Free The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks by Robertson Davies Page A

possibly a soiled baby, against the heating apparatus. But later I discovered that a man across the aisle had lit a pipe, at which he sucked with obvious enjoyment. There was a smoking section of the car, but he did not choose to go to it. Instead he blew his fetid exhalations everywhere, causing old ladies and expectant mothers to seek refuge between the cars, while men like myself, apparently in the best of health, turned grey in the face and wished for death to end our sufferings. I don’t mind pipes; I smoke a pipe myself; but this was such a pipe as the damned must smoke in Hell.
• O F P RAYERS AND E NTREATIES •
    A SCIENTIST WHOM I know was telling me this evening that ants and spiders sing quite loudly for their size, that flies scream and that weevils make noises like rivetters as they bore into wheat grains, yet none of these cries is audible to us, being far above the sound level of our ears. As he explained, the notion struck me that possibly our prayers and entreaties are not audible to God’s ear. Perhaps as I walk in my garden ants and spiders send up the most terrific outcries to me for rain, or peace; maybe they think that I am being hard upon them when I do not answer their prayers, when the plain fact is that I do not hear them. Obviously they should lower their voices; and perhaps if we want to catch the ear of the Ancient of Days, we should moderate the eager shrillness with which we address Him.
•O F H IS F ALLING -O UT W ITH D OGS •
    I WAS CORNERED before dinner by that solemn man over there who took me to task for my attitude toward dogs; who are, he tells me, noble creatures. This grieves me, for the quarrel between me and the canine world was begun by the dogs themselves. I am the sort of man at whom dogs bark, rush wildly, and jump up. People who think that dogs are wonderful judges of character insist that this means that I have the soul of a burglar, or possibly a cat. If dogs think so poorly of me is it any wonder that I am distant in my attitude toward dogs? I get on well with horses, I mix freely with cows, cats are affable in my presence, and goats consider me one of themselves. Babies (also considered infallible judges of character) gurgle with fascination when I go near them. Old ladies ask me to help them across the street. But dogs dislike me. By a process of reasoning too complicated to go into here, this leads me to dislike dogs, and to regard them as idiotic and dangerous, or both. My household pet is the cat, which was man’s friend while the dog was still unable to distinguish itself from a wolf.
• O F C HEWING G UM •
    T HIS MORNING I had a brief chat with a gum-chewer, whose technique, I was interested to observe, was very poor. She chomped vigorously, with much wasteful jaw-movement and audible squelching. If I had had the time, I would have given her a lesson. The experienced chewer wastes no motion; he keeps his teeth together, merely nudging his quid from time to time with a single molar; he does not seek to produce the maximum of saliva, but is content with enough to keep his palate gently afloat; he does not work at his gum—rather let us say that he cherishes it; his technique is that of the cow, rather than the cement-mixer.
• O F THE F IEND C ZERNY •
    A LITTLE GIRL was showing me some of her piano exercises today. They were simple things with fanciful names, and she seemed to like them. When I was a child piano lessons involved an intimate acquaintance with the exercises of a fiend named Carl Czerny, all of which were intended to be performed at incredible speed. The pupil of those days began with a variety of Czerny, and soon passed on to thick books called
The School of Velocity
,
The School of Finger Dexterity
and so forth until he approached a work of blood-chilling difficulty called
The Virtuoso Pianist
. I never scaled this awful eminence (I broke down and was flung aside in
Finger Dexterity
) but I heard other students playing it, and such swoops,