This of course is most noticeable abroad, where the Londoner is celebrated for his atrociously bad manners. He does not bow over his hat on entering a room; he sits down on any chair, he has no gesticulations of pleasure, he stops short at being well groomed and undemonstrative. There is not, in fact, any etiquette in London, there is only a general rule against obtruding your personality—a general rule against animation in society. "Die verstaendigste and geistreichste aller europaeischen Nationen hat sogar die Regel, 'never interrupt', das elfte Gebot genannt," says Schopenhauer.[1] But obviously if you never interrupt you must have schooled yourself to care little for the discussion you have in hand, or you must avoid the discussion of subjects you care for.
Essentially we may say that the other great societies of Europe prescribe rigid codes of manners, and a member of society attains to self-respect by his knowledge of these codes. He tries in fact to do something. London society has no code, it prescribes an attitude of mind. You do not enter a London drawing-room with one, three or six bows; you do not kiss your hostess's hand. But you lounge in and get through that ceremonial contact as best suits you. You try to show no impressment at all. For it may be said that, in London, the mark of the leisured class is to be without
- ↑ "The most understanding and most spiritual of all the European nations (the English) has named the rule 'never interrupt', the eleventh commandment."—Parerga and Paralipomena. "Über Lärm und Geraüsch", p. 679.
115
