I do not see why we hear that the Englishman is deficient in a sense of
humour. His jokes may not be a matter of daily food to him, as they are
to the American; he may not love whimsicality with the same passion, nor
inhale the aroma of a witticism with as keen a relish; but he likes fun
whenever he sees it, and he sees it as often as most people. It may
be that we find the Englishman more receptive to our bits of feminine
nonsense just now, simply because this is the day of the American
woman in London, and, having been assured that she is an entertaining
personage, young John Bull is willing to take it for granted so long as
she does not try to marry him, and even this pleasure he will allow her
on occasion,--if well paid for it.
The longer I live, the more I feel it an absurdity to label nations with
national traits, and then endeavour to make individuals conform to the
required standard. It is possible, I suppose, to draw certain broad
distinctions, though even these are subject to change; but the habit of
generalising from one particular, that mainstay of the cheap and obvious
essayist, has rooted many fictions in the public mind. Nothing,
for instance, can blot from my memory the profound, searching, and
exhaustive analysis of a great nation which I learned in my small
geography when I was a child, namely, 'The French are a gay and polite
people, fond of dancing and light wines.'
One young Englishman whom I have met lately errs on the side of
over-appreciation. He laughs before, during, and after every remark
I make, unless it be a simple request for food or drink. This is an
acquaintance of Willie Beresford, the Honourable Arthur Ponsonby,
who was the 'whip' on our coach drive to Dorking,--dear, delightful,
adorable Dorking, of hen celebrity.
Salemina insisted on my taking the box seat, in the hope that the
Honourable Arthur would amuse me. She little knew him! He sapped me
of all my ideas, and gave me none in exchange. Anything so unspeakably
heavy I never encountered. It is very difficult for a woman who doesn't
know a nigh horse from an off one, nor the wheelers from the headers (or
is it the fronters?), to find subjects of conversation with a gentleman
who spends three-fourths of his existence on a coach. It was the more
difficult for me because I could not decide whether Willie Beresford was
cross because I was devoting myself to the whip, or because Francesca
had remained at home with a headache. This state of affairs continued
for about fifteen miles, when it suddenly dawned upon the Honourable
Arthur that, however mistaken my speech and manner, I was trying to be
agreeable. This conception acted on the honest and amiable soul like
magic. I gradually became comprehensible, and finally he gave himself up
to the theory that, though eccentric, I was harmless and amusing, so we
got on famously,--so famously that Willie Beresford grew ridiculously
gloomy, and I decided that it could not be Francesca's headache.
The names of these English streets are a never-failing source of delight
to me. In that one morning we drove past Pie, Pudding, and Petticoat
Lanes, and later on we found ourselves in a 'Prudent Passage,' which
opened, very inappropriately, into 'Huggin Lane.' Willie Beresford said
it was the first time he had ever heard of anything so disagreeable as
prudence terminating in anything so agreeable as huggin'. When he had
been severely reprimanded by his mother for this shocking speech, I said
to the Honourable Arthur:--
“I don't understand your business signs in England,--this 'Company,
Limited,' and that 'Company, Limited.' That one, of course, is quite
plain” (pointing to the front of a building on the village street),
“'Goat's Milk Company, Limited'; I suppose they have but one or two
goats, and necessarily the milk must be Limited.”
Salemina says that this was not in the least funny, that it was
absolutely flat; but it had quite the opposite effect upon the
Honourable Arthur. He had no command over himself or his horses for some
minutes; and at intervals during the afternoon the full felicity of
the idea would steal upon him, and the smile of reminiscence would flit
across his ruddy face.
The next day, at the Eton and Harrow games at Lord's cricket-ground, he
presented three flowers of British aristocracy to our party, and asked
me each time to tell the goat-story, which he had previously told
himself, and probably murdered in the telling. Not content with
this arrant flattery, he begged to be allowed to recount some of my
international episodes to a literary friend who writes for Punch. I
demurred decidedly, but Salemina said that perhaps I ought to be
willing to lower myself a trifle for the sake of elevating Punch! This
home-thrust so delighted the Honourable Arthur that it remained his
favourite joke for days, and the overworked goat was permitted to enjoy
that oblivion from which Salemina insists it should never have emerged.