Slings and Arrows
Crook, Margaret B.
i88 THE COMMONWEAL June i8, 1930 SLINGS AND ARROWS By MARGARET B. CROOK LL me something about America," he sug-*¦ gested, "this is my first time over and I don't want to be called a...
...But considering the speed with which he had made the initial adjustments he could no doubt give me points by now...
...he has a dignity and a certain beauty of swing...
...he protested...
...he declared...
...I come from a country where anyone may be a crank and no objection is raised, where one's expression may be anything that is not too animated...
...I believe that there is a kind of first-earth sense acquired in infancy from the land with which one comes earliest into contact that will never be downed...
...He has more nearly acquired the motion of world-citizenship than have some of us...
...Isn't there something supine about that...
...The country was founded quite a while ago," I answered reflectively...
...Tea will be tinged to a gentle yellow, they will give it to you iced and with lemon in it...
...We took our food English fashion, it was a British ship...
...No," he replied, "of the United States...
...How do they regard the motherland...
...He left the table...
...I once rode on top of an Oxford bus wearing my American face and strangers in the street below began to wave their hands at me...
...I do not find sensitivity of this kind growing upon me...
...Ask in any store for a reel of cotton and they will insist that what you want is a 'spool of thread.' But just try to furnish a house over there and you realize the difference...
...I shall just ask for what I want...
...I could never contemplate "our world" through the medium of an expression indicative of a limited citizenship...
...English correspondents begin to sense a rift in our common view upon familiar topics...
...I thought that he would be discouraged...
...I've called it porridge all my life," he muttered...
...they celebrate with enthusiasm the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and other such days...
...The American is out to stretch himself...
...Here from day to day I keep discovering that I have been using wrong words for years...
...The Englishman walks to cover the ground and he does not vary his gait even when he walks for pleasure...
...I have never heard the word used in the East," I said, "the worst that they would call you would be a foreigner...
...I shall do none of these things...
...All Americans are sensitive in a national way concerning what other peoples think of them...
...Take windows for instance, shutters are 'blinds,' blinds are 'shades,' shades are 'awnings.' " "Mercy...
...You belong to the prehistoric levels...
...He ordered porridge and pudding every day...
...But am I assimilated...
...And you will drink large quantities of cold water...
...What must a world-citizen look like, I mean with regard to his facial expression...
...PerhapsI am even now on the way to assimilation of worldcitizenship and feel a little awkward about it because, although world-citizenship for nations is now quite an old idea, that of world-citizenship for the individual is less familiar...
...When I go back to England they tell me that I am "all right," but that I "sometimes use a wrong word...
...It is perfectly true that I am no longer content to be wholly British: I love America...
...standards are scarcely in process of formation...
...How would a world-citizen walk...
...that the first-remembered odors of spring and summer are imperishable...
...they are very fond of the farmers who 'chased the red-coats down the lane.' " "Those red-coats were Hessians...
...i88 THE COMMONWEAL June i8, 1930 SLINGS AND ARROWS By MARGARET B. CROOK LL me something about America," he sug-*¦ gested, "this is my first time over and I don't want to be called a tenderfoot...
...We might sweep the horizon as with the rays of the searchlight seeing places and peoples in their spherical proportions, not forgetting that we share with the antipodes the common service of the sun and moon...
...Never...
...and I still have to shop asking for "so and so, if that's what you call it in this country...
...Pudding will go too, both the name and the thing itself...
...They don't realize it," I replied...
...That might rub off our knobby corners and set our minds to the pageant of the seasons and the rhythm of the tides...
...You must discover what other people call things and then copy them...
...he inquired...
...It goes all through the house and covers your personal belongings...
...When I had offered him on board ship points that he would not accept I had concluded that I was so...
...That I cannot believe...
...The Oriental does better...
...They jealously maintain the English language against all comers...
...You say, 'they guard the English language jealously,' " he began...
...Neither of these is world gaits...
...Tea, as much as you like, but not cold water...
...but not at all, he returned to the charge at every meal...
...I remember once reading a poem in which there was a refrain to the effect that he who loves two countries never knows peace again...
...In ten days' time you'll call your porridge 'cereal,' " I stated...
...The Englishman lopes or strides...
...I asked...
...Breadth of interest must somehow communicate itself to his countenance as the antithesis of the limitless complacency that is conveyed upon the features of the convinced single-nationalist...
...Everyone must look brightly intelligent...
...The American walks with vigor when he does not ride...
...I've had pudding every day of my life...
...they are fascinated even when exasperated by the opinion of the casual traveler...
...I suppose that he has long since taken out his first papers and either married an American or trained a British wife in the use of a kitchenette...
...He walks as if all space and all time were at his disposal...
...But need they be associated only with a given forty millions of population...
...You will eat," I continued relentlessly, "with your fork in your right hand...
...Cannot motherland be regarded as a daughter of mother-earth...
...At Christmas time I received a greeting card upon which under the printed words he had written: "I eat with my fork in my right hand and I drink cold water in unbelievable quantities...
...But here a certain fundamental conformity of expression is asked of everyone...
...but on the other hand I do not want to confine my nationality even to the expansive limits of the United States...
...But I'm not a foreigner, I'm British, of the same race and stock as the founders of the country...
...Yes," I replied, "they are conservative in their phraseology which is at times reminiscent of the days of the spinning-wheel...
...things are all mixed up...
...His greeting left me asking myself, "Am I assimilated...
...he interjected, "Does that apply to everything...
...Naturally," they write, apropros of nothing that they specify, "you are in process of assimilation and it must inevitably be so...
...World-citizenship might assuage this unrest, for surely in these days of travel I am not the only one to feel it...
...Are you thinking of the dominions...
...they will go to no end of trouble to show you the vantage points and will invite you when the day comes to share the enjoyment...
Vol. 12 • June 1930 • No. 7
