Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack Read online

  Samuel Marchbanks’ Almanack

  ROBERTSON DAVIES (1913–1995) was born and raised in Ontario, and was educated at a variety of schools, including Upper Canada College, Queen’s University, and Balliol College, Oxford. He had three successive careers: as an actor with the Old Vic Company in England; as publisher of the Peterborough Examiner; and as university professor and first Master of Massey College at the University of Toronto, from which he retired in 1981 with the title of Master Emeritus.

  He was one of Canada’s most distinguished men of letters, with several volumes of plays and collections of essays, speeches, and belles lettres to his credit. As a novelist, he gained worldwide fame for his three trilogies: The Salterton Trilogy, The Deptford Trilogy, and The Cornish Trilogy, and for later novels Murther & Walking Spirits and The Cunning Man.

  His career was marked by many honours: He was the first Canadian to be made an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he was a Companion of the Order of Canada, and he received honorary degrees from twenty-six American, Canadian, and British universities.

  By Robertson Davies

  NOVELS

  THE SALTERTON TRILOGY

  Tempest-Tost

  Leaven of Malice

  A Mixture of Frailties

  THE DEPTFORD TRILOGY

  Fifth Business

  The Manticore

  World of Wonders

  THE CORNISH TRILOGY

  The Rebel Angels

  What’s Bred in the Bone

  The Lyre of Orpheus

  Murther and Walking Spirits

  The Cunning Man

  SHORT FICTION

  High Spirits

  FICTIONAL ESSAYS

  THE SAMUEL MARCHBANKS COLLECTION

  The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

  The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks

  Samuel Marchbanks’ Almanack

  The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks

  ESSAYS

  One Half of Robertson Davies

  The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies

  The Merry Heart

  Happy Alchemy

  Selected Works on the Art of Writing

  Selected Works on the Pleasure of Reading

  CRITICISM

  A Voice from the Attic

  PLAYS

  Selected Plays

  Samuel Marchbanks’ Almanack

  New Canadian Library electronic edition, 2016

  Copyright © 1967 by Robertson Davies

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  First published as Marchbanks’ Almanack in Canada by McClelland and Stewart in 1967

  All rights reserved.

  e-ISBN: 978-1-77102-799-4

  Electronic edition published in Canada by New Canadian Library, an imprint of McClelland & Stewart, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company, Toronto, in 2016

  McClelland & Stewart with colophon is a registered trademark

  Library of Congress Control Number is available upon request

  www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

  v3.1

  MARCHBANKS’

  ALMANACK

  an Astrological and Inspirational

  VADE MECUM

  *

  Containing Character Analyses, Secrets of Charm, Health Hints, How to be a Success at Parties, Fortune-Telling by the Disposition of Moles on the Body and divers other arcane knowledge here revealed for the First Time;

  *

  AS WELL AS

  *

  Generous Extracts from the Correspondence, Pensées, Musings, Obiter Dicta and Ruminations of Wizard Marchbanks.

  The star-led Wizard

  hastes with odours sweet!

  MILTON

  *

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Preface

  ARIES

  TAURUS

  GEMINI

  CANCER

  LEO

  VIRGO

  LIBRA

  SCORPIO

  SAGITTARIUS

  CAPRICORN

  AQUARIUS

  PISCES

  PREFACE, WHICH IT IS UNWISE TO SKIP

  IF YOU ARE LOOKING for an ordinary Almanac, containing information about the tides, postal rates, public holidays and the like, this is not the book for you. What I offer in these pages is a miscellany which may serve a variety of purposes, but the imparting of commonplace facts is not one of them. The themes of my book are Astrological and Inspirational.

  The Almanack is divided into twelve sections which correspond to the signs of the Zodiac. At the beginning of each section a valuable Character Analysis will be found, compiled by Wizard Marchbanks. The special quality of these analyses is their utter frankness. There are scores of other astrological books on the market that attempt to soften the message of the stars. I have scorned subterfuge, which has done so much to bring astrology into disrepute. The twelve character analyses also permit the Almanack to be used as a Birthday Book, and a key to the nature of anyone you can persuade to entrust you with the date of their birth.

  A word of warning: if you were born at a date which is within the last four days of any zodiacal period, or within the first three days of one, you are in an astrological mess called a “cusp,” and you partake of the characteristics of both the signs under which you were born. If you were born, let us say, on August 22nd, you are influenced by both Leo and Virgo; you are leonine and virginal in equal measure—a vexing predicament for you and all who know you. This confusion of temperament among those born in cusps has given rise to the astrological expression “a queer cusp” to describe such a person.

  The Inspirational material in the Almanack is drawn from my private papers—Diaries, Commonplace Books, Soul Scrapings and accumulated Correspondence and Letter Files. Though no special coherence is attempted in the arrangement of this material I hope that these random recollections and revelations by myself and my friends may permit the reader to dip into the book at any point, and find some Sweetly Solemn Thought, suitable for reflection or Solace in a Dark Hour.

  As a boy I spent many happy hours poring over a series of books bearing such titles as A Day With Walter Scott, and A Day With Tennyson. I have felt for some time that the moment was near to offer the public A Day With Marchbanks, but as you, my readers, have been most generous toward me in the past I am unwilling to hold you down to one measly day; it would ill become me to play the niggard in offering you these riches of the spirit.

  *

  SAMUEL MARCHBANKS.

  from the Horoscope-Casting Chamber

  Marchbanks Towers.

  (March 22 to April 20)

  ARIES IS the sign of the Ram, and those born under it are of robust physical health, strongly dominating disposition and destined to be leaders. If you are not a leader now, explain this to your friends and employers, and show them that, if you are to make fullest use of your powers, you must be given your own way in everything. Once you have made this important adjustment to fate, you should enjoy a life of considerable happiness. Do not worry that you are not strongly intellectual; instinct is your best friend and you should never hesitate to act upon it, even when others counsel caution. People born under your sign often die violent deaths, so choose your friends carefully, and always look under the bed before retiring. Your sex-lif
e may cause remark among the jealous: frown them down.

  • ENCHANTMENT-OF-THE-MONTH •

  According to the best astrological authorities, your lucky colours are red, white and blue; your flowers are the anemone, the hawthorn and the buttercup; your stones are the beryl, the green jasper, the coral, carnelian, amethyst, sapphire and diamond. You may easily deal with the matter of colours by keeping a small Union Jack or Stars and Stripes tucked in your pocket; the Canadian flag isn’t lucky enough for you. I admit that all your lucky flowers are difficult to make into any sort of presentable bouquet, and you have to be especially careful with hawthorn, which flowers for a week or so in June, but carries thorns as long as horseshoe nails for twelve months of the year. Of your lucky stones, the diamond is easily the most popular, and any suggestion that your engagement ring should contain a piece of green jasper instead of the brighter stone should be dealt with firmly. The amethyst, by the way, is said to be a safeguard against drunkenness, but do not test this to the uttermost; you may require a larger amethyst than you can conveniently afford.

  *

  • HEALTH HINTS FOR THOSE BORN UNDER ARIES •

  Your weak points, astrologers agree, are your stomach and kidneys, and, to be frank, two more inconvenient places to conk out could hardly be imagined. Your best plan, perhaps, is to eat and drink all you can while your stomach and kidneys are still working and then, when they give up, you will at least have the wistful fun of poring over old menus. There are those who recommend great moderation in diet from earliest childhood, but if you investigate the personal history of those who give such counsel you will usually find that they were born under a strong-gizzarded planet, and eat and drink like refugees. Moderation in eating and drinking is to be avoided for as long as possible, as it is a great vexation while it is going on, and disposes you to regretful recollections when you are living on crackers and boiled milk. The kidneys, by the way, may be fortified by drinking rain water which has run off a tarred roof; the creosote in the water provides the organs with a useful extra lining which will resist virtually anything. Drink molten rubber, also, but never to excess; melted party balloons serve very well.

  *

  • MEDITATIONS AT RANDOM •

  NAÏVETÉ OF CANADIAN FOXES / Was talking to one of the few people in Canada who hunts foxes on a horse, and with hounds, in the English fashion. It is not generally known that there is a small but persistent survival of the fox-hunt in this country. But this man told me that Canadian foxes are either stupider than English foxes, or do not realize what is expected of them; the last fox he hunted, he said, ran in a circle of about a hundred yards, rushing directly at the hounds, who ate it as best they could while rolling around on the ground, holding their sides and laughing in their rich, doggy voices. Because of this lack of gumption among foxes, it is usual to drag a sack of some strong-smelling stuff over a good long course, and let the hounds follow that. The question which occurs to me is: would there be any money in training foxes for this highly specialized work? It would be wearing for a man of my temperament to drag a fox on a rope through streams, in and out of holes, and over ploughed fields, but I am willing to try it if I can thereafter rent the fox to hunters at a stiff fee. If they kill my trained fox, of course, I shall expect to be pensioned for life.

  WHOSE NEWS IS GOOD NEWS? / Travelling by train, I found that across the aisle from me were some English businessmen, new to Canada and apparently here to reap some dollars for the homeland. They had a lot of Canadian newspapers with them, and they expressed their dislike of these loudly and with great frankness. “Rags” was the most flattering word they employed, and they agreed that on the whole the papers were “simply Death.” Even so I have heard Canadians blather their dislike of the English press, because the Times carried no account of the ploughing-match at Tin Cup (B.C.); I suppose these Englishmen missed news of the Harvest Festival at Lesser Piddle-in-Puddle (Beds). English papers publish very little Canadian news and Englishmen are apt to snigger in a superior manner when this is pointed out to them; they imply that Canada has no news that anybody wants to hear. So I was glad that these noisy rascals found our papers distasteful for identical reasons, and I read my own sheet with loud “Oohs” and “Ahs” indicative of extreme relish, to vex them. And it did, and they moved to the dining-car, grumbling at the thought of being given ice-water to drink.

  NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS / Attended a theatrical performance and was impressed once again by the amount of coughing which a Canadian assembly can manage, and by the freedom with which this national habit is indulged. Not merely the aged and infirm, but the young and the hearty, the valiant and the fair, cut loose with coughs like the roaring of lions. Mentally ran off a new verse for our national song, thus:

  O Canada, our home, our native land,

  Chronic catarrh makes all our tubes expand;

  With raucous cough we greet the dawn,

  With snorts we hail the noon,

  The emblems of our nation are

  The kerchief and spittoon;

  Post-nasal drip!

  Woooof! Let her rip!

  We face the future trusting in our grippe—

  (Exultantly and accompanied with loud coughs, hawkings, gaggings and retchings.)

  DE-FY The World with Freedom in OUR GRIPPE!

  *

  • FROM MY FILES •

  To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.

  Dear Mr. Marchbanks:

  I hear that you are going on a trip abroad, and that you are going by plane. Of course I wish you the best of luck but I suppose you have been reading the papers lately? These plane accidents are the limit, aren’t they? Every day a plane or two seems to crash somewhere. This being so, will you be wanting your garden hose if anything should happen? I mean you won’t, of course, but what I mean is can I have it? We have never been very close friends, but I would like something to remember you by, and mine is going all to pieces.

  Bon voyage and happy landings,

  Dick Dandiprat.

  *

  To Richard Dandiprat, ESQ.

  My good Dandiprat:

  No, you may not have my garden hose under any circumstances. If evil should befall me while in flight, it will become the property of my heirs. They will, I presume, have to water the grass just as if I were alive. Your attitude suggests that of the vulture.

  Indignantly,

  Samuel Marchbanks.

  *

  To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.

  Dear Mr. Marchbanks :

  I have received your request for something to keep you from being sick while flying. I confess that I have never had such a request before, but it is an interesting one, and I have spent some of my unengaged moments experimenting on a pill for you. I am sending you something which will deaden most of your nervous centres, and completely close your oesophagus, so you will be in no danger of throwing up, at any rate, ha, ha! I should be obliged if you would let me know how this pill works, and particularly if it has any unpleasant effect. I wish to perfect it, and any help you can give me will be appreciated. It is still in rather a rough state, and may be a little too powerful at present. Still, kill or cure. With good wishes for your voyage, I am,

  Raymond Cataplasm.

  *

  To Raymond Cataplasm, M.D., F.R.C.P.

  Dear Dr. Cataplasm:

  Thank you for the pills. You don’t think they are rather big, do you? And don’t you think black is rather an unsightly colour for a pill? You know best of course. However, as I wanted them for use while flying I experimented last night by giving one to a dog, and swinging it violently in a hammock. I am sorry to say that its oesophagus was not closed tight enough to prevent a very disagreeable outcome, and I had to get someone to do the cleaning up, as such incidents unnerve me. Furthermore, I was busy trying to revive the dog, who seemed to be in a coma, complicated by bad dreams. If you don’t mind, I shall not take a whole pill if I feel unwell in the air; I shall merely lick one. To make this simpler I am mo
unting them on sticks, like lollipops.

  Sincerely,

  Samuel Marchbanks.

  *

  To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.

  Dear Mr. Marchbanks:

  Although it is some years since we met I am sure that you will remember me perfectly. I hear that you are going to Edinburgh by air, and I write at once to ask a small favour. Will you take my sewing-machine with you, and send it on to my sister in Aberdeen? For some years I have been looking for an opportunity to send it to her, but I would not trust it to unfriendly hands. The machine will reach you tomorrow. I know that you will not mind doing this, as I have read all your books in our Public Library.

  Yours sincerely,

  Minerva Hawser.

  *

  To Miss Minerva Hawser.

  Dear Miss Hawser:

  I am returning your machine, which weighs 75 lbs., collect. I am only permitted 66 lbs. of baggage. Yours without regret,

  S. Marchbanks.

  *

  To Amyas Pilgarlic, ESQ.

  Dear Pil:

  You have often complained that the art of correspondence is in decline, and I suppose you are right. Everything seems to be in decline, one way or another. The long eighteenth century letter is a thing of the past. I seem to spend a large part of each day writing notes of all sorts, though I rarely get a chance to write long budgets of news to my friends—among whom I am proud to number you, you frowsy old pedant. I shall send you a postcard from abroad. By the way, do you remember Min Hawser? I thought she was dead, but I had a note from her the other day—wanting something, as always. The longevity of nuisances is one of Nature’s inexplicable jokes.