Regional Mentalities
That not very profound traveller, Count Keyserling, who has lately generalized so massively about the nations of Europe, saying the English were this, the French that, the Italians the other, makes when he comes to deal with his own country, a significant remark, which uncon- sciously gives away his whole case. One cannot, says he, talk of les allemande, but only of des allemands, for Germans are all different one from another. He does not seem to realise that he only thinks thus of Germany because he knows Germans, and that it is precisely equally true of English, French, Italians, Spanish and Swiss. Confronted by a myriad beings whom he knows a little about, he sees his neat grouping dissolve before him, and he is left baffled, unable to generalise, and, for the first time, realistic. Germans are all different. How annoy- ing, how dull, that this should be so—but there it is.
Still, we must grant to nations and races many national and racial characteristics. And it seems that we must go further, and assign group characteristics to those who live in different parts of the same town ; Mrs. Smith, we hear, is likely to resemble Mrs. Brown because both live in Brixton, or Bloomsbury, or Bayswater. Some time ago, for instance, a bishop alleged that dwellers in east London were " always cheerful." He gave no reasons for his interesting statement ; and I do not know if it was followed by a large immigration to this happy land by seekers after joy, nor, if this occurred, whether the spirits of the new settlers rose when east of Aldgate pump, and if they ceased to grieve over life's mischances forthwith, or whether it took a little time. Nor do I know the supposed cause of this gaiety. Perhaps it is proximity to the dawn which gives east Londoners a spring of joy unknown to dwellers in Battersea, Hoxton, Piccadilly, Mayfair and Soho.
Of the mentality of Bayswater I have also heard strange things, which I cannot fit to such of my friends as inhabit this region. I have heard Bayswater called respectable, smug, and intensely British. Well, as to the last, one has only to walk in Moscow Road or Petersburg Place . . . As to respectability, to be sure they have Tyburn at their eastern end to warn them of the doom of sin, but still, in Bayswater House resided Fauntleroy the forger, and I dare say many a scoundrel lurks in those large dark houses about Lancaster Gate, and in their burial ground, no doubt, rakes and good citizens lie indiscriminately together, though I recall at the moment only Laurence Sterne and Mrs. Jane Molony, that hot, passionate, tender, and highly accomplished lady who had so many husbands in succession. A mixed lot, alive and dead, these Bayswaterites, and they command an excel- lent view of Hyde Park, where they often take their walks. No ; I cannot get to the bottom of the Bayswater tradition, nor, I find, is it understood in Bayswater. As to Mayfair, that region which includes so many slums, mews, markets and small shops, it is spoken of as if all they that dwelt therein passed their lives in a giddy round of pleasure, as if it were, in truth, for 'ever May and they for ever at a fair. While as to Belgravia, I can only account for its reputation for opulent respectability by the proximity of Buckingham Palace. Brompton also has a reputation for respectability (less opulent), but I do not know why. It has ever been a haunt of actors, singers, and consumptives, and once a sugar broker used to dance through it to reduce his figure. As to Brixton, once a haunt of literary coteries, it is to-day alluded to with some contempt and esteemed the home of inferior and low mentalities ; possibly this is because of Brixton gaol. Brixton shares, I believe, in something called the mentality of Suburbia. That Suburbia should have a characteristic mentality is strangest of all, since it is scattered round London at all points of the compass, and its outlook cannot, like East End cheerfulness, spring from proximity to day's birth, or, like West End vice, from association with its decline. I know not what mystic link binds these scattered outer Londoners together in one ignoble group. • Then there is Bloomsbury. Lately I read somewhere, " Except in Bloomsbury, it is easy to pretend successfully to a knowledge of literature." Except in Bloomsbury. What is it in the manor of the Blemunds which makes this pretence difficult ? Do the myriad lodgers, landladies, and private hotel dwellers of Bloomsbury Street fail, then, in it ? Does Southampton Row give it up as a bad job, and do the brewers and the Swiss of Endell Street, the Germans of Charlotte Street, the merchants of Mecklenburgh Square, the Hindu students of Gower Street, Sir Arthur Yapp's Christian young men, the pharmacists of Bloomsbury Square and the staff of the L.M.S. Railway Station unite together to make life hard for the literary pretender ? Has Bloomsbury, as a whole, a corporate tine, and, if so, what is it ? The many Bloomsburians of my acquaintance bear, certainly, no closer a resemblance one to another than to dwellers in other places.
Does one denizen of any part of London, indeed, resemble another more than both resemble denizens of other parts of London ? And, if so, why ? Is it the locality that gives the stamp, or are those of a certain character drawn to certain localities ? It is an attractive speculation, and an attractive theory. I should like to think that dwellers in Pall Mall were all honest, that Baker Street was kindly, Hampstead modest, Kensington courageous, Edgware Road refined. I like these tabula- tions, these territorial groupings that reduce human complexities to such a fine simplicity.
ROSE MACAULAY.
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