If I May by A. A. Milne

A >> A. A. Milne >> If I May

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

However, as our writer says, "we are not angels," and apparently he
thinks that it would be rather wicked of us to try to be. Perhaps he
is right.

Wedding Bells

Champagne is often pleasant at lunch, it is always delightful at
dinner, and it is an absolute necessity, if one is to talk freely
about oneself afterwards, at a dance supper. But champagne for tea is
horrible. Perhaps this is why a wedding always finds me melancholy
next morning. "She has married the wrong man," I say to myself. "I
wonder if it is too late to tell her."

The trouble of answering the invitation and of thinking of something
to give more original than a toast rack should, one feels, have its
compensations. From each wedding that I attend I expect an afternoon's
enjoyment in return for my egg stand. For one thing I have my best
clothes on. Few people have seen me in them (and these few won't
believe it), so that from the very beginning the day has a certain
freshness. It is not an ordinary day. It starts with this advantage,
that in my best clothes I am not difficult to please. The world smiles
upon me.

Once I am in church, however, my calm begins to leave me. As time
wears on, and the organist invents more and more tunes, I tremble lest
the bride has forgotten the day. The choir is waiting for her; the
bridegroom is waiting for her. I--I also--wait. What if she has
changed her mind at the last minute? But no. The organist has sailed
into his set piece; the choir advances; follows the bride looking so
lonely that I long to comfort her and remind her of my egg stand; and,
last of all, the pretty bridesmaids. The clergyman begins his drone.

You would think that, reassured by the presence of the bride, I could
be happy now. But there is still much to bother me. The bridegroom is
showing signs of having forgotten his part, the bride can't get her
glove off, one of the bridesmaids is treading on my hat. Worse than
all this, there is a painful want of unanimity among the congregation
as to when we stand up and when we sit down. Sometimes I am alone and
sitting when everybody else is standing, and that is easy to bear; but
sometimes I find myself standing when everybody else is sitting, and
that is very hard.

They have gone to the vestry. The choir sings an anthem to while away
the kissing-time, and, right or wrong, I am sitting down, comforting
my poor hat. There was a time when I, too, used to go into the vestry;
when I was something of an authority on weddings, and would attend
weekly in some minor official capacity. Any odd jobs that were going
seemed to devolve on me. If somebody was wanted suddenly to sign the
register, or kiss the bride's mother, or wind up the going-away car,
it used to be taken for granted that I was the man to do it. I wore a
white flower in my button-hole to show that I was available. I served,
I may say, in an entirely honorary capacity, except in so far as I was
expected to give the happy pair a slightly larger present than the
others. One day I happened to suggest to an intending groom that he
had other friends more ornamental, and therefore more suitable for
this sort of work, than I; to which he replied that they were all
married, and that etiquette demanded a bachelor for the business. Of
course, as soon as I heard this I got married too.

Here they come. "Doesn't she look sweet?" We hurry after them and
rush for the carriages. I am only a friend of the bridegroom's;
perhaps I had better walk.

It must be very easy to be a guest at a wedding reception, where each
of the two clans takes it for granted that all the extraordinary
strangers belong to the other clan. Indeed, nobody with one good suit,
and a stomach for champagne and sandwiches, need starve in London. He
or she can wander safely in wherever a red carpet beckons. I suppose I
must put in an appearance at this reception, but if I happen to pass
another piece of carpet on the way to the house, and the people going
in seem more attractive than our lot, I shall be tempted to join them.

This is, perhaps, the worst part of the ceremony, this three hundred
yards or so from the hymn-sheets to the champagne. All London is now
gazing at my old top-hat. When the war went on and on and on, and it
seemed as though it were going on for ever, I looked back on peace
much as those old retired warriors at the end of last century looked
back on their happy Crimean days; and in the same spirit as that in
which they hung their swords over the baronial fireplace, I decided to
suspend my old top-hat above the mantel-piece in the drawing-room. In
the years to come I would take my grandchildren on my knee and tell
them stories of the old days when grandfather was a civilian, of
desperate charges by church-wardens and organists, and warm
receptions; and sometimes I would hold the old top-hat reverently in
my hands, and a sudden gleam would come into my eyes, so that those
watching me would say to each other, "He is thinking of that
tea-fight at Rutland Gate in 1912." So I pictured the future for my
top-hat, never dreaming that in 1920 it would take the air again.

For I went into the war in order to make the world safe for democracy,
which I understood to mean (and was distinctly informed so by the
press) a world safe for those of us who prefer soft hats with a dent
in the middle. "The war," said the press, "has killed the
top-hat." Apparently it failed to do this, as it failed to do so many
of the things which we hoped from it. So the old veteran of 1912 dares
the sunlight again. We are arrived, and I am greeted warmly by the
bride's parents. I look at the mother closely so that I shall know her
again when I come to say good-bye, and give her a smile which tells
her that I was determined to come down to this wedding although I had
a good deal of work to do. I linger with the idea of pursuing this
point, for I want them to know that they nearly missed me, but I am
pushed on by the crowd behind me. The bride and bridegroom salute me
cordially but show no desire for intimate gossip. A horrible feeling
goes through me that my absence would not have been commented upon by
them at any inordinate length. It would not have spoilt the honeymoon,
for instance.

I move on and look at the presents. The presents are numerous and
costly. Having discovered my own I stand a little way back and listen
to the opinions of my neighbours upon it. On the whole the reception
is favourable. The detective, I am horrified to discover, is on the
other side of the room, apparently callous as to the fate of my egg
stand. I cannot help feeling that if he knew his business he would be
standing where I am standing now; or else there should be two
detectives. It is a question now whether it is safe for me to leave my
post and search for food... Now he is coming round; I can trust it to
him.

On my way to the refreshments I have met an old friend. I like to meet
my friends at weddings, but I wish I had not met this one. She has
sowed the seeds of disquiet in my mind by telling me that it is not
etiquette to begin to eat until the bride has cut the cake. I answer,
"Then why doesn't somebody tell the bride to cut the cake?" but the
bride, it seems, is busy. I wish now that I had not met my friend. Who
but a woman would know the etiquette of these things, and who but a
woman would bother about it?

The bride is cutting the cake. The bridegroom has lent her his sword,
or his fountain-pen, whatever is the emblem of his trade--he is a
stockbroker--and as she cuts, we buzz round her, hoping for one of the
marzipan pieces. I wish to leave now, before I am sorry, but my friend
tells me that it is not etiquette to leave until the bride and
bridegroom have gone. Besides, I must drink the bride's health. I
drink her health; hers, not mine.

Time rolls on. I was wrong to have had champagne. It doesn't suit me
at tea. However, for the moment life is bright enough. I have looked
at the presents and my own is still there. And I have been given a
bagful of confetti. The weary weeks one lives through without a
handful of anything to throw at anybody. How good to be young again. I
take up a strong position in the hall.

They come... Got him--got him! Now a long shot--got him! I feel
slightly better, and begin the search for my hostess....

I have shaken hands with all the bride's aunts and all the
bridegroom's aunts, and in fact all the aunts of everybody here. Each
one seems to me more like my hostess than the last. "Good-bye!"
Fool--of course--there she is. "Good-Bye!"

My hat and I take the air again. A pleasant afternoon; and yet
to-morrow morning I shall see things more clearly, and I shall know
that the bridegroom has married the wrong girl. But it will be too
late then to save him.

Public Opinion

At the beginning of the last strike the papers announced that Public
Opinion was firmly opposed to dictation by a minority. Towards the end
of the strike the papers said that Public Opinion was strongly in
favour of a settlement which would leave neither side with a sense of
defeat. I do not complain of either of these statements, but I have
been wondering, as I have often wondered before, how a leader-writer
discovers what the Public Opinion is.

When one reads about Public Opinion in the press (and one reads a good
deal about it one way and another), it is a little difficult to
realize, particularly if the printer has used capital letters, that
this much-advertised Public Opinion is simply You and Me and the
Others. Now, since it is impossible for any man to get at the opinions
of all of us, it is necessary that he should content himself with a
sample half-dozen or so. But from where does he get his sample?
Possibly from his own club, limited perhaps to men of his own
political opinions; almost certainly from his own class. Public
Opinion in this case is simply what he thinks. Even if he takes the
opinion of strangers--the waiter who serves him at lunch, the
tobacconist, the policeman at the corner--the opinion may be one
specially prepared for his personal consumption, one inspired by tact,
boredom, or even a sense of humour. If, for instance, the process were
to be reversed, and my tobacconist were to ask me what I thought of
the strike, I should grunt and go out of his shop; but he would be
wrong to attribute "a dour grimness" to the nation in consequence.

Nor is the investigator likely to be more correct if he judges Public
Opinion from the evidence of his eyes rather than his ears. Thus one
reporter noticed on the faces of his companions in the omnibus "a
look of stern determination to see this thing through." If they were
all really looking like that, it must have been an impressive sight.
But it is at least possible that this distinctive look was one of
stern determination to get a more comfortable seat on the 'bus which
took them home again.

It must be very easy (and would certainly be extremely interesting) to
go about forming Public Opinion, I should like to initiate an
L.F.P.O., or League for Forming Public Opinion, and not only for
forming it, but for putting it, when formed, into direct action. Such
a League, even if limited to two hundred members, could by its
concerted action exercise a very remarkable effect. Suppose we decided
to attack profiteering. We should choose our shop--a hosier's, let us
say. Beginning on Monday morning, a member of the League would go in
and ask to be shown some ties. Having spent some time in looking
through the stock and selecting a couple, he would ask the price.
"Oh, but that's ridiculous," he would say. "I couldn't think of
paying that. If I can't get them cheaper somewhere else, I'll do
without them altogether." The shopman shrugs his shoulders and puts
his ties back again. Perhaps he tells himself contemptuously that he
doesn't cater for that sort of customer. The customer goes out, and
half an hour later the second member of the League arrives. This one
asks for collars. He is equally indignant at the price, and is equally
determined not to wear a collar at all rather than submit to such
extortion. Half an hour later the third member comes in. He wants
socks.... The fourth member wants ties again... The fifth wants
gloves....

Now this is going on, not only all through the day, but all through
the week, and for another week after that. Can you not imagine that,
after a fortnight of it, the haberdasher begins to feel that "Public
Opinion is strongly aroused against profiteering in the hosiery
trade"? Is it not possible that the loss of two hundred customers in
a fortnight would make him wonder whether a lower price might not
bring him in a greater profit? I think it is possible. I do not think
he could withstand a Public Opinion so well organized and so
relentlessly concentrated.

But such a League would have enormous power in many ways. If you were
to write to the editor of a paper complaining that So-and-So's
contributions (mine, if you like) were beneath contempt, the editor
would not be seriously concerned about it. Possibly he had a letter
the day before saying that So-and-So was beyond all other writers
delightful. But if twenty members of the League wrote every week for
ten weeks in succession, from two hundred different addresses, saying
that So-and-So's articles were beneath contempt, the editor would be
more than human if he did not tell himself that So-and-So had fallen
off a little and was obviously losing his hold on the popular
imagination. In a little while he would decide that it would be wiser
to make a change....

Of course, the League would not attack a writer or any other public
man from sheer wilfulness, but it would probably have no difficulty in
bringing down over-praised mediocrity to its proper level or in giving
a helping hand to unrecognized talent. But unless its president were a
man of unerring judgment and remarkable restraint, its sense of power
would probably be too much for it, and it would lose its head
altogether. Looking round for a suitable president, I can think of
nobody but myself. And I am too busy just now.

The Honour of Your Country

We were resting after the first battle of the Somme. Naturally all the
talk in the Mess was of after-the-war. Ours was the H.Q. Mess, and I
was the only subaltern; the youngest of us was well over thirty. With
a gravity befitting our years and (except for myself) our rank, we
discussed not only restaurants and revues, but also Reconstruction.

The Colonel's idea of Reconstruction included a large army of
conscripts. He did not call them conscripts. The fact that he had
chosen to be a soldier himself, out of all the professions open to
him, made it difficult for him to understand why a million others
should not do the same without compulsion. At any rate, we must have
the men. The one thing the war had taught us was that we must have a
real Continental army.

I asked why. "Theirs not to reason why" on parade, but in the H.Q.
Mess on active service the Colonel is a fellow human being. So I asked
him why we wanted a large army after the war.

For the moment he was at a loss. Of course, he might have said
"Germany," had it not been decided already that there would be no
Germany after the war. He did not like to say "France," seeing that
we were even then enjoying the hospitality of the most delightful
French villages. So, after a little hesitation, he said "Spain."

At least he put it like this:--

"Of course, we must have an army, a large army."

"But why?" I said again.

"How else can you--can you defend the honour of your country?"

"The Navy."

"The Navy! Pooh! The Navy isn't a weapon of attack; it's a weapon of
defence."

"But you said `defend'."

"Attack," put in the Major oracularly, "is the best defence."

"Exactly."

I hinted at the possibilities of blockade. The Colonel was scornful.
"Sitting down under an insult for months and months," he called it,
until you starved the enemy into surrender. He wanted something much
more picturesque, more immediately effective than that. (Something,
presumably, more like the Somme.)

"But give me an example," I said, "of what you mean by `insults'
and `honour'."

Whereupon he gave me this extraordinary example of the need for a
large army.

"Well, supposing," he said, "that fifty English women in Madrid
were suddenly murdered, what would you do?"

I thought for a moment, and then said that I should probably decide
not to take my wife to Madrid until things had settled down a bit.

"I'm supposing that you're Prime Minister," said the Colonel, a
little annoyed. "What is England going to do?"

"Ah!... Well, one might do nothing. After all, what is one to do? One
can't restore them to life."

The Colonel, the Major, even the Adjutant, expressed his contempt for
such a cowardly policy. So I tried again.

"Well," I said, "I might decide to murder fifty Spanish women in
London, just to even things up."

The Adjutant laughed. But the Colonel was taking it too seriously for
that.

"Do you mean it?" he asked.

"Well, what would you do, sir?"

"Land an army in Spain," he said promptly, "and show them what it
meant to treat English women like that."

"I see. They would resist of course?"

"No doubt."

"Yes. But equally without doubt we should win in the end?"

"Certainly."

"And so re-establish England's honour."

"Quite so."

"I see. Well, sir, I really think my way is the better. To avenge the
fifty murdered English women, you are going to kill (say) 100,000
Spaniards who have had no connexion with the murders, and 50,000
Englishmen who are even less concerned. Indirectly also you will cause
the death of hundreds of guiltless Spanish women and children, besides
destroying the happiness of thousands of English wives and mothers.
Surely my way--of murdering only fifty innocents--is just as effective
and much more humane."

"That's nonsense," said the Colonel shortly.

"And the other is war."

We were silent for a little, and then the Colonel poured himself out a
whisky.

"All the same," he said, as he went back to his seat, "you haven't
answered my question."

"What was that, sir?"

"What you would do in the case I mentioned. Seriously."

"Oh! Well, I stick to my first answer. I would do nothing--except, of
course, ask for an explanation and an apology. If you can apologize
for that sort of thing."

"And if they were refused?"

"Have no more official relations with Spain."

"That's all you would do?"

"Yes."

"And you think that that is consistent with the honour of a great
nation like England?"

"Perfectly."

"Oh! Well, I don't."

An indignant silence followed.

"May I ask you a question now, sir?" I said at last.

"Well?"

"Suppose this time England begins. Suppose we murder all the Spanish
women in London first. What are you going to do--as Spanish Premier?"

"Er--I don't quite----"

"Are you going to order the Spanish Fleet to sail for the mouth of
the Thames, and hurl itself upon the British fleet?"

"Of course not, She has no fleet."

"Then do you agree with the--er Spanish Colonel, who goes about
saying that Spain's honour will never be safe until she has a fleet as
big as England's?"

"That's ridiculous. They couldn't possibly."

"Then what could Spain do in the circumstances?"

"Well, she--er--she could--er--protest."

"And would that be consistent with the honour of a small nation like
Spain?"

"In the circumstances," said the Colonel unwillingly, "er--yes."

"So that what it comes to is this. Honour only demands that you
should attack the other man if you are much bigger than he is. When a
man insults my wife, I look him carefully over; if he is a stone
heavier than I, then I satisfy my honour by a mild protest. But if he
only has one leg, and is three stone lighter, honour demands that I
should jump on him."

"We're talking of nations," said the Colonel gruffly, "not of men,
It's a question of prestige."

"Which would be increased by a victory over Spain?"

The Major began to get nervous. After all, I was only a subaltern. He
tried to cool the atmosphere a little.

"I don't know why poor old Spain should be dragged into it like
this," he said, with a laugh. "I had a very jolly time in Madrid
years ago."

"O, I only gave Spain as an example," said the Colonel casually.

"It might just as well have been Switzerland?" I suggested.

There was silence for a little.

"Talking of Switzerland----" I said, as I knocked out my pipe.

"Oh, go on," said the Colonel, with a good-humoured shrug. "I've
brought this on myself."

"Well, sir, what I was wondering was--What would happen to the honour
of England if fifty English women were murdered at Interlaken?"

The Colonel was silent.

"However large an army we had----" I went on.

The Colonel struck a match.

"It's a funny thing, honour," I said. "And prestige."

The Colonel pulled at his pipe.

"Just fancy," I murmured, "the Swiss can do what they like to
British subjects in Switzerland, and we can't get at them. Yet
England's honour does not suffer, the world is no worse a place to
live in, and one can spend quite a safe holiday at Interlaken."

"I remember being there in '94," began the Major hastily....

A Village Celebration

Although our village is a very small one, we had fifteen men serving
in the Forces before the war was over. Fortunately, as the Vicar well
said, "we were wonderfully blessed in that none of us was called upon
to make the great sacrifice." Indeed, with the exception of Charlie
Rudd, of the Army Service Corps, who was called upon to be kicked by a
horse, the village did not even suffer any casualties. Our rejoicings
at the conclusion of Peace were whole-hearted.

Naturally, when we met to discuss the best way in which to give
expression to our joy, our first thoughts were with our returned
heroes. Miss Travers, who plays the organ with considerable expression
on Sundays, suggested that a drinking fountain erected on the village
green would be a pleasing memorial of their valour, if suitably
inscribed. For instance, it might say, "In gratitude to our brave
defenders who leaped to answer their country's call," followed by
their names. Embury, the cobbler, who is always a wet blanket on these
occasions, asked if "leaping" was the exact word for a young fellow
who got into khaki in 1918, and then only in answer to his country's
police. The meeting was more lively after this, and Mr. Bates, of Hill
Farm, had to be personally assured by the Vicar that for his part he
quite understood how it was that young Robert Bates had been unable to
leave the farm before, and he was sure that our good friend Embury
meant nothing personal by his, if he might say so, perhaps somewhat
untimely observation. He would suggest himself that some such phrase
as "who gallantly answered" would be more in keeping with Miss
Travers' beautiful idea. He would venture to put it to the meeting
that the inscription should be amended in this sense.

Mr. Clayton, the grocer and draper, interrupted to say that they were
getting on too fast. Supposing they agreed upon a drinking fountain,
who was going to do it? Was it going to be done in the village, or
were they going to get sculptors and architects and such-like people
from London? And if so The Vicar caught the eye of Miss
Travers, and signalled to her to proceed; whereupon she explained
that, as she had already told the Vicar in private, her nephew was
studying art in London, and she was sure he would be only too glad to
get Augustus James or one of those Academy artists to think of
something really beautiful.

At this moment Embury said that he would like to ask two questions.
First question--In what order were the names of our gallant defenders
to be inscribed? The Vicar said that, speaking entirely without
preparation and on the spur of the moment, he would imagine that an
alphabetical order would be the most satisfactory. There was a general
"Hear, hear," led by the Squire, who thus made his first
contribution to the debate. "That's what I thought," said Embury.
"Well, then, second question--What's coming out of the fountain?"
The Vicar, a little surprised, said that presumably, my dear Embury,
the fountain would give forth water. "Ah!" said Embury with great
significance, and sat down.

Our village is a little slow at getting on to things; "leaping" is
not the exact word for our movements at any time, either of brain or
body. It is not surprising, therefore, that even Bates failed to
realize for a moment that his son's name was to have precedence on a
water-fountain. But when once he realized it, he refused to be
pacified by the cobbler's explanation that he had only said "Ah!"
Let those who had anything to say, he observed, speak out openly, and
then we should know where we were. Embury's answer, that one could
generally guess where some people were, and not be far wrong, was
drowned in the ecclesiastical applause which greeted the rising of the
Squire.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10