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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 11 (February 1, 1935)

The Swiss Family Robinson

page 41

The Swiss Family Robinson

Blessed are the untidy, for they know not what surprises await them. To-day's spring cleaning has restored me my lost “Swiss Family Robinson.” What a family! and what a book! Father is the hero, undoubtedly. But to speak of a hero as Father is too unheroic. To call him Mr. Robinson would be blasphemy. Besides, to the older mind doubts occur. Was the Swiss family's name really Robinson? I had no doubts in my youth. I even invested with some glamour a family of that name who lived in our street. I felt bitter that I had not been born a Robinson! It is hard, however, to daunt a female of the species. I determined to marry a Robinson and better my station. I seem to have felt convinced that once I was grown-up Robinsons would flock from far to sue for my lily hand. It was only the present inconvenience of a lily hand that kept me from immediate action. By now desire has failed. So, I am bound to admit, has the flock of Robinsons. Still, even when I do meet one I regret to say that I regard him quite dispassionately. The glory has departed.

Father does not seem to have even a Christian name. His wife never hurls the soup tureen at him, conveniently exclaiming the while “Jacob Ruppert” or even “Wyatt Earp.” Now that I come to think of it I do not know her name either. But that does not seem so important. She has her triumphs, too, but what petty ones compared with father's. She lays out a vegetable garden while he blows up a ship. Pitiful isn't it? She has not much spirit, poor soul. Father would have been enough to quench any woman. He was so everlastingly right. Superman is the only word for him. By profession a Swiss pastor, he makes butter, glass or a staircase, with equal ease and gravity. The one disadvantage of virtue is its lack of interest. The Robinsons were very virtuous. There was father—always right. There was mother—nearly always right. She rescued the Bible from the wreck and is our good angel for two pages. In ordinary life she is still good, our good housekeeper. The children take after father. Fritz is a man of action, holding father's hat what time a ship is to be blown up or some other deviltry attempted. Jack holds Fritz's hat. Ernest is no hat-holder. He is a philosopher, a savant, capable of recognising a kangaroo by its incisor teeth. He holds up the mirror to one side of Father's ego, Fritz and Jack to the other. Frank is a child, but already very much a Robinson, with ideas on subjects ranging from fish-hooks to substitutes for glue. Yes, to an ordinary mortal like myself, a distinctly depressing family.

Yet this view of the Robinsons is new to me. The magnificent action of the book had blinded me to the boring virtues of the characters. From the shipwreck at the beginning we are carried triumphantly on. Does our interest threaten to flag? In the next paragraph but one Jack discovers the potato plant and all is well. Then, if we thirst for romance there is Miss Jenny on the Smoking Rock, writing messages in blood and sending them by albatross post.

Yet the book is a restful one. There is not the anxiety attendant on reading a modern work. The Robinsons may be out of patent barley for the meantime, but we feel sure that an excellent substitute will be found within at most three paragraphs. Their donkey runs away. Do we despair, prophesying blisters for the Robinson heels? Not we! Already the onagra is looming on the horizon. Providence, afraid, no doubt, of a sharp rebuke from Father, was guilty of no hitches in dealing with the Robinsons. They were set down in a land flowing with milk and honey and opportunities of displaying Father's knowledge. The higher critic may object to the profusion of these opportunities. Away with such a fellow from the earth! He would be for improving the Forest of Arden. Nothing he can say will spoil my enjoyment. I quote Frank Robinson for his undoing: “How delicious this all is.”

“Rum life a tobacconist's,” confided a Wanganui whiff merchant to a reporter, “got to please everybody, and sometimes it's a tough contract. Yesterday a chap bursts in with: ‘Give us a pound of toasted Cavendish. Hurry up! Got a train to catch.’ Well, d'ye see I'd had a run on toasted Cavendish, and hadn't a shred left (expecting another consignment to-day). But I didn't want to lose his custom, so I says ‘sorry I'm clean out of toasted Cavendish, but I've something similar which perhaps you'd like better.’ ‘There's nothing similar to toasted Cavendish, and nothing I'd like better,’ he snaps—and bolts out. Whatcher think of that?” “Very annoying of course,” replied the pressman, “but I think the bloke was dead right. I smoke toasted Cavendish myself, and there is nothing like it. There are other toasted brands, aren't there?” “Four,” replied the tobacconist, “Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), toasted, d'ye see), all perfectly harmless, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold—all practically free from nicotine (because they're and all best sellers!”*

(Rly. Publicity photo.) Wanganui and its famous river, North Island, New Zealand. The upper reaches of the Wanganui River present some of the finest river scenery to be found anywhere in the world.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Wanganui and its famous river, North Island, New Zealand. The upper reaches of the Wanganui River present some of the finest river scenery to be found anywhere in the world.