what is the good of
putting stone reading ‘Here lies
Nobody Nowhere’

The Cat in the Lifeboat

A feline named William got a job as copy cat on a daily paper and was surprised to learn that every other cat on the paper was named Tom, Dick, or Harry. He soon found out that he was the only cat named William in town. The fact of his singularity went to his head, and he began confusing it with distinction. It got so that whenever he saw or heard the name William, he thought it referred to him. His fantasies grew wilder and wilder, and he came to believe that he was the Will of Last Will and Testament, and the Willy of Willy Nilly, and the cat who put the cat in catnip. He finally became convinced that Cadillacs were Catillacs because of him.

William became so lost in his daydreams that he no longer heard the editor of the paper when he shouted, “Copy cat!” and he became not only a ne’er-do-well, but a ne’er-do-anything. “You’re fired,” the editor told him one morning when he showed up for dreams.

“God will provide,” said William jauntily.

“God has his eye on the sparrow,” said the editor.

“So’ve I,” said William smugly.

William went to live with a cat-crazy woman who had nineteen other cats, but they could not stand William’s egotism or the tall tales of his mythical exploits, honors, blue ribbons, silver cups, and medals, and so they all left the woman’s house and went to live happily in huts and hovels. The cat-crazy woman changed her will and made William her sole heir, which seemed only natural to him, since he believed that all wills were drawn in his favor. “I am eight feet tall,” William told her one day, and she smiled and said, “I should say you are, and I am going to take you on a trip around the world and show you off to everybody.”

William and his mistress sailed one bitter March day on the S.S. Forlorna, which ran into heavy weather, high seas, and hurricane. At midnight the cargo shifted in the towering seas, the ship listed menacingly, SOS calls were frantically sent out, rockets were fired into the sky, and the officers began running up and down companionways and corridors shouting, “Abandon ship!” And then another shout arose, which seemed only natural to the egotistical cat. It was, his vain ears told him, the loud repetition of “William and children first!” Since William figured no lifeboat would be launched until he was safe and sound, he dressed leisurely, putting on white tie and tails, and then sauntered out on deck. He leaped lightly into a lifeboat that was being lowered, and found himself in the company of a little boy named Johnny Green and another little boy named Tommy Trout, and their mothers, and other children and their mothers. “Toss that cat overboard!” cried the sailor in charge of the lifeboat, and Johnny Green threw him overboard, but Tommy Trout pulled him back in.

“Let me have that tomcat,” said the sailor, and he took William in his big right hand and threw him, like a long incompleted forward pass, about forty yards from the tossing lifeboat.

When William came to in the icy water, he had gone down for the twenty-fourth time, and had thus lost eight of his lives, so he only had one left. With his remaining life and strength he swam and swam until at last he reached the sullen shore of a sombre island inhabited by surly tigers, lions, and other great cats. As William lay drenched and panting on the shore, a jaguar and a lynx walked up to him and asked him who he was and where he came from. Alas, William’s dreadful experience in the lifeboat and the sea had produced traumatic amnesia, and he could not remember who he was or where he came from.

“We’ll call him Nobody,” said the jaguar.

“Nobody from Nowhere,” said the lynx.

And so William lived among the great cats on the island until he lost his ninth life in a barroom brawl with a young panther who had asked him what his name was and where he came from and got what he considered an uncivil answer.

The great cats buried William in an unmarked grave because, as the jaguar said, “What’s the good of putting up a stone reading ‘Here lies Nobody from Nowhere’?”

MORAL: O why should the spirit of mortal be proud, in this little voyage from swaddle to shroud?

From Further Fables for Our Time by James Thurber, Hamish Hamilton, Ltd. 90 Great Russell Street, London, W.C.1

when all one’s prospect
landscapes, portraits, flowers, are
nothing but a line

If my Readers have followed me with any attention up to this point, they will not be surprised to hear that life is somewhat dull in Flatland.

I do not, of course, mean that there are not battles, conspiracies, tumults, factions, and all those other phenomena which are supposed to make History interesting; nor would I deny that the strange mixture of the problems of life and the problems of Mathematics, continually inducing conjecture and giving the opportunity of immediate verification, imparts to our existence a zest which you in Spaceland can hardly comprehend.

I speak now from the æsthetic and artistic point of view when I say that life with us is dull; æsthetically and artistically, very dull indeed.

How can it be otherwise, when all one’s prospect, all one’s landscapes, historical pieces, portraits, flowers, still life, are nothing but a single line, with no varieties except degrees of brightness and obscurity?

From the book, Flatland — A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884) by Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838-1926).

I am struck by the line … when all one’s prospect, all one’s landscapes, historical pieces, portraits, flowers, still life, are nothing but a single line, with no varieties except degrees of brightness and obscurity?

I feel had Mr. Abbott been writing today he would be thinking of … Florida.

Something dull, æsthetically and artistically, very dull indeed.

How can it be otherwise?

I am also reminded of James Thurber’s long short story, The Wonderful O, about an island community where everything with the letter O in it is banned.

Geese are okay as long there are geese, but if there was just one bird, it’s goose was cooked.

Words with the letter O are banned.

When Father storms out the door and is asked, “Where are going?”

“UT!” he replies, and “UT he went”, writes Mr. Thurber.

For so long, if ever I was asked where I was going I would reply, “UT and UT HE WENT!”.

So much so did I say that, that when I saw a University of Toronto sweatshirt in a Toronto store that was emblazoned with a bold UT, my friends told me, “Hoffman You HAVE TO GET THAT!”

And I did.

And I wore it for years.

And I explained why as well, when ever I could.

The people of the Island put up with this O business for a while until they figure out that without the letter O you lose the word FREEDOM.

As Thurber writes:

Then they heard the ringing of a distant bell, sounding near and sounding nearer, ringing clear and ringing clearer, till all the sky was filled with music as by magic.

“Freedom!” Andrea echoed after him, and the sound of the greatest word turned the vandals pale and made them tremble.

Take away that word.

Take away that letter O.

And what do you have but a place where all one’s prospect, all one’s landscapes, historical pieces, portraits, flowers, still life, are nothing but a single line, with no varieties except degrees of brightness and obscurity?

… Flrida.

always expected
the worst, and it’s always worse
than I expected

“I’ve always expected the worst, and it’s always worse than I expected.”, is attributed, by sources on the information highway, to the novelist Henry James.

While a great quote, I do like to find it’s context.

Stephen Fry talks about this need for attribution of quotes in his podcast, Fry’s English Delight, where Mr. Fry goes into the differing opinions on quotes.

Some think you should quote very little and always reference the original author.

Others felt the dubious practice of quoting however much you wanted, with no reference and even changing bits was okay.

It does bother me when I cannot find where a quote that the online world attributes to someone but cannot go any further than the quote itself.

So goes the thoughts on I’ve always expected the worst, and it’s always worse than I expected.

I ran across it yesterday in the New York Time.

Sadly, the writer attributed to Henry Adams.

Henry Adams.

Henry James.

Does it matter when no one reads either one anymore and all the name does is reawaken a slight echo that they might have been someone that at sometime was worth knowing something more about?

For Mr. James, I cannot say I know much about.

Wikipedia says that Henry James (15 April 1843 – 28 February 1916) was an American-born British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.

The highest thing I can say about Mr. James, with my limited knowledge, is that James Thurber once wrote how he gathered up his courage and wherewithall and called on an ex-wife so that he could re-claim his copies of the collected works of Henry James.

The worst thing I can say is to quote Mark Twain on Henry James and say, “Once you’ve put one of his books down … you simply can’t pick it up again.

I have to admit that quote has kept me, despite my respect for Thurber, from ever picking up The Bostonians and taking a mental whack at it.

Legend has it that Beethoven once said something along the line of, “I like Wagner. I do! I think someday I will set it to music.”

The importance of getting it right verus Vass you dere, Sharlie?

Regardless.

Regardless of who said it first.

I’ve always expected the worst, and it’s always worse than I expected.

And don’t forget.

Blessed are those who expect nothing.

They will never be disappointed.

To quote Ms. Parker, “What fresh hell IS this!”