1936 On the Continent

Augier where the stage-direction runs “
Enter the Guests.
” Even in the country, after long journeys, everybody is punctual. I have seen a Frenchman arriving at a remote country house, after a whole morning on the road, two minutes late for his invitation for half-past one. His hostess addressed him kindly but sternly: “We were beginning to be anxious.…”
    How do the English manage this? How do they allow for the inevitable traffic delays in the heart of London? It is my belief that they give themselves an ample margin of time, and just wait if they are early. They tell the chauffeur to drive round two or three streets until the exact moment. If they are on foot they walk up and down the pavement. The servants are living chronometers. A guest who rings the bell at twenty-seven minutes past $$$-8 is kept waiting for a moment, receives a chilling look from the butler, and inconveniences his hostess, who has not quite finished dressing. At eight twenty-eight, in the mansions of Belgravia, the footmen unroll the druggets down the steps and take up their stance behind the partly opened doors.
    The corollary is that nobody waits for the latecomer. After five minutes it is assumed that they have either forgotten or died. Otherwise they would be punctual. I once completely forgot a luncheon engagement, and next day, in great embarrassment, I went to apologise to my hostess.
    “At any rate,” I said, “I hope you didn’t wait?”
    “Wait!” she exclaimed in surprise. “Why, I never wait for anybody!”
    Next to punctuality, the most dangerous of English vices, and one that will cause most suffering to your lazy flesh, is letter-writing. I do not mean correspondence between friends; still less do I mean sentimental correspondence; both of these compensate with lovely delights for the trouble they cause. I mean the exchange of social letters. Here all human relationships are maintained by hand-written letters. You are invited to dine by letter, and you accept or decline by letter. If you have been preventedfrom going to an afternoon party (albeit three hundred other people went), you must write a letter. If you yourself entertain, the next day will bring you more letters, saying how pleasant it was, and if your courtesy is perfect you in your turn will reply that, if the evening was agreeable, it was because your correspondent was there. It is endless.
    I have seen one English woman, during a visit to the country (a charming and cheerful person too!), sitting on the lawn in the midst of numerous friends, writing scores of letters on her knee. All around her were amusing people, playing games, and eating and drinking. But she, imperturbable, abstracted, wafted by the magic of custom into the dreamlike planes of Politeness, was finishing her letters.
    “And now,” I asked her in the evening, “how long will you be free?”
    “Till to-morrow,” she answered.
    One of London’s most brilliant hostesses, by superhuman toil, has contrived a swift, looping handwriting which looks like a Persian manuscript and the plan of a scenic railway. It is delightful, but illegible, and one has to have it translated by telephone. But the law has been observed, the letter written. Another has trained a secretary to imitate her writing—a reprehensible evasion and not without its risks.
    Conversation, too, has rigid rules. General conversation at table during dinner is exceptional: a phenomenon which has been explained to me as due to the naturally low pitch of English voices, which do not carry very far. I should attribute it rather to a dislike of all affectation. To attract general attention to oneself is improper. A hundred years ago, when Lady Holland heard Lord Macaulay holding forth, to admirable effect but at too great length, she called her butler and whispered: “Go round the table and tell Lord Macaulay from me that that’s quite enough.”
    The rule is that you must deal out your conversation more or less equally between your two neighbours. Two or three times during dinner you will notice an automatic swinging of heads, to this side or that, which will deprive you of your interlocutor, sometimes, even in the middleof a sentence. Don’t be upset! Turn your own head and you will find a fresh partner already awaiting you.
    What should you talk about? Anything at all—provided you don’t ask personal questions, or show too keen an interest in literature or the arts; provided that you avoid pedantry and disguise