“rode madly off in all directions”

On this day, March 28, in 1944, Stephen Leacock, humorist and professor of Political Economics at McGill, died.

One day last summer, I was possessed of the need to determine where the phrase “he rode off in all directions” originated. A quick Google search introduced me to Stephen Leacock, writer and economist of the last century, and Canadian. He was born in England in 1869, but emigrated with his family when he was only six and made his home, education, and career in Canada.

Writer of such works as Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Leacock has a knack for caricature and observations of people and society that is reminiscent of P.G. Wodehouse and Mark Twain in different measure.

The quote in question is found in his collection of short stories, Nonsense Novels, that includes a devastating parody of Sherlock Holmes, a lampooning of Russian literature, a pointed slash at seafaring/shipwreck/marooning accounts, in addition to the tale of “Gertrude the Governess; or, Simple Seventeen,” wherein is found this account of Ronald, sticking at his father’s insistence on his marrying a rich heiress:

“I will marry none but a woman I can love. This girl that we have never seen—”

“Fool,” said the Earl, “would you throw aside our estate and name of a thousand years? The girl, I am told, is beautiful; her aunt is willing; they are French; pah! they understand such things in France.”

“But your reason—”

“I give no reason,” said the Earl. “Listen, Ronald, I give one month. For that time you remain here. If at the end of it you refuse me, I cut you off with a shilling.”

Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.

-Gertrude the Governess: or, Simple Seventeen

Since my discovery of Leacock, I have read Leacock’s My Discovery of England (a response to various English authors’ “discoveries” of the Americas), Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, and of course the aforementioned Nonsense Novels. On my shelf sits a Penguin Extraordinary Canadians biography of Stephen Leacock that I have yet to read.