The Cruise of the Nona

The Cruise of the Nona

By Hilaire Belloc.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Dedication
4. To Maurice Baring
5. Half-Titlepage
   1. The Cruise of the Nona
6. Colophon
7. Uncopyright

Imprint

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To the memory of
Philip Kershaw my
brave and constant
companion upon the
sea: but now he
will sail no more

To Maurice Baring

My Dear Maurice⁠—

I have dedicated to you two books: one was a book On Nothing. This I dedicated to you because, being on nothing, it dealt with what is better than the fullness of life.

Another book I dedicated to you was The Green Overcoat, and this I dedicated to you because you had written a play called The Green Elephant, and we thereby held communion in green things.

I now dedicate to you this book, because you also have written a book upon Things That Come to Mind, and this book may well turn into something of the same sort. Yours was called The Puppet Show of Memory, and dealt with the things and people you had seen and known. What mine will be called I do not yet know, for I hold that a child should be born before it is christened.

I have been led into this opinion by the action of an acquaintance, who much disputed with his wife what name the child should bear, it being not yet born. To this choice they attached great issues; for they rightly thought that a name determines a lifetime much more than does a horoscope, and for this reason they consulted no astrologer. First they explored the grander sounds, names of dominion and power. They considered Esmeralda, Ruhala, Semiramis, Darumdibaba, and Rimbomba, as also Haulteclaire, following the noise of pomps and wars. Wearying of this, the glamour of strangeness seized them, and they attempted Pelagia, Sonia, Mehitabel, Oona, Célimène, Mamua and Berengarde, Machuska, Gounor, and Zaire; but these seemed, upon a second reading, affected: as indeed they were. So they fell into childishness, and wallowed in gardening, reciting Pansy, Daisy, Rose, Violet, Pimpernel, and even Forget-me-Not, which led them into the Furor Hebraicus, and such terms as Miriam, Lilith, Deborah, Eve, Mizraim, Sheba, and the rest⁠—very unsuitable; from which they reacted to mere abstractions, such as Mercy, Peace, Charity, Grace, and whatnot. But these seeming insipid, they fell maundering after a donnish fashion and dared consider Æthelburga, Fristhwith, Ealswitha, and other abominations, till an angel compelled them to desist and they were driven to the solid path of the queens, and advanced Maud, Adelaide, Matilda, Elizabeth, Guinevere, Anne, and jibbed at Jezebel. Next they ran wild and careered through Tosca, Faustine, Theodora, Athalie, Antigone, Medea, Pasiphaë, and many others. Finally, they perched, she upon the name Astarte, but he upon the, to my mind, lovelier word, Cytherea. They both mean the same thing, only one was a well-modelled Greek, and the other a horrible Hittite. It was the woman who wanted Astarte, and the man who wanted Cytherea; so the child was to be called Astarte, and she was not even allowed to have the second name of Cytherea.

All that was on Thursday, the 2nd June. On the 13th, being a Monday, in the early afternoon, the child was born, and was a boy.

There was no more discussion upon its name, because its uncle, a rich man, was called James. So the boy was James, and there was an end of it.

I have been led on, as you see, but the essence of this book is that it shall be a sailing through the seas of the years, that is, a flight through the airs of time, or, again, a leading on and a passage through the vales of life: now culling this sour fruit, now that poisonous herb, and now again this stinging plant, which I had thought to be innocuous.

For whether I should write, Maurice, a book of reminiscences or of wandering, or of extravagances or of opinions, or of conclusions, or of experiences, I could not make up my mind after a cogitation of three weeks and four days, which occupied the whole of my remaining faculties between the town of Blois, upon the Loire, and the town of Châlons, upon the Marne, my journey from the one to the other being taken this very year circuitously, in the company of a Bear, by way of Bayonne, where the bayonet, Rosalie, was first made; Saint John at the foot of the Pass, where they boil crayfish in white wine; Roncesvalles, where Roland died, and I nearly did; Burguete, where they charge too much and where the kitchen smoke goes out through the middle of the roof; Pamplona, the only permanent thing Pompey ever did; Saragossa, which never changes; Reus, where they spin