Penelopes English Experiences | Page 8

why we hear that the Englishman is deficient in a sense of
humour. His jokes may not be a matter of daily food to him, as they are
to the American; he may not love whimsicality with the same passion,
nor inhale the aroma of a witticism with as keen a relish; but he likes
fun whenever he sees it, and he sees it as often as most people. It may
be that we find the Englishman more receptive to our bits of feminine
nonsense just now, simply because this is the day of the American
woman in London, and, having been assured that she is an entertaining
personage, young John Bull is willing to take it for granted so long as
she does not try to marry him, and even this pleasure he will allow her
on occasion,--if well paid for it.
The longer I live, the more I feel it an absurdity to label nations with
national traits, and then endeavour to make individuals conform to the
required standard. It is possible, I suppose, to draw certain broad
distinctions, though even these are subject to change; but the habit of
generalising from one particular, that mainstay of the cheap and
obvious essayist, has rooted many fictions in the public mind. Nothing,
for instance, can blot from my memory the profound, searching, and
exhaustive analysis of a great nation which I learned in my small
geography when I was a child, namely, 'The French are a gay and polite

people, fond of dancing and light wines.'
One young Englishman whom I have met lately errs on the side of
over-appreciation. He laughs before, during, and after every remark I
make, unless it be a simple request for food or drink. This is an
acquaintance of Willie Beresford, the Honourable Arthur Ponsonby,
who was the 'whip' on our coach drive to Dorking,--dear, delightful,
adorable Dorking, of hen celebrity.
Salemina insisted on my taking the box seat, in the hope that the
Honourable Arthur would amuse me. She little knew him! He sapped
me of all my ideas, and gave me none in exchange. Anything so
unspeakably heavy I never encountered. It is very difficult for a woman
who doesn't know a nigh horse from an off one, nor the wheelers from
the headers (or is it the fronters?), to find subjects of conversation with
a gentleman who spends three-fourths of his existence on a coach. It
was the more difficult for me because I could not decide whether Willie
Beresford was cross because I was devoting myself to the whip, or
because Francesca had remained at home with a headache. This state of
affairs continued for about fifteen miles, when it suddenly dawned
upon the Honourable Arthur that, however mistaken my speech and
manner, I was trying to be agreeable. This conception acted on the
honest and amiable soul like magic. I gradually became
comprehensible, and finally he gave himself up to the theory that,
though eccentric, I was harmless and amusing, so we got on
famously,--so famously that Willie Beresford grew ridiculously gloomy,
and I decided that it could not be Francesca's headache.
The names of these English streets are a never-failing source of delight
to me. In that one morning we drove past Pie, Pudding, and Petticoat
Lanes, and later on we found ourselves in a 'Prudent Passage,' which
opened, very inappropriately, into 'Huggin Lane.' Willie Beresford said
it was the first time he had ever heard of anything so disagreeable as
prudence terminating in anything so agreeable as huggin'. When he had
been severely reprimanded by his mother for this shocking speech, I
said to the Honourable Arthur:-
"I don't understand your business signs in England,--this 'Company,

Limited,' and that 'Company, Limited.' That one, of course, is quite
plain" (pointing to the front of a building on the village street), "'Goat's
Milk Company, Limited'; I suppose they have but one or two goats, and
necessarily the milk must be Limited."
Salemina says that this was not in the least funny, that it was absolutely
flat; but it had quite the opposite effect upon the Honourable Arthur.
He had no command over himself or his horses for some minutes; and
at intervals during the afternoon the full felicity of the idea would steal
upon him, and the smile of reminiscence would flit across his ruddy
face.
The next day, at the Eton and Harrow games at Lord's cricket-ground,
he presented three flowers of British aristocracy to our party, and asked
me each time to tell the goat-story, which he had previously told
himself, and probably murdered in the telling. Not content with this
arrant flattery, he begged to be allowed to recount some of my
international episodes to a literary friend who writes for Punch. I
demurred decidedly, but Salemina