Not that it Matters | Page 4

House and Laburnum Lodge. Of course
they didn't make love in this Acacia Road; they are come from the
Acacia Road of some other suburb, wisely deciding that they will be
better away from their people. But they met each other in the same way
as Tom and Muriel are meeting; He has seen Her in Her own home, in
His home, at the tennis club, surrounded by the young bounders
(confound them!) of Turret Court and the Wilderness; She has heard of
him falling off his bicycle or quarrelling with his father. Bless you, they
know all about each other; they are going to be happy enough together.
And now I think of it, why of course there is a local theatre where they
can do their play- going, if they are as keen on it as that. For ten
shillings they can spread from the stage box an air of luxury and
refinement over the house; and they can nod in an easy manner across
the stalls to the Cedars in the opposite box-- in the deep recesses of
which Tom and Muriel, you may be sure, are holding hands.

My Library

When I moved into a new house a few weeks ago, my books, as was
natural, moved with me. Strong, perspiring men shovelled them into
packing-cases, and staggered with them to the van, cursing Caxton as
they went. On arrival at this end, they staggered with them into the
room selected for my library, heaved off the lids of the cases, and
awaited orders. The immediate need was for an emptier room. Together
we hurried the books into the new white shelves which awaited them,
the order in which they stood being of no matter so long as they were
off the floor. Armful after armful was hastily stacked, the only pause
being when (in the curious way in which these things happen) my own
name suddenly caught the eye of the foreman. "Did you write this one,
sir?" he asked. I admitted it. "H'm," he said noncommittally. He
glanced along the names of every armful after that, and appeared a little

surprised at the number of books which I hadn't written. An easy-going
profession, evidently.
So we got the books up at last, and there they are still. I told myself that
when a wet afternoon came along I would arrange them properly.
When the wet afternoon came, I told myself that I would arrange them
one of these fine mornings. As they are now, I have to look along every
shelf in the search for the book which I want. To come to Keats is no
guarantee that we are on the road to Shelley. Shelley, if he did not drop
out on the way, is probably next to How to Be a Golfer Though
Middle-aged.
Having written as far as this, I had to get up and see where Shelley
really was. It is worse than I thought. He is between Geometrical
Optics and Studies in New Zealand Scenery. Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
whom I find myself to be entertaining unawares, sits beside Anarchy or
Order, which was apparently "sent in the hope that you will become a
member of the Duty and Discipline Movement"--a vain hope, it would
seem, for I have not yet paid my subscription. What I Found Out, by an
English Governess, shares a corner with The Recreations of a Country
Parson; they are followed by Villette and Baedeker's Switzerland.
Something will have to be done about it. But I am wondering what is to
be done. If I gave you the impression that my books were precisely
arranged in their old shelves, I misled you. They were arranged in the
order known as "all anyhow." Possibly they were a little less "anyhow"
than they are now, in that the volumes of any particular work were at
least together, but that is all that can be claimed for them. For years I
put off the business of tidying them up, just as I am putting it off now.
It is not laziness; it is simply that I don't know how to begin.
Let us suppose that we decide to have all the poetry together. It sounds
reasonable. But then Byron is eleven inches high (my tallest poet), and
Beattie (my shortest) is just over four inches. How foolish they will
look standing side by side. Perhaps you don't know Beattie, but I assure
you that he was a poet. He wrote those majestic lines:--
"The shepherd-swain of whom I mention made On Scotia's mountains
fed his little flock; The sickle, scythe or plough he never swayed-- An
honest heart was almost all his stock."
Of course, one would hardly expect a shepherd to sway a plough in the
ordinary