Tremendous Trifles

The Perfect Game

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We have all met the man who says that some odd things have

happened to him, but that he does not really believe that they

were supernatural. My own position is the opposite of this.

I believe in the supernatural as a matter of intellect and reason,

not as a matter of personal experience. I do not see ghosts;

I only see their inherent probability. But it is entirely

a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions;

my nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy.

But upon people of this temperament one weird incident will often

leave a peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance

that ever occurred to me occurred a little while ago. It consisted

in nothing less than my playing a game, and playing it quite well

for some seventeen consecutive minutes. The ghost of my grandfather

would have astonished me less.

On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my

inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had

imagined that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope,

and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and

luxuriant side whiskers which are really essential to such a scene.

I played it with a man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had

a semi-philosophical argument which lasted through the entire contest.

It is deeply implanted in my mind that I had the best of the argument;

but it is certain and beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game.

"Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!" I cried, patting him affectionately

on the head with a mallet, "how far you really are from the pure

love of the sport--you who can play. It is only we who play badly

who love the Game itself. You love glory; you love applause;

you love the earthquake voice of victory; you do not love croquet.

You do not love croquet until you love being beaten at croquet.

It is we the bunglers who adore the occupation in the abstract.

It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. If we may see the face

of Croquet herself (if I may so express myself) we are content to

see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is called amateurish;

and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs is but the

French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, the most

disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates (I

allude to the hoops), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls,

impetuous and full of chivalry, will not be confined within

the pedantic boundaries of the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek

honour in the ends of the earth; they turn up in the flower-beds

and the conservatory; they are to be found in the front garden

and the next street. No, Parkinson! The good painter has skill.

It is the bad painter who loves his art. The good musician

loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With such a

pure and hopeless passion do I worship croquet. I love the game

itself. I love the parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or

tape, as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland,

the four seas of Britain. I love the mere swing of the mallets, and

the click of the balls is music. The four colours are to me

sacramental and symbolic, like the red of martyrdom, or the white

of Easter Day. You lose all this, my poor Parkinson. You have to

solace yourself for the absence of this vision by the paltry

consolation of being able to go through hoops and to hit the stick."

"Don't be too sorry for me," said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm.

"I shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more

a man likes a game the better he would want to play it. Granted that

the pleasure in the thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure

of success come naturally and inevitably afterwards? Or, take your

own simile of the Knight and his Lady-love. I admit the gentleman

does first and foremost want to be in the lady's presence. But I

never yet heard of a gentleman who wanted to look an utter ass when

he was there."

"Perhaps not; though he generally looks it," I replied. "But the truth

is that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The

happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which

can be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking,

the jollier he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the

love of both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness. But it is not

true that the stronger the play of both croquet players the stronger

will be the game. It is logically possible--(follow me closely here,

Parkinson!)--it is logically possible, to play croquet too well to

enjoy it at all. If you could put this blue ball through that distant

hoop as easily as you could pick it up with your hand, then you would

not put it through that hoop any more than you pick it up with your

hand; it would not be worth doing. If you could play unerringly you

would not play at all. The moment the game is perfect the game

disappears."

"I do not think, however," said Parkinson, "that you are in any

immediate danger of effecting that sort of destruction. I do not

think your croquet will vanish through its own faultless excellence.

You are safe for the present."

The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this

time it was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four

more fundamental principles, and my companion had gone through five

more hoops, the dusk was verging upon dark.

With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness

towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze.

Parkinson immediately uttered a loud and dramatic cry. The situation,

indeed, called for it. I had hit the right ball.

Stunned with astonishment, I crossed the gloomy ground, and hit my ball

again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop; but it was

the right hoop. I shuddered from head to foot.

Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that

impossible ball. Again I hit it away into the night, in what I

supposed was the vague direction of the quite invisible stick.

And in the dead silence I heard the stick rattle as the ball

struck it heavily.

I threw down my mallet. "I can't stand this," I said. "My ball has

gone right three times. These things are not of this world."

"I tell you I daren't. If I made another hoop like that I should see

all the devils dancing there on the blessed grass."

"Why devils?" asked Parkinson; "they may be only fairies making fun of

you. They are sending you the 'Perfect Game,' which is no game."

I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness,

in which the faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across

the grass as if it burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball

somewhere--somewhere where another ball might be. I heard the dull

click of the balls touching, and ran into the house like one pursued.

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