It has been 71 years and three months since I last saw Miss Maxwell, my eighth grade teacher. That period has passed with little lament from your old essayist. For most of the boys in Miss Maxwell’s eighth grade class, I think it would be fair to say that if the lamentable and regrettable period stretched to one hundred and seventy one years and three months, that might be an occasion to think about. But as it happens, a song heard recently has once again caused Miss Maxwell to intrude upon my memory.
Miss Maxwell was a spinster of perhaps sixty years when it was my misfortune to attend her class for a school year. My recollection is that she wore long-sleeved, mainly black dresses, that buttoned up to her throat. Any hint of décolletage was out of the question. Some students would say that Miss Maxwell was heavy set while others with a less generous bent would say that she was stout. Looking back, I would say that Miss Maxwell probably topped the scales somewhere between 150 and 160 pounds. Aside from her somber dresses, she wore high-buttoned shoes that I thought had passed from the scene with the Armistice of World War I. She never complained of ankle pain so I assume that her shoes lasted her for a long time.
As far as I could tell, this white-haired gentle lady had three passions in her life. She worshipped the English monarchy and would have been pleased had someone mistaken her for an English poet. Secondly, Miss Maxwell believed that English poetry was the acme of man’s achievements. And finally, she was a woman who could not control her love for English grammar and the diagramming of sentences in its structure.
In the mid 1930s, the British royal family designated Edward to be their next King. He called himself Edward VIII. Edward was a bachelor who was under the spell of a divorcée from the United States named Wallis Warfield Simpson. Madame Wallis Warfield Simpson was well-known as a prominent socialite in the high society circles of St. Louis and Baltimore. Along the way, she apparently shed herself of two wealthy husbands and reached the pinnacle of her success by becoming the paramour of the new King, Edward VIII. But the Brits refused to make her Edward’s queen and so the new King abdicated. Greater love hath no man than the bachelor King, Edward VIII. Miss Maxwell was inconsolable. While Edward VIII had no designs on Miss Maxwell, you would have thought from her dejection that she was his rejected lover.
In a previous essay, I recounted the dedication with which Miss Maxwell read English poetry to her class at least twice a week. If she had made this a fortnightly occasion, we might have withstood it better, but in point of fact, she read her poetry books for half an hour or so at least two or three times every week. The boys in her class would have preferred to walk over broken glass and hot coals rather than listen to her reading, which was in many cases acted out. In English poetry there are fairies, nymphs, and nymphets. I assume the nymphets are the children of the nymphs. The poetry was filled with visions of knights on horseback with their visors pulled down over their eyes and with their petards at the ready. Miss Maxwell was transported to another world when she read her English poetry.
The third great passion in Miss Maxwell’s life was English grammar. She had an inordinate desire to diagram the sentences. In a complex sentence, the diagrams might run east and west and north and south. As she explained that adverbs were a condition precedent to split infinitives or whatever, Miss Maxwell was carried away. The verbal foreplay on diagramming sentences led to Miss Maxwell’s having an expression of ecstasy on her face, with which she would then sit down on a stout oak chair near the blackboard. I date my dislike of grammar and the intricacies of English poetry to my attendance at Miss Maxwell’s eighth grade class.
The sturdy Miss Maxwell does not invade my thoughts very often but I began to think of her when we bought a compact disc of The Fureys. They are described as the most popular folk singers in Ireland, which may be true now that the Clancy Brothers have passed from the scene. One of the offerings on The Fureys’ record is, “If I Don’t Bring You Flowers.” When I heard that recording which has some supreme double negatives, I knew that Miss Maxwell’s ghost would be greatly disturbed.
The Fureys are excellent instrumentalists and arrangers, but their vocal offerings leave much to be desired. For one thing, they are unable to make the “th” sound as the English language demands. The word “think” comes out as “tink” and the word “thanks” comes out as “tanks.” But The Fureys are superb musicians and composers.
One way or another, The Fureys sing a song entitled, “If I Don’t Bring You Flowers” by a composer identified as A. Taylor. I assume he wrote both the music and the lyrics. Here is the first verse:
Verse 1

“Sometimes I know I’m forgetful
Things roll on from day to day.
Sometimes I don’t bring you flowers
When I’ve been away.”

Here is the chorus:
Chorus

“Sometimes I forget to tell you,
I can’t promise that I won’t.
If I forget to say I love you,
It don’t mean I don’t.”

That line, “If I forget to say I love you, it don’t mean I don’t,” is a classic. Even the dullard Prince of Wales or former King Edward VIII would understand its meaning in spite of its bad grammar. Certainly it has a double negative which flies in the face of every rule of English grammar. But good gracious, the composer needed a rhyme and the message is clearly understandable.
To make things more lamentable to Miss Maxwell’s ghost, that chorus is repeated after each of the three verses, so there is much for that ghost to chew on.
Miss Maxwell was an anglophile and I am not. May I suggest to Miss Maxwell’s ghost that he or she do not get their guts in an uproar over a simple Irish song. I know the poetry in the lyrics is hackneyed but the music is excellent and the sentiment is clear. Any woman who does not get the import of the message in “If I Don’t Bring You Flowers” is beyond the pale.
To make the point that double negatives add to romance, the third verse also has a similar line. It reads:
Verse 3

“So now you know at last I’ve told you,
Think on this when things go wrong.
And when I take my time to hold you,
Don’t think you don’t belong.”

It is followed by the same chorus.
What I regret is that I did not find this song until March of 2007. If I had had it in 1935 or 1936, I could have used it to sing to Miss Maxwell. Miss Maxwell may have dived out of the window upon hearing those lyrics, but on the other hand, there might be a slim chance that she would unbuckle her high-buttoned shoes and dance a little as she erased the diagrams on the front blackboard. But who is to know? Miss Maxwell is gone now and only I, her erstwhile student, keep her memory alive. But every courting swain among the male populace in this country ought to memorize that line, “If I forget to say I love you, it don’t mean I don’t.”
I suspect that there may be some doubters among you who downplay the effectiveness of double-negative words. And so to dispel those doubts, my wife, who thinks the song is hilarious, has made a CD of that single piece for you. It is enclosed here and if you are ever in the mood for additional volumes in your record library, the place to go is Dara Records (.com) in New York City.
Now that I have dispelled my current thoughts about Miss Maxwell, I retire to listen to the music, knowing that it probably would greatly displease the ghost of the honorable Lady Maxwell. My distaste for Miss Maxwell’s grammar teachings will, of course, in the end lead me to the hottest spot in Hell. From that asbestos perch, I suspect that on many occasions Satan, Lucifer, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, and I will look toward Heaven to see Miss Maxwell trying to diagram, “It don’t mean I don’t” upon her celestial blackboard. And we will all be pleased. On completion of the diagramming, it is likely that a look of ecstasy will again cross Miss Maxwell face, with which she will retire to lie on a sturdy cloud and smile.
E. E. CARR
April 12, 2007
Essay 247
Postscript: The CD enclosed contains two other musical offerings. One is another Furey song called, “Railway Hotel.” The second is a Liam Clancey epic. It is “Aghadoe” which Liam sings with the accompaniment of the Irish Philharmonic Orchestra. For lovers of geography, the town of Aghadoe is located adjacent to Lake Killarney which is the only totally bottomless lake currently in existence.
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Kevin’s commentary: Ms. Maxwell actually shows up in nine essays published so far, and ten in the entire body of Ezra’s Essays. The last one is called “Irish Earworms” and will be published sometime in 2006. She may not have been the best teacher around, but she sure as hell made a lasting impact on Pop.
“If I Don’t Bring You Flowers” is here (disregard the video), and is extremely pretty.
P.S., “Aghadoe” is a song which features the line about “the bullets found his heart” obliquely referenced in this essay published in February.