Read Online Black Beech and Honeydew by Ngaio Marsh - Free Book Online
Authors: Ngaio Marsh
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flawless for readers of seven to thirteen years.
Now Chil the Kite brings home the Night
That Mang, the Bat sets free
The herds are shut in byre and hut
For loosed till dawn are we.
and:
Oh hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us.
What is to be said of the taste of a child reader? From what half-formed preferences, what unrecognized instincts is it shaped? Why did the opening phrase of the Jungle Stories so captivate me that I must read it over and over again with such deep satisfaction? ‘It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills-’
This was magic.
Then came The Brushwood Bay, which I shall never dare to read again lest the recollection should crumble into disillusion, and some of the sea poems, particularly The Coast-Wise Lights of England.
Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees
And our loins are battered ‘neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.
By these I was ravished.
Unfortunately I found that I myself was capable of some morsels in Kiplingesque pastiche.
‘Up,’ I wrote with my tongue firmly gripped between my teeth:
Up from the rolling plains, up where the blue mist lies
and a little further on and even more regrettably
We must be nothing weak, Vallies and hills are ours
From the last lone mountain creek to where the rata flowers.
I really believe that in my heart I knew what dreadful stuff this was and can distinctly remember that on completing it I was discomforted by a sensation of embarrassment. I don’t think I ever showed it to my mother. At ten years, however, according to a note she made on it, I had presented her with a poem.
The sun is sinking in the west
The stars begin to shine
The birds are singing in their nest
And I must go to mine.
These lines preceded my Kipling period and are, I think, greatly to be preferred to it. Oddly enough, although it reads like a direct pinch from Blake, I had not, at that time, been introduced to the Songs of Innocence and therefore may be held, I suppose, to have perpetrated an infantile literary coincidence.
For one odd preference in reading I can find no explanation. This was a book by an, at that time, popular journalist called John Foster Fraser. It was about the trans-Siberian railway and it completely fascinated me. Perhaps my love of trains had something to do with this but I think that I had made some strange association between the word ‘Russia’ and an idea of the quintessence of adventure. This strange feeling was to reach a kind of climax after many years by the wharves of Odessa.
In addition to lessons with Miss Ffitch I went twice a week to Miss Jennie Black, Mus. Bac., for the piano. She was dark and incisivewith flashing eyes behind her spectacles. She taught Mathey’s method and she stood no nonsense. I rode Frisky and my mother rode her bicycle as far as the tram stop. She sat on a grassy bank and read. Frisky often dropped off to sleep, resting her chin rather heavily on my mother’s hat and slightly dribbling. There they would be on my return, with Tip, now an old dog, panting in the shade of Frisky’s belly.
I must have been an infuriating pupil for the piano. I had a poor ear, little application and fluctuating interest, but I was not bad enough to be given the sack and even passed some Trinity College examinations. My mother, winning a perpetual series of rearguard actions, insisted on regular practice which I loathed. Yet every now and then I would suddenly become engaged by the current piece and work quite hard on it.
‘But you played that well. You played it quite well. Tiresome little wretch!’ exclaimed Miss Jennie Black, Mus. Bac., in an extremity of irritation.
We almost always referred to her by her full title because of its snappy rhythm. Indeed, I once absent-mindedly replied to one of her demands: ‘Yes, Miss Jennie Black, Mus. Bac.,’ and got an awful rocket for impertinence. It was impossible to explain.
In spite of Miss Ross’s stricture and with
Now Chil the Kite brings home the Night
That Mang, the Bat sets free
The herds are shut in byre and hut
For loosed till dawn are we.
and:
Oh hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us.
What is to be said of the taste of a child reader? From what half-formed preferences, what unrecognized instincts is it shaped? Why did the opening phrase of the Jungle Stories so captivate me that I must read it over and over again with such deep satisfaction? ‘It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills-’
This was magic.
Then came The Brushwood Bay, which I shall never dare to read again lest the recollection should crumble into disillusion, and some of the sea poems, particularly The Coast-Wise Lights of England.
Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees
And our loins are battered ‘neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.
By these I was ravished.
Unfortunately I found that I myself was capable of some morsels in Kiplingesque pastiche.
‘Up,’ I wrote with my tongue firmly gripped between my teeth:
Up from the rolling plains, up where the blue mist lies
and a little further on and even more regrettably
We must be nothing weak, Vallies and hills are ours
From the last lone mountain creek to where the rata flowers.
I really believe that in my heart I knew what dreadful stuff this was and can distinctly remember that on completing it I was discomforted by a sensation of embarrassment. I don’t think I ever showed it to my mother. At ten years, however, according to a note she made on it, I had presented her with a poem.
The sun is sinking in the west
The stars begin to shine
The birds are singing in their nest
And I must go to mine.
These lines preceded my Kipling period and are, I think, greatly to be preferred to it. Oddly enough, although it reads like a direct pinch from Blake, I had not, at that time, been introduced to the Songs of Innocence and therefore may be held, I suppose, to have perpetrated an infantile literary coincidence.
For one odd preference in reading I can find no explanation. This was a book by an, at that time, popular journalist called John Foster Fraser. It was about the trans-Siberian railway and it completely fascinated me. Perhaps my love of trains had something to do with this but I think that I had made some strange association between the word ‘Russia’ and an idea of the quintessence of adventure. This strange feeling was to reach a kind of climax after many years by the wharves of Odessa.
In addition to lessons with Miss Ffitch I went twice a week to Miss Jennie Black, Mus. Bac., for the piano. She was dark and incisivewith flashing eyes behind her spectacles. She taught Mathey’s method and she stood no nonsense. I rode Frisky and my mother rode her bicycle as far as the tram stop. She sat on a grassy bank and read. Frisky often dropped off to sleep, resting her chin rather heavily on my mother’s hat and slightly dribbling. There they would be on my return, with Tip, now an old dog, panting in the shade of Frisky’s belly.
I must have been an infuriating pupil for the piano. I had a poor ear, little application and fluctuating interest, but I was not bad enough to be given the sack and even passed some Trinity College examinations. My mother, winning a perpetual series of rearguard actions, insisted on regular practice which I loathed. Yet every now and then I would suddenly become engaged by the current piece and work quite hard on it.
‘But you played that well. You played it quite well. Tiresome little wretch!’ exclaimed Miss Jennie Black, Mus. Bac., in an extremity of irritation.
We almost always referred to her by her full title because of its snappy rhythm. Indeed, I once absent-mindedly replied to one of her demands: ‘Yes, Miss Jennie Black, Mus. Bac.,’ and got an awful rocket for impertinence. It was impossible to explain.
In spite of Miss Ross’s stricture and with
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