A thousand years ago I won a cup for jumping. It was not a very good
cup, but then it was not a very good jump. Such as the cup is, however,
it stands on a shelf in my library, and I have ways of directing the
attention of visitors to it. For instance, if a collector of old prints
is coming to dinner, I hang my oldest print just above the cup, ready
for him; we take our--or better, his--cigars into the library, and I
say, "Oh, look here, I picked this print up last week; the man said it
was a genuine Eyre and Spottiswoode; you might give me your opinion." He
gives me his opinion ... and then his eye wanders down. I see him
reading the inscription on the cup.
The inscription says: "Long Jump, 1739," or some such date. "First
Prize, won by ----" and then my name very big and splendid. Underneath
comes the school crest, followed by the motto, "_Dat Deus Incrementum_,"
though I have never jumped any further since. Its shape is the ordinary
sherry-glass shape. It is my only cup, and I am proud of it.
I look up as I write, and I see the--by the way, I don't know if you
have ever tried "looking up as you write." It is a common thing for
reflective writers to say they do, but you should never believe them. It
is impossible to write properly when looking somewhere else. What we do
is to stop and slew our necks round, and then take a fresh dip in the
ink. Well, slewing my neck round as I stop writing, I see my precious
cup standing on its shelf, and ... horror! It is standing upside down!
This comes as a surprise to you, but it is no surprise to me. The thing
has been going on for months. It is months ago that I first spoke to
Celia about it.
"It's Jane," she said. "She always puts it like that when she's been
dusting."
"Yes, but what for? Just to catch the eye?"
"I suppose because you always stand glasses upside down when you've
cleaned them--to keep the dust out."
"But if she'd only think a moment she'd see that I don't drink out of
this, and that glasses don't have 'First Prize, won by ----'"
"Jane isn't here to think, she's here to work."
This seemed to be a distinction drawn between Jane and me.
"You see what I mean," I said, "don't you? It's very difficult to read
the cup upside down. A stranger mightn't know who--er--who had won it."
"But don't you always turn it back again? I do, if ever I see it."
"Yes, but--but---- Oh, well, it doesn't matter."
I went back to the library. It was difficult to explain why I minded;
because, after all, to fill a pipe, light it and sit down to work every
morning is very little less trouble than to turn a cup round, fill a
pipe, light it and sit down to work every morning. Anything regular soon
gets taken for granted. And yet I was annoyed. I think it was the
_silliness_ of standing a First Prize upside down which annoyed me. That
and the apparent difficulty of getting into communication with Jane
about it.