and squash. The corn was ground on the metate and prepared in many different ways, some of which have survived during sacred ceremonies.
The characteristic Navaho dwelling, known as the hoghan, is a substantial house of brush and pole construction. Hoghans are of two major types, a conical building and a dome-shape hoghan. Medicine lodges, erected for healing ceremonies, usually resemble the conical hoghan, but on a much larger scale. The sweat-house is like a small hoghan, minus the smoke-hole. The dwelling house is usually dedicated with a ceremony which amounts to a ritual, replete with symbolism and poetry.
THE NAVAHO
Navaho social organisation is based on the clan, a system of tracing descent through the female line from a supposed common female ancestor. Members of the same clan consider themselves akin, hence marriage is not permitted within the clan. The number of Navaho clans is uncertain; authorities claim as few as 51 and as many as 64. Names of clans include those of Navaho localities, Pueblo clan names, nicknames, and names of aliens such as Mexican, Ute, Apache, and Sioux.
According to the Navaho, the sky is considered the husband of the earth, which is the mother of all forms of life, animal and vegetal. Divine beings carry the sun and moon across the skies over thirty-two trails. The stars were created by Hashchezhini, the Fire God, who named and set the constellations in their places. Coyote, who stole Hashchezhini's pouch of stars and scattered the contents across the heavens, is sometimes credited with their creation. Clouds, winds, fog, rain, snow, thunder, and lightning are personified by the Navaho.