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EDWAR D LE AR A ND THE PL AY OF PO E TR Y
 Edward Lear
and the Play of Poetry

Edited by
J A M E S WI L L I A M S
AND
MATTHEW BEVIS

1
 3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford,  ,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Oxford University Press 
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 
Impression: 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
 Madison Avenue, New York, NY , United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 
ISBN ––––
Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
In memory of Vivien Noakes
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

round half the chapters in this volume got a first draft as papers at the
A Bicentennial Conference on Edward Lear at Jesus College, Oxford in Septem-
ber . We are grateful to all who made that event possible, especially the Oxford
English Faculty, Jesus College, the MHRA, and the John Fell Fund for financial
assistance, and to Hannah Field, Paulina Kewes, Rowena Fowler, and Derek Attridge
for their personal support. We are grateful also to the attendees who shared their
ideas and enthusiasm for Lear in conversations which in many ways gave this book
its first impetus. We thank the two readers at OUP for their encouraging and detailed
comments, and also Jacqueline Norton, Rachel Platt, Lucy McClune, Rachel Peake,
Christine Ranft, Manikandan Chandrasekaran, Rosemary Dear, Rose Campbell, and
Eleanor Collins for supporting the book and seeing it through to publication.
A contribution from the Small Research Grants Scheme at Keble College, Oxford
helped pay for editorial assistance, for which our thanks go to Alex Alonso for his
hard work, close attention, and good humour.
One essay in this volume contains work published previously: Anna Henchman’s
‘Fragments out of Place: Homology and the Logic of Nonsense in Edward Lear’
reworks elements of her article ‘Edward Lear Dismembered: Word Fragments and
Body Parts’, in Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal . (),
–. We are grateful to the journal for permission to reprint. Acknowledgement
is made to Faber and Faber for quotations from T. S. Eliot, to Penguin Books for
quotations from Edward Lear, and to New Directions, and the Estate of James
MacGibbon for the quotations and illustrations from The Collected Poems and Drawings
of Stevie Smith. We are grateful to John Ashbery and Carcanet Press for permission to
quote from Girls on the Run, Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems, Planisphere, and
Collected Poems. We thank Hope Mayo and Mary Haegert at Harvard, and AnnaLee
Pauls and Brianna Cregle at Princeton for their help in securing images and answer-
ing our queries. Various Learians have offered support and advice: thanks are due in
particular to Hugh Haughton, Peter Swaab, and Charles Lewsen for their kindness
and counsel, and we owe an especially huge debt to Marco Graziosi for his heroic
generosity in providing high-quality images of Edward Lear’s published drawings. It
is a pleasure to acknowledge in print Marco’s ‘Blog of Bosh’ (https://nonsenselit.
wordpress.com) and his meticulous transcriptions of the first six years of Lear’s
diary (https://leardiaries.wordpress.com), for which readers and scholars of Lear are
greatly in his debt. We cannot conclude without acknowledging Vivien Noakes

vii
               

who, although she passed away before our work began, laid the groundwork for
everything between these covers. We are grateful to Michael Noakes for permitting
us to dedicate the book to her memory.
Finally, for their continued support in countless big and small ways, we thank our
families, especially Rebecca Bevis and Brian King.
J. W. & M. B.

viii
 CONTENTS

Abbreviations xi
List of Illustrations xiii
Notes on the Contributors xvii

Introduction: Edward Lear and the Play of Poetry 

James Williams and Matthew Bevis
. Lear and the Fool 
James Williams
. ‘One of the Dumms’: Edward Lear and Romanticism 
Michael O’Neill
. Edward Lear and Dissent 
Sara Lodge
. ‘Some Think Him . . . Queer’: Loners and Love in Edward Lear 
Peter Swaab
. Edward Lear: Celebrity Chef 
Peter Robinson
. Falling for Edward Lear 
Matthew Bevis
. Being and Naughtiness 
Daniel Brown
. Fragments Out of Place: Homology and the Logic of Nonsense
in Edward Lear 
Anna Henchman
. ‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’, and other Poems of Love
and Marriage 
Daniel Karlin
. Playing with Letters: Lear’s Episthilarity 
Hugh Haughton

ix
 

. The Sense and Nonsense of Weariness: Edward Lear and

Gertrude Stein read Tennyson 
Anna Barton
. T. S. Eliot Plays Edward Lear 
Anne Stillman
. ‘Now Listen, Mr Leer!’: Joyce’s Lear 
Adam Piette
. Auden’s Lear 
Seamus Perry
. Drawing Away from Lear: Stevie Smith’s Deceitful Echo 
Will May
. Edward Lear’s Contribution to British Psychoanalysis 
Adam Phillips
. Edward Lear, John Ashbery, and the Pleasant Surprise 
Stephen Ross

Select Bibliography 

Index 

x
 ABBREVIATIONS

CN Complete Nonsense and Other Verse, ed. Vivien Noakes (London: Penguin,
).
Diary Edward Lear’s diary –,  vols, MS Eng ., Houghton Library,
Harvard University. There is no complete edition. Marco Graziosi’s
transcription (up to November ) can be found at: https://leardiaries.
wordpress.com, and there is a complete scan of the MS (from microfilm) at:
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu//oasis/deliver/deepLink?_collection=oasis&
uniqueId=hou.
L Letters of Edward Lear, ed. Lady Strachey (London: Unwin, ).
Life Edward Lear: The Life of a Wanderer, nd edn (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, ).
LL Later Letters of Edward Lear, ed. Lady Strachey (London: Unwin, ).
SL Edward Lear: Selected Letters, ed. Vivien Noakes (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
).

Where a parenthetical citation gives only page numbers, the reference is to CN.
Quotations from Shakespeare are from The Riverside Shakespeare, nd edn, ed.
G. Blakemore Evans et al. (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, ). Quotations
from the Bible are from the Authorized Version. The Oxford English Dictionary is cited as
OED and refers to the online edition unless otherwise specified.

xi
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

For illustrations reproduced from manuscript sources, full details and acknow-
ledgments are given. Where illustrations have previously appeared in standard
editions of Lear’s work, we give page references using the abbreviations adopted
throughout this volume. For works by Lear published during Lear’s lifetime, we also
indicate in square brackets the volume in which the image first appeared, using the
following abbreviations: BN = A Book of Nonsense (), BN = A Book of Nonsense
(), NSSBA = Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets (), MN = More
Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc. (), LLy = Laughable Lyrics, a Fourth Book of
Nonsense Poems, Songs, Botany, Music, &c ().

. ‘There was an Old Man of the Isles’. CN,  [BN]. 

. ‘The Quangle-Wangle’s Hat’. CN,  [LLy]. 
. ‘There was an Old Derry down Derry’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Ischia’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Kamschatka’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Lady of Prague’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘Edward Lear, Archbishop of Canterbury’. Letter to Chichester
Fortescue,  April . LL, , SL, . 
. ‘ . . . the little dragging . . . ’. Letter to Chichester Fortescue,
 November . L, . 
. ‘The Absolutely Abstemious Ass’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Hong Kong’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Tring’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Blackheath’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man in a Tree’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of El Hums’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Lady of France’. CN,  [MN]. 
. Self-portrait with wings. Letter to Evelyn Baring, January .
SL, . 
. ‘I’m going to buy a Parrot, to walk on my terrace with . . . ’
Letter to David Richard Morier,  January . SL, . 
. ‘There was an Old Lady whose folly’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Kildare’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of New York’. CN,  [BN]. 

xiii
                 

. ‘There was an Old Person of Philæ’. CN,  [BN]. 

. ‘There was a Young Lady of Portugal’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Spain’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was a Young Lady of Parma’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was a Young Person whose history’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Cashmere’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Diss’. CN, . MS Typ ., f. ,
Houghton Library, Harvard University. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Jamaica’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Hyde’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man on some rocks’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Harrow’. CN, . MS Typ ., f. ,
Houghton Library, Harvard University. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Hove’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Whitehaven’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘The Owl and the Pussy-cat’ (illustrations  and ). CN,  [NSSBA]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Shields’. CN, . 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Cadiz’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Lodore’. CN, . 
. ‘There was an Old Man, who when little’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Ems’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was a Young Lady of Clare’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man at a Casement’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Spithead’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘Stratford Place Gazette . . . Alarming and Horrible Event’ .
CN, . Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American
Literature, Box , Folder ; Manuscripts Division, Department of
Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library. 
. ‘Lear showing a doubting stranger his name’ [MN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Derry down Derry’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Spithead’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘There was a Young Lady whose chin’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘Mr L[ear] & the P[olly] & the P[ussy]B[ite] [ . . . ] dashed to atoms’.
CN, . MS Typ . (), Houghton Library, Harvard University. 
. ‘The  venerable Jesubites fasten the remains [ . . . ] together’. CN, .
MS Typ . (), Houghton Library, Harvard University. 
. ‘Mr Lear & the Pusseybite & the Polly cat &  Jebusites’. CN, .
MS Typ . (), Houghton Library, Harvard University. 
. ‘The Scroobious Pip’ (first version). CN, . MS Typ . (),
Houghton Library, Harvard University. 
. ‘The Scroobious Pip’ (second version). CN, . 

xiv
   

. ‘Pollybirdia Singularis’. CN,  [NSSBA]. 

. ‘Queerifloria Babyoides’. CN, . MS Typ . (),
Houghton Library, Harvard University. 
. ‘The Owl and the Pussy-cat’ (illustration ). CN,  [NSSBA]. 
. ‘The Owl and the Pussy-cat’ (illustration ). CN,  [NSSBA]. 
. ‘The Owl and the Pussy-cat’ (illustration ). CN,  [NSSBA]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Tring’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man on some rocks’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Peru’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Tartary’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Person of Hyde’. CN,  [MN]. 
. J. H. Howard, illustration for ‘The Owl and the Pussy-cat’,
Our Young Folks, . (February ), . 
. Final stanza and illustration of ‘The Owl and the Pussy-cat’, detail
of MS Typ . (), Houghton Library, Harvard University. 
. Letter to Evelyn Baring,  February . SL, . 
. Letter to Evelyn Baring, . SL, . 
. Self-portrait with wings. Letter to Evelyn Baring, January .
SL, . 
. Letter to Evelyn Baring,  February . SL, . 
. ‘Mr Lear stamps and dances for joy on receiving Miss North’s letter’.
Letter to Marianne North,  June . SL, . 
. ‘Edward Lear, Archbishop of Canterbury’. Letter to Chichester
Fortescue,  April . LL, , SL, . 
. ‘ . . . she proceeded to insert all the feathers [ . . . ] in her bonnet . . . ’,
from ‘The Story of the Four Little Children’. CN,  [NSSBA]. 
. ‘There was an old person who said –’. CN, . MS Typ . (),
Houghton Library, Harvard University. 
. ‘There was an Old Man whose Despair’. CN, . 
. ‘There was an Old Man of Dunblane’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘Manypeeplia Upsidownia’. CN,  [NSSBA]. 
. ‘Till, lost in unknown agony, I laughed as if in mirth . . . ’, from
‘Miss Maniac’. CN, . MS Typ . (), Houghton Library,
Harvard University. 
. ‘There was an Old Man on some rocks’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was a Young Lady in white’. CN,  [MN]. 
. ‘The Bowl of Peace’. Letter to Chichester Fortescue,  July .
L, . 
. ‘There was an Old Man with a gong’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man with a flute’. CN,  [BN]. 
. ‘There was an Old Man who said “Hush! [ . . . ]” ’. CN,  [BN]. 

xv
                 

. ‘There was a Young Lady in white’. CN,  [MN]. 
. Francisco Goya, ‘El sueño de la razón produce monstruos’
[‘The sleep of reason produces monsters’], plate  of
‘Los caprichos’,  (etching and aquatint), Private Collection
/Index/Bridgeman Images. 
. ‘ . . . the little dragging . . . ’. Letter to Chichester Fortescue,
 November . L, . 
. The front page of the ‘Spring Books’ section of the Times Literary
Supplement,  March . 
. Stevie Smith, ‘ . . . this old man is sly and wise . . . ’. In The Collected
Poems and Drawings of Stevie Smith, ed. Will May (London: Faber
and Faber, ), . Grateful acknowledgement is made to
Faber and Faber and the Estate of James MacGibbon. 
. ‘There was a Young Lady whose chin’. CN,  [BN]. 
. Stevie Smith, ‘The Virtuoso’. Collected Poems and Drawings, . 
. ‘There was a Young Lady of Ryde’. CN,  [BN]. 
. Stevie Smith, ‘This Englishwoman’. Collected Poems and Drawings, . 
. ‘There was an Old Man in a boat’. CN,  [BN]. 
. Stevie Smith, sketch from Some are More Human than Others
(London: Gabberbochus, ), n.p. 

xvi
 NOTES O N THE CONTRIBUTORS

Anna Barton is Senior Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Sheffield.

Her work on nineteenth-century poetry includes Tennyson’s Name: Identity and Respon-
sibility in the Poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Ashgate, ) and In Memoriam: A Reading
Guide (Edinburgh University Press, ) as well as articles and chapters on Blake,
Clough, Swinburne, and Barrett Browning. She co-edits the series ‘Rethinking the
Nineteenth Century’ for Manchester University Press and the Victorian Literature
section of Literature Compass.
Matthew Bevis is Lecturer in English at Oxford University, and a Fellow of Keble
College. He is the author of The Art of Eloquence: Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, Joyce (Oxford
University Press, ; pbk ) and Comedy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford
University Press, ), and editor of Some Versions of Empson (Oxford University
Press, ), and The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Poetry (Oxford University Press, ).
Daniel Brown is Professor of Nineteenth-century Literature at the University of
Southampton. His most recent book is The Poetry of Victorian Scientists: Style, Science and
Nonsense (Cambridge University Press, ). He is currently writing a study that
explores the place of women in professional science through the fossil record of
Victorian poetry.
Hugh Haughton is a Professor in the Department of English and Related Literature,
University of York. He is editor of The Chatto Book of Nonsense Poetry (Chatto, )
and Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
(Penguin Classics, ), as well as Second World War Poems (Faber, ) and
Freud, The Uncanny (Penguin, ). He is co-editor (with Valerie Eliot) of volumes
 and  of The Letters of T. S. Eliot (Faber, ), and author of The Poetry of Derek Mahon
(Oxford University Press, ). He is currently working on a book on poets’ letters.
Anna Henchman is Associate Professor of English at Boston University. Her first
book, The Starry Sky Within: Astronomy and the Reach of the Mind in Victorian Literature,
was published by Oxford University Press in . Her recent work explores how
nineteenth-century writers made distinctions between different types of being in the
context of evolutionary theories.
Daniel Karlin is Winterstoke Professor of English Literature at the University of
Bristol. He has held appointments at the University of Sheffield, at Boston

xvii
                    

University, and at University College London. He has published extensively on

Victorian poetry, especially the work of Robert Browning. His most recent book,
The Figure of the Singer (Oxford University Press), appeared in .
Sara Lodge is Senior Lecturer in English, specializing in Nineteenth-century Litera-
ture and Culture, at the University of St Andrews. She has written widely on
nineteenth-century poetry and prose, periodical culture, comedy, and the relation-
ship between visual art and literature. These themes coalesce in her first book,
Thomas Hood and Nineteenth-century Poetry: Work, Play and Politics (Manchester
University Press, ; pbk ). She currently holds a Leverhulme Fellowship
and is working on a book about Edward Lear for Harvard University Press.
Will May is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Southampton. He is the
author of Stevie Smith and Authorship (Oxford University Press, ) and Postwar
Literature: – (Longman, ), and is the editor of The Collected Poems and
Drawings of Stevie Smith (Faber, ).
Michael O’Neill is Professor of English at Durham University. Recent books
include a volume of poems entitled Gangs of Shadow (Arc, ), and, co-edited
with Mark Sandy and Sarah Wootton, The Persistence of Beauty: Victorians to Moderns
(Pickering and Chatto, ).
Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and a
Fellow of Balliol College. He is co-editor, with Christopher Ricks, of the journal
Essays in Criticism.
Adam Phillips is an author, a psychoanalyst in private practice in London, and
Honorary Visiting Professor at the Department of English and Related Literature at
the University of York. He is the author of several books, including On Kissing,
Tickling, and Being Bored (Faber, ), The Beast in the Nursery (Faber, ), On Balance
(Penguin, ), and Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life (Penguin, ). One Way
and Another: New and Selected Essays appeared from Hamish Hamilton in .
Adam Piette is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Sheffield. He is
the author of Remembering and the Sounds of Words: Mallarmé, Proust, Joyce, Beckett
(Oxford University Press, ), Imagination at War: British Fiction and Poetry,
– (Macmillan, ), and The Literary Cold War,  to Vietnam (Edinburgh
University Press, ). He co-edited The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-century
British and American War Literature (Edinburgh University Press, ) and is co-editor
of the poetry journal Blackbox Manifold.
Peter Robinson is Professor of English and American Literature at the University of
Reading and poetry editor for Two Rivers Press. Editor of the Oxford Handbook of
Contemporary British and Irish Poetry (Oxford University Press, ), he has published

xviii
    

volumes of aphorisms, short stories, and interviews, as well as literary criticism, and
been awarded the Cheltenham Prize, the John Florio Prize, and two Poetry Book
Society Recommendations for his poetry and translations. September in the Rain, his
first novel, is published in .
Stephen Ross is Assistant Professor in Modern Literature at Concordia University
in Montreal. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in  and his
monograph, Invisible Terrain: John Ashbery and the Aesthetics of Nature, is forthcoming
from Oxford University Press.
Anne Stillman is a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. She wrote her doctorate on
the dramatic and the theatrical in the poetry of T. S. Eliot, and is currently turning
this work into a monograph. Her publications include ‘Sweeney Among the Mar-
ionettes’ (in Essays in Criticism, ), ‘Discretion and Indiscretion in the Letters of
T. S. Eliot’ (in The Cambridge Quarterly, ) and ‘Ezra Pound’ in Jason Harding, ed.,
T. S. Eliot in Context (Cambridge University Press, ).
Peter Swaab is the editor of ‘Over the Land and Over the Sea’: Selected Nonsense and Travel
Writings of Edward Lear (Carcanet, ), and in  contributed a bibliography of
Lear to Oxford Bibliographies Online. His other publications include a BFI Film Classics
book on Bringing Up Baby and editions of the poetry and prose of Sara Coleridge. He
is Professor of English Literature at University College London.
James Williams is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of York. His
publications include essays on Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Alfred Tennyson, Samuel
Beckett, and Victorian comic verse, and he is currently completing a short mono-
graph, Edward Lear, in the Writers and Their Work series (Northcote House).

xix
 Introduction
Edward Lear and the Play of Poetry
JAMES WILLIAMS AND MATTHEW BEVIS

Every nook of the village was swarming with pigs and little children [ . . . ] What a
contrast is there between the precipices, from five to six hundred feet high, and
these atoms of life playing at their base!1

T here’s something playful about Edward Lear’s poetry, but what exactly it’s
playing at is not always easy to pin down. A few soundings from his limericks
and songs bring out very different kinds of play.
Exhibit A:

Fig. .
There was an Old Man of the Isles,
Whose face was pervaded with smiles;
He sung high dum diddle, and played on the fiddle,
That amiable Man of the Isles. ()

1
Edward Lear, Journals of a Landscape Painter in Greece and Albania, &c (London: Bentley, ), .


                           

His peculiarly circular limericks sometimes seem to be playing tricks, leading

readers down the garden path with a rhyme that suggests a thematic development
(‘Isles . . . smiles . . . ’) only to bring us back sharply to where we started from. But if
this form of verse sometimes feels like it’s pulling our leg, how benignly and with
what grace—how ‘amiably’, in fact—it does so. Perhaps the poem, and its accom-
panying illustration, are not playing a trick so much as a game, one in which we’re
invited to join (as though the return to ‘ . . . the Isles’ might be a shared refrain). The
old man plays on and also with the fiddle, waving the bow about in one hand and
cradling the instrument like a baby in the other. The poem, too, seems caught up in
this playing, this fiddling about with the music of syllables: the jingle of ‘high dum
diddle’ is by no means dumb, speaking out clearly with the accent of the English
nursery rhyme ‘Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle . . . ’ (in Lear’s manuscript
version, ‘He sang highdiddlediddle’).2 And just as ‘the little dog laughed to see such
sport’, the old man seems similarly helpless in the face of his own fun.
Compare Exhibit B:

Once Mr Daddy Long-legs,

Dressed in brown and gray,
Walked about upon the sands
Upon a summer’s day;
And there among the pebbles,
When the wind was rather cold,
He met with Mr Floppy Fly,
All dressed in blue and gold.
And as it was too soon to dine,
They drank some Periwinkle-wine,
And played an hour or two, or more,
At battlecock and shuttledore. ()

This is no pastoral idyll: the ‘rather cold’ wind on that ‘summer’s day’ signals that
while this may be a mild and clement world there is a sharp edge to the weather.
Social customs and pleasantries are in play, and may be being offered up as
intrinsically playful: to ‘walk about upon the sands’ is not to walk with any
particular purpose. But, as in other Victorian nonsense poems (Lewis Carroll’s
‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’, another walk on the sands, comes to mind), the
rules of social politeness are being subjected to a more pointed play, of mimicry
and satire. Play here might mean role-play, acting out recognizable kinds
of attitude or voice: ‘And as it was too soon to dine’ gently needles the rules of
nineteenth-century society by transposing them onto an odd couple of creatures in

2
Edward Lear, Bosh and Nonsense (London: Allen Lane, ), .


           :                            

an unlikely setting. Mr Daddy Long-legs and Mr Floppy Fly—the poem gives them
their proper titles as if they were characters in an Austen novel—play because they
are obliged to pass the time, and a potentially limitless time it is: ‘an hour or two, or
more’. Like the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, caught in a perpetual teatime,3
dinner time seems endlessly deferred for Lear’s insects, a nonsensical social
paradox. And so they play a strange inversion of battledore and shuttlecock, a
game every bit as formally governed and potentially interminable as the social life
which surrounds it (in the final stanza, it’s not ‘an hour or two, or more’ but
‘for evermore’). The poem’s comedy of manners contains mischief, but it’s a
melancholy, knowing mischief.
This is play with, and play as rules: nonsense poetry can be read as playing with the
rules of possibility, logic, and sense that order the reality which literature inhabits.
This idea has an influential critical pedigree, from T. S. Eliot, who noted that Lear’s
‘nonsense is not vacuity of sense: it is a parody of sense, and that is the sense of it’, to
Elizabeth Sewell and beyond.4 ‘Could Nonsense’, asked Sewell,

be an attempt at re-organizing language, not according to the rules of prose or poetry

in the first place but according to those of Play? I do not mean here the simplest forms
of games of energy and horseplay, but the more highly developed and complicated
types of play. Each game of this type is an enclosed whole, with its own rigid laws
which cannot be questioned within the game itself.5

Sewell’s analysis catches something structural to nonsense, which often sets arbi-
trary patterns, procedures, and conventions into forms of absurd overdrive. But her
insistence on the nonsense games as self-contained, ‘enclosed wholes’, is perhaps
too neatly hermetic a description to catch the emotional range of a poem like ‘The
Daddy Long-legs and the Fly’. Lear’s nonsense is shot through with a rueful feeling
that to play up rules for effect is inevitably to get tangled up in them—both to
indulge a pleasurable irresponsibility towards sense, and to be aware at the same
time that things might be otherwise. Alenka Zupančič perhaps gets closer to what is
at stake at some moments in Lear’s poetry when she observes that ‘We really
encounter nonsense only when and where a sense surprises us’, and adds that nonsense
shows us ‘the very operation in which sense is produced in a generally erratic
manner [ . . . ] sense itself is an error, a product of error; sense has the structure of
an error’.6 Lear’s writing both suffers and revels in errancy, and it doesn’t conceive
the sense-makers as immune from error.

3
‘It’s always six o’clock now’, Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-
Glass, ed. Hugh Haughton (Harmondsworth: Penguin, ), .
4
T. S. Eliot, On Poetry and Poets (London: Faber and Faber, ), .
5
Elizabeth Sewell, The Field of Nonsense (London: Chatto & Windus, ), .
6
Alenka Zupančič, The Odd One In: On Comedy (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, ), –.


                           

Finally, consider Exhibit C:

The whole of the household was filled with amazement,

The Cups and the Saucers danced madly about,
The Plates and the Dishes looked out of the casement,
The Salt-cellar stood on his head with a shout,
The Spoons with a clatter looked out of the lattice,
The Mustard-pot climbed up the Gooseberry Pies,
The Soup-ladle peeped through a heap of Veal Patties,
And squeaked with a ladle-like scream of surprise.
The Frying-pan said, ‘It’s an awful delusion!’
The Tea-kettle hissed and grew black in the face;
And they all rushed downstairs in the wildest confusion,
To see the great Nutcracker-Sugar-tong race. ()

Touches like ‘ladle-like’ are elegant and sophisticated wordplay, exquisite reminders
of poetry’s capacity to take pleasure in the manipulation of sense and sound, but
on the whole this poem is concerned with a different kind of game. Lear, under his
alias ‘Old Derry down Derry’, wrote that his nonsense poems were made ‘to make
little folks merry’ (), and a poem like ‘The Nutcracker and the Sugar-tongs’ is a
poetic evocation of merriment, of sheer physical glee. Bored by ‘the uniform
apathetic tone assumed by lofty society’ at Knowsley Hall in the s, the young
Lear wrote: ‘nothing I long for half so much as to giggle heartily and to hop on one
leg down the great gallery—but I dare not’ (Life, ). Lear’s poetry finds ways to
dare—or perhaps to desire to dare—to giggle and hop. One possible root for the
word ‘play’ is the Dutch plegen, meaning ‘to dance’ (the German word spiel also
houses the same duality); here the dancing ‘madly about’, in ‘wildest confusion’,
takes us into the territory that the surrealist philosopher and theorist of play Roger
Caillois calls ilinx, after the Greek word for ‘whirlpool’, and characterizes as: ‘a rapid
whirling or falling movement, a state of dizziness and disorder’. Caillois likens the
ilinx dimension of play to dogs running to catch their tails: this is play understood as
disinhibition, energy, ‘pure transport’.7 The fact that it is apparently a well-ordered
Victorian bourgeois kitchen that is transformed in such a way might lend Lear’s
nonsense a rebellious undertone, but any satirical or political reading of the poem
would have to reckon with the fact that the implied viewpoint with which it
sympathizes is that of the child. Notwithstanding the enthusiasm of Romanticism
for the child as revolutionary, the child is also the supreme conformist, the creature
who delights in the world turned upside down because it reaffirms, by negation, its

7
Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games trans. Meyer Barash (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, ), , .


           :                            

mirror image. In Auden’s re-working of this crazily playful dance in his tribute to
Lear, although ‘a cat | Soon had him waltzing madly’,8 one feels that the ‘children
swarmed to him like settlers’ because something in Lear’s nonsense settled them
down as well as stirred them up.9
‘The plays of children are nonsense, but very educative nonsense’10 wrote
Emerson. Lear’s nonsense takes its cues from children, and has always been loved
by them because it is more interested in being educated by their play than in
educating them out of it. It has been commonplace in literary histories to read
Victorian nonsense as a response to the prevailing didacticism and ethical narrow-
ness of mainstream eighteenth- and nineteenth-century children’s writing, and Isaac
Watts’s Divine Songs certainly illustrate a different view of the playful:

Why should I join with those in Play,

In whom I’ve no delight,
Who curse and swear, but never pray,
Who call ill Names, and fight.
I hate to hear a wanton Song,
Their Words offend my ears:
I should not dare defile my Tongue
With Language such as theirs.11

You won’t catch Lear rhyming or trumping ‘play’ with ‘pray’. His poetry has
different allegiances, and its rhythms, patterns, and energies tend to align themselves
with the child’s impulse to play, rather than against it. On the other hand, its
multiple undercurrents—often melancholy or mordantly wry—tend to keep it
resistant to that romanticizing view of children’s play into which even a historian
and theorist of the stature of Johan Huizinga was prone to slip. Huizinga thought
that poetry ‘lies [ . . . ] on that more primitive and original level where the child, the
animal, the savage and the seer belong, in the region of dream, enchantment,
ecstasy, laughter. To understand poetry we must be capable of donning the child’s

8
W. H. Auden, ‘Edward Lear’, in The Collected Poems, ed. Edward Mendelson (London: Faber and Faber,
), .
9
In this respect, note Jean-Jacques Lecercle’s claim that nonsense ‘plays with the bounds of common
sense in order to remain within view of them’, in The Philosophy of Nonsense: The Intuitions of Victorian
Nonsense Literature (London: Routledge, ), .
10
Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Experience’, in Essays and Lectures, ed. Joel Porte (New York: The Library of
America, ), .
11
Apart from modernizing the long s, this follows the text of the first edition, DIVINE SONGS |
Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of CHILDREN (London, ), reprinted in Divine Songs [ . . . ] Facsimile
reproductions of the first edition of  and an illustrated edition of circa , ed. J. H. P. Pafford (London: Oxford
University Press, ), .


                           

soul like a magic cloak and of forsaking man’s wisdom for the child’s.’12 Yet the
players in Lear’s poetry are hardly ever children; it’s the adults who feel the need to
play, as though searching for something through play that they can’t ever wholly
recover. As we listen to the Dong with the luminous nose ‘Playing a pipe with
silvery squeaks, | Since then his Jumbly Girl he seeks’ (), we are invited to register
that the playful sound of Lear’s own music is itself plaintive (‘silvery’ speaks to old
age, not just to mellifluous melodies). The Dong’s wondrous nose is never quite
Huizinga’s ‘magic cloak’; it’s ‘All fenced about | With a bandage stout’ (). To play
with nonsense is to play with desire, suffering, hurt.
Besides, Lear was under no illusions about childhood—or about children (one
letter recalls ‘a beastly little child, whom seeing playing about, I spoke to simply as
being attracted to all nice looking little children. Whereon the imp thus accosted
me:—“O my! what an ugly chap you are!” “And what ugly shoes you wear!” “You
must be a nasty ugly old Scotchman!”’, (L, )). Still, sentimentally entranced as an
assessment like Huizinga’s might be, it taps into cultural and emotional impulses
that Lear’s poetry explores and entertains. Escape is a real and significant feature of
play, as Susan Stewart observed in her discussion of the play-aspect of nonsense:
‘Play is characterized by a particular leap from the world of everyday life, trans-
forming its common-sense constraints upon invention and the boundaries of
meaning. Play involves the construction of another space/time, another domain
having its own procedures for interpretation.’13 G. K. Chesterton remarked that ‘the
idea that lies at the back of nonsense’ is ‘the idea of escape, of escape into a world
where things are not fixed horribly in an eternal appropriateness’14 and Lear’s poetry
is full of escape-artists seeking other domains and other worlds: the Jumblies,
the Duck and the Kangaroo, the Daddy Long-legs and the Fly, the Yonghy-Bonghy-
Bò . . . His characters keep running off to play, whether to the ‘great Gromboolian
plain’, to ‘the land where the Bong Tree grows’, or to some other ‘enchanted
elsewhere’. The last phrase is Peter Swaab’s, who has written incisively of the
links between Lear’s restless travels, the volumes of travel writing they generated,
and the nonsense which ‘may be English literature’s closest counterpart to the
French poésie de departs’.15 The departure into imaginative worlds clearly matters
for Lear, but his poetry usually has its eyes on multiple realities at once: both escape
into a space with its own nonsense-governed rules, and the tensions, transactions, and
counterpoints between that world and the world in which we and the poem live. Peter

12
Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Boston MA: The Beacon Press,
), .
13
Susan Stewart, Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature (Baltimore and London: Johns
Hopkins University Press, ), .
14
G. K. Chesterton, ‘A Defence of Nonsense’, in The Defendant, nd edn (London: Johnson, ), –.
15
Edward Lear, ‘Over the Land and Over the Sea’: Selected Nonsense and Travel Writings, ed. Peter Swaab
(Manchester: Fyfield/Carcanet, ), xiv, xiii.


           :                            

Robinson has been the most eloquent critic of the view of Lear summed up at the end
of Auden’s sonnet, that in his poetry ‘he became a land’.16 ‘If Lear’s poetry had created
“a land” with its own rules of reference, what would be nonsensical about it? It would
simply be “Art . . . a tax haven where there is nothing to pay”, as Marilyn Butler has put
it, or where poetry can make anything happen, anything you like.’17
Lear’s poetry shares with other great poetry the double knowledge that it
can make things happen, but not anything: that poetry is both somehow its own
world, and inseparably embedded in the world of everything that is the case. The
play of Lear’s nonsense is often playing these different truths off against each other,
shot through with curious aspect shifts and changes of perspective that allow
objects, persons, or scenes to bear different meanings in the same moment.
As W. K. Wimsatt pointed out, the scope of ‘play’ depends on what it is being
contrasted with: ‘We know that in our everyday usage play has not a single opposite,
but a medley—what is real, serious, or necessary, what is work, war, or woe.’18 If
play is defined in opposition to these things, then play itself contains multitudes.
And Lear’s imaginative and tonal playfulness often makes his poetry a test case for
‘the play of poetry’ in another sense, too: its reach or stretch or latitude, as we might
speak of a rope or a belt having ‘play’. How much painful knowledge can a
‘children’s poem’ bear before it becomes something else? How much nonsense
can be introduced into the poetic cadences of Keats and Shelley and (especially)
Tennyson without parting company with those poetics? With what degree of
sangfroid can comedy contemplate violence before it ceases to be comic? John
Wain, commenting on Lear’s lines ‘There was an Old Man who screamed out |
Whenever they knocked him about’ (), wrote that ‘A modern writer might well
begin a poem in this way, but he would not pretend he was doing it to amuse the
children.’19 This is nicely aimed, but it misses: there is no such ‘pretence’ in Lear.
It does amuse the children; it is the grown-ups who are left worrying about why.
It has occasionally been objected that this kind of reading of nonsense poetry is
invalid because what matters in nonsense is sounds, not sense. The second edition of
the OED defined nonsense poetry as ‘verses consisting of words and phrases
arranged solely with reference to the metre and without regard to the sense’.20 If

16
W. H. Auden, ‘Edward Lear’, in The Collected Poems, ed. Edward Mendelson (London: Faber and Faber,
), .
17
Peter Robinson, Poetry, Poets, Readers: Making Things Happen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), .
18
W. K. Wimsatt, ‘Belinda Ludens: Strife and Play in The Rape of the Lock’, New Literary History . (Winter
), . For a recent survey of theories of play, see Thomas Karshan in Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of Play
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), –.
19
John Wain, ‘Gerard Manley Hopkins’, in Essays on Literature and Ideas (London: Macmillan and Co.,
), –.
20
‘nonsense, n’, a, in OED, nd edn, ed. John Simpson and Edmund Weiner,  vols (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, ).


                           

this were true, nonsense would be only an extreme case of what William Empson
regarded as the ‘cult of Pure Sound’, at the height of which, so he claimed, ‘infants
were read passages from Homer, and then questioned as to their impressions, not
unlike Darwin playing the trombone to his French beans’.21 Lear might well have
enjoyed this musico-botanical vignette and one suspects he would have done it
rather good justice as an illustrator; but Lear’s poems are not like this, and if they
were they would be a good deal less playful, since there would be no imaginative
tension between nonsense’s pull towards semantic evacuation, and the continual
reassertion of sense in the meanings and morphological relations of the words.
T. S. Eliot was one of many later poets whose writing played with, and played off,
Lear: he found common ground in poetry’s musical use of sound, but he caught
with fine tact the complex relationship between sense making and sound-play. ‘We
enjoy the music’, he wrote, ‘which is of a high order, and we enjoy the feeling of
irresponsibility towards the sense.’22 This line of thinking follows in the footsteps
of one of Lear’s most astute early reviewers who, after admitting that the poetry
‘defied sense’, added:

but the defiance was in itself at once acknowledgement and rebellion. What we want
from Nonsense is exactly this,—a gay rebellion against sense. But there is no relief to
the mind unless there be enough sense in the nonsense to make the nonsense visible.
[ . . . ] All nonsense should be audacious and capricious defiance of sense, but never go
far enough from sense to lose the feeling of delightful freedom which is implied in the
rebellion.23

Nonsense plays up and plays around, but it doesn’t always play away.
While Lear’s nonsense may not be Pure Sound, his sonic lyricism points to
another sense in which he ‘played’ his poems instead of simply writing them: he
styled them ‘Nonsense Songs’ and often accompanied them with his own music.
The word ‘play’ in Lear’s poems is almost always used of musical instruments.
Vivien Noakes describes how music was a love of Lear’s life; as an old man, she
finds him in a typical scene visiting the house of friends in San Remo:

When Lear called on the family one afternoon he found the children having tea, so he
sat down at the piano to entertain them with some of his Nonsense songs. He sang
‘the Owl and the Pussy-cat’ and then the ‘Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò’—but half way through
he broke down in tears. ‘I was sorry I could do no more to help the swarry,’ he wrote
sadly. (Life, )

21
William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (Harmondsworth: Penguin,  [rd edn ]), .
22
T. S. Eliot, ‘The Music of Poetry’, in On Poetry and Poets (London: Faber and Faber, ), .
23
Anon., ‘The Science of Nonsense’, The Spectator ( Dec ), –.


Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 “Is Miss Comfort being evicted from house by your order?
Public opinion in arms. Answer.”

“Huh,” said Ned, “public opinion can’t be ‘in arms,’ you silly
chump.”
“That’s only two words less than mine,” said Bob.
“Well, we’ll see if we can’t get it into ten,” replied Laurie
untroubledly. “Now then!” He took up his pencil again. “We might say
‘Comfort’ instead of ‘Miss Comfort,’ but it doesn’t sound quite
respectful.”
“Leave out ‘from house,’” suggested Bob. “He will understand that
she isn’t being evicted from the stable!”
“That’s so! ‘Is Miss Comfort being evicted by your order? Public
opinion—er—’”
“‘Against it,’” offered Ned.
“‘Opposed,’” said Bob.
“I’ve got it!” exclaimed Laurie, erasing and starting a new draft.
“How’s this? ‘Have you authorized eviction aged sister-in-law?
Orstead indignant. Answer immediately.’ That ought to fetch him!
Only ten words, too!”
“How about sister-in-law?” asked Bob. “Will they call it one word or
three?”
“One, of course. Or ‘aged relative’ might do just as well. ‘Orstead
indignant’ will give him a jolt, I’ll bet!”
“What are you going to sign it?” asked Ned anxiously.
Laurie hadn’t thought of that. Bob suggested “Friend,” but Ned
reminded him that if they expected to get a reply they’d have to give
more of an address than that. Laurie took a deep breath and leaped
the Rubicon. He signed “Laurence S. Turner” boldly and drew a
heavy mark under it for emphasis. Ned shook his head doubtfully,
but Bob was thrilled.
 “He will probably think you’re one of the town’s leading citizens,”
he chuckled.
“Well, so I am,” answered Laurie, “in this affair. Now we’ll go down
and get it off at night-rates.”
“Say,” said Ned, “we’re a set of dumb-bells! We could have sent a
night-letter of fifty words for the same price.”
“That’s so,” admitted Laurie. “I think a night-letter costs a little
more, though, doesn’t it? Anyway, this is more—more succinct. It
sounds more businesslike. What do you think?”
They agreed that it did, and presently, a fresh copy of the
message in his pocket, Laurie led the way from the room, followed
by the others. The languid youth who accepted the telegram at the
office appeared to hesitate over “sister-in-law,” but he made no
objection to its inclusion as one word, and he brightened perceptibly
as the sense of the message percolated in his mind. He looked
curiously at the three boys, re-read the message, and then shook his
head incredulously.
“Sick ’em, Prince,” he murmured.
The cost of the telegram was less than Laurie had dared hope it
would be, and in the first moment of relief he magnanimously offered
to pay a full half. Fortunately for his purse, though, the others
insisted on sharing equally, and, the second moment having now
arrived, Laurie allowed them to do it.
Returning to school, Ned was preyed on by doubts. Now that the
telegram was an accomplished fact, he spoke dismally of the laws
concerning libel. When Laurie refused to be concerned he wanted to
know what they were to do if Mr. Goupil wired back that he had
authorized Miss Comfort’s eviction. Laurie wasn’t prepared to
answer that question. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,”
he replied with dignity.
As a matter of fact, Laurie didn’t intend to do anything in such a
case. He had saved his face, and that was sufficient. After this he
meant to refrain from too much talking and keep out of affairs that
didn’t concern him. Unfortunately, as he was to discover, it is
frequently easier to start than it is to stop, and to make good
resolutions than to follow them!
As he secretly considered the episode ended, Laurie would have
put Miss Comfort and Mr. A. G. Goupil completely out of his mind for
the rest of the evening if Ned hadn’t insisted on speculating as to the
effect of the telegram on the addressee. Ned just couldn’t seem to let
the subject alone. Laurie became very much bored, and when Ned,
later, came out with the brilliant suggestion of having Miss Comfort
added to the school faculty as professor of pastry Laurie threw a
book at him.
The following morning Kewpie was absolutely exasperating when
they met beside the gymnasium. He had brought his precious book
with him and insisted on pausing between pitches to study diagrams
and directions, occasioning long waits and leaving Laurie with
nothing to do save indulge in feeble sarcasms that affected Kewpie
no whit. Kewpie was struggling with what he earnestly told Laurie
was an out-drop. Laurie sarcastically replied that Kewpie was at
liberty to call it anything he pleased, out-drop, floater, in-shoot, or
fade-away; they all looked the same to him when Kewpie pitched
’em! Kewpie looked almost hurt, and Laurie recalled Polly’s
injunction not to discourage the aspirant for pitching honors, and so
presently told Kewpie that one of his offerings “looked pretty good.”
After that Kewpie cheered up a lot and pitched a ball high over the
back-stop.
All that day Laurie looked for a telegram. It was, he thought,
inconceivable that the Goop guy, as he privately called Mr. A. G.
Goupil, should delay in answering such a communication, and when,
after school was over for the day, no telegram had been delivered at
East Hall, he hurried down to the telegraph office and made
inquiries. The man in charge, who was not the one who had been on
duty the evening before, went to a deal of trouble before informing
Laurie that no message had been received. Going back, Laurie
pondered. It might mean that Mr. Goupil had chosen to communicate
with his lawyer instead of him, Laurie. Or it might mean that Mr.
Goupil was taking time to consider the matter. Laurie dismissed the
business from his mind, and, although well ahead of time, went over
to the gymnasium and leisurely donned his baseball togs. There had
been talk of getting out on the field to-day, but the turf was still a little
too soft.
In the baseball cage four other early arrivals were on hand; Nate
Beedle, Hillman’s first-choice pitcher, Captain Dave Brewster, third
baseman, Gordon Simkins, in-field candidate, and Elkins Thurston.
The last two were passing, while Beedle and Brewster sat on the
floor with their backs against the wire.
“Hello, Nod!” greeted Nate. “Hear you’ve started a kindergarten for
pitchers, sonny.”
Nate was a nice chap, and Nod didn’t mind being “ragged” by him
a bit. “Yes, that’s so,” Laurie agreed. “Want to join?”
The others laughed; all save Elk. Elk, tossing the ball back to
Simkins, sneered, “The way I got it, Proudtree’s trying to teach
Turner how to catch!”
“Fact is,” replied Laurie, “it’s sort of mutual. Kewpie’s improving his
pitching, and I’m improving my catching.”
“Can he pitch at all?” asked Dave Brewster.
“Kewpie? Well, he hasn’t much just now, but—”
“But you’re teaching him the trick, eh?” jeered Elk. “Say, Nate,
you’d better watch out or you’ll lose your job.”
Nate laughed good-naturedly. “That’s right. I’ll say one thing,
though. If Kewpie could pitch the way he can play center I’d be
worried. Does he think he can get on the squad, Nod?”
“Guess he’d like to.”
“He’s got a swell chance,” said Elk.
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Laurie. “They took you on.”
“Is that so? Don’t get fresh, youngster. I suppose you think you’ve
got such a pull with Pinky that he’ll take on any fellow you
recommend. Say, Nate, can’t you just see Proudtree running
bases?” And Elk laughed vociferously.
 Laurie, just at present inclined to resent anything that Elk said,
merely on general principles, found cause for added resentment
now. Kewpie was both friend and pupil, and consequently
disparagement of Kewpie was disparagement of him. Simkins’s
remark that Kewpie had shown pretty good speed on the football
field was cut into by Laurie with:
“He isn’t out to become a sprinter, Elk. He’s going to be a pitcher.
You don’t expect a pitcher to be much of a hand on the bases. As for
his chance of getting on the squad, well, when I get through with him
I guess he can have a place if he wants it.”
“When you— Oh, my sainted aunt!” cried Elk. “When you get
through with him! What do you know about pitching, I’d like to know?
You’re a swell teacher, you are! You never caught behind the plate
until two or three weeks ago.”
“What of it? That doesn’t prevent me from knowing a natural-born
pitcher when I see him. And if—”
“Natural-born pitcher! Kewpie Proudtree? Don’t make me laugh! I’ll
bet he can’t pitch a straight ball!”
“Can’t, eh? Listen, Elk. Kewpie’s a better pitcher right now than
you are a catcher. If he wasn’t I wouldn’t bother with him.”
“Oh, piffle! He can’t pitch and you can’t teach him, kid. And as for
catching, if I dropped every ball that comes over I wouldn’t be
shooting my mouth off, you fresh guy!”
“I get my glove on ’em, and that’s more than you do, Elk, old son.
And if you think I don’t know what I’m talking about when I say that
Kewpie’s got the making of a pitcher, why, you just keep your eyes
open.”
“Sure! You’re going to have him on the squad next week, I
suppose!”
“No, not next week, but I’ll tell you one thing. He will be pitching for
this team before the season’s over!”
“What!” It was a chorus of blank incredulity. Then there was
laughter, through which struggled Nate’s voice saying, “Nod, you’re
as crazy as a coot!” The burst of merriment acted on Laurie
somewhat like a wet sponge on the face of a sleeper. He awoke
suddenly to the enormity of his assertion, and caution urged him to
prompt retraction, or, at least, compromise. But there was Elk
Thurston grinning and sneering, his very attitude a challenge. Laurie
swallowed hard and summoned a smile of careless ease to his
countenance.
“You heard what I said,” he remarked calmly.
Then Coach Mulford came in, and the die was cast. Laurie waved
a nonchalant hand to Dave Brewster. In appearance he looked as
care-free and untroubled as any person there, but to himself he was
saying bitterly, “There, you poor fish, you’ve been and gone and
done it again!”
 CHAPTER VII
POLLY APPROVES

P ractice over, Laurie set out to find Ned. He was very low in his
mind, was Laurie, and he wanted comfort in the worst way. But
Ned wasn’t in the room. The door of No. 15, across the corridor, was
half ajar, and through it issued the voice of Kewpie. “That you, Nid?”
inquired Kewpie. “Say, come in here. I’ve—”
“No!” replied Laurie emphatically as he hurried, toward the stairs.
Kewpie Proudtree was the last person in the whole world he wanted
to hold converse with just then. In fact, he wasn’t sure that he would
be able to control himself in Kewpie’s presence. Murder, he reflected
gloomily, had been committed for less cause than he had!
He set out toward the Widow Deane’s, going the long way around,
since he had no heart for Bob Starling’s questions and surmises
regarding Mr. A. G. Goupil. He had so thoroughly forgotten that flinty-
hearted person that he had not even looked on the table in No. 16 to
see if the telegram had arrived, and only the thought of encountering
Bob had reminded him of it. Turning into Garden Street, he heard
some one call: “Oh, Ned! Oo-ee!” It was no new thing to be mistaken
for Ned. During the first two months, or thereabouts, of their stay at
Hillman’s, he and Ned had been daily, hourly, almost constantly
mistaken one for the other, and even to this moment such mistakes
were not uncommon, which, considering the fact that the twins were
as alike as two peas, was not unnatural. He wasn’t Ned, but he
turned to see who was calling. It proved to be Mae Ferrand. She was
on the opposite side of the street waving to him. Laurie crossed with
little enthusiasm.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m looking for him, too, Mae.”
“Oh, it’s Laurie!” she exclaimed. “I do wish you boys wouldn’t
dress just alike!”
 “We don’t,” said Laurie somberly. “He’s wearing brown stockings,
and I’m wearing green.” He looked down at them. “Sort of green,
anyway.”
“Just as though any one could tell you by that,” laughed Mae. “Are
you going to Polly’s?”
Laurie acknowledged that he was, and they went on together.
“Isn’t it too bad about that poor, dear little Miss Comfort?” asked
Mae. “Polly told you, didn’t she?”
Laurie nodded. “Yes,” he answered. “Yes, it is too bad. At her age,
too. Eighty-something, isn’t she?”
“Why, no, of course not! The idea! She can’t be a day over sixty-
five.”
“Oh!” Laurie sounded a trifle disappointed. “Well, that’s different,
isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” agreed Mae without, however, quite getting
his point of view, “but it doesn’t make it much easier for her, I guess.”
“N-no.” Laurie was acquiring something close to distaste for the
subject. “Well, something may turn up,” he added vaguely, “before
the first of the month.”
“I hope so,” said Mae. But she didn’t sound hopeful. Laurie was
glad when she changed the subject with her next remark, although
he could have chosen a more welcome one: “Polly says that the—
the conspiracy is working just beautifully, Laurie. She says that
Kewpie Proudtree is quite like another boy the last day or two. Is he
doing any better with his pitching?”
Laurie turned and regarded her balefully. “Better? No, and he
never will,” he answered disgustedly. “Why that poor prune couldn’t
pitch ball if—if—” He stopped, suddenly recalling his statements
made in the cage a scant hour and a half since. He felt rather
confused. Mae nodded sympathetically.
“Well, I think it’s darling of you to take so much trouble with him,”
she said. “Sometimes I think that friendship means so much more
with boys than it does with girls.”
 “Friendship!” blurted Laurie.
“Why, yes, don’t you call it friendship? Every one knows what
great pals you and Kewpie have been all winter. I think it’s perfectly
lovely!”
“Huh,” growled Laurie.
“For goodness’ sake, what is the matter with you to-day?” asked
Mae concernedly. “You’re—you’re awfully funny!”
Laurie summoned a mirthless and hollow laugh. “I’m all right,” he
replied, “only I—I’ve got a lot of things to think of just now, and—”
Further explanation was spared him, for just then they reached the
shop and Laurie opened the door with a sigh of relief. Ned was
there, and so were Polly and Mrs. Deane. Laurie morosely declined
the offer of a soda, slung himself to a counter, met the surprised and
mildly disapproving gaze of the Widow, and got down again. The
talk, interrupted by their arrival, began once more. Of course it was
about Miss Comfort. (Mrs. Deane had been to see her that
forenoon.) She hadn’t heard again from the lawyer or from her
brother-in-law, and she had begun to pack her things. Laurie felt
Ned’s gaze on him and turned. Ned’s look was inquiring. Laurie
didn’t know what he meant by it, and frowned his perplexity. Ned
worked around to him and whispered in his ear.
“Did it come? Did you get it?” he asked.
“Get what?”
“Shut up! The telegram, you chump!”
“Oh! No, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think—” began Ned in impatient sibilation.
“What are you two whispering about?” inquired Polly.
“Oh, nothing,” answered Ned airily.
“Ned Turner, don’t tell fibs,” said Polly severely. “There’s
something going on that we don’t know about, Mae. Mama’s in on it,
too. I can tell. She can no more hide a secret than she can fly. And I
don’t think,” ended Polly with deep pathos, “that it’s very nice of you
to have a secret from Mae and me.”
Ned looked concerned and apologetic. He viewed Laurie
inquiringly. “Shall we tell them?” he asked. Laurie shrugged.
“I don’t care,” he answered moodily.
“Oh, of course, if you don’t want us to know,” began Polly very
haughtily. Laurie managed a most winning smile.
“Of course I do,” he assured her. “I—I was going to tell you,
anyhow.”
Polly didn’t look wholly convinced, but, “Well?” she said. “Go on
and tell, then.” Laurie waved toward Ned.
“Let him do it,” he said.
So Ned confessed about the telegram to Mr. Goupil, taking rather
more credit to himself than, perhaps, the facts warranted—
something that might have brought a protest from Laurie had that
youth been any longer interested in what to him seemed now a
closed incident. Polly exclaimed applaudingly; Mae clapped her
hands; and Mrs. Deane, proud of the fact that for once in her life she
had managed, if only for a few short hours, to keep something secret
from her daughter, beamed. Then praise was fairly lavished on
Laurie and Ned, the former receiving the lion’s share, since the
brilliant idea had been born in his stupendous brain. Laurie looked
decidedly bored, and the feminine portion of the assembly credited
his expression to modesty.
“Oh, Laurie,” exclaimed Polly, “I think you’re perfectly wonderful!
Don’t you, Mae?”
Mae was enthusiastically affirmative.
“It was just the one absolutely practical thing to do,” continued
Polly. “And I don’t see how Mr. Gou—Gou—whatever his name is—
will dare to go on with his disgusting plan, do you? If that telegram
doesn’t make him perfectly ashamed of himself, it—it—well, it ought
to!”
 “Sort of funny, though,” said Ned, “that he hasn’t answered before
this. If he doesn’t answer at all—well, do you think we ought to send
him another, Laurie?”
Laurie shook his head. “No good,” he said briefly.
“Oh, but he will answer it,” declared Polly. “Why, he’d simply have
to! His own self-respect would—would demand it!”
“Of course!” agreed Mae. “Maybe there’s a telegram waiting for
you now, Laurie.”
“That’s so.” Laurie spoke with more animation. “Let’s go and see,
Ned.”
“I didn’t say anything about it to Miss Comfort,” observed Mrs.
Deane in the tone of one asking commendation.
“Oh, no, you mustn’t,” said Polly. “If—if nothing came of it, after all,
she’d be too disappointed. Laurie, if Mr. Whatshisname still insists on
—on things going ahead as they are going, what will you do then?”
“Me?” Laurie regarded her unemotionally. Then he shrugged.
“Why, I guess that would settle it, wouldn’t it? Isn’t anything more I
could do, is there? Or any of us?”
“Oh, Laurie!” exclaimed Mae in vast disappointment. Polly, though,
only laughed.
“Don’t be silly, Mae,” she said. “Of course he’s only fooling. You
ought to know Laurie well enough to know that he isn’t going to give
up as easily as all that. I’ll just bet you anything he knows this very
minute what he means to do. Only he doesn’t want to tell us yet.”
“I don’t, either,” protested Laurie vehemently. “Look here, this isn’t
any affair of mine, and—and—”
“Just what I told him,” said Mrs. Deane agreeably. “I think he’s
been very nice to take such an interest and so much trouble, but I’m
sure he can’t be expected to do any more, Polly.”
Polly smiled serenely. She shared the smile between her mother
and a disquieted Laurie. Then she slipped an arm around Mae and
gave her a squeeze. “We know, don’t we, Mae?” she asked.
 Laurie stared helplessly for a moment. Then he seized Ned by the
arm and dragged him toward the door. “Come on,” he said
despairingly. “Come on home!”
“Say,” demanded Ned, once they were on the street, “what in the
world’s the matter with you?”
“Matter with me?” repeated Laurie a trifle wildly. “The matter with
me is that I talk too blamed much! That’s the matter with me! The
matter with me—”
“Yes, yes,” agreed Ned soothingly, “yes, yes, old-timer. But what’s
the present difficulty? Of course they don’t really expect us to find a
home for Miss Comfort, if that’s what’s biting you.”
“Well, I should hope not! But—but, listen, Neddie. Do you think
Kewpie knows enough about pitching to ever amount to a hill of
beans? Do you think that, if he practised like anything all spring, he
could—could get on the team?”
“Why, no, of course not,” replied Ned calmly. “Haven’t you said so
yourself a dozen times?”
“Yes. Yes, and now I’ve gone and said he could!”
“Who could? Could what?”
“Kewpie. Be a pitcher and get on the team.”
“Are you plumb loco?” asked Ned in astonishment.
“No.” Laurie shook his head mournfully. “No, it isn’t that. I—I just
talk too blamed much.”
“Well, who have you been talking to now? Get it off your chest,
partner.”
So Laurie told him. The narrative lasted until they had reached
their room, and after, and when, at last, Laurie ended his doleful tale
Ned looked at him in silence for a long, long moment. Finally, “You
half-portion of nothing!” breathed Ned pityingly. “You—you poor fish!”
“Well, what could I do?” asked Laurie. “I wasn’t going to let Elk
make me look like a fool.”
 “Huh! What do you think you look like now?”
Laurie began to prepare for supper without replying. He acted as if
chastened and worried. Ned watched him for a minute in frowning
perplexity. At last the frown vanished. “Well, what are you going to
do?” he asked.
Laurie shrugged. “How do I know? I did think that maybe
somehow or other Kewpie could learn to pitch, but I guess you’re
right about him. He never could.”
“No, but he’s got to!” was Ned’s astounding answer. “We’ve got to
see that he does, Laurie. You’ve said you were going to make a
pitcher of him—”
“I didn’t actually say I was going to do it.”
“Well, some one. You’ve said he was going to pitch on the team
this season. You might as well have said that I was going to be made
President. But you said it and, by heck, you’ve got to make good or
perish in the attempt. The honor of the Turners—”
“Looks to me like the honor of the Turners is going to get an awful
jolt,” murmured Laurie despondently. “Making a pitcher out of Kewpie
— Gee, Ned, the fellow who made a purse out of a pig’s ear had a
snap!”
“It’s got to be done,” reiterated Ned firmly. “After supper we’ll
decide how. Hold on, though! We don’t actually have to have him a
real pitcher, son. All we have to do is to get him on the team just
once, even if it’s only for two minutes, don’t you see?” Ned’s tone
was triumphant.
“Yes, but how can we do that if he doesn’t know how to pitch? I
don’t see that that’s going to make it any easier.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Anyhow, it helps. There might be some way of
faking him on there. Well, we’ve got nearly three months to do it in,
Laurie, so cheer up. Let’s go and eat. A truce to all trouble! The bell
rings for supper—”
“Of cold meat as chewy as Indian rupper!” completed Laurie.
“Quitter!” laughed Ned, pushing him through the door.
 CHAPTER VIII
KEWPIE AGREES

“K ewpie!”
“Yeah?”
“Come on over here!” It was Laurie calling from the doorway of No.
16. The door across the corridor opened, and the somewhat sleepy
countenance of Kewpie peered forth inquiringly. The hour was 9:40.
“What do you want?” asked Kewpie. “I’m just going to bed. I’m
tired, Nod.”
“You come over here,” was the stern, inexorable answer. “Ned and
I want to talk to you.”
“Well, gosh, I tell you I’m sleepy,” muttered Kewpie, but he crossed
the hall and followed Laurie into No. 16. Kewpie was chastely clad in
a suit of out-size pajamas, which were white with a broad blue stripe
at short intervals. Kewpie in night attire looked about half again as
large as he did when more or less confined in street costume. Laurie
thrust the visitor into the arm-chair. Kewpie subsided with a long sigh
and blinked wonderingly, first at Nid and then at the determined Nod.
Then he placed a large and pudgy hand in the neighborhood of his
face and yawned cavernously.
“What’s the matter with you fellows?” he inquired. “What are you
looking at me like that for?”
“Kewpie,” said Ned, “do you honestly think you can ever learn to
pitch?”
“What!” Kewpie woke up a trifle. “I can pitch right now. Who says I
can’t?”
“I do,” said Laurie emphatically. “You can pitch now just about as
well as a toad can fly. What we want to know is whether, if you
practise hard and keep at it, you can learn.”
Kewpie looked hurt. “Say, what’s the matter with my drop-ball?” he
asked indignantly. “I suppose you think you could hit that, eh? Well,
I’d like to see you try it.”
“Cut out the bunk, Kewpie,” said Ned sternly. “We’re talking
business now. You know plaguey well you wouldn’t last ten seconds
against a batter, the way you’re pitching now. Laurie says you’ve got
a fair drop, when you get it right, and that’s all you have got. You
haven’t—haven’t— What is it he hasn’t got, Laurie?”
“He hasn’t got anything except that drop. He can’t pitch a straight
ball with any speed—”
“I don’t want to. Any one can hit the fast ones.”
“And he hasn’t a curve to his name. About all he has got is a
colossal nerve.”
“Nerve yourself,” replied Kewpie. “I don’t pretend to be a Joe
Bush, or—or—”
“Can you learn?” demanded Ned. “If Laurie and I help every way
we know how, if you study that book of yours, if you practise hard
every day for—for two months, say, will you be able to pitch decently
at the end of that time?”
Kewpie was plainly puzzled by this sudden and intense interest in
him; puzzled and a trifle suspicious. “What do you want to know for?”
he asked slowly.
“Never mind. Answer the question.” Ned was very stern.
“Sure, I’d be able to pitch after two months. Bet you I’d have
everything there is.”
“All right,” replied Ned. “Here’s the dope. Laurie and Elk Thurston
and Nate Beedle and two or three more were talking in the gym this
afternoon, and Elk said you were no good and never would be able
to pitch, and—”
“Elk!” interrupted Kewpie contemptuously. “He’s just a big blow-
hard, a bluff, a—”
 “Never mind that. Laurie said you could pitch and that before the
season was over you’d be pitching on the nine. Get that?”
Kewpie nodded, glancing from one to the other of the twins, but he
seemed at a loss for words. Finally, though, he asked awedly, “Gosh,
Nod, did you tell ’em that?”
“Yes, like a blamed idiot I did! I guess I had a brain-storm or
something. Well, never mind that now. What do you say?”
“Me?” Kewpie cleared his throat. “Well, now, look here, I never told
you I could pitch on the team, did I?”
“If you didn’t you might just as well have,” answered Laurie
impatiently. “You’ve been cracking yourself up for a month. Now,
what Ned and I want to know—”
“Well, but hold on! How would I get to pitch, with Nate Beedle and
two or three others there? Gosh, those sharks have been at it for
years!”
“Never you mind how,” said Ned sharply. “That’s not the question.
Laurie’s gone and put himself in a hole, and you’ve got to help pull
him out. Will you do it?”
Kewpie was again silent for a moment. Then he nodded. “Sure,”
he said dubiously. “I’ll do what I can, but—”
“There aren’t any ‘buts,’” declared Ned. “If you’ll take hold
seriously and do your best and learn to pitch—well, fairly decently,
Kewpie, Laurie and I’ll look after the rest of it. We’ll see that you get
your chance somehow with the team.”
“How are you going to do it?” asked Kewpie.
Ned shrugged. “Don’t know yet. That’ll come later. Now, what do
you say? Will you be a game sport and buckle into it, or are you
going to throw us down? You’ll have to quit bluffing about what you
can do and work like the dickens, Kewpie. You’ll have to quit eating
sweet stuff and starchy things and get rid of about ten pounds, too.
Well?”
 Kewpie looked solemnly back at Ned for an instant. Then he
nodded shortly. “I’ll do it,” he said soberly. “Let’s go.”
The next day, which was a Saturday, the baseball candidates
forsook the gymnasium and went out on the field. The ground was
still soft in spots, and the diamond was not used. There was a long
session at the batting-net and plenty of fielding work to follow, and of
course, the pitching staff unlimbered and “shot ’em over” for awhile.
Beedle, Pemberton, and Croft comprised the staff at present, with
two or three aspirants applying for membership. George Pemberton
fell to Laurie’s share. Pemberton was not so good as Nate Beedle,
but he had done good work for the team last year and he was a
“comer.” Laurie, taking Pemberton’s shoots in his big mitten, for the
first time since he had been transferred from the out-field to a
position behind the plate, watched his pitcher’s work. Before this,
Laurie had concerned himself wholly with the ball. Now he gave
attention to the behavior of Pemberton, studying the latter’s stand,
his wind-up, the way his body and pitching arm came forward, the
way the ball left his hand. More than once Laurie became so
engrossed with the pitcher that the ball got by him entirely. He even
tried to discern how Pemberton placed his fingers around the sphere
in order to pitch that famous slow one of his that had foiled the best
batsmen of the enemy last spring. But at the distance Laurie couldn’t
get it.
Pemberton was eighteen, tall, rather thin, rather awkward until he
stepped into the box and took a baseball in his capable hand. After
that he was as easy and graceful as a tiger. The difference between
Pemberton’s smooth wind-up and delivery and Kewpie’s laborious
and jerky performance brought Laurie a sigh of despair. As he
stopped a high one with his mitt and quite dexterously plucked it
from the air with his right hand, Laurie was more than ever
convinced that the campaign on which he and Ned and Kewpie had
embarked last evening so grimly and determinedly was foredoomed
to failure. Gee! Kewpie would never be able to pitch like George
Pemberton if he lived to be a hundred years old and practised
twenty-four hours a day! Laurie almost wished that he had been born
tongue-tied! Later, returning to the gymnasium, Laurie ranged
himself beside Pemberton. He had provided himself with a ball, and
now he offered it to the pitcher. “Say, George, show me how you
hold it for that floater of yours, will you?” he said.
Pemberton took the ball good-naturedly enough. “What are you
trying to do, Nod?” he asked. “Get my job away from me? Well,
here’s the way I hold it.” He placed his long fingers about the ball
with careful regard for the seams. “But holding it isn’t more than half
of it, Nod. You see, you’ve got to flip it away just right. Your thumb
puts the drag on it, see? When you let go of it it starts away like this.”
Pemberton swung his arm through slowly and let the ball trickle from
his hand. Laurie recovered it from a few paces away and stared at it
in puzzled fashion. He guessed he wouldn’t be able to learn much
about pitching that way. Pemberton continued his explanation
carelessly. “You see, you’ve got to start it off with the right spin.
That’s what keeps it up after a straight ball would begin to drop. Now
you take the ‘fade-away.’ I can’t pitch it, but I know how it’s done.
You start it like this.”
Laurie listened and looked on with only perfunctory interest. It
wasn’t any use, he decided. Learning Pemberton’s stuff and
teaching it to Kewpie was beyond his abilities. Besides, when he
came to think about it, it didn’t seem quite fair. It was too much like
stealing another fellow’s patent. Of course there wasn’t more than
one chance in ten that Kewpie would progress to the stage where he
might burst on the Hillman’s baseball firmament as a rival to
Pemberton, but ... just the same.... The next time Pemberton let the
ball go Laurie picked it up and dropped it in his pocket.
The next day, Sunday, saw Ned and Laurie walking toward the
Widow Deane’s shortly after dinner was over. It had become a
custom to go for a walk on Sunday afternoons, when the weather
was gracious, with Polly and Mae and, sometimes, Bob Starling or
some of the other fellows. To-day, however, there were indications
that a late dinner was still going on at the Starlings’, and the twins
didn’t stop for Bob. It had rained during the night but a warm sun had
long since removed all signs of it. Along the streets bordering School
Park doors and windows were open to the spring-like air. In the park
the few benches were occupied, and, beyond, in the paved yard of
the high school, some small youths were indulging somewhat noisily
in an amusement suspiciously like baseball. Of course it couldn’t be
baseball, as Laurie pointed out, since the town laws sternly forbade
that game on Sundays. At the further corner of Pine Street a small
white house with faded brown shutters stood sedately behind a
leafless and overgrown hedge of lilac. The twins viewed the house
with new interest, for it was there that Miss Comfort lived. Ned
thought that through a gap in the hedge he had glimpsed a face
behind one of the front windows.
“Reckon this is her last Sunday in the old home,” observed Ned. It
sounded flippant, and probably he had meant that it should, but
inside him he felt very sorry for the little old lady. It was not much of a
house, as houses went even in Orstead, but it was home to Miss
Comfort, and Ned suddenly felt the pathos of the impending
departure.
Laurie grunted assent as they turned the corner toward the little
blue painted shop. “Guess we aren’t going to hear from the Goop,”
he said. “It’s three days now.”
“We—ell, he might be away or something,” answered Ned.
“I don’t believe so,” said Laurie. “He didn’t answer Miss Comfort’s
letter, and I guess he isn’t going to answer our telegram. The old
skinflint,” he added as an afterthought.