Coats of Arms and That Sort of Thing

I DO not object to letter crests. Now that we are beginning to ‘step out’ socially, perhaps we should have one. Nor do I object seriously to employing for this purpose an ancient coat of arms, my wife’s suggestion. The main difficulty, in our case, lies in selecting the right one.

Let me give Elizabeth’s choice first. (Elizabeth is our eldest. It is she who does most of the stepping.) ‘Armor argent, on a cross azure five fleursde-lis, gold, in the dexter quarter a Lion rampant, red. Crest, a castle, red, on the tower a Lion’s head erased, in the mouth a round buckle, its Mottoe, Esse Quod Opto.’

I would not seem critical, yet this coat of arms strikes me as being perhaps unhappy in its abundance. The fleurde-lis is unobjectionable, though I prefer the rose. But why five, suggesting that one of our ancestors may have been a florist who urged the world to say it with flowers? Lilies and lions alliterate neatly, but do they not make what Burke calls an incongruous mixture? And why two lions? Evidently the designer at the last moment realized that he had overdone the lion business; otherwise why did he erase one? What does an erased lion look like, anyway? Or perhaps it occurred to the designer that so many performing beasts might suggest, to those who, like me, do not readily interpret heraldic insignia, that some remote grandmother in her younger days was of sawdust connection— a lion tamer, for instance, or she may have thrilled multitudes by swinging, head down, from a trapeze far up in billowy, acetylene-lighted canvas heavens. As to the ‘Mottoe,’ one may applaud its spirit yet be unable to escape the feeling that to employ Latin is a bit ‘high hat.’ Some younger son may have succeeded in passing the mediæval equivalent of College Board examinations and acquired command of freshman-year Latin before being plucked, but why flaunt the achievement? I pass over the ‘armor’ without comment; a certain amount of hardware was, presumably, customary in heraldic device. Nor have I aught to say about the color scheme. I have never happened to see a red lion, but such there may be.

My main objection to this coat of arms, however, is that it may not belong to our branch. It is authentic, properly recorded and all that; yet I have a suspicion that it belongs rather to some distantly related cousin who migrated not to New England but to aristocratic Virginia. Our Matthias was a humbler sort of adventurer, of the modest ‘origin obscure’ type. He left England quietly, — not in the Mayflower, but in a boat which probably could outsail her, — and settled unostentatiously in Connecticut. He it was who, with four others, purchased five hundred acres in South End Neck (later known as East Haven) at a penny an acre. The price was a little steep, but Matthias was not one to haggle. My acquaintance with his posterity leads me to think that he did not pay cash down; probably he gave a long-term note.

If through Matthias we are entitled to any coat of arms, it is this one, which is also properly recorded: ‘ Armor gules, a chevron silver, between three Alligators. Crest an Alligator.’ This is the choice of the younger members of the family, especially Alice, who is studying general science with fervor. She is specializing at present in mud turtles. I too prefer it. How modestly simple: a mere spray of alligators — nothing but, or little but. The hardware feature was probably unavoidable, and the chevron a concession to the prevailing mode. John calls attention to ‘gules.’ ‘What are they, Pop?’ he asks. I appease his curiosity with a brief philological dissertation in my best manner, with a playful reference to ‘gullet.’

Yes, indeed, how simple! And, let me add, how aristocratic! No lions clawing the air in silly rage. Really, in all the heraldic menagerie no beast is quite so common, and therefore commonplace, as the Hon. Alligators are rare, and of greater antiquity, their family line antedating the Pliocene Age. A wonderful creature, too, is the alligator, possessing above all other animals the secret of waterproofing. An alligator has never been known to spring a leak. Much more might I add in praise of the alligator, but doubtless all is familiar to those even slightly acquainted with the Who’s Who of animal aristocracy. I can but summarize by saying that the A. mississippiensis and its cousins are noble lizards.

Elizabeth, however, will not listen to any alligator proposition, and my wife Janet protests that she abhors all creeping things. Creeping things! It is against alligator nature to ramp, — let that be conceded, — but the alligator walks, and as for swimming, it could easily overtake an Olympic. I see plainly, nevertheless, that this coat of arms is out of the running.

Personally, I should prefer not to employ either of these coats of arms. Our English ancestors did well for their day and stage of development, but give me something more modern. Give me something conceived in the New World. If borrow we must, let it be from New England ancestors — from Nehemiah, son of Matthias the second, son of Matthias the first, for example, in whom one detects a softening of the sterner traits of the family, a certain rudimentary refinement groping toward artistic expression. Of course I have in mind Nehemiah’s duly recorded ‘earmark.’ This I would take, unglorified by gules and what not, and make of it a family seal or crest.

Study it for a moment and note its merits: ‘A swallow fork on ye near ear and a slit on ye end of ye off ear and a halfpenny ye foreside of ye same ear.’ Happy blend of poetry (swallow fork), suggestion of seemly thrift that is not grasping (halfpenny), and simplicity itself (slit). How satisfying, too, is the unmistakability of this bovine coat of arms! It did not take long to pick out Nehemiah’s heifers from the herd pastured on the commons. But the swallow fork appeals to me above all else, as something poetic, something — a mere dash, not too much — to make of the commonplace a thing of beauty.

I am sure any moderately skilled artist could take this ancient earmark and fashion from it a crest unique and lovely, though he should be cautioned to make the ears, both ‘oft’ and ‘near,’ unmistakably bovine. But not even Alice, who is fond of cows, will listen to this proposal. So there we are, and there we are likely to be, using plain note paper without a crest, merely because we cannot come to an agreement. I pass the earmark suggestion along to others, however, for I think it a good one. Of course if the rage for fostering individuality continues much longer, the only letter crest anyone will use will be a rogues’ gallery finger print.