If I May | Page 4

by the margin and pointing
them out to our visitors; and then I realize sadly that, by the time an
adequate margin has been provided for ourselves and our visitors, there
will be no room left for the gold-fish.
At the back of my garden I have a high brick wall. To whom the bricks
actually belong I cannot say, but at any rate I own the surface rights on
this side of it. One of my ideas is to treat it as the back cloth of a stage,
and paint a vista on it. A long avenue of immemorial elms, leading up
to a gardener's lodge at the top of the wall--I mean at the end of the
avenue--might create a pleasing impression. My workroom leads out
into the garden, and I have a feeling that, if the door of this room were
opened, and then hastily closed again on the plea that I mustn't be
disturbed, a visitor might obtain such a glimpse of the avenue and the
gardener's lodge as would convince him that I had come into property.
He might even make an offer for the estate, if he were set upon a
country house in the heart of London.
But you have probably guessed already the difficulty in the way of my
vista. The back wall extends into the gardens of the householders on
each side of me. They might refuse to co-operate with me; they might
insist on retaining the blank ugliness of theirs walls, or endeavouring
(as they endeavour now, I believe) to grow some unenterprising creeper
up them; with the result that my vista would fail to create the necessary
illusion when looked at from the side, This would mean that our guests
would have to remain in one position, and that even in this position
they would have to stand to attention--a state of things which might
mar their enjoyment of our hospitality. Until, then, our neighbours give
me a free hand with their segments of the wall, the vista must remain a
beautiful dream.
However, there are other possibilities. Since there is no room in the
garden for a watchdog and a garden, it might be a good idea to paint a
phosphorescent and terrifying watchdog on the wall. Perhaps a

watchlion would be even more terrifying--and, presumably, just as easy
to paint. Any burglar would be deterred if he came across a lion
suddenly in the back garden. One way or another, it should be possible
to have something a little more interesting than mere bricks at the end
of the estate.
And if the worst comes to the worst--if it is found that no flowers (other
than groundsel) will flourish in my garden, owing to lack of soil or lack
of sun--then the flowers must be painted on the walls. This would have
its advantages, for we should waste no time over the early and
uninteresting stages of the plant, but depict it at once in its full glory.
And we should keep our garden up to date. When delphiniums went out
of season, we should rub them out and give you chrysanthemums; and
if an untimely storm uprooted the chrysanthemums, in an hour or two
we should have a wonderful show of dahlias to take their place. And
we should still have the floor-space free for a sundial, or--if you insist
on exercise--for the last hoop and the stick of a full-sized croquet-lawn.

The Game of Kings

I do not claim to be an authority on either the history or the practice of
chess, but, as the poet Gray observed when he saw his old school from
a long way off, it is sometimes an advantage not to know too much of
one's subject. The imagination can then be exercised more effectively.
So when I am playing Capablanca (or old Robinson) for the
championship of the home pastures, my thoughts are not fixed
exclusively upon the "mate" which is threatening; they wander off into
those enchanted lands of long ago, when flesh-and-blood knights rode
at stone-built castles, and thin-lipped bishops, all smiles and side-long
glances, plotted against the kings who ventured to oppose them. This is
the real fascination of chess.
You observe that I speak of castles, not of rooks. I do not know whence
came this custom of calling the most romantic piece on the board by
the name of a very ordinary bird, but I, at least, will not be a party to it.

I refuse to surrender the portcullis and the moat, the bastion and the
well-manned towers, which were the features of every castle with
which hitherto I have played, in order to take the field with allies so
unromantic as a brace of rooks. You may tell me that "rook" is