Chapter XX.

by Aldous Huxley

　　Ivor was gone. Lounging behind the wind-screen in his yellowsedan he was whirling across rural England. Social and amorousengagements of the most urgent character called him from hall tobaronial hall, from castle to castle, from Elizabethan manor-house to Georgian mansion, over the whole expanse of the kingdom.To-day in Somerset, to-morrow in Warwickshire, on Saturday in theWest riding, by Tuesday morning in Argyll--Ivor never rested.The whole summer through, from the beginning of July till the endof September, he devoted himself to his engagements; he was amartyr to them. In the autumn he went back to London for aholiday. Crome had been a little incident, an evanescent bubbleon the stream of his life; it belonged already to the past. Bytea-time he would be at Gobley, and there would be Zenobia'swelcoming smile. And on Thursday morning--but that was a long,long way ahead. He would think of Thursday morning when Thursdaymorning arrived. Meanwhile there was Gobley, meanwhile Zenobia.In the visitor's book at Crome Ivor had left, according to hisinvariable custom in these cases, a poem. He had improvised itmagisterially in the ten minutes preceding his departure. Denisand Mr. Scogan strolled back together from the gates of thecourtyard, whence they had bidden their last farewells; on thewriting-table in the hall they found the visitor's book, open,and Ivor's composition scarcely dry. Mr. Scogan read it aloud:"The magic of those immemorial kings,Who webbed enchantment on the bowls of night.Sleeps in the soul of all created things;In the blue sea, th' Acroceraunian height,In the eyed butterfly's auricular wingsAnd orgied visions of the anchorite;In all that singing flies and flying sings,In rain, in pain, in delicate delight.But much more magic, much more cogent spellsWeave here their wizardries about my soul.Crome calls me like the voice of vesperal bells,Haunts like a ghostly-peopled necropole.Fate tears me hence. Hard fate! since far from CromeMy soul must weep, remembering its Home.""Very nice and tasteful and tactful," said Mr. Scogan, when hehad finished. "I am only troubled by the butterfly's auricularwings. You have a first-hand knowledge of the workings of apoet's mind, Denis; perhaps you can explain.""What could be simpler," said Denis. "It's a beautiful word, andIvor wanted to say that the wings were golden.""You make it luminously clear.""One suffers so much," Denis went on, "from the fact thatbeautiful words don't always mean what they ought to mean.Recently, for example, I had a whole poem ruined, just becausethe word 'carminative' didn't mean what it ought to have meant.Carminative--it's admirable, isn't it?""Admirable," Mr. Scogan agreed. "And what does it mean?""It's a word I've treasured from my earliest infancy," saidDenis, "treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon whenI had a cold--quite useless, but not disagreeable. One poured itdrop by drop out of narrow bottles, a golden liquor, fierce andfiery. On the label was a list of its virtues, and among otherthings it was described as being in the highest degreecarminative. I adored the word. 'Isn't it carminative?' I usedto say to myself when I'd taken my dose. It seemed sowonderfully to describe that sensation of internal warmth, thatglow, that--what shall I call it?--physical self-satisfactionwhich followed the drinking of cinnamon. Later, when Idiscovered alcohol, 'carminative' described for me that similar,but nobler, more spiritual glow which wine evokes not only in thebody but in the soul as well. The carminative virtues ofburgundy, of rum, of old brandy, of Lacryma Christi, of Marsala,of Aleatico, of stout, of gin, of champagne, of claret, of theraw new wine of this year's Tuscan vintage--I compared them, Iclassified them. Marsala is rosily, downily carminative; ginpricks and refreshes while it warms. I had a whole table ofcarmination values. And now"--Denis spread out his hands, palmsupwards, despairingly--"now I know what carminative reallymeans.""Well, what does it mean?" asked Mr. Scogan, a littleimpatiently."Carminative," said Denis, lingering lovingly over the syllables,"carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had something to dowith carmen-carminis, still more vaguely with caro-carnis, andits derivations, like carnival and carnation. Carminative--therewas the idea of singing and the idea of flesh, rose-coloured andwarm, with a suggestion of the jollities of mi-Careme and themasked holidays of Venice. Carminative--the warmth, the glow,the interior ripeness were all in the word. Instead of which...""Do come to the point, my dear Denis," protested Mr. Scogan. "Docome to the point.""Well, I wrote a poem the other day," said Denis; "I wrote a poemabout the effects of love.""Others have done the same before you," said Mr. Scogan. "Thereis no need to be ashamed.""I was putting forward the notion," Denis went on, "that theeffects of love were often similar to the effects of wine, thatEros could intoxicate as well as Bacchus. Love, for example, isessentially carminative. It gives one the sense of warmth, theglow.'And passion carminative as wine...'was what I wrote. Not only was the line elegantly sonorous; itwas also, I flattered myself, very aptly compendiouslyexpressive. Everything was in the word carminative--a detailed,exact foreground, an immense, indefinite hinterland ofsuggestion.'And passion carminative as wine...'I was not ill-pleased. And then suddenly it occurred to me thatI had never actually looked up the word in a dictionary.Carminative had grown up with me from the days of the cinnamonbottle. It had always been taken for granted. Carminative: forme the word was as rich in content as some tremendous, elaboratework of art; it was a complete landscape with figures.'And passion carminative as wine...'It was the first time I had ever committed the word to writing,and all at once I felt I would like lexicographical authority forit. A small English-German dictionary was all I had at hand. Iturned up C, ca, car, carm. There it was: 'Carminative:windtreibend.' Windtreibend!" he repeated. Mr. Scogan laughed.Denis shook his head. "Ah," he said, "for me it was no laughingmatter. For me it marked the end of a chapter, the death ofsomething young and precious. There were the years--years ofchildhood and innocence--when I had believed that carminativemeant--well, carminative. And now, before me lies the rest of mylife--a day, perhaps, ten years, half a century, when I shallknow that carminative means windtreibend.'Plus ne suis ce que j'ai eteEt ne le saurai jamais etre.'It is a realisation that makes one rather melancholy.""Carminative," said Mr. Scogan thoughtfully."Carminative," Denis repeated, and they were silent for a time."Words," said Denis at last, "words--I wonder if you can realisehow much I love them. You are too much preoccupied with merethings and ideas and people to understand the full beauty ofwords. Your mind is not a literary mind. The spectacle of Mr.Gladstone finding thirty-four rhymes to the name 'Margot' seemsto you rather pathetic than anything else. Mallarme's envelopeswith their versified addresses leave you cold, unless they leaveyou pitiful; you can't see that'Apte a ne point te cabrer, hue!Poste et j'ajouterai, dia!Si tu ne fuis onze-bis RueBalzac, chez cet Heredia,'is a little miracle.""You're right," said Mr. Scogan. "I can't.""You don't feel it to be magical?""No.""That's the test for the literary mind," said Denis; "the feelingof magic, the sense that words have power. The technical, verbalpart of literature is simply a development of magic. Words areman's first and most grandiose invention. With language hecreated a whole new universe; what wonder if he loved words andattributed power to them! With fitted, harmonious words themagicians summoned rabbits out of empty hats and spirits from theelements. Their descendants, the literary men, still go on withthe process, morticing their verbal formulas together, and,before the power of the finished spell, trembling with delightand awe. Rabbits out of empty hats? No, their spells are moresubtly powerful, for they evoke emotions out of empty minds.Formulated by their art the most insipid statements becomeenormously significant. For example, I proffer the constatation,'Black ladders lack bladders.' A self-evident truth, one onwhich it would not have been worth while to insist, had I chosento formulate it in such words as 'Black fire-escapes have nobladders,' or, 'Les echelles noires manquent de vessie.' Butsince I put it as I do, 'Black ladders lack bladders,' itbecomes, for all its self-evidence, significant, unforgettable,moving. The creation by word-power of something out of nothing--what is that but magic? And, I may add, what is that butliterature? Half the world's greatest poetry is simply 'Lesechelles noires manquent de vessie,' translated into magicsignificance as, 'Black ladders lack bladders.' And you can'tappreciate words. I'm sorry for you.""A mental carminative," said Mr. Scogan reflectively. "That'swhat you need."