20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or David Copperfield Read online

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  20,000 LEAGUES

  UNDER THE SEA

  OR David Copperfield

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  BY

  Robert Benchley

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  About this Ebook

  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

  OR David Copperfield

  by Robert Benchley

  (1889-1945)

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  Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist, actor, and drama critic. His main persona, that of a slightly confused, ineffectual, socially awkward bumbler, served in his essays and short films to gain him the sobriquet “the humorist’s humorist.” The character allowed him to comment brilliantly on the world’s absurdities. (—Encyclopedia Britannica)

  Benchley's humor influenced and inspired many humorists and filmmakers, among them E. B. White, James Thurber, S. J. Perelman, Horace Digby, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, and Dave Barry.

  Benchley is best remembered for his contributions to periodicals such as Life, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Collections of these essays and articles stand today as tribute to his brilliance.

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  First published 1928.

  This ebook was created by E.C.M. for MobileRead.com, January 2016.

  This ebook may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes.

  The text of this book is in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less.

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  Text was obtained from Internet Archive (scan of the 1928 first edition from publisher Henry Holt & Co.). Punctuation, italics, and diacritics have been formatted. Chapter-end links provide access to table of contents and title index.

  Due to copyright restrictions, illustrations by Gluyas Williams (1888–1982) have been omitted.

  Embedded fonts:

  (all licensed for re-distribution)

  “Special Elite” by Brian Bonlislawsky,

  “Legendum” Greek font by Rogier van Dalen.

  Validation by Pagina Epub Checker.

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  

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  Contents

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  20,000 Leagues... Titlepage

  About This Ebook

  Laughter Awaits: Political Parties and their Growth

  The Low State of Whippet Racing

  Add Folk Plays

  Meeting the Boats

  “In this Corner—”

  ’Round and ’Round and ’Round

  The Cooper Cycle in American Folk Songs

  Hockey Tonight!

  “I Am in the Book”

  A Short History of American Politics

  The Bridge of Sans Gene

  Try-Outs

  African Sculpture

  Football Sagas

  Mr. Mencken Reviews Mr. Nathan and Vice Versa

  Clinical Notes

  The New Social Blight

  Passport Dope

  “Island Irish”

  On the Air

  Fascinating Crimes

  The Problem of the Used Car

  Checking Up

  A Short (What There Is of It) History of American Political Problems

  Cease Firing!

  The Great American Folly

  Junior Drama

  The Passing of the Cow

  Back to the Game

  It Seems There Were a Couple of Cells

  No Results Whatever in Our Own Straw Vote

  Two Editorials for “The Nation”

  The Four-in-hand Outrage

  Significant Results in Second Week of Our Own Straw Vote

  The Packer’s Assistant

  The Birth of a College Comic Paper

  A Christmas Garland of Books

  The Woolen Mitten Situation

  The Typical New Yorker

  Index of Titles

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  20,000 LEAGUES

  UNDER THE SEA

  OR David Copperfield

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  Political Parties

  and their Growth

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  I. Introductory Essay

  It was Taine (of “Taine Goin to Rain No More”) who said: “Democracies defeat themselves.” Perhaps I haven’t got that quotation right. It doesn’t seem to mean much.

  However, my point – and I am sure Taine’s point, if he were here to make it – is that under the system of government known as a democracy, or, as it is sometimes known, the Laissez-Faire system (1745-1810), the ratio of increase in the population will eventually outstrip the ratio of increase in wheat production and then where will we be? Although this theory is generally credited to Malthus, I am not sure that I didn’t state it before him. I certainly remember saying it when I was very young.

  In writing a history of the political parties of the United States (to which this is the introductory essay and possibly the last chapter as well) one must bear constantly in mind the fact that there are two separate and distinct parties, the Republicans (a clever combination of two Latin words, res and publicae, meaning “things of the public”) and the Democrats (from the Greek demos, meaning something which I will look up before this goes to the printer’s). The trick comes in telling which is which.

  During the early years of our political history the Republican Party was the Democratic Party, or, if you chose, the Democratic Party was the Republican Party. This led naturally to a lot of confusion, especially in the Democratic Party’s getting the Republican Party’s mail; so it was decided to call the Republicans “Democrats” and be done with it. The Federalist Party (then located at what is now the corner of Broad and Walnut streets and known as “The Swedish Nightingale”) became, through the process of Natural Selection and a gradual dropping-off of its rudimentary tail, the Republican Party as we know it today. This makes, as prophesied earlier in this article, two parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. As a general rule, Republicans are more blonde than Democrats.

  Now that we have cleared up the matter of the early confusion in names, it remains for us simply to trace the growth of the party platforms from their original sources to their present-day clearly defined and characteristic chaos. This will involve quite a bit of very dull statistical matter and talk about Inflation and Nullification, which will be enlivened by comical stories and snatches of current songs of the period. In fact, talk about Inflation and Nullification may be omitted entirely. It will also be necessary to note the rise and fall of the minor political parties, such as the Free Soil Party, the Mugwumps, the St. Louis Cardinals and Tom (“Rum-Romanism-and-Rebellion”) Heflin. This will not be much fun either. As a matter of fact, in outlining the subject matter of this history the thought has come to me that it shapes up as a pretty dry book and I am wondering if perhaps I haven’t made a mistake in undertaking it. . . . Oh, well, we’ll see.

  In compiling these data and writing the book I have been aided immeasurably by the following colleagues, to whom I take this opportunity of expressing my warmest thanks (the warmest thanks on a February 9th since 1906, according to the Weather Bureau atop the Whitehall Building): B. S. Aal, Raymond Aalbue, Aalders Bros., A. C. Aalholm, Alex Aarons, the Aar-Jay Bed-Light Co., Henry W. Aarts, Theo. T. Aarup, Charles Aba, M. M. Abajian, B. Abadessa (Miss), Abbamonte & Frinchini (shoe reprng.) and Lewis Browne Zzyd.

  I also wish to thank Dr. Hartmann Weydig for the loan of his interesting collection of shells, without which I would have had nothing to do when I was not writing the book.

  —The Author.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  “Political Parties and Their Growth, with a Key to the Calories.” Robert
Benchley. (Life Pub. Co.)

  “Ivanhoe.” Sir Walter Scott. (Ginn & Co.)

  “Fifty Cocktail Recipes, with Directions for Swallowing.” A. M. Herz. (Doubleday-Doran-Doubleday-Doran-Doubleday-Doran-Boom!)

  “An Old-Fashioned Girl.” Louisa M. Alcott. (Vir Pub. Co.)

  And countless back-numbers of Harper’s Round Table.

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  ....... TOC INDEX NEXT

  The Low State

  of Whippet Racing

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  It does not seem too soon now to begin formulating plans for next year’s whippet racing. While there are still a few more races on the 1928 schedule, most of the important ones have been run off and the leading whippets have practically all broken training.

  Whippet racing in recent years has deteriorated into a sordid spectacle, productive of only gigantic gate receipts for the promoters. At one whippet race on Long Island last summer, it is estimated that forty people lined the course, and, as each of these forty paid something in the neighborhood of a quarter for parking their cars in a nearby field, it will be seen that the thing has already got out of hand and is now in the class of mad sport carnivals.

  This has naturally had its reaction on the whippets themselves. They have become mercenary and callous. All they think of is money, money, money. The idea of sport for sport’s sake is a dream of the past as far as whippets are concerned. In order to make the game what it used to be, we shall have to bring up a whole new breed of whippets and send the present success-crazed organization out on the road in circuses where they may indulge their lust for gain without hindrance of any considerations of sportsmanship.

  Perhaps a few examples may serve to illustrate my point. I witnessed a whippet race in California recently at which the gate happened to be very small. There had been no publicity worthy of the name and the word had simply got around among the racetrack gang that some whippets were going to race at three o’clock. This brought out a crowd of perhaps six people, exclusive of the owners and trainers. Four of the six were chance passers-by and the other two were state policemen.

  Now evidently the small size of the crowd enraged the whippets or, at any rate, threw them into such a state of mind that they gave up all idea of racing and took to kidding. In the first race they were not halfway down the lanes when two of them stopped and walked back, while the other two began wrestling good-naturedly. The owners at the finish line called frantically, but to no avail, and the race had to be called off.

  In the second race they would not even start. When the gun was fired, they turned as if by prearranged mutiny and began jumping up and kissing their trainers. This race also had to be called off.

  By this time the crowd was in an ugly humor and one or two started to boo. The state police, scenting trouble, went home. This left four spectators and further upset the whippets. A conference of the owners and trainers resulted in what you might call practically nothing. It got along toward supper time and even I went home. I looked in the papers the next morning but could find no news of the races, so I gathered that the rest of the heats had been called off too.

  This pretty well indicates the state in which whippet racing now finds itself in this country. The remedy is up to those of us old whippet fanciers who have the time and the means to reform the thing from the ground up.

  First, I would recommend a revision of the system of whippet-calling. As you no doubt know, a whippet race is at least one-third dependent on calling. The trainer leads the whippet from the finish line up the lane to the starting point (a silly procedure to begin with) and then holds him in leash until the gun. The owner, or some close personal friend, stands at the finish line and calls to the whippet, which is supposed to drive him crazy and make him run like mad back down the lane again in a desire to reach his owner. As we have seen, the whippet can take it or leave it and is by no means certain to show any desire at all to get back to the caller. Now this must be due to the calling. If the thing were made attractive at all for the whippet to reach the finish line, we would see no more of this hopping up and kissing trainers at the start.

  As near as I could distinguish, most of the owners called out, “Come on, Luke!” or “Here, Bennie, here!” Now obviously there was nothing very exciting about these calls. You or I wouldn’t run like mad down a lane to get to someone who was calling, “Come on, Charlie!” or “Here, Bob, here!” (unless, of course, it was Greta Garbo who was doing the calling. In that case, a short, sharp whistle would be O.K.)

  There must be some more attractive sounds made to entice the whippets down the lanes. Not knowing exactly what it is that whippets like best, it is a little difficult for me to make suggestions. I don’t know and I don’t pretend to know. All I am sure of is that the whippets aren’t particularly attracted by what is being held out to them now.

  Now in the matter of blankets. On the way up the lanes to the starting point, the whippets are forced to wear blankets like race horses. This saps not only their vitality but their self-respect. It is all right for a race horse to wear a blanket if he wants to, because he is big and can carry it off well. But when you get a whippet who, even with everything showing, can hardly be seen unless you have him in your lap, and then cover him up in a blanket, it just makes a nance out of him, that’s all. They look like so many trotting blankets, and they must know it. A whippet has feelings as well as the rest of us. You can’t make a dog ashamed to appear in public and then expect him to run a race. If they have to be kept warm, give each one a man’s-size shot of rye before he starts up the course. You’d get better racing that way, too. With a good hooker of rye inside him, a whippet might not really be running fast but he would think that he was, and that’s something. As it stands, they are so ashamed of their blankets that they have to do something on the way down the lanes to appear virile. So they stop right in the middle of the race and wrestle.

  This wrestling business calls for attention, too. It is all right for dogs to kid, but they don’t have to do it in the middle of a race. It is as if Charlie Paddock, while running the hundred, should stop after about fifty yards and push one of his opponents playfully on the shoulder and say, “Last tag!” and then as if his opponent should stop and chase Charlie around in the track trying to tag him back. What kind of time would they make in a race like that?

  I don’t think that the thing has ever been put up to the whippets quite frankly in this manner. If someone could take a few whippets to a track meet and (the whole gag having been worked up before, of course, among the runners) the thing should deteriorate into a rough-and-tumble clowning match of pushing and hauling one another, the whippets might see what it looks like. You could say to them: “Now you see, that’s how you look when you stop in the middle of a race and wrestle all over the track.” They would be pretty ashamed, I should think.

  The less said about their jumping up and kissing their trainers at the start, the better. This is something that a good psychoanalyst ought to handle. But so long as it is allowed to go on, whippet racing will be in the doldrums. And so long as whippet racing is in the doldrums – well, it is in the doldrums, that’s all.

  Better in the doldrums, say I, than for the whippets to so far forget the principles of good, clean amateur sport as to pursue a mechanical rabbit.

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  PREV TOC INDEX NEXT

  Add Folk Plays

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  The past few weeks have belonged to the amateur rather than to the professional in what, for lack of a longer term, we will call Our National Theater.

  Broadway may have been dark, but our schools and colleges have been a-buzz with exclamations of parental pride mingled with the murmurings of the prompter, as the actors and actresses of the Little Theater of Tomorrow creaked back and forth across the temporary stages and made believe they were somebody else.

  These performances have ranged in ambition from outdoor Greek drama (at times a bit hurried in tempo because of the rumbled threat of a shower in the offing) to c
lass-reunion shows “worked up” late in the afternoon before the performance. Of the two, the latter type is easier to watch.

  In these informal productions there is less strain on the actors, whose only concern is to keep upright and on the stage. And, as in any theatrical performance, professional or otherwise, the less strain there is on the actors, the easier it is for the audience.

  Although these strange folk-plays performed at class reunions appear in no manuscript form to speak of, a transcript of the proceedings (taken down by a broad-minded male stenographer) might read, in part, as follows:

  ACT 2

  (Act 1 having been omitted owing to the nonappearance of five of the principals. These appear somewhat later and insist on giving their act on the veranda while Act 2 is still in progress. Their audience is recruited in large blocs from the main auditorium.)

  Entrance of a fair proportion of the cast, in reunion costume, with some attempt at rhythmic movement to the tune of “Hallelujah”! The lyric, as picked out by watching the lips of the more capable singers, seems to be:

  “Hallelu-jah! Hallelu-jah! Here we are, Big 1912.

  (Repeat)

  Nobody something something something,

  But you can’t something, something, something,

  Hallelu-jah! Hallelu-jah! Here we are, Big 1912!

  Apparent end of song, although several die-hards continue for another line or two, amid thunderous applause, A conference of principals is then held and it is decided to give in to the popular demand and sing the whole number again, with repeats. At the conclusion of this, in spite of vociferous demands from sections of the audience for more, the dialogue is launched: