Our Betters
By PETER FLEMING
NEITHER the anthology nor the omnibus can be sure today of receiving in critical circles a hearty welcome. Represen- tatives of either genre must impregnably establish their raison d''are before they can hope for sympathetic considera- tion; and will be lucky if they get it even then. The supply of both is greater than the demand would seem to warrant, and the critics are rightly ruthless towards the weaklings of a sadly inbred strain.
Who's Who is both anthology and omnibus, but shares the vulnerability of neither. It is an invaluable work of reference ; and even if it were not well compiled, I suspect that we should overlook its faults. For self-revelation is always disarming, and what is Who's Who but an omnibus anthology of essays in self-revelation ?
At first sight, these essays may seem to err on the side of reticence and formality. Deeper analysis reveals their non- committal and laconic quality as the true source of their attraction. I do not know—and I cannot be bothered to count—the number of individuals whose careers are here recorded in a staccato but unobtrusive catalogue. Suppose it is 25,000. And suppose further (you who criticize the close- packed and objective style of this work) that each individual had been given the rope he thought he deserved : had been encouraged to clothe the bare official bones of achievement with the highly perishable flesh of amateur autobiography . . . Phew Give me "one s. two d." in preference to a homily on the younger generation, and " Educ. Eton College" rather than the quondam pupil's views on the Public School System.
Even as it is, self-consciousness occasionally breaks through the austere, take-it-or-leave-it conventions of the compilation. It strikes a jarring, but on the whole a pleasantly incongruous note ; it is as if we had met a policeman wearing a button-hole.
Its manifestations are to be found for the most part under the heading Recreations, and are on the whole most plentiful and most blatant among the smaller fry of the literary world. There is, for example, the gentleman who, styling himself "author, publicist and agnostic," lists as his recreations the following pursuits : "swimming, long-distance running, sculling, cycling, &c., music, sketching, photography, topo- graphy, eschewing clubs, cliques and coteries, dreaming about the Lewis, ruminating to little purpose, and wool- gathering." But his ip an extreme case of what in the cir- cumstances amounts almost to exhibitionism. As a rule self- consciousness is more restrained in its expression. A priggish, a self-righteous touch is not uncommon, as with the people whose recreations are "His professional work, and golf," or "Friendship, and international correspondence, mostly on postcards," or "organizing philanthropic and social work."
So fascinating indeed are the entries under this heading that the reader is in danger of neglecting the life's work for the life's play. There is the sad and extraordinary case of the man whose recreations are "Nil." There is the scarcely less extraordinary case of him who is content to define them as "Ordinary." There is the stimulating contrast between one of our greatest scholars (" piquet, patience ") and the gentleman on the next page for whom it must be "tiger- Who's Who, 1934. (A• and C. Black. 60s.) shooting" or nothing at all. " Recreations : Europe past and present" surely indicates a streak of morbidity, but there is a disarmingly wistful note about the entry "One of the first automobilists in Switzerland and formerly a great horseman."- A considerably less limited outlet for his energies is found by the man whose spare time is devoted to "running, rowing, chess, tennis, history, philosophy, economies, political science, comparative law, and modern languages (French, German, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, Portu- guese)." No less a person than Mahatma Gandhi appears in a new and surprising light when we note his enthusiasm for "cricket, tennis, football, badminton, billiards, bridge, swimming."
In the last analysis, it is by the way in which people employ their spare time that we are coining more and more to judge them. The reader, as opposed to the ad hoc consultant of this work, inevitably and—I think—justifiably tends to skip the record of more solid achievements, more durable and im- portant facts, in his search for clues to individuality. In this cross-section of a fraction of the human race which is far from being in either sense vulgar, it is not the orders and the ap- pointments, the journeys and the decorations, to which our eye instinctively flies ; it is the Recreations.
We may note with interest that a man exists whose address is really Goonoo Goonoo ; we may admire the frankness of the lady who "then took up prose-writing as a side-line, finding Art not sufficiently paying" ; we may yearn for further insight into the talents of a gentleman whose publica- tions include "Self-Help for the Violinist: The Boys' Book of Swimming : The Girls' Book of Swimming : Ice and Roller Skating : Holding the Senior Boys : 2'alcs of Pendlecliffe School : The Channel Tunnel Mystery : and Seeing Europe Cheaply." But these are only lucky finds ; the Recreations are our standby, and they rarely fail us.
The more entries we read under this }wading, the more fascinating fields of speculation open before us. Who would have thought, for instance, that so many people who arc Who still confess to a passion for bicycling ? It is interesting, too, to find that Travel is still regarded as a Recreation. But far more intriguing, and far more significant, are the recreations which nobody will recognize as recreations. Walking and talking appear frequently; but who says anything of eating, drinking or sleeping ? Not a soul, so far as I have been able to discover. There are no renegades ; in the ranks of our betters not one single traitor pleads guilty to sharing is pleasure with the beasts. It is most reassuring.
Nevertheless, this consistently high-falutin' attitude ends by breeding suspicion in the reader's mind. He scents hypocrisy. Photography and music, philately and moun- taineering--these things are all very well in their way. But do they really mean as much to their professed amateurs as having breakfast in bed ? The reader would not like to say for certain . . .
But let no one think that I wish to cast a slur on the integ- rity of the editors of this splendid and enthralling compilation. Their integrity is above suspicion. As proof of this, I would merely point out that throughout the whole book no one has been allowed to list among his recreations "Reading Who's 1Vho " : though they very well might have.
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