MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
AGREEK gentleman who had not. visited London since 1940 remarked to me this week that what struck him most on return- ing to England was the kindliness and good manners which he encountered in the streets. Having come to regard our London life as an almost unbroken series of insults and objurgations, I was pleased but startled by so unexpected an eulogy. He was an intelligent man, and therefore not lacking the powers of observation and comparison ; he was an honourable man, and would not, from desire to please, have said something which he wholly disbelieved. One is bound to discount the natural amiability of the Hellenes and to remember that when Aristotle placed friendliness
zis) among the moral virtues he defined it as "a state of character " which was intermediate between the obsequious and the churlish. Yet my Greek friend had evidently experienced politeness on his return to London ; he had compared his present experiences with those of 1940 ; and he had come to the conclusion that in the interval our manners had improved. I realise, of course, that when he was last in London we were passing through our finest hour, and that our tempers were sorely strained. I realise that in those nervous days the bus conductresses and the women announcers in the Under- ground were being exposed to extreme physical and psychic ordeals ; it may well have been that in their exhaustion they gave to such phrases as " Full up on top! " or " Mind the gap " a tone of reproof and even of invective which was often wounding. I realise that pro- longed sleeplessness and anxiety are bound in the end to create a mood of irritability. Yet when I look back to 1940 and 1941 it is the amazing good temper of the British people which remains in my memory ; and so far from feeling that our manners have improved since then I cannot but believe that they have in fact deteriorated. Yet it may be that my Greek friend is right and I am wrong.
There is one phenomenon which I have observed and the study of which I recommend to the psychologists. It is the effect upon human amiability of the law of supply and demand. In the old days when supplies were unlimited one met with a comparatively uniform degree of friendliness from the purveyors of goods and services. The drivers of taximeter cabs and bus conductors, the tobacconists and the wine merchants, being in a position to supply one's requirements, responded to the demand with cheerful alacrity. Yet when condi- tions changed and they were no longer either willing or able to furnish their supplies, their attitude became clouded by a haze of hostility. I enter a tobacconist's shop and ask timidly for a packet of twenty cigarettes ; if the packet be available I am greeted with a happy smile and I leave the shop enriched, not merely by twenty cigarettes, but by a warm sense of human fraternity. But if the tobacconist has run out of cigarettes he will meet my demand, not in a tone of compassion or even sympathy, but with a negative which is so short and sharp as to cause pain. Similarly, if I climb into an empty bus I am welcomed as if I were entering the home of an old friend ; but if the bus be full I am rejected in terms of obloquy which give to my disappointment an added touch of personal mortifi- cation. In the old days when I visited my wine merchant he would dance towards me with pencil and order-pad in hand ; when I slink in there today I find him immersed in a huge ledger, indifferent to my conciliatory cough, and glancing towards me petulantly as at an impertinent intrusion. It may be that this altered attitude is due to the presence, and not to the absence, of human love ; it may be so painful to these purveyors to be-unable to purvey that they conceal their sorrow under a manly mask of rage. Yet I still do not quite see why my wine merchant should be so nice to me when he can give me sherry and so cross with me when he can't.
* * This question of national manners, which are the reflection of national character, has interested me for many years. The Russians, in those rare moments when they forget their religious vocation, have such naturally good manners that they become embarrassing ; their delightful instinct of hospitality inspires them with an almost reckless desire to secure that everybody is having a good time. With the Greeks courtesy towards strangers assumes the form of a charm- ing inquisitiveness ; they manifest a passionate and quite sincere interest in the most intimate details of one's domestic life. The good manners of the Scandinavians may seem at first to be over- formalised, and it is only gradually that one realises that they proceed from a combination of natural reserve with a very high standard of human relationships. The Germans, in their calmer moments, have excellent mariners, and in the days before they surrendered to mass dementia, or became shrouded by mass tragedy, they were able to convey to the foreign visitor the impression that he was not merely a welcome, but also an interesting, guest. The manners of the French are apt to disconcert the inexperienced visitor. The French are by nature an irritable race and they do not care for foreigners; the latter are often distressed by the contrast between their exquisite courtesy in drawing-rooms and their crossness in trams. It may be that the attractive gaiety of manner which one encounters in French telephone operators or shop assistants is due, not to any appreciation of the merits of a foreign visitor, but to their habit of organising and expressing their own charm. It has always seemed strange to me that the French, who are so municipal by tempera- ment, should get so angry in towns ; the French peasant, outside Normandy, is capable of displaying the perfection of good manners, in which personal dignity combines with a quiet regard for the limitations and eccentricities of the foreign barbarian.
* * If one excludes the Oriental modes of courtesy, which fall into a quite distinct category, I should say that the Americans are the politest race on earth. The doctrine of equality, which has proved so pervasive and so durable an element in the American idea, has brought with it the conception of " service." It is a word which is almost intolerable in itself and which has been much exploited and abused ; but it certainly does represent a theory of manners which is valuable and real. One has only to travel at all widely in the United States to become conscious that Americans regard it as a personal duty to be kind to each other and above all to be kind to the stranger in their midst. What strikes the European visitor so forcibly is the utter naturalness with which they will minister to his requirements ; in our more stratified societies the code of manners is conventional and to that extent artificial ; in the United States one becomes con- scious of a climate of kindliness which one would not suspect from the misrepresentation of American character conveyed by Hollywood or from the bewildered conduct of Americans when abroad. No Englishman can visit even New York without being aware that in the United States they have evolved a mode of personal relationship which is preferable to our own mode and which is in itself an accurate reflection of their natural warm-heartedness. The Americans, being excessive, are sometimes hotly rude ; they are seldom coldly rude. And, inevitably, when they come to England, they often mistake our reserve for frigidity or even for ill-will. If good manners be the lubricant of society, then assuredly American society is better lubricated than our own.
* * * * I earnestly hope that my Greek friend was correct in stating that our manners have improved in the last six years. In principle we ought, in this age, to develop a code of manners as satisfying as that of the United States. We are a patient and good-humoured race ; we possess great gifts of tolerance and compassion ; we are a kindly folk. Yet it seems to me that our manners are passing through a transitional period which I trust will not be too prolonged. The old stratified codes of manners are losing their validity ; we have not yet acquired the natural mode of personal relationships which should take their place. When at last we achieve material recovery it may be that a new code of manners will flower quite naturally, even as the willow herb sows itself gaily among the ruins.
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