Impressions of England

A Letter from London Attempting to Do for the English OS We Have Been Done by Them

STEPHEN LEACOCK

HE EDITOR.

Esteemed Sir:

You will remember that, before my departure for England, you made a proposal, as honourable to you as it was lucrative to me. You suggested that I should, on my arrival here, forward you at once my impressions of England, and promised that every impression I received should be paid for immediately in American money.

I was delighted to enter into this idea, and had every expectation of obtaining impressions with the greatest rapidity. I think I was justified in this expectation when I consider with what ease impressions are received on our side of the water. I remember that Hugh Walpole said that he could hardly walk down Broadway without getting at least three dollars' worth, and on Fifth Avenue six dollars' worth. Mr. Chesterton seemed to get all the impressions he wanted simply by sitting in the hotel corridor and looking into his hat. And I recollect that St. John Ervine came up to my house in Montreal, drank a cup of tea, borrowed some tobacco, and got away with about sixty dollars' worth of impressions of Canadian life and character.

How to be Impressed

NOW how these fellows do it I don't know. It may be that we are too easy on the American side of the Atlantic. We give off these impressions too freely. We seem to emit them all the time like radium rays, and clever people like Hugh Walpole come and scrape them up and sell them.

But however it is, Honoured Sir, I regret very deeply to say that I don't get any at all over here. I have received in three weeks no impression whatever. I don't seem to be able to. I have put myself into an attitude as alert as possible; I keep my mind a perfect blank —a thing that comes easy to me—but it doesn't work. I hope that it is not stupidity on my part, but I really do not notice anything particular or unusual over here. The people seem so like ourselves; they eat food, they wear clothes; they talk English—not so good as ours, but still English.

There are of course a lot of little things that one sees, but you can hardly call them impressions. I observe, for example, that they keep the ten commandments, but not the Eighteenth Amendment. I notice everywhere people drinking beer, but would you call that an impression? It seems to me a fact. Still, if you are willing to call it an impression, please put it into our account.

You remember that you suggested that I should cable you at once, from the ship if possible, 1,000 words on English life and character. The English visitors always do that to us as soon as they land, and it seemed reasonable that I should work it back on them. I am sorry to say that I failed. Somehow I couldn't get it. To tell the truth I didn't notice any particular character when I landed at Liverpool. I haven't yet. I mean to say, I saw a lot of customs men, and policemen, and porters, and taxi men—but character—how do you get it? It absolutely beats me. And yet these clever English literary men seem to come over and pick it off us like huckleberries. It's my opinion that we give our character away too easily. We must go round talking like boobs or they wouldn't get it.

You will recall also that you proposed that I should say something about work and unemployment and the food problem. "Are these people," you asked in your impressive way, "being fed ?" I have looked up this question, and I answer as far as I can tell from the people I have seen, that they are. I have seen a great many people here, some that you know, and others—I have seen Ian Hay, and Cyril Maude, and Sir James Barrie, oh, a lot of them, indeed most of the writers and actors, and they all seem well fed, and warmly, if not richly, dressed. I see no signs of distress among them. Martin Harvey and Forbes Robertson both have new overcoats this month—in fact, all the writers and artists will get through this winter without help. I take for granted that if they can live, the other classes can. If this is an impression make the most of it.

You askeFme, too, about the thought of the people. What you said, leaning far over your desk and reaching out into the air was, "What is in the minds of these people?" "Are they" —you added half to yourself, though I heard you—"are they thinking?" To which I only, can reply that I don't think they are. I say this with some assurance because I made a special investigation into this matter, so as to compare our trans-Atlantic thought with what

I had intended to call the mind of England. On the day of leaving New York I looked all through our daily press and I noticed the topics that seemed to be absorbing us. They gave me what I proposed to call "The Mind of America." This last phrase I had thought out by myself. I felt sure that you would buy it.

I regret to say that this idea also has failed. Let me explain. In New York I found, by looking up all the headings in the papers, that the principal topics, the bigger things in our American minds were:

1. Do Chorus Girls Make Good Wives?

2. Is Red Hair a Sign of Temperament?

3. Can a Woman Be in Love With Two Men?

4. Is Fat a Sign of Genius?

As soon as I got to London I made a similar list of all the big things that the people are thinking of, and it ran:

1. Do Chorus Girls Marry Well?

2. What is Red Hair a Sign Of?

3. Can a Man Be in Love With Two Women?

4. Is Genius a Sign of Fat?

Looking over these lists I think it is better to present them without comment. I feel sure that somewhere or other in them one should detect the heart-throbs, the pulsations of two great peoples.

But I don't get it.

The Brilliant Set

YOU also advised me to mingle, at your expense, in the brilliant intellectual life of England. There, you said, is a coterie of men, probably the most brilliant group east of the Mississippi (I think you said the Mississippi). "You will find them," you said to me, "brilliant, witty, filled with repartee." You suggested that I should send you back, as far as words could express it, some of this brilliance. I am very glad to be able to do this, although I fear that the results are not all that you anticipate. Still, I have held conversations with these people and I can give you the result. Sir James Barrie said, "This is really very exceptional weather for this time of year." Cyril Maude said, "And so a Martini cocktail is merely gin and vermouth." Ian Hay said, "You'll find the Underground ever so handy once you understand it."

I have a lot more of these repartees that I can send you if you like. But I doubt whether you want them. Indeed, to tell the truth, these people seem to say just the same things that we do all the time.

In fact, though I know you won't like my saying it—I think that this whole business of trans-Atlantic contrasts has been worked to death. These people are just the same kind of decent people that we are; and not really different at all.

I hear them talking over here about an idea which they call Anglo-American Union. Have you heard it mentioned in New York? If it comes up, do push it along. Believe me, there's a lot in it.

STEPHEN LEACOCK.

P.S. Don't forget that it was to be seventyfive cents for each impression.