unearths some literary gems.
From The Emily Emmins Papers, by Carolyn Wells:
***
And so, as I, Emily Emmins, spinster, have the full courage of my own convictions, I found myself one crisp April morning walking happily along the lower portion of Broadway. Impulse urged me on toward the Battery, but, as often happens, my impulse was side-tracked. And all because of a woman’s smiling face. I was passing the offices of the various steamship companies, and I saw, coming down the steps of one of them, a young woman whose countenance was positively glorified with joy. I couldn’t resist a second glance at her, and I saw that both her hands were filled with circulars and booklets.
It required no clairvoyance to understand the situation; she had just bought her first ticket to Europe, and it was the glorious achievement of a lifelong desire. I knew, as well as if she had told me, how she had planned and economized for it, and probably studied all sorts of text-books that she might properly enjoy her trip, and make it an education as well as a pleasure. And as I looked at the gay-colored pamphlets she clutched, I was moved to go in and acquire a few for myself.
With Emily Emmins, to incline is to proceed; so I stepped blithely into the big light office and requested booklets. They were bestowed on me in large numbers, the affable clerk was most polite, and,—well, I’m sure I don’t know how it happened, but the first thing I knew I was paying a deposit on my return ticket to Liverpool.
I may as well confess, at the outset, that I am of a chameleonic nature. I not only take color from my surroundings, but reflect manners and customs as accurately and easily as a mirror. And so, in that great, business-like office, with its maps and charts and time-tables and steamer plans, the only possible thing to do seemed to be to buy my ticket, and I did so.
***
Another letter left me hesitating as to whether my proposed journey was advisable after all. This letter was from the Elsinore Travel Bureau, and explained how, by the purchase of a new-fangled stereoscope and innumerable sets of “views,” one could get far more satisfaction out of a European trip by staying at home than by going abroad. “So real are the scenes,” the circular assured me, “that one involuntarily stretches out a hand to grasp what isn’t there.” Surely, realism need go no farther than that; yet some over-exacting people might demand that the grasped-for thing should be there.
***
But, being amiable, I smiled pleasantly on all, agreed with each adviser, and held my peace. For, to me, preliminaries mattered little, and I knew that as soon as I was fairly at sea, or at least beyond the three-mile limit, I could make my own plans, and carry them out without let or hindrance.
***
The only points that seemed to be impressed on my mind were that, in London parlance, “Thank you” invariably means either “Yes” or “No” (nobody seemed quite sure which), and that in England one must always call a telephone a lift.
***
Suddenly it occurred to me that I was receiving “first impressions.” How I hated the term! Every one I knew, who had ever crossed the ocean before I did, had said to me, “And you’ve never been over before? Oh, how I envy you your first impressions!”
As I realized that about seventy-nine people were even then consumed with a burning envy of these first impressions of mine, I somehow felt it incumbent upon me to justify their attitude by achieving the most intensely enviable impressions extant.
***
[I recommend the illustration called "Portrait of Jane Sterling" (which the text in proximity to it will explain).]
***
Although beatifically serene and abnormally good-natured, I felt an utter aversion to exertion of any kind, mental, moral, or physical. Even the thought of studying my fellow-travellers seemed a task too arduous to contemplate.
And so I sat there all the morning and not a fellow-traveller was studied.
“This won’t do,” I said to myself, severely, after luncheon. “Here you are, not a hint of sea-sickness, the day is perfect, you know how to adjust your rug, and all conditions are favorable. You must study your fellow-travellers.”
But the afternoon showed little improvement on the morning. As a result of desperate effort, I scrutinized one lady and decided to call her the Lady with the Green Bag.
It wasn’t a very clever characterization, but it was, at least, founded on fact.
Another I conscientiously contemplated, and finally dubbed her the Lady Who Isn’t an Actress. This was rather a negative description, but I based it on the neatness of her vanity-bag and the carelessness of her belt, and I am sure it was true.
***
“Now listen, Miss Emmins. I think you’re delightful, and I’m going to help you all I can by not advising you.
***
But the word green, as we say it in our haste, is utterly inadequate to apply to the color of the English landscape. Though of varying shades, it is always green to the nth power; it is a saturated solution of green; it is a green that sinks into the eye with a sensation of indelibility.
***
She described the home he had just built for her in Chicago, and it seemed to be a sort of Liberal Arts Building set in the last scene of a comic opera.
***
“What London do you want to use?” asked Mr. Travers, interestedly. “You know there are many Londons for the entertainment of visitors. We can give you the Baedeker London, or Dickens’s London, or Stevenson’s London, or Bernard Shaw’s London, or Whistler’s London——”
“Or our own W. D. Howells’s London,” I finished, as he paused in his catalogue.
“I think,” I went on, “the London I want is a composite affair, and I shall compile it as I go along. You know Browning says ‘The world is made for each of us,’ and so I think there’s a London made for each of us, and we have only to pick it out from among the myriad others.”
“That’s quite true,” said Mrs. Travers. “You’ll be using, do you see, many bits of those Londons mentioned, but combining them in such a way as to make an individual London all your own.”
The prospect delighted me, and I mentally resolved to build up such a London as never was on land or sea.
***
“What waggery!” observed Mrs. Travers, in a calm, unamused tone, and I suddenly realized that I was in the midst of an English sense of humor.
***
We discussed the English tendency to elide letters or syllables from their proper names, falling back on the time-worn example of the American who complained that Englishmen spell a name B-e-a-u-c-h-a-m-p and pronounce it Chumley.
“But it’s better for an American,” said Mr. Travers, “to pronounce a name as it is spelled than to elide at his own sweet will. I met a Chicagoan last summer, who said he intended to run out to Win’c’s’le.”
“What did he mean?” I asked, in my ignorance.
“Windsor Castle,” replied Mr. Travers, gravely.
***
In all my life, my waking hours had never reached three o’clock A.M., from either direction, and when, on the first morning after my arrival in London, I was awakened at that hour by a gently intrusive daybreak, I felt as if I had received a personal and intentional affront.
***
At about seven o’clock the omnibuses began to ply. I had never known before what was indicated by the verb to ply. But I saw at once that it is the only word that properly expresses the peculiar gait of an omnibus, which is a cross between a rolling lurch and a lumbering wobble. Fascination is a mild term for the effect these things had on me.
One omnibus might not so enthrall me. I don’t know; I have never seen one omnibus alone. But the procession of them along Piccadilly is the one thing on earth of which I cannot conceive myself becoming tired.
Their color, form, motion, and sound all partake of the primeval, and their continuity of effect is eternal.
My Baedeker tells me that the first omnibuses plying in London were “much heavier and clumsier than those now in use.” But of course this is a mistake, for they couldn’t have been.
I have heard that tucked away among the gay-colored advertisements that are patchworked all over these moving Mammoth Caves are small and neatly-lettered signs designating destinations. I do not know this. I have never been able to find them. But it doesn’t matter. To get to Hampstead Heath, you take a Bovril; to go to the City, take Carter’s Ink; and to get anywhere in a hurry, jump on a Horlick’s Malted Milk.
[...]
I always feared that, if I got in or on one, I couldn’t see the rest of them as a whole. And it is the unbroken continuity that, after the coloring, is their greatest charm.
[later]
The ocean may be wider,—the Flatiron Building may be taller,—but there’s nothing in all the world so big as a London omnibus.
[Cf. Jeremy Edwards:
Over Millicent’s shoulder, a stream of taxis—apparently perpetual while the green lights reigned—evoked the infinite scope of the city.
She followed my gaze. “Have you ever imagined that as soon as they disappear beyond the horizon, they dip under the island and loop back around? It could be the same fifty taxis, over and over.”]
***
And as I trod, I suddenly found myself in Curzon Street. This was a pleasant sensation, for did I not well know the name of Curzon Street from all the English novels I had ever read? Moreover, I knew that in one of its houses Lord Beaconsfield died, and in another the Duke of Marlborough lived. The detail of knowing which house was which possessed no interest for me.
[...]
Attracted by the name of Half-Moon Street, I left Curzon Street for it. Shelley once lived in this street, and I selected three houses any one of which might have been his home.
***
Though I expected to shop in London, there was only one article that I was really anxious to buy. This was a jade cube. For many years I had longed for a jade cube, and American experts had contented themselves with stating there was no such thing in existence. Time after time, I had begged friends who were going to the ends of the earth to bring me back a jade cube from one of the ends, but none had accomplished my errand.
***
An English telephone is a contradiction in terms. If it is in England, it isn’t a telephone. It is a thing that looks something like a broken ox-yoke, that is manipulated something like a trombone, and is about as effectual as the Keeley Motor.
A course of lessons is necessary to learn to use one, but the lessons are wasted, as the instrument is invariably out of order, and moreover, nobody has one, anyhow.
But one morning, before I had discovered all this, I was summoned to the telephone booth of the Pantheon Club, and blithely grasped the cumbersome affair, with its receiver on one end and its transmitter on the other. I ignorantly held it wrong end to, but that made no difference, as it wouldn’t work either way.
[Illustration recommendation: “Grawsp it stiffer, M’am.” Ooh-er! I like to imagine the author and illustrator did this knowingly, and I think it's quite possible, all things considered.]
***
I had not intended to plunge into the social whirl so soon, and had declined all the many invitations which had come to me by mail.
But somehow the telephone invitation took me unawares, and, too, I was so pleased to succeed in getting the message at all that it seemed ungracious and ungrateful to refuse.
***
The London hostess’s invariable mode of procedure is a sudden, inordinate gush of welcome, followed immediately by an icy stare. By the time you have politely responded to the welcome, your hostess has forgotten your existence. Nay, more, she seems almost to have forgotten her own. She is vague, self-absorbed, and quite oblivious of your existence. I have heard of a lady with a gracious presence. The London hostess is best described by a gracious absence.
But having adapted yourself to this condition, your hostess is likely to whirl about and dart a remark or a question at you.
***
“A well-bred Englishwoman,” my hostess dictatorially observed, “never talks of herself. She tactfully makes the person to whom she is talking the subject of conversation.”
“But,” said I, “if the person to whom she is talking is also well-bred, he must reject that subject, and tactfully talk about the first speaker. This must bring about a deadlock.”
***
Moreover, at English afternoon teas there are two rules. One is you may not speak to a fellow-guest without an introduction. The other is that no introduction is necessary between guests of the house. One of these rules is always inflexibly enforced at every tea; but the casual guest never knows which one, and so complications ensue.
