SOUL AND UNDERSTATEMENT

foreigners have souls; the English haven't. On the Continent you find

any amount of people who sigh deeply for no conspicuous reason, yearn,

suffer and look in the air extremely sadly. This is soul. The worst kind of

soul is the great Slav soul. People who suffer from it are usually very deep

thinkers. They may say things like this: 'Sometimes I am so merry and

sometimes I am so sad. Can you explain why?' (You cannot, do not try.) Or

they may say: 1 am so mysterious. . . . I sometimes wish I were somewhere

else than where I am.' (Do not say: 1 wish you were.') Or 'When I am alone

in a forest at night-time and jump from one tree to another, I often think

that life is so strange.' All this is very deep: and just soul, nothing

else. The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead. If a

continental youth wants to declare his love to a girl, he kneels down, tells

her that she is the sweetest, the most charming and ravishing person in the

world, that she has something in her, something peculiar and individual

which only a few hundred thousand other women have and that he would be

unable to live one more minute without her. Often, to give a little more

emphasis to the statement, he shoots himself on the spot. This is a normal,

week-day declaration of love in the more temperamental continental

countries. In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says

softly: 1 don't object to you, you know.' If he is quite mad with passion,

he may add: 'I rather fancy you, in fact.' If he wants to marry a girl, he

says:

I say . . . would you? . . .' If he wants to make an indecent proposal:

'I say . . . what about . . .'

Overstatement, too, plays a considerable part in English social life.

This takes mostly the form of someone remarking: 1 say ...' and then keeping

silent for three days on end.

TEA

the trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a

group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and

made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the

eternal glory of British science their labour bore fruit. They suggested

that if you do not drink it clear, or with lemon or rum and sugar, but pour

a few drops of cold milk into it, and no sugar at all, the desired object is

achieved. Once this refreshing, aromatic, oriental beverage was successfully

transformed into colourless and tasteless gargling-water, it suddenly became

the national drink of Great Britain and Ireland - still retaining, indeed

usurping, the high-sounding title of tea. There are some occasions when you

must not refuse a cup of tea, otherwise you are judged an exotic and

barbarous bird without any hope of ever being able to take your place in

civilised society. If you are invited to an English home, at five o'clock in

the morning you get a cup of tea. It is either brought in by a heartily

smiling hostess or an almost malevolently silent maid. When you are

disturbed in your sweetest morning sleep you must not say: 'Madame (or

Mabel), I think you are a cruel, spiteful and malignant person who deserves

to be shot.' On the contrary, you have to declare with your best five

o'clock smile: 'Thank you so much. I do adore a cup of early morning tea,

especially early in the morning.' If they leave you alone with the liquid,

you may pour it down the washbasin.

Then you have tea for breakfast; then you have tea at eleven o'clock in

the morning; then after lunch;then you have tea for tea; then after supper;

and again at eleven o'clock at night. You must not refuse any additional

cups of tea under the following circumstances: if it is hot; if it is cold;

if you are tired; if anybody thinks that you might be tired; if you are

nervous; if you are gay; before you go out; if you are out; if you have just

returned home; if you feel like it; if you do not feel like it; if you have

had no tea for some time; if you have just had a cup. You definitely must

not follow my example. I sleep at five o'clock in the morning; I have coffee

for breakfast; I drink innumerable cups of black coffee during the day; I

have the most unorthodox and exotic teas even at tea-time. The other day,

for instance - I just mention this as a terrifying example to show you how

low some people can sink -1 wanted a cup of coffee and a piece of cheese for

tea. It was one of those exceptionally hot days and my wife (once a good

Englishwoman, now completely and hopelessly led astray by my wicked foreign

influence) made some cold coffee and put it in the refrigerator, where it

froze and became one solid block. On the other hand, she left the cheese on

the kitchen table, where it melted. So I had a piece of coffee and a glass

of cheese.

SEX

continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles.

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 1410