Читать книгу The Age of Scandal - T. H. White - Страница 14

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The learned, elegant, but at the same time vigorous attitude to every facet of life had been shadowed forth by the gossips and cranks like Lord Hervey under the earlier Georges: it reached its height with Walpole: and persisted at least during the lifetime of Lord Byron—a lord, incidentally, who sorts rather oddly with the ‘romantics’ to whom he is usually assigned—whose forte was on the contrary in satire, whose letters were among the best of his works, who detested the shoddy raptures of Keats, who said of Horace Walpole, ‘my aristocracy, which is very fierce, makes him a favourite of mine’—and the destruction of whose memoirs, by the pseudo-poet Moore, was one of the major tragedies of anecdotal literature.

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Such was the cultural and scientific background to a period which has long proved fascinating to romantic novelists like Baroness Orczy, to film producers and to producers of musical comedy. But it would be amusing to notice the reactions of a film producer, if he could really be moved into the Age of Scandal by a time machine.

For one thing, he would probably find some difficulty in understanding what was said to him. The difference in accent between a duke of the 1950s and a duke of the 1750s would be at least as great as the difference between a Cockney accent and a Devonshire one now. Rhymes which were perfect in those days have become what they call ‘eye-rhymes’ today, so that it is possible to reconstruct from them something of the way in which people once spoke. Everybody knows that ‘tea’ was pronounced ‘tay’. ‘Spoil’ rhymed with ‘mile’.

Sally, Sally, don’t deny,

But for God’s sake tell me why

You have flirted so to spoil

That once lovely youth, Carlisle?

It is curious [wrote Samuel Rogers] how fashion changes pronunciation. In my youth everybody said ‘Lonnon’, not ‘London’. Fox said ‘Lonnon’ to the last; and so did Crowe. The now fashionable pronunciation of several words is to me at least very offensive: ‘cóntemplate’ is bad enough; but ‘bálcony’ makes me sick.

The Prince Regent [according to Gronow] still said ‘Obleege’ for ‘oblige’, though this pronunciation was becoming unfashionable. John Kemble, who was teaching him elocution, exclaimed with exasperation ‘Sir, may I beseech your Royal Highness to open your Royal jaws and say ‘oblige’?’

Surnames as well as place-names received a different inflection. Mrs. Thrale would have called Lord Byron ‘Bǐron’ and Horace Walpole pronounced Stowe to rhyme with ‘plough’.

A producer who ventured into the past, in fact, might have been invited to drink tay on the balcóny with Lord Bǐron, where he would have been obleeged to contémplate the unspiled agrémens of Lonnon.

One of the earliest existing phonograph records is of a speech by Gladstone, who stands half-way between ourselves and the eighteenth century. It sounds already like a music-hall imitation of a comic clergyman. In the Age of Scandal itself, it seems reasonably certain that people spoke even more slowly, even more oratorically, with even more pauses for mental punctuation between the concessive clauses. They certainly read more slowly.

Another surprise for the producer would have lain in the matter of attitude. For a gentleman in Walpole’s period was judged not only by his accent but also by his deportment, as if he were a ballet. It was literally true that a gentleman had to move in a stylized way. George III complained that Lord Liverpool’s ‘motions were never very graceful’. The fat Bubb-Doddington, when created Lord Melcombe, was found ‘before a looking glass in his new robes, practising attitudes and debating with himself upon the most graceful mode of carrying his coronet’. (Unfortunately, on being presented to Queen Charlotte, his breeches ‘in the act of kneeling down, forgot their duty, and broke lose from their moorings in a very indecorous manner’.)

Books like The Dancing Master mentioned by M. Delahaute provided ‘the Rules required for walking, saluting and making bows in all kinds of company’, with a chapter entitled ‘How to take off your Hat and replace it’. Frenilly ‘took a month’s course of instruction from the celebrated Petit, at twelve francs a lesson’, in order to learn how to introduce himself to a ‘circle’. ‘It was by no means an inferior science to know how to enter a drawing-room in which some thirty ladies and gentlemen were sitting in a circle round the fire, with both assurance and grace; to penetrate this circle and to make a slight inclination as you walked round it; to make your way to your hostess, and to retire with dignity and without ruffling your fine clothes, for you were dressed in lace, and your hair was dressed in thirty-six curls, all powdered; you were carrying your hat under your arm, your sword reached to your heels, and you were armed with a huge muff, the smallest being two and a half feet wide!’ They moved, said Gronow, ‘with a studied dignity of posture’. The Marquis of Abercorn, though this was more a matter of etiquette than of posture, was ‘stated to have always gone out shooting in his Blue Ribbon, and to have required his housemaids to wear white kid gloves when they made his bed’.

Food and drink, from the enormous quantity in which they were consumed, would have been another of the surprises for a modern mind, and there would have been a hundred lesser reasons to raise the eyebrows. For instance, the people themselves were smaller than we are. ‘The increase in the height of our countrymen’, wrote Miss Hawkins in 1822, ‘attests the superior good sense with which children are now reared.’ ‘From a study of the dresses that do remain’, writes an authority on clothes, ‘we may form the opinion that men and women were on the whole smaller than they are today, the women slighter in build and the men more stocky.’ A Duchess of Rutland must surely have been very slight, when she could compress her waist into the size of an orange and a half.

For the rest, the eye would be taken by scattered curiosities. Peas were correctly eaten with a knife Forks had only three prongs. There were no dessert spoons. The games of ombre, picquet, basset, whisk, brag and lanterloo at which they gambled were played with cards whose Kings, Queens and Knaves had feet.

Throughout England [wrote the son of the duc de Liancourt in 1784] it is the custom to breakfast together, the meal resembling a dinner or supper in France. The commonest breakfast hour is 9 o’clock and by that time the ladies are fully dressed with their hair properly done for the day. Breakfast consists of tea and bread and butter in various forms. In the houses of the rich you have coffee, chocolate and so on. The morning newspapers are on the table and those who want to do so, read them during breakfast, so that the conversation is not of a lively nature. At 10 o’clock or 10.30 each member of the party goes off on his own pursuit—hunting, fishing or walking. So the day passes till 4 o’clock but at 4 o’clock precisely you must present yourself in the drawing-room with a great deal more ceremony than we are accustomed to in France. This sudden change of social manners is quite astonishing and I was deeply struck by it. In the morning you come down in riding-boots and a shabby coat, you sit where you like, you behave exactly as if you were by yourself, no one takes any notice of you, and it is all extremely comfortable. But in the evening, unless you have just arrived, you must be well-washed and well-groomed. The standard of politeness is uncomfortably high—strangers go first into the dining-room and sit near the hostess and are served in seniority in accordance with a rigid etiquette. In fact for the first few days I was tempted to think that it was done for a joke.

Dinner is one of the most wearisome of English experiences, lasting, as it does, for four or five hours. The first two are spent in eating and you are compelled to exercise your stomach to the full in order to please your host. He asks you the whole time whether you like the food and presses you to eat more, with the result that, out of pure politeness, I do nothing but eat from the time that I sit down until the time when I get up from the table.

The courses are much the same as in France except that the use of sauce is unknown in the English kitchen and that one seldom sees a ragout. All the dishes consist of various meats either boiled or roasted and of joints weighing about twenty or thirty pounds.

After the sweets, you are given water in small bowls of very clean glass in order to rinse out your mouth—a custom which strikes me as extremely unfortunate. The more fashionable folk do not rinse out their mouths, but that seems to me even worse; for if you use the water to wash your hands, it becomes dirty and quite disgusting. This ceremony over, the cloth is removed and you behold the most beautiful table that it is possible to see. It is indeed remarkable that the English are so much given to the use of mahogany; not only are their tables generally made of it, but also their doors and seats and the handrails of their staircases. Yet it is just as dear in England as in France. It is a matter which I do not pretend to understand, but I am inclined to think that the English must be richer than we are; certainly I have myself observed not only that everything costs twice as much here as in France but that the English seize every opportunity to use things which are expensive in themselves. At all events, their tables are made of the most beautiful wood and always have a brilliant polish like that of the finest glass. After the removal of the cloth, the table is covered with all kinds of wine, for even gentlemen of modest means always keep a large stock of good wine. On the middle of the table there is a small quantity of fruit, a few biscuits (to stimulate thirst) and some butter, for many English people take it at dessert.

At this point all the servants disappear. The ladies drink a glass or two of wine and at the end of half an hour all go out together. It is then that real enjoyment begins—there is not an Englishman who is not supremely happy at this particular moment. One proceeds to drink—sometimes in an alarming measure. Everyone has to drink in his turn, for the bottles make a continuous circuit of the table and the host takes note that everyone is drinking in his turn. After this has gone on for some time and when thirst has become an inadequate reason for drinking, a fresh stimulus is supplied by the drinking of ‘toasts’, that is to say, the host begins by giving the name of a lady; he drinks to her health and everyone is obliged to do likewise. After the host someone else gives a toast and everyone drinks to the health of everyone else’s lady. Then each member of the party names some man and the whole ceremony begins again. If more drinking is required, fresh toasts are always ready to hand; politics can supply plenty—one drinks to the health of Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox or Lord North ... This is the time that I like best: Conversation is as free as it can be, everyone expresses his political opinions with as much frankness as he would employ upon personal subjects. Sometimes conversation becomes extremely free upon highly indecent topics—complete licence is allowed and I have come to the conclusion that the English do not associate the same ideas with certain words that we do. Very often I have heard things mentioned in good society which would be in the grossest taste in France. The sideboard too is furnished with a number of chamber pots and it is a common practice to relieve oneself whilst the rest are drinking; one has no kind of concealment and the practice strikes me as most indecent.

At the end of two or three hours a servant announces that tea is ready and conducts the gentlemen from their drinking to join the ladies in the drawing-room, where they are usually employed in making tea and coffee. After making tea, one generally plays whist, and at midnight there is cold meat for those who are hungry. While the game is going on, there is punch on a table for those who want it.

I have entered into these details of my experiences at Euston, where I stayed with the Duke of Grafton, because the manner of life is the same throughout England and the English manner being very different from our own, some details concerning it may be of interest.

In the short time that has elapsed between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, a physiological change has taken place in the human body. It has not only grown bigger, but it also moves itself faster—not merely by mechanical means, but of itself. It changes its positions faster—no ‘studied gestures’—runs faster—as one can see by looking at athletic records—boxes faster—for the endless rounds of an eighteenth century match often had only one blow really delivered—speaks faster, reads faster and even eats faster. The eighteenth century managed to eat so much more than we do because it ate more slowly. It could drink more, by drinking all night. Old Lady Dorothy Nevill, who was born in the reign of George IV, survived to complain in 1910 because ‘everything is served at such lightning speed that it is as much as one can do to swallow the few mouthfuls called dinner before one’s plate has been snatched away. The whole system of these hurried modern meals is uncomfortable and unhealthy’. It would be interesting to find out whether the pulse rate has gone up.