A pleasant-looking young lady (whose name I think was Pamela) sitting
opposite me in the bus was complaining to her companion that Reginald
was so dead-alive. You couldn't get him excited about anything. He
was most _frightfully_ clever, of course--a B.Sc. and all that sort
of thing, don't you know; but, oh, so _awfully_ icy. You went to a
theatre with him, and you got most _tremendously_ thrilled, and he
would say, "Yes, quite nice." Or you got him to read a book that was
simply ripping and that you had _wallowed_ in most terrifically, and
he would say, "Quite nice." She liked people to be enthusiastic. It
was most horribly disappointing when you were _simply boiling_ with
excitement to hear someone say, "Yes, quite nice." It made you feel
_most awfully_ done in, don't you know. If people enjoyed
themselves, why shouldn't they say they enjoyed themselves and let
themselves "go" a bit? She always let herself go.
I felt that I agreed with her on the main issue. Reginald was
aggravating. I felt that I knew Reginald. I saw him going through
life more than a little bored with everything. There's nothing new
and nothing true, and no matter, he seems to say. Man delights him
not, nor woman neither. He is astonished at nothing, amused by
nothing, cheered by nothing. His mind has disciplined his emotions
so effectually that they have ceased to have anything to do. He is
superior to tears or laughter, and would refuse to be surprised even
if he saw the lions by the Nelson Column suddenly stand up and roar
for their dinner. As a moderately enthusiastic person, I sympathised
with the young lady opposite about Reginald. I wished Reginald would
let himself go a bit.
But then it seemed to me that a mist passed before my vision and that
Reginald himself was sitting in the seat opposite talking to a friend
about Pamela. He liked Pamela very much, he said, but really her
gush got on his nerves. She was always on her top note. Everything
was most frightfully good or most awfully jolly or most hideously
bad. Why couldn't people express themselves reasonably and use words
with some respect for their meaning? He wished someone would tell
Pam not to shriek every time she opened her mouth. It was such a
pity, because she really had a pretty mouth and was a nice girl.
And hearing (imaginatively) Reginald's view of the matter, I was
bound to admit that he had a case too. For I share his dislike of
these extravagances of speech with which our Pamelas express the
warmth of their feelings and the poverty of their minds. I should
like to remind Pamela of the caution which Johnson gave to Boswell.
He had accompanied Bozzy to Harwich to see him embark for Utrecht. I
happened to say, says Boswell, it would be terrible if he should not
find a speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be confined in
so dull a place.
"Johnson: Don't, sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little
matters. It would _not_ be _terrible_, though I _were_ to be
detained some time here."
It may have occurred to Boswell that Johnson was hardly the person to
rebuke the use of big words; but though Johnson loved long words he
did not use wrong words. His sin was not the hysteria of speech, but
the pedantry of speech. He liked the fine clothes of language and
dressed his thoughts up in full-bottomed wig and ruffles. It was a
curious weakness for so great a man whose natural expression was
always simple and vigorous. His big words were an after-thought of
the pedant imposed on the brief, energetic utterance that was natural
to him, as when commenting on some work he said that it "had not wit
enough to keep it sweet" and then, pulling himself together, blunted
the edge of that swift, keen criticism by saying that "it had not
vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction." But though
Johnson's big words blurred his thought, they did not misrepresent
it. They deprived it of force, but not of precision. His rebuke to
Boswell was in regard to the extravagance of the word for the
occasion. It would have been annoying or inconvenient to be kept at
Harwich, but it would not have been terrible.
But the modern habit is not a mere matter of excess, as in the case
of Boswell. In the attempt to be emphatic, Pamela murders speech.
If you pass her the mustard, she says "Thanks, awfully." If she has
enjoyed her game of tennis, she says it has been "awfully jolly," and
if she approves of a book, she declares it to be "frightfully good."
I am old enough to remember when this verbal atrocity began to be
used, and I have lived to see it become the accepted coinage of a
certain kind of conversation. It began as a piece of affectation,
and has ended as a desolating vulgarity.
I do not think that Reginald wants Pamela to be less enthusiastic.
He only wants her to preserve some proportion in regard to things.
He feels as Jamie Soutar, of Drumtochty, in Ian Maclaren's story,
felt. Jamie had "a gift o' discreemination," and was distressed by
the purple adjectives of Mr. Hopps, the little Cockney. When Mr.
Hopps raved about the sunset, Jamie observed that it was "no bad."
"No bad!" said Mr. Hopps. "I call it glorious, and if it hisn't,
then I'd like to know what his."
"Man," replied Soutar austerely, "ye'll surely keep ae word for the
21st o' Reevelation."
Had any native used such words as "magnificent" in Drumtochty there
would have been an uneasy feeling in the glen; the man must be
suffering from wind in the head, and might upset the rotation of
crops, sowing his young grass after potatoes, or replacing turnip
with beet.
Reginald would not expect Pamela to put so harsh a bridle as this
upon her tongue. He would only suggest that she should be sparing of
her superlatives and her enthusiasm, so that when she used them they
conveyed some sort of meaning and some sense of value. And probably
Pamela would find that in curing herself she had cured Reginald. He
would let himself "go" a little more if she let herself "go" a little
less. For his iciness is probably an attempt to moderate her
tropical fervour.