In 1910 L. P. Jacks wrote about Snarley Bob,* a shepherd whose personality quirks included a disdain for most people, but a loyalty of feeling for some. Suspected by some of those who knew him as a madman, Snarley Bob was “mystic, star-gazer, dabbler in black or blackish arts” and lowly shepherd. Although he exuded a contempt of the human race that “was immeasurable,” he did have a fondness for a Mrs. Abel, the Rector’s wife, because she seemed to understand his nature, for his “old wife, whom he treated as part of himself, neither better nor worse,” and for L. P. Jacks himself. “With other human beings—saving only the children—his intercourse was limited as far as possible to interjectory grunts and snarls—whence his name.”
Get the picture? Snarley Bob snarled. As he aged, even his wife thought, “I’m a’most afraid sometimes as he may be took in a fit.” But there was another side of this man whose name was Robert Dellanow, and it evidenced itself away from humanity in a quarry on starry nights. It’s possible that there was in our modern understanding of the human psyche some slight autism at work, because Snarley Bob “was strangely sensitive to the tones of a human voice. If, as seldom happened, your voice and presence chance to strike the responsive chord, Snarley became your devoted slave on the spot; the heavy, even brutal, expression that his face often wore passed off like a cloud; you were in the Mount of Transfiguration, and it seemed that Elijah…had come back to earth.” So, what kinds of advice can this transfigured Snarley Bob impart to us some 100 plus years later?
Now, most of us have some quirks that only our closest friends understand—and often our relatives and strangers probably see as character flaws. Not that I’m calling you a Snarley Bob, but rather, I’m suggesting that each of us is multisided. The Rector’s wife, Mrs. Abel seemed to understand Snarley Bob in a way most others couldn’t. “Snarley Bob is the one man in the world whom I have found worth talking to,” she once said. Maybe you are, too.
Shortly before Snarley Bob died, Jacks met him at the quarry and then recorded these words from Snarley:
“Yes, sir, there’s things about the stars that fair knocks you silly to think on. And, what’s more, you can’t think on ‘em, leastways to no good purpose, until they have knocked you silly. Why, what's the good of tellin' a man that it's ninety-three millions o' miles between the earth and the sun? There's lots o' folks as knows that; but there's not one in ten thousand as knows what it means. You gets no forrader wi' lookin' at the figures in a book. You must thin yourself out, and make your body lighter than air, and stretch and stretch at yourself until you gets the sun and planets, floatin' like, in the middle o' your mind. Then you begins to get hold on it. Or what's the good o' sayin' that Saturn has rings and nine moons? You must go to one o' them moons, and see Saturn half fillin' the sky, wi' his rings cuttin' the heavens from top to bottom, all coloured wi' crimson and gold—then you begins to stagger at it. That's why I say you can't think o' these things till they've knocked you silly.
"And, as you were sayin', it isn't easy to get them big things the right way up. When things gets beyond a certain bigness you don't know which way up they are; and as like as not they're standin' on their heads when you think they're standin' on their heels. That's the way with the stars. They all want lookin' at t'other way up from what most people looks at 'em. And perhaps it's a good thing they looks at 'em the wrong way; becos if they looked at 'em the right way it would scare 'em out o' their wits, especially the women—same as it does my missis when she hears me and Mrs. Abel talkin'. Always exceptin' Mrs. Abel; you can't scare her; and she sees most things right way up, that she does!
"But when it comes to the stars, you want to be a bit of a medium before you can get at 'em. Oh yes, I've been a medium in my time, more than I care to think of, and I could be a medium again to-morrow, if I wanted to. But them's the only sort of folks as can see things from both ends. Most folks only look at things from one end—and that as often as not the wrong un. Mediums looks from both ends; and, if they're good at it, they soon find out which end's right. You see, some on 'em—like me, for instance—can throw 'emselves out o' 'emselves, in a manner o' speaking, so that they can see their own bodies, just as if they was miles away, same as I can see that man walking on the Deadborough Road.”
So, what’s Snarley Bob trying to tell us? What message could a seemingly simple and strange shepherd convey to us about life and the universe?
"Well, I've often done it, and many's the story I could tell of things I've seen by day and night; but it wasn't till I went to hear Sir Robert Ball as the grand idea came to me. 'Why not throw yerself into the stars, Bob?' I sez to myself. And, by gum, sir, I did it that very night. How I did it I don't know; I won't say as there weren't a drop o' drink in it; but the minute I'd got through, I felt as I'd stretched out wonderful and, blessed if I didn't find myself standin' wi' millions of other spirits, right in the middle o' Saturn's rings. And the things I see there I couldn't tell you, no, not if you was to give me a thousand pounds. Talk o' spirits! I tell you there was millions on 'em! And the lights and the colours—oh, but it's no good talkin'! I looked back and wanted to know where the earth was, and there I see it, dwindled to a speck o' light.
"Now you can understand why I keeps my mouth shut. Do you think I'm going to talk of them things to a lot o' folks that's got no more sense nor swine? Not me! And what else is there that's worth talking on? Who's goin' to make a fuss and go blatherin' about this and that, when you know the whole earth's no bigger nor a pea? My eyes! if some o' these 'ere talkin' politicians knowed half o' what I know, they'd stop their blowin' pretty quick.”
Was Bob a mystic? He certainly seemed to have some out-of-body ability in that quarry under the stars. He also seemed to say there’s another kind of knowledge that we shouldn’t discount. Yes, there are the facts of the universe, such as the distances to the sun and planets. Yes, those facts are relatively firm ways of knowing the world. But then there’s that other side, the side that only our quirky selves seem to understand: The so-called oneness with the Cosmos. Snarley then says,
"I allus knows when folks has got things wrong end up by the amount they talks. When you get 'em the right way you don't want to talk on 'em, except it may be to one or two, like Mrs. Abel, as got 'em the same way as yourself. So when you hear folks jawin', you can allus tell what's the matter wi' 'em.
"There's old Shoemaker Hankin at Deadborough. Know him? Well, did you ever hear such a blatherin' old fool? 'All these things you're mad on, Snarley,' he sez to me one day, 'are nowt but matter and force.' 'Matter and force,' I sez; 'what's them?' And then he lets on for half a' hour trying to tell me all about matter and force. When he'd done I sez, 'Tom Hankin, there's more sense in one o' them old shoes than there is in your silly 'ead. You've got things all wrong end up, and you're just baain' at 'em like a' old sheep!' 'How can you prove it?' he sez. 'I know it,' I sez, 'by the row you makes.' It's a sure sign, sir; you take my word for it.
"Then there's all these parsons preaching away Sunday after Sunday. Why, doesn't it tand to sense that if they'd got things right way up, there they'd be, and that 'ud be the end on it? And it's because they're all wrong that they've got to go on jawin' to persuade people they're right. One day I was in Parson Abel's study. 'What's all them books about?' I sez. 'Religion, most on 'em,' sez he. 'Well,' I sez, 'if the folks as wrote 'em had got things right way up they wouldn't 'a needed to 'a wrote so many books.'”
Are we seeing things the right way up or the wrong way up? Inside out? Outside in?
“They're two roads leadin' to the same place. Both on 'em are ways o' gettin' to the right end of things. What's wrong wi' the mediums is that they haven't got line enough. They only manage to get just outside their own skins; but what's wanted is to get right on to the edge of the world and then look back. That's what the stars teaches you to do; and when you've done it—my word! it turns yer clean inside out!”
Two roads. You might alternate between them, but if you are planted on either permanently, you’ll probably not completely understand your universe and your place in it. When the world of facts seems to give you knowledge without understanding, get to that secret quarry under the stars. Release yourself, thin yourself out into the stretches of space, and go beyond the mere place and narrow road that appear to limit your understanding. Snarley Bob seems to have rediscovered on his own one of the fragmentary thoughts of Heraclitus: “You can’t have understanding without facts, and you can’t have facts without understanding.”
*Mad Shepherds, And Other Human Studies. New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1910. Online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31386/31386-h/31386-h.htm
Get the picture? Snarley Bob snarled. As he aged, even his wife thought, “I’m a’most afraid sometimes as he may be took in a fit.” But there was another side of this man whose name was Robert Dellanow, and it evidenced itself away from humanity in a quarry on starry nights. It’s possible that there was in our modern understanding of the human psyche some slight autism at work, because Snarley Bob “was strangely sensitive to the tones of a human voice. If, as seldom happened, your voice and presence chance to strike the responsive chord, Snarley became your devoted slave on the spot; the heavy, even brutal, expression that his face often wore passed off like a cloud; you were in the Mount of Transfiguration, and it seemed that Elijah…had come back to earth.” So, what kinds of advice can this transfigured Snarley Bob impart to us some 100 plus years later?
Now, most of us have some quirks that only our closest friends understand—and often our relatives and strangers probably see as character flaws. Not that I’m calling you a Snarley Bob, but rather, I’m suggesting that each of us is multisided. The Rector’s wife, Mrs. Abel seemed to understand Snarley Bob in a way most others couldn’t. “Snarley Bob is the one man in the world whom I have found worth talking to,” she once said. Maybe you are, too.
Shortly before Snarley Bob died, Jacks met him at the quarry and then recorded these words from Snarley:
“Yes, sir, there’s things about the stars that fair knocks you silly to think on. And, what’s more, you can’t think on ‘em, leastways to no good purpose, until they have knocked you silly. Why, what's the good of tellin' a man that it's ninety-three millions o' miles between the earth and the sun? There's lots o' folks as knows that; but there's not one in ten thousand as knows what it means. You gets no forrader wi' lookin' at the figures in a book. You must thin yourself out, and make your body lighter than air, and stretch and stretch at yourself until you gets the sun and planets, floatin' like, in the middle o' your mind. Then you begins to get hold on it. Or what's the good o' sayin' that Saturn has rings and nine moons? You must go to one o' them moons, and see Saturn half fillin' the sky, wi' his rings cuttin' the heavens from top to bottom, all coloured wi' crimson and gold—then you begins to stagger at it. That's why I say you can't think o' these things till they've knocked you silly.
"And, as you were sayin', it isn't easy to get them big things the right way up. When things gets beyond a certain bigness you don't know which way up they are; and as like as not they're standin' on their heads when you think they're standin' on their heels. That's the way with the stars. They all want lookin' at t'other way up from what most people looks at 'em. And perhaps it's a good thing they looks at 'em the wrong way; becos if they looked at 'em the right way it would scare 'em out o' their wits, especially the women—same as it does my missis when she hears me and Mrs. Abel talkin'. Always exceptin' Mrs. Abel; you can't scare her; and she sees most things right way up, that she does!
"But when it comes to the stars, you want to be a bit of a medium before you can get at 'em. Oh yes, I've been a medium in my time, more than I care to think of, and I could be a medium again to-morrow, if I wanted to. But them's the only sort of folks as can see things from both ends. Most folks only look at things from one end—and that as often as not the wrong un. Mediums looks from both ends; and, if they're good at it, they soon find out which end's right. You see, some on 'em—like me, for instance—can throw 'emselves out o' 'emselves, in a manner o' speaking, so that they can see their own bodies, just as if they was miles away, same as I can see that man walking on the Deadborough Road.”
So, what’s Snarley Bob trying to tell us? What message could a seemingly simple and strange shepherd convey to us about life and the universe?
"Well, I've often done it, and many's the story I could tell of things I've seen by day and night; but it wasn't till I went to hear Sir Robert Ball as the grand idea came to me. 'Why not throw yerself into the stars, Bob?' I sez to myself. And, by gum, sir, I did it that very night. How I did it I don't know; I won't say as there weren't a drop o' drink in it; but the minute I'd got through, I felt as I'd stretched out wonderful and, blessed if I didn't find myself standin' wi' millions of other spirits, right in the middle o' Saturn's rings. And the things I see there I couldn't tell you, no, not if you was to give me a thousand pounds. Talk o' spirits! I tell you there was millions on 'em! And the lights and the colours—oh, but it's no good talkin'! I looked back and wanted to know where the earth was, and there I see it, dwindled to a speck o' light.
"Now you can understand why I keeps my mouth shut. Do you think I'm going to talk of them things to a lot o' folks that's got no more sense nor swine? Not me! And what else is there that's worth talking on? Who's goin' to make a fuss and go blatherin' about this and that, when you know the whole earth's no bigger nor a pea? My eyes! if some o' these 'ere talkin' politicians knowed half o' what I know, they'd stop their blowin' pretty quick.”
Was Bob a mystic? He certainly seemed to have some out-of-body ability in that quarry under the stars. He also seemed to say there’s another kind of knowledge that we shouldn’t discount. Yes, there are the facts of the universe, such as the distances to the sun and planets. Yes, those facts are relatively firm ways of knowing the world. But then there’s that other side, the side that only our quirky selves seem to understand: The so-called oneness with the Cosmos. Snarley then says,
"I allus knows when folks has got things wrong end up by the amount they talks. When you get 'em the right way you don't want to talk on 'em, except it may be to one or two, like Mrs. Abel, as got 'em the same way as yourself. So when you hear folks jawin', you can allus tell what's the matter wi' 'em.
"There's old Shoemaker Hankin at Deadborough. Know him? Well, did you ever hear such a blatherin' old fool? 'All these things you're mad on, Snarley,' he sez to me one day, 'are nowt but matter and force.' 'Matter and force,' I sez; 'what's them?' And then he lets on for half a' hour trying to tell me all about matter and force. When he'd done I sez, 'Tom Hankin, there's more sense in one o' them old shoes than there is in your silly 'ead. You've got things all wrong end up, and you're just baain' at 'em like a' old sheep!' 'How can you prove it?' he sez. 'I know it,' I sez, 'by the row you makes.' It's a sure sign, sir; you take my word for it.
"Then there's all these parsons preaching away Sunday after Sunday. Why, doesn't it tand to sense that if they'd got things right way up, there they'd be, and that 'ud be the end on it? And it's because they're all wrong that they've got to go on jawin' to persuade people they're right. One day I was in Parson Abel's study. 'What's all them books about?' I sez. 'Religion, most on 'em,' sez he. 'Well,' I sez, 'if the folks as wrote 'em had got things right way up they wouldn't 'a needed to 'a wrote so many books.'”
Are we seeing things the right way up or the wrong way up? Inside out? Outside in?
“They're two roads leadin' to the same place. Both on 'em are ways o' gettin' to the right end of things. What's wrong wi' the mediums is that they haven't got line enough. They only manage to get just outside their own skins; but what's wanted is to get right on to the edge of the world and then look back. That's what the stars teaches you to do; and when you've done it—my word! it turns yer clean inside out!”
Two roads. You might alternate between them, but if you are planted on either permanently, you’ll probably not completely understand your universe and your place in it. When the world of facts seems to give you knowledge without understanding, get to that secret quarry under the stars. Release yourself, thin yourself out into the stretches of space, and go beyond the mere place and narrow road that appear to limit your understanding. Snarley Bob seems to have rediscovered on his own one of the fragmentary thoughts of Heraclitus: “You can’t have understanding without facts, and you can’t have facts without understanding.”
*Mad Shepherds, And Other Human Studies. New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1910. Online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31386/31386-h/31386-h.htm
RSS Feed