#barkis is willin'

[britneyshakespeare]

You're laughing. I told you Barkis is willin' and you're laughing.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"PRICE DISCUSSES SENTENCES BOARD," Toronto Globe. October 5, 1933. Page 9. --- Thinks Idea Is Practical, With Appointments by Ottawa ---- ONLY FOR SERIOUS CASES ---- Expanding upon his suggestion made in St. Thomas on Tuesday evening, that the setting up of a board of Judges and Magistrates to review sentences, in order that there might be a greater conformity of those imposed for similar offenses, Attorney-General Price said last evening that although there were obstacles in the way, he believed the idea was a practical one.

"I noticed some of the comments, - and there was one to the effect that it was not within the Province's powers. I realize that the Criminal Code is under Federal jurisdiction. But if it was practical, Ottawa could appoint such a board and there would be other things we might have to do in connection with it," he said.

In his St. Thomas address he was not saying that the Province had all the necessary powers, but was merely discussing the advisability of such a board, he said. "Of course, in the minor cases such as speeding and liquor offenses, it would not be necessary. It would apply to the more serious cases, possibly about 2,000 or 2,500 in a year."

Colonel Price did not think that it would delay the administration of justice and pointed out that usually after being sentenced the person convicted spent a time in the county jail in any case before being sent to a penitentiary or elsewhere.

"I don't think it would take more than a couple of weeks to have the sentence reviewed," he said. "For instance, it might be the Appellate Judges would act on such a board. In the case of Magistrates it might be - Magistrates. It is something to think about, and if it is practical, well, 'Barkis is willin'.'"

[teatitty]

Hey she's doing her homework! "Barkus is willin" is meant to be "Barkis is willin" and is from Charles Dickins' novel "David Copperfield"

[wordacrosstime]

David Copperfield

[The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account), by Charles Dickens. With Illustrations by HK Browne. First Edition Published by Bradbury & Evans, London, 1850. 624 pp]

'Well, well!' said my aunt, 'the child is right to stand by those who have stood by him – Janet! Donkeys!'

Just opposite the pond where a pioneering Francis Bacon tried to stuff a chicken with snow (an early experiment in refrigeration, as a result of which he died) is where Coleridge stayed when he was trying to get off Laudanum. The chemist he used to supply his needs (just around the corner) apparently had a secret door so that he could pick up supplies discreetly.

This was all a bit earlier than Charles Dickens’s semi-autobiographical novel David Copperfield, in which the hero stays with the Steerforth family, in the same street, in their imposing house on Highgate Hill, where he revels in the view across London. It does, though, set a tone.

Go to Highgate today and you can still take in the views, across Hampstead Heath and to the landmark hungry city beyond. You’ll see interesting looking delicatessens and bakeries and estate agents in whose windows are advertised average-looking properties with eye-watering prices. Cyclists and runners come here for the challenge. (That climb up West Hill must be traumatic, and so must the one past Highgate Cemetery where Karl Marx lies quiescent). What you won’t see is any trace (apart from a blue plaque) of that Dickensian hero who was to all intents and purposes, Dickens himself.

When I first went to Grammar School (some time before the flood), our teacher of English, a redoubtable Scots lady, set us to work reading Robbie Burns, most of which I still find unreadable to this day: (“First he ate the black puddens, and then he ate the white” if memory serves. What was all that stuff about?). But then, having, I suppose given up on us ever adopting Scotland as a second nation, started us reading David Copperfield.

There was a lot of early humour. She had us read passages from the book, and one of my classmates had the misfortune to take on a section in which, according to him, “workmen were warming their hands round a brassiere.” (Brazier was the word he was searching for, but an unpleasant nickname pursued him for years afterwards). We couldn’t get why Brooks of Sheffield would be listening in to awkward conversations about David’s destiny, let alone why David should be the someone who was “sharp”, or why Barkis, the carrier, should be ‘willin’.

Steerforth of course is both David’s boyhood hero and nemesis, eventually betraying in the most callous manner David’s adolescent friend Little Emily, so it is ironic that his family home sits high on a hill where you might have thought all manner of approaching disasters might be foreseen. You look at that house and contemplate how Mrs Steerforth lived there, alone and destroyed by the revelation that her son had been the least moral of individuals, with an inherent streak of cruelty.

What no one likes about David Copperfield in particular and Dickens in general is how good all the children (a lot of the adult characters too) actually are. You know, and I know, that children and adults too, just aren’t like that. His characters are noble, responsible, uniquely loving and should they ever commit a single irresponsible act, they suffer for it (usually in silent prayer) over a good number of pages. This is a feeling you can’t get over, but perhaps as the pages go on you learn to ignore a little in the face of mounting eccentricity.

The mentally troubled Mr Dick and his fixation with kites and Charles I helps you do this, so too does Mr Wilkins Micawber who continually totters on the brink of the debtors’ prison (like Dickens’s own father) while continually fathering children and remaining optimistic that ‘something will turn up’.

But while the good do seem impossibly good, the bad are really bad too, though believably so. David’s own mother perhaps doesn’t mean to be bad. (She just falls in love with the wrong man). But David’s schoolmasters are disconcertingly sadistic. Steerforth, the schoolboy role model shapes up to be a hero, but is gradually revealed to be a snob without decency or morals. And then there’s Uriah Heep, the character for whom the word ‘oily’ was created, the beast who corrupts all about him and whose desires – for both heiress and position in society – are so grotesque, yet so nearly come true.

David Copperfield is not a fairy tale. Instead it is a whole collection of them, in which every variety of fairy tale outcome from cruel disaster to shining achievement takes its place within its pages. Most varieties of mythical beast are there too, together with a few, often vulnerable, often understated, heroes. The best novels always answer ‘what if?’ questions. So many what ifs arise in David Copperfield that it is virtually a philosophy course. There’s a muted plea for social justice too, which is no bad thing, even now.

There are a lot of reasons not to read it. (Too long, too sentimental, too much else to do). But ever since my dour Scots teacher encouraged us to open its pages, it has become one of those books I go back to, time after time.

Top/Middle: Two photographs thanks to Quintessential Rare Books, LLC, Laguna Hills, CA, USA & to Abe Books. Bottom: Sketch of Dickens in 1842 during American Tour; thanks to Bonhams.

Michael Spring

wordsacrosstime

1 February 2021

[leanstooneside]

Hasty climbers have sudden falls

Barkis is willin

me is diligence

Gilead is there

God is their

ensign is crimson

t is fortune

valour is discretion

it is I

there is music

[popcultureimposter]

Hoboken        (A collage made from Roget’s Thesaurus) Excitation, excitation of feeling, Excitement, mental excitement, Heart interest [slang], sensationalism, Yellow journalism, melodrama, irritation, Etc. (resentment) 900; passion, thrill, etc. (State of excitability) 825.2-5. Work or operate on or upon. Stir, set astir, stir up, stir the blood. Fillip, give a fillip. Illumine. Illuminate; fire, set on fire; inflame. Apply the torch, fire, or warm the blood. Fan, fan into a flame, fan the fire or flame. Blow the coals, stir the embers, feed the fire, add fuel to the fire. Change color, turn color, Mantle; whiten, pale, turn pale; darken, turn black in the face, look black or blue; Turn red, blush, flush, crimson, glow, warm. Voice of the charmer, flattering tongue, unctuousness, mealymouthedness, etc., Humor, soothe, pet, coquet, slaver, beslaver, beslubber, beplaster, pat on the back, puff. Fool to the top of one’s bent. Do one proud, pull one’s leg, sawder, soft-sawder, soft- Soap, butter, honey, jolly, blarney, lay It on, lay it on thick [all coll.]; lay it On with a trowel, string, string along, Honeyfogle [U.S.], oil, soap [all slang]; Make things pleasant, gild the pill. What is the use of running when you are On the wrong road—J. Ray. Mentis gratissimus error—A most pleasant        apprehension.—Horace. One goes to the right, the other to the left; both err, but in different ways.—Horace.        Who errs and mends, to God him- Self commends.—Cervantes. To err is human, to forgive Divine.—Pope. Errors is worse than ignorance.—P. J. Bailey. Will-o’-the-wisp. Off the track; on a false scent, On the wrong scent or Trail, up the wrong tree; at cross pur- Poses. Intense darkness, pitch-darkness, Cimmerian darkness, Stygian darkness, Egyptian darkness, monte, reversi, Squeezers, old maid, beggar-my-neighbor, goat, hearts, patience. Dull, dullsome, dull as dish water. “The face That launched a thousand ships.” Wind-swept, bleak, raw, exposed, The storm is up and all is on the hazard, Rainy, showery, pluvious. Avant-courier, avant-coureur or avant courrier, Disentangle. Vice-sultan, vice-caliph, vice-queen, Bitter as gall. Liqueur, cordial, sweet wine, punch, Beanstalk. “Leave not a rack behind.” All moonshine, all stuff and nonsense, all tommyrot, “Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks in Vallambrosa.” Bags, barrels, tons, flock, In one’s stead. Prolocutrice or prolocutrix, Accept the stewardship of the Chiltern hundreds. View with disfavor, view with dark or jaundiced eyes, Loblolly pine. Ineptitude, inaptitude, “As like as eggs,” Swim or go with the stream. Myrtle, turtledove, Cupid’s bow, Cupid’s dart; love token etc. 902-5, Bewitch, enrapture, inflame with love, carry away, turn the head. Once in a blue moon [coll.], Once in a coon’s age [coll.], Continually, incessantly, without ceasing, at all times, ever and anon; Every day, every hour, every moment, Daily, hourly, etc. Daily and hourly, night and day, day and night, morning, noon and night, Hour after hour, day after day, month after month, year after year, Day in day out, month in month out, year in year out; Perpetually, always etc. 112.5; invariably etc. 16.7. Wander etc. from the truth, Be in the wrong, be in the wrong box, Bark up the wrong tree, back the wrong horse, Aim at a pigeon and kill a crow, Take or get the wrong sow by the ear, The wrong pig by the tail, or the wrong bull by the horns, Put the saddle on the wrong horse, count one’s chickens before they are hatched, Reckon without one’s host, misbelieve, sin, By special favor, yes, by all means. I refuse! By no manner of means! I will not! Far be it from me! Not if I can help it! I won’t! Like fun I will! Count me out! You have another guess coming! Catch me! Volunteer, come forward, be a candidate, Barkis is willin’. Don’t! Don’t do that! Enough! No more of that! That will never do! Leave off! Hands off! Keep off! Keep off the grass! Hold! Stop! etc. Refusal, refusing, declining, etc. Leave alone, leave it to me, Leave the door open, open the door to. Open the floodgates, give the reins to etc. (allow freedom). Above par. Best, very best, choice, select. Picked, elect, prime, capital, of the first water. First-rate. First-class. First-chop. Top-hole. Bang-up. Tiptop. Top-notch. A 1, A one or number 1. Crack, gilt-edge or gilt-edged. Good, superb, super, superfine, exquisite, High-wrought, precious, worth-its-weight-in-gold. Worth a king’s ransom, Precious as the apple of the eye. Good as gold, Priceless, beyond price. Invaluable, inestimable, rare. Exceptional, extraordinary. Beau idéal Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche Undeformed Beyond all praise, sans peur et sans reproche Clean, clean as a whistle, completely (etc.) Koh-i-noor Corker, trump [both slang] Black tulip Cygne noir, black swan Admirable Crichton, Bayard, Roland, Sidney Parasol. Choice, best etc. Standard, pattern, mirror etc. (prototype) 22