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A Straight Deal-Part15_Owen Wister(1860-1938)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Universities, and their great London, the one eternal focus of them all,

both the chance of diversity in social customs and the tolerance of it



must be far less than in our huge unfocused country. With us, Boston, New

York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, is each a centre. Here you



can pronounce the word calm, for example, in one way or another, and it

merely indicates where you come from. Departure in England from certain



established pronunciations has another effect.

"Of course," said one of my friends, "one knows where to place anybody



who says 'girl'" (pronouncing it as it is spelled).

"That's frightful," said I, "because I say 'girl'."



"Oh, but you are an American. It doesn't apply."

But had I been English, it would have been something like coming to



dinner without your collar.

That is why I think that, had my friend in the train begun his question



about the buildings by saying that he was an American, the answer would

have been different. Not all the English yet, but many more than there



were fifty or even twenty years ago, have ceased to apply their rules to

us.



About 1874 a friend of mine from New York was taken to a London Club.

Into the room where he was came the Prince of Wales, who took out a



cigar, felt for and found no matches, looked about, and there was a

silence. My friend thereupon produced matches, struck one, and offered it



to the Prince, who bowed, thanked him, lighted his cigar, and resently" target="_blank" title="ad.不久；目前">presently

went away.



Then an Englishman observed to my friend: "It's not the thing for a

commoner to offer a light to the Prince."



"I'm not a commoner, I'm an American," said my friend with perfect good

nature.



Whatever their rule may be to-day about the Prince and matches, as to us

they have come to accept my friend's pertinent distinction: they don't



expect us to keep or even to know their own set of rules.

Indeed, they surpass us in this, they make more allowances for us than we



for them. They don't criticize Americans for not being English. Americans

still constantly" target="_blank" title="ad.经常地；不断地">constantly do criticize the English for not being Americans. Now,



the measure in which you don't allow for the customs of another country

is the measure of your own provincialism. I have heard some of our own



soldiers express dislike of the English because of their coldness. The

English are not cold; they are silent upon certain matters. But it is all



there. Do you remember that sailor at Zeebrugge carrying the unconscious

body of a comrade to safety, not sure yet if he were alive or dead, and



stroking that comrade's head as he went, saying over and over, "Did you

think I would leave yer?" We are more demonstrative, we spell things out



which it is the way of the English to leave between the lines. But it is

all there! Behind that unconciliating wall of shyness and reserve, beats



and hides the warm, loyal British heart, the most constant heart in the

world.



"It isn't done."

That phrase applies to many things in England besides offering a light to



the Prince, or asking a fellow traveler what those buildings are; and I

think that the Englishman's notion of his right to privacy lies at the



bottom of quite a number of these things. You may lay some of them to

snobbishness, to caste, to shyness, they may have various secondary



origins; but I prefer to cover them all with the broader term, the right

to privacy, because it seems philosophically to account for them and



explain them.

In May, 1915, an Oxford professor was in New York. A few years before



this I had read a book of his which had delighted me. I met him at lunch,

I had not known him before. Even as we shook hands, I blurted out to him



my admiration for his book.

"Oh."



That was the whole of his reply. It made me laugh at myself, for I should

have known better. I had often been in England and could have told



anybody that you mustn't too abruptly or obviously refer to what the

other fellow does, still less to what you do yourself. "It isn't done."



It's a sort of indecent exposure. It's one of the invasions of the right

to privacy.



In America, not everywhere but in many places, a man upon entering a club

and seeing a friend across the room, will not hesitate to call out to



him, "Hullo, Jack!" or "Hullo, George!" or whatever. In England "it

isn't done." The greeting would be conveyed by a short nod or a glance.



To call out a man's name across a room full of people, some of whom may

be total strangers, invades his privacy and theirs. Have you noticed how,



in our Pullman parlor cars, a party sitting together, generally young

women, will shriek their conversation in a voice that bores like a gimlet






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