Mince Pie

Mince Pie

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mince Pie, by Christopher Darlington Morley This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Mince Pie
Author: Christopher Darlington Morley
Release Date: October 10, 2004 [EBook #13694]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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MINCE PIE
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
TO
F.M. AND L.J.M.
[Illustration]
INSTRUCTIONS
This book is intended to be read in bed. Please do not attempt to read it anywhere else.
In order to obtain the best results for all concerned do not read a borrowed copy, but buy one. If the bed is a double bed, buy two.
Do not lend a copy under any circumstances, but refer your friends to the nearest bookshop, where they may expiate their curiosity.
Most of these sketches were first printed in the Philadelphia _Evening Public Ledger; others appeared in The Bookman, the Boston Evening Transcript, Life, and The Smart Set_. To all these publications I am indebted for permission to reprint.
If one asks what excuse there can be for prolonging the existence of these trifles, my answer is that there is no excuse. But a copy on the bedside shelf may possibly pave the way to easy slumber. Only a mind "debauched by learning" (in Doctor Johnson's phrase) will scrutinize them too anxiously.
It seems to me, on reading the proofs, that the skit entitled "Trials of a President Travelling Abroad" is a faint and subconscious echo of a passage in a favorite of my early youth, Happy Thoughts, by the late F.C. Burnand. If this acknowledgment should move anyone to read that delicious classic of pleasantry, the innocent plunder may be pardonable.
And now a word of obeisance. I take this opportunity of thanking several gentle overseers and magistrates who have been too generously friendly to these eccentric gestures. These are Mr. Robert Cortes Holliday, editor of The Bookman and victim of the novelette herein entitled "Owd Bob"; Mr. Edwin F. Edgett, literary editor of The Boston Transcript, who has often permitted me to cut outrageous capers in his hospitable columns; and Mr. Thomas L. Masson, of Life, who allows me to reprint several of the shorter pieces. But most of all I thank Mr. David E. Smiley, editor of the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, for whom the majority of these sketches were written, and whose patience and kindness have been a frequent amazement to
THE AUTHOR.
PHILADELPHIA September, 1919
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
ON FILLING AN INK-WELL 17
OLD THOUGHTS FOR CHRISTMAS 24
CHRISTMAS CARDS 31
ON UNANSWERING LETTERS 35
A LETTER TO FATHER TIME 41
WHAT MEN LIVE BY 48
THE UNNATURAL NATURALIST 54
SITTING IN THE BARBER'S CHAIR 60
BROWN EYES AND EQUINOXES 64
163 INNOCENT OLD MEN 69
A TRAGIC SMELL IN MARATHON 75
BULLIED BY THE BIRDS 81
A MESSAGE FOR BOONVILLE 87
MAKING MARATHON SAFE FOR THE URCHIN 92
THE SMELL OF SMELLS 98
A JAPANESE BACHELOR 102
TWO DAYS WE CELEBRATE 117
THE URCHIN AT THE ZOO 132
FELLOW CRAFTSMEN 139
THE KEY RING 144
"OWD BOB" 150
THE APPLE THAT NO ONE ATE 167
AS TO RUMORS 174
OUR MOTHERS 181
GREETING TO AMERICAN ANGLERS 186
MRS. IZAAK WALTON WRITES A LETTER TO HER MOTHER 190
TRUTH 193
THE TRAGEDY OF WASHINGTON SQUARE 195
IF MR. WILSON WERE THE WEATHER MAN 202
SYNTAX FOR CYNICS 205
THE TRUTH AT LAST 209
FIXED IDEAS 211
TRIALS OF A PRESIDENT TRAVELLING ABROAD 215
DIARY OF A PUBLISHER'S OFFICE BOY 217
THE DOG'S COMMANDMENTS 219
THE VALUE OF CRITICISM 221
A MARRIAGE SERVICE FOR COMMUTERS 224
THE SUNNY SIDE OF GRUB STREET 226
BURIAL SERVICE FOR A NEWSPAPER JOKE 236
ADVICE TO THOSE VISITING A BABY 238
ABOU BEN WOODROW 240
MY MAGNIFICENT SYSTEM 242
LETTERS TO CYNTHIA
1 IN PRAISE OF BOOBS 245
2 SIMPLIFICATION 250
TO AN UNKNOWN DAMSEL 256
THOUGHTS ON SETTING AN ALARM CLOCK 258
SONGS IN A SHOWER BATH 259
ON DEDICATING A NEW TEAPOT 261
THE UNFORGIVABLE SYNTAX 263
VISITING POETS 264
A GOOD HOME IN THE SUBURBS 270
WALT WHITMAN MINIATURES 272
ON DOORS 292

MINCE PIE
ON FILLING AN INK-WELL
Those who buy their ink in little stone jugs may prefer to do so because the pottle reminds them of cruiskeen lawn or ginger beer (with its wire-bound cork), but they miss a noble delight. Ink should be bought in the tall, blue glass, quart bottle (with the ingenious non-drip spout), and once every three weeks or so, when you fill your ink-well, it is your privilege to elevate the flask against the brightness of a window, and meditate (with a breath of sadness) on the joys and problems that sacred fluid holds in solution.
How blue it shines toward the light! Blue as lupin or larkspur, or cornflower--aye, and even so blue art thou, my scriven, to think how far the written page falls short of the bright ecstasy of thy dream! In the bottle, what magnificence of unpenned stuff lies cool and liquid: what fluency of