OUT OF DOORS
By JAN STRUTHER
SUMMER, after all our weary waiting, is here at last. That is to say, she was here yesterday and she will probably be back again tomorrow. Today is one of those nondescript bits of weather which she leaves behind in her stead when she wants to play truant ; like that pathetic creature, the " stand-in," who takes the place of a film actress during the tedious hours while the electricians are adjusting the lights, and who never appears in the finished film at all. She may spend more time on the set than the actress herself, but no record is made of her : just as nobody remembers afterwards those in-between days, cold, grey and gusty, which do not fit in with our conventional idea of summer ; though there may be fifty of them between May and September.
It is the poets who are to blame for this. They will copy from other poets instead of using their powers of observation. The poets whom the earliest ones copied from were not Englishmen at all but Greeks and Romans : and everybody knows that Abroad is a place with real seasons which run true to type, instead of the hotch-potch we have to put up with in this country. Poetry has a greater influence on everyday thought than non-poetry-lovers care to admit : probably because even the most hard-headed business man among us was brought up on nursery rhymes and never quite shakes off his respect for incantation. So it is only natural that our Platonic ideal of spring, summer, autumn and winter should be one which dooms us to disappointment.
Still, as I said, summer is here, and there is certain to be quite a number of days on which she will attend to the job herself and not palm us off with a stand-in. On one of these days, leaning out of the window after breakfast and sniffing ecstatically at perfection, you decide that it would be a crime to sit indoors at a writing-table on a morning like this : you will take your work out into the garden and do it there. It all sounds so simple and so idyllic. What could be a pleasanter and a nobler occupation than to sit in the sunshine, green grass beneath your feet, balmy zephyrs playing with your hair, the scent of flowers in every breath you take, and to write immortal poetry—or even, for that matter, perishable prose ?
But in practice there are snags. To begin with, the grass on a fine summer morning is not only green but conspicuously dewy ; and dew, although it sounds more romantic than rain, is every bit as wet. It is difficult to feel inspired in Wellington boots, so there is nothing for it but a foot-stool. Now the only foot-stool in the house happens to be a pink brocade one with cabriole legs : and this, somehow, seems to bring the atmosphere of the scene further from Eden and nearer to the Petit Trianon.
Secondly, the balmy zephyrs reuse to confine themselves to your hair. They flutter the c)rners of the paper you are writing on, scatter the lawn with the pages you have already finished, and cause leaves and flowers to wave within eyeshot, distractingly.
Thirdly, the sun—so welcome a companion in your leisure hours—is the greatest possible hindrance to the profession of letters. Its reflected from white paper, dazzles the eyes : its warmth lulls the brain and saps the resolution. Lids tend to close, coherent thought to relapse into random day-dreaming. It takes a stem effort of will to write as much as fifty words without a break. True, you can sit in the shade : but then being out of doors loses much of its point. Or you can arrange yourself with great care so that your upper calf is in the shade and the rest of you in the sun : but then you come up against what is probably the most annoying of all natural phenomena namely, that the sun (pace Galileo and vide Einstein) will not keep still for two minutes together. Inexorably, and with a sublime disregard for human con- venience, it creeps round the pear-tree and settles comfortably down on your writing-block again like an importunate cat. There are sun-spectacles, I know, at a price to suit every pocket. But even the most expensive ones give a depressing effect, as of November twilight in a slate quarry ; while the cheaper brands transport their wearer into such a lurid, threatening and phantasmagorical world that he might well imagine himself to be looking at a colour-film of the Day of Judgement designed by El Greco and produced by M.-G.-M. Interesting, no doubt : but not what he came out into the garden for.
Lastly, there is the garden itself : and this is the most distracting thing of all. There is no need to descend to Godwottery, or even to know the difference between an aquilegia and an antirrhinum, in order to be enthralled by the ingenious and lovely permutations of shape, colour and texture (to say nothing of scent) which surround you. What- ever your personal beliefs, you cannot deny that the affair has been well done.
Nor is the beauty of a garden a static thing, to be glanced at once and stored in the mind's eye. It is dramatic : things are happening all the time, clamouring for your attention. Look again after five minutes, and a big hairy poppy-bud, which was recently all green, is slashed with scarlet. In another quarter of an hour the crumpled silk will be bursting right out of it. And while your back was turned, too, those broom-flowers have been visited by a bee : their stamens are uncoiled, their petals dishevelled ; they have a gay, raffish air, very different from their former demureness. The situation is really impossible. Nobody but an auto- maton could concentrate in a place like this. There is nothing for it but to gather up your papers and retreat indoors. One thing is certain : the greatest service that has ever been rendered to literature is the invention of houses,
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