Personal Pleasures by Rose Macaulay Page A
Authors: Rose Macaulay
Tags: Personal Pleasures
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Chamber, and had a tame Lamb running after her up and down the House. I used all gentle Methods to bring her to her self. â¦â
But no: I am more fortunate that Mrs. Cornelia, not only in that I am lambless, but in that my pair of turtles, (if pair they are, and not a mourning widow turtling it after her mate) have not taken up their abode in my chamber, but have, it seems, made them a nest in my chimney. Yes, my chimney is a pigeon-cote, a culver-house, and in it the kind turtles sit and coo, and answer to each otherâs moan. I like to think that there are two turtles, that my turtle is not bereaved. And yet, to have so chaste, so musically mourning a widow at hand, would also be charming. âAs a turtledove did I chatter, and as a dove did I mournâ; melancholy ordinance of nature, that this otherwise oblivious bird, so unlike the elephant that she forgets practicallyeverything immediately, including her young the moment they have been taken from the nest, and the peckings and unkindnesses of her husband, and all wrongs done her, should remember and mourn her mate until death. Even the widowed cock mourns, winging him to some withered bough, or to some friendly chimney. But who shall say why he mourns? Basil wrote that the eating of vipers, a favourite food of theirs, gives turtles a pain, until they can find some marjoram to heal it. They will find no marjoram in my chimney, and so they mourn there still.
But no; I believe that turtles have been misjudged, and that the gentle crooning which has been taken to indicate grief actually, even in the solitary bird, expresses a tranquil pleasure in existence. I like to think this, for I have (who can other?) a great esteem for this amiable bird, so kind, so passing chaste, a messenger of peace, an ensample of simpleness, clean, plenteous in children, follower of meekness, friend of company, forgetter of wrongs, nicely curious, carrier of letters, emblem of the Holy Ghost. I will not suppose that my chimney-cole culver is a sad widow; she is the most constant pretty cooing turtle, and doubtless a happy, if forgetful, mother, sitting upon an ill made nest up there and crooning to her unborn turtlets. Her voice is so sweet, so comforting, so heavenly, it would convert the sceptical
jeune homme de Dijon
himself, did he hear it as I hear it now, rising, murmuring, falling, dying, melting away to start againâcroo, croo, croo.
My chimney is a hospitable lodging for turtles. But what is their fate when they make their home in chimneys which are funnels for fire and smoke? Do they flit away, forgetting their turtlets, at the first alarm, to build in the next chimney? Or do they remain, faithful birds, amid the choking fumes, until, like the Phoenix and the Turtle, they enclosed in cinders lie?
Driving a Car
To propel a car through space, to devour the flying miles, to triumph over roads, flinging them behind us like discarded snakes, to rush, like Mulciber, from morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve, a summerâs day, up hill and down, by singing fir woods and blue heath, annihilating counties and minifying kingdomsâhere is a joy that Phaethon, that bad driver, never knew. Phaethon, like us, was inebriated with rushing (as he fondly thought) through the air, intoxicated with pride in the great and hazardous car he drove, deeming himself a speed king. He believed himself to be doing his circuit of 583 million miles in twenty-four hours, or about 25,000,000 m.p.h. That is to say, had the sun really been rushing daily round the earth, that is about what it would have had to do, though it is possible that neither Helios nor Phaethon actually knew the mileage. Anyhow, as we now know, Phaethon was not really moving at all; it was the earth that was moving, and Phaethon crashed simply from nerves.
The same might be said of all the charioteers before the present age; they thought they were speeding, but were really scarcely moving at all. Nero fancied himself as
But no: I am more fortunate that Mrs. Cornelia, not only in that I am lambless, but in that my pair of turtles, (if pair they are, and not a mourning widow turtling it after her mate) have not taken up their abode in my chamber, but have, it seems, made them a nest in my chimney. Yes, my chimney is a pigeon-cote, a culver-house, and in it the kind turtles sit and coo, and answer to each otherâs moan. I like to think that there are two turtles, that my turtle is not bereaved. And yet, to have so chaste, so musically mourning a widow at hand, would also be charming. âAs a turtledove did I chatter, and as a dove did I mournâ; melancholy ordinance of nature, that this otherwise oblivious bird, so unlike the elephant that she forgets practicallyeverything immediately, including her young the moment they have been taken from the nest, and the peckings and unkindnesses of her husband, and all wrongs done her, should remember and mourn her mate until death. Even the widowed cock mourns, winging him to some withered bough, or to some friendly chimney. But who shall say why he mourns? Basil wrote that the eating of vipers, a favourite food of theirs, gives turtles a pain, until they can find some marjoram to heal it. They will find no marjoram in my chimney, and so they mourn there still.
But no; I believe that turtles have been misjudged, and that the gentle crooning which has been taken to indicate grief actually, even in the solitary bird, expresses a tranquil pleasure in existence. I like to think this, for I have (who can other?) a great esteem for this amiable bird, so kind, so passing chaste, a messenger of peace, an ensample of simpleness, clean, plenteous in children, follower of meekness, friend of company, forgetter of wrongs, nicely curious, carrier of letters, emblem of the Holy Ghost. I will not suppose that my chimney-cole culver is a sad widow; she is the most constant pretty cooing turtle, and doubtless a happy, if forgetful, mother, sitting upon an ill made nest up there and crooning to her unborn turtlets. Her voice is so sweet, so comforting, so heavenly, it would convert the sceptical
jeune homme de Dijon
himself, did he hear it as I hear it now, rising, murmuring, falling, dying, melting away to start againâcroo, croo, croo.
My chimney is a hospitable lodging for turtles. But what is their fate when they make their home in chimneys which are funnels for fire and smoke? Do they flit away, forgetting their turtlets, at the first alarm, to build in the next chimney? Or do they remain, faithful birds, amid the choking fumes, until, like the Phoenix and the Turtle, they enclosed in cinders lie?
Driving a Car
To propel a car through space, to devour the flying miles, to triumph over roads, flinging them behind us like discarded snakes, to rush, like Mulciber, from morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve, a summerâs day, up hill and down, by singing fir woods and blue heath, annihilating counties and minifying kingdomsâhere is a joy that Phaethon, that bad driver, never knew. Phaethon, like us, was inebriated with rushing (as he fondly thought) through the air, intoxicated with pride in the great and hazardous car he drove, deeming himself a speed king. He believed himself to be doing his circuit of 583 million miles in twenty-four hours, or about 25,000,000 m.p.h. That is to say, had the sun really been rushing daily round the earth, that is about what it would have had to do, though it is possible that neither Helios nor Phaethon actually knew the mileage. Anyhow, as we now know, Phaethon was not really moving at all; it was the earth that was moving, and Phaethon crashed simply from nerves.
The same might be said of all the charioteers before the present age; they thought they were speeding, but were really scarcely moving at all. Nero fancied himself as
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