"Lord, I Thank Thee - "

IF IT were not for the war,
This war
Would suit me down to the ground.
There are things about it which pander to my worst instincts,
Flatter my weak points,
And make me a prig and a Pharisee.

I have always detested travelling,
And now there is no travelling to do.
I need not feel that I ought to be improving my mind
By a visit to Rome, the Pyramids, the Pyrenees,
New York or New Guinea,
Or even Moscow;
I have never really panted to contemplate Fuji-Yama,
And now I need not bother about it;
I need not feel abashed by people who take their holidays on the Mattherhorn
Or navigating the Fiords;
I can sit quietly in Essex and feel superior
When my friends complain
That they cannot get on with a sea-voyage or sea-bathing,
(I abominate cold water),
That they feel stifled
Without a breath of mountain air.

I was born in a hollow
At a confluence of rivers,
I was brought up in a swamp
Carved, caged, counter-checked like a chessboard
By dyke and drain,
Running from the Great Ouse to the Wash,
Where the wind never stops blowing;
I know all about the smell that comes off the drowned land
When the waters turn home in the spring
(A peculiar smell - and I have encountered something like it
In Venice
In the piccoli canali in the moonlight,
Where it is considered highly romantic);
I can say to the gadabouts:
"If you must have dank smells, you can get them in the Fens of East Anglia;
If you must break your necks on a precipice You can do it with perfect discomfort
In Cumberland;
And there are apple blossoms in Kent,

Blue seas on the Cornish coast,
Conifers in Scotland;
But I shall stay at home,
Indulging my natural laziness,
And save petrol and coal for my country;
And if anybody requests me
To deliver unnecessary speeches in remote parts of the country,
I can plead the difficulties of war-time travel,
And suffer no pangs of conscience.

I detest bananas,
A smug fruit, designed to be eaten in railway carriages
On Bank Holidays,
With a complexion like yellow wax
And a texture like new putty
Flavoured with nail polish.
Yes, we have no bananas,
Glory be!
And the hygenic people
Who eat prunes and grape-fruit for breakfast
Are cast out into outer darkness
Gnashing their dentures.
Why should anybody eat breakfast
For its edifying qualities,
Or its slimming properties,
Or its improving influence
Upon the skin and the bowels?
Behold, the moral has put on immortality,
And the last shall be first
In the economy of managed consumption.
I do not take sugar
In tea or coffee (even black coffee);
I can give it away to my neighbours,
Purchasing their grateful affection
At no cost to myself—
If everybody was made like me
The Ministry of Food would rejoice.
I need not buy new clothes,
Or change for dinner,
Or bother to make up my face—
It is virtuous to refrain from these things,
I need not shiver in silk stockings;—
I had a hunch about wool before it was rationed;
Now I have knitted myself woollen stockings
That come a long way up.
They are warm and admirable,
They do not ladder or go into holes suddenly.
I can boast quietly about them
And smirk while others admire my industry;
As it happens, I like knitting
And nothing gratifies one more
Than to be admired for doing what one likes.
In London there are still shops
With silk stockins in the windows
("Positively the last release");
I see the women and the girls
Check in their stride, stop, gaze in hungrily,
Fumbling with handbags, calculating coupons,
Yielding to temptation.
Poor souls!
They will never be able to walk through the rose-garden
Or play with the kitten
But anxiety will gnaw at their hearts like a demon rat;
The crack of a snapping stitch
Will sound in their ears like the crack of doom.
But I shall walk cheerfully in woollen
This winter, and the next, and the next,
Hand-knitted without coupons;
And the old lisle stockings will do for the summer—
If there is any summer.

It is jolly to take up a newspaper
And find it so thin!
The ruthless restriction of twaddle
Is a rare, refreshing fruit
Better than many bananas.
The Woman's Page,
The Sports Page,
The Feature Page,
The Page of Bathing Beauties,
Are clipped as close as Samson's skull,
Together with the Comic Strip
And the God-wottery Corner for Garden-lovers.
The blare of the advertisements,
Imploring, cajoling, stimulating, menacing, terrifying
An apathetic public
Into buying what it neither needs nor desires,
Has dwindled into an apologetic murmur.
Regretting the shortage of supplies,
Whispering pathetically, "Forget-me-not,
Forget me not when good times come again!"
We are not electrified every other day
By the bursting into the world,
With the accomplishments suitable to the advent of a long-promised Messiah
Of a new soap.
Soap is rationed.
(I always thought we washed far too much anyhow—
Animals do not wear out their skins
And destroy their natural oils
With perpetual washing;
Even the cat despises soap,
And whoever heard of a cow washing behind the ear?)
There is very little room these days
For the misreporting of my public utterances;
Soon they will not be reported at all,
Thank goodness!
And, curiously enough, books and plays seem to do better
When nobody reviews them.
Also, owing to the lack of paper
The demand for books exceeds the supply—
A thing that has not been known
Since they started all this popular education and cheap printing.
Nobody ever wants a thing
Until it is taken away—
We used to have far too much of everything.

I can now enjoy a more glorious victory,
More exultation of spirit,
By capturing a twopenny tin of mustard
Or a packet of hairpins
And bearing it home in triumph
Than I could have achieved before the war
By securing a First Folio of Shakespeare
At vast trouble and expense
In the sale-room [.]
The local chimney sweep
Keeps hens.
He takes the scraps from my table, the kitchen scraps,
And the hen returns them to me,
By a beautiful economy of nature,
In the likeness of eggs.
A new-laid egg
Will bind a friendship
Faster than it binds a cake;
A string of onions
Is a gift more gracious
Than a string of pearls;
I am better off with vegetables
At the bottom of my garden
Than with all the fairies of the Midsummer Night's Dream.
If it were not for the war,
This war
Would suit me down to the ground.

- Dorothy Sayers

Because It's There

A solitary rock is always attractive. All right-minded people feel an overwhelming desire to scale and sit upon it.

-Dorothy Sayers, Have His Carcase, 11.

Eureka!

When we read the poem, or see the play or picture or hear the music, it is as though a light were turned on inside us. We say: “Ah! I recognize that! That is something which I obscurely felt to be going on in and about me, but I didn’t know what it was and couldn’t express it. But now that the artist has made its image—imaged it forth—for me, I can possess and take hold of it and make it my own, and turn it into a source of knowledge and strength.

-Dorothy Sayers, “Towards a Christian Aesthetic,” quoted in The Christian Imagination, ed. Leland Ryken, 234.

Vocation

In nothing has Church so lost Her hold on reality as in Her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.

-Dorothy Sayers, Why Work?

Christ the Companion

WHEN I've thrown my books aside, being petulant and weary,
And have turned down the gas, and the firelight has sufficed,
When my brain's too stiff for prayer, and too indolent for theory,
Will You come and play with me, big Brother Christ?

Will You slip behind the book-case? Will you stir the window-curtain,
Peeping from the shadow with Your eyes like flame?
Set me staring at the alcove where the flicker's so uncertain,
Then suddenly, at my elbow, leap up, catch me, call my name?

Or take the great arm-chair, help me set the chestnuts roasting,
And tell me quiet stories, while the brown skins pop,
Of wayfarers and merchantmen and tramp of Roman hosting,
And how Joseph dwelt with Mary in the carpenter's shop?

When I drift away in dozing, will You softly light the candles
And touch the piano with Your kind, strong fingers,
Set stern fugues of Bach and stately themes of Handel's
Stalking through the corners where the last disquiet lingers?

And when we say good-night, and You kiss me on the landing,
Will You promise faithfully and make a solemn tryst:
You'll be just at hand if wanted, close by here where we are standing,
And be down in time for breakfast, big Brother Christ?

-Dorothy Sayers

The Wizard's Pupil

TIME like a sullen school-boy stands
Beside the Wizard's knee,
The book of life between his hands,
And spells out painfully
The crabbed Christ-cross row,
The Alpha and the O.

His grimy fingers slowly trace
Each odd, repellent sign
In a dull fear to lose the place;
His voice, with listless whine,
Drawls through the scheduled hour
The syllables of power.

While Zeta is so like to Xi
Small thought has he to spare
For what the screed may signify,
(The Wizard in His chair
Smiles, knowing ere He look
All that is in the book).

But sometimes ill and sometimes well,
Reluctant and perplexed,
He gropes and stammers through the spell
From one sound to the next;
And when the last is read
God's Word wakes the dead.

-Dorothy Sayers

That Still Centre

Here, then, at home, by no more storms distrest,
Folding laborious hands we sit, wings furled;
Here in close perfume lies the rose-leaf curled,
Here the sun stands and knows not east nor west,
Here no tide runs; we have come, last and best,
From the wide zone through dizzying circles hurled,
To that still centre where the spinning world
Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.

Lay on thy whips, O Love, that we upright,
Poised on the perilous point, in no lax bed
May sleep, as tension at the verberant core
Of music sleeps; for, if thou spare to smite,
Staggering, we stoop, stooping, fall dumb and dead,
And, dying, so, sleep our sweet sleep no more.

-Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night

Superfluous Women

"Miss Climpson," said Lord Peter, "is a manifestation of the wasteful way in which this country is run. Look at electricity. Look at water-power. Look at the tides. Look at the sun. Millions of power units being given off into space every minute. Thousands of old maids, simply bursting with useful energy, forced by our stupid social system into hydros and hotels and communities and hostels and posts as companions, where their magnificent gossip-powers and units of inquisitiveness are allowed to dissipate themselves or even become harmful to the community, while the ratepayers' money is spent on getting work for which these women are providentially fitted, inefficiently carried out by ill-equipped policemen like you. My god! it's enough to make a man write to John Bull. And then bright young men write nasty little patronising books called 'Elderly Women,' and 'On the Edge of the Explosion'—and the drunkards make songs upon 'em, poor things.

"...Just think. People want questions asked. Whom do they send? A man with large flat feet and a notebook—the sort of man whose private life is conducted in a series of inarticulate grunts. I send a lady with a long, woolly jumper on knitting-needles and jingly things round her neck. Of course she asks questions—everyone expects it. Nobody is surprised. Nobody is alarmed. And so called superfluity is agreeably and usefully disposed of. One of these days you will put up a statue to me, with an inscription:

"'To the Man who Made
Thousands of Superfluous Women
Happy
without Injury to their Modesty
or Exertion to Himself.'"

-Dorothy Sayers, Unnatural Death, 25-26.

A Silly Kind of Face

"I was beginning to have my suspicions," said the doctor, after a short pause. "I think you must be Lord Peter Wimsey. I wondered why your face was so familiar, but of course it was in all the papers a few years ago when you disentangled the Riddlesdale Mystery."

"Quite right. It's a silly kind of face, of course, but rather disarming, don't you think? I don't know that I'd have chosen it, but I do my best with it. I hope it isn't contracting a sleuth-like expression, or anything unpleasant."

-Dorothy Sayers, Unnatural Death, 15-16.

St. Supercilia

St. Supercilia, born in Paris about the year 1400, was a maiden of remarkable erudition, who steadfastly refused to marry anyone who could not defeat her in open disputation. When the best scholars of all the universities in Europe had tried and failed, her unworthy father brutally commanded her to accept the hand of a man who, though virtuous, sensible, and of a good estate, knew only six languages and was weak in mathematics. At this, the outraged saint raised her eyebrows so high that they lifted her off her feet and out through a top-story window, whence she was last seen floating away in a northerly direction.

St. Supercilia is the patron of pedants. Her feast, Eyebrow Sunday, falls in Cacophony, between Lowbrow Sunday and Derogation Day.

-Dorothy Sayers, "Selections from The Pantheon Papers," The Whimsical Christian, 5-6.

London in the Blitz

[An excerpt from a letter written by Honoria Lucasta, Dowager Duchess of Denver, to an American friend, 12th November, 1939:]

...You can't think how queer Piccadilly Circus looks with Eros gone and a sort of pyramid like King Cheops on a small scale built up over the fountain--though why they should take all that trouble I can't think; unless it's the water-mains, except that people feel very sentimental about it and if anyone dropped a bomb on it they'd feel the heart of Empire had stopped beating. Peter says we ought to do something constructive in the opposite direction and floodlight the Albert Memorial because the park would be better without it, but poor Queen Victoria would turn in her grave and, as I reminded him, he didn't know Queen Victoria personally: I did.

-Dorothy Sayers, The Wimsey Papers

A Song of Paradise

SING a song of Paradise
Far above the skies—
Four-and-twenty Elders
And Monsters full of eyes!
Heaven’s gates are opened,
They all begin to sing,
Playing ball with golden crowns
Round about the King.

The King is in His counting-house,
Counting His elect,
The Queen comes from her chamber
Royally bedecked
With chrysoprase and amethyst
And jacinth without price…
Now is not this a pretty song
To sing of Paradise?

-Dorothy Sayers

Untitled

As years come in and years go out
I totter toward the tomb,
Still caring less and less about
Who goes to bed with whom.

-Dorothy Sayers

Trousers vs Braces

Let me give one simple illustration of the difference between the right and the wrong kind of feminism. Let us take this terrible business--so distressing to the minds of bishops--of the women who go about in trousers. We are asked: "Why do you want to go about in trousers? They are extremely unbecoming to most of you. You only do it to copy the men." To this we may very properly reply: "It is true that they are unbecoming. Even on men they are remarkably unattractive. But, as you men have discovered for yourselves, they are comfortable, they do not get in the way of one's activities like skirts and they protect the wearer from draughts about the ankles. As a human being, I like comfort and dislike draughts. If the trousers do not attract you, so much the worse; for the moment I do not want to attract you. I want to enjoy myself as a human being, and why not? As for copying you, certainly you thought of trousers first, and to that extent we must copy you. But we are not such abandoned copy-cats as to attach these useful garments to our bodies with braces. There we draw the line. These machines of leather and elastic are unnecessary and unsuited to the female form. They are, moreover, hideous beyond description. And as for indecency--of which you sometimes accuse the trousers--we at least can take our coats off without becoming the half-undressed bedroom spectacle thatt a man presents in his shirt and braces."

So that when we hear that women have once more laid hands upon somthing which was previously a man's sole privilege, I think we have to ask ourselves: is this trousers or is it braces? Is it something useful, convenient, and suitable to a human being as such? Or is it merely something unnecessary to us, ugly, and adopted merely for the sake of collaring the other fellow's property? These jobs and professions now. It is ridiculous to take on a man's job just in order to be able to say that "a woman has done it--yah!" The only decent reason for tackling any job is that it is your job, and you want to do it.

-Dorothy Sayers, Are Women Human?

DESDICHADO

*This is the Heir; come let us kill Him.
*Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved?

Christ walks the world again, His lute upon His back,
His red robe rent to tatters, his riches gone to rack,
The wind that wakes the morning blows His hair about His face,
His hands and feet are ragged with the ragged briar’s embrace,
For the hunt is up behind Him and His sword is at His side,…
Christ the bonny outlaw walks the whole world wide,
Singing: “Lady, lady, will you come away with Me,
Lie among the bracken and break the barley bread?
We will see new suns arise in golden, far-off skies,
For the Son of God and Woman hath not where to lay His head.”

Christ walks the world again, a prince of fairy-tale,
He roams, a rascal fiddler, over mountain and down dale,
Cast forth to seek His fortune in a bitter world and grim,
For the stepsons of His Father’s house would steal His Bride from Him;
They have weirded Him to wander till He bring within His hands
The water of eternal youth from black-enchanted lands,
Singing: “Lady, lady, will you come away with me,
Or sleep on silken cushions in the bower of wicked men?
For if we walk together through the wet and windy weather,
When I ride back home triumphant you will ride beside Me then.”

Christ walks the world again, new-bound on high emprise,
With music in His golden mouth and laughter in His eyes;
The primrose springs before Him as He treads the dusty way,
His singer’s crown of thorn has burst in blossom like the may,
He heedeth not the morrow and He never looks behind,
Singing: “Glory to the open skies and peace to all mankind.”
Singing: “Lady, lady, will you come away with Me?
Was never man lived longer for the hoarding of his breath;
Here be dragons to be slain, here be rich rewards to gain…
If we perish in the seeking…why, how small a thing is death!”

-Dorothy Sayers, Catholic Tales and Christian Songs

Bananas

I detest bananas,
A smug fruit, designed to be eaten in railway carriages
On Bank Holidays,
With a complexion like yellow wax
And a texture like new putty
Flavoured with nail polish.
Yes, we have no bananas,
Glory be!

-Dorothy Sayers, "Lord, I Thank Thee - "