Kenneth Gregory (1) (1913–)

“Could not this outrage be averted? There sprang from my lips that fiery formula which has sprung from the lips of so many choleric old gentlemen in the course of the past hundred years or more: ‘I shall write a letter to The Times.’”

These words by Max Beerbohm serve as an epigraph for Kenneth Gregory's introduction to “Your Obedient Servant: A Selection of the Most Witty, Amusing and Memorable Letters to The Times of London 1900‐1975” (Methuen/Two Continents, $10). Mr. Gregory read all the letters printed in The Times of London in this century, about 300.000, chosen, he calculates, from seven or eight million received. Some of them are from choleric old gentlemen, and some from sweet old ladies, and some are from Winston Churchill, P. G. Wodehouse, Yehudi Menuhin, T. S. Eliot, H. G. Wells, Bernard Shaw and Malcolm Muggeridge, to cite the names on the jacket

Mr. Gregory's editing was done for an English audience, and the original edition was called “The First Cuckoo,” as in: “While gardening this afternoon I heard a faint note, which led me to say to my under‐gardener. . . .” “America” appears here and there, mostly held like a fish at arms length. However, this is a neat Ironic little book, which to the careful reader will retell the. history of a good people in a nasty century.

On Feb. 16, 1900, Arthur Conan Doyle explained in the letters column of The Times how he had written to the War Office with an idea. As everyone was learning from the Boer War, it was no longer any use to shoot directly at the enemy. But “there is one side upon which the man in the trench or behind the rock is vulnerable. That is the side from above . . . a rain of bullets could be dropped vertically all over the enemy's position. . . . My experiments have been in the direction of affixing a small, simple apparatus to the rifle by which a man would know at what angle to hold his rifle. . . .” The War Office, Doyle reported with choleric outrage, was not interested.

Whereas a few years later John Galsworthy, who had been watching the development of air warfare techniques, wrote that they should be stopped instantly: “Water and earth are wide enough for men to kill each other on. For the love of the sun, and the stars, and the blue sky, that have given us all our aspirations since, the beginning of time, let us leave the air to innocence!” (In 1932 Galsworthy won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Not Peace.) in 1915 a Bassett Digby writes that in applying for a passport he described his face as “intelligent” and “instead of finding this characterization entered, have received a passport on which some official, utterly unknown to me, has taken it upon himself to call my face ‘oval.’”

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In 1928 Millicent, Dutchess of Sutherland, writes: “Why in heaven's name are our police forbidden to chew gum. The steadying effect on the nerves, the calming of tiredness, the greater efficiency provoked by chewing gum is a question of common knowledge. . . . I encourage my chauffeur to chew gum: he is always fresher at the end of a long excursion than if he smoked cigarettes. . . . Please give the Metropolitan policeman back his chewing gum, and merely ask him to be careful where he emits it.”

In 1938 Julian Huxley, noting that The Times has used rhinoceri as the plural of rhinoceros, writes: “This is surely a barbarism, although on referring to the New Oxford Dictionary I find to my surprise and regret that it is one of the usages cited. This plural has given writers of English considerable trouble. Besides rhinoceros, rhinoceroses, and the abovementioned rhinoceri, the [dictionary) quotes rhinocerons, rhinoceroes, rhinocerotes, and rhinocerontes. . . . Has not the time come when we can discard our etymotological prejudices, accept the uses of the ordinary man, and frankly use ‘rhinos'?”

In 1939 D. L. Murray asks “caricaturists and humorous writers to suspend during the present crisis the practice of making the dachshund a symbol of Nazidom or of the German nation. . . .” The practice has led to acts of cruelty “against harmless little animals which are English by birth and often by generations of breeding.” The editor adds: “In 1914 owners of dachshunds had given away their dogs for fear of being thought German spies.”

In 1941 the Bishop of Fulham writes: “A few weeks ago I was given official advice as to what action to take in a gas attack. I was recommended to put both my hands in my pockets and if I carried an umbrella to put it up. This morning the Board of Trade told me on the wireless that if I found myself without any clothes owing to a ‘blitz’ I should appear before the Local Assistance Board and demand coupons. It is puzzling, but, as Mr. A. P. Herbert has laid down, ‘Let us be gay.’”

On Nov. 14, 1941, Loughland Pendred writes: “Among the minor reforms that are coming would not the suppression of ‘Esquire’ in general and business correspondence be welcomed? It is a relic of mid‐Victorian snobbery, and has little or nothing to recommend it. I believe the United Kingdom is the only part of the Empire that uses it”

Three days later Sir Max Beerbohm comments: “How right Mr. Loughland Pendred is in denouncing the use of this work as ‘a relic of mid‐Victorian snobbery’ and in demanding its ‘suppression'! But why does he not go further? Is not our all too frequent utterance or inscription of the word ‘Mr.’ an equally gross survival from an era which men of good will can hardly mention without embarrassment or shame?”

Four days after that, Osbert Sitwell writes: “Beerbohm's suggestion that the prefix ‘Mr.’ should be abolished does not go far enough. We are still left with our surnames, and this is undemocratic. I demand that we should all be called by the same name, as plain a one as possible.”

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Questa recensione del libro apparve nel "New York Times" del 16 gennaio del 1977, il confratello amricano del londinese "TheTimes". Comprai questo libro da un distributore inglese "Bumpus, Haldane & Maxwell Ltd" il 19/12/1976, un anticipatore del moderno Amazon. Le lettere sono classificate per argomento. Mi piace segnalare qui quella con la quale si chiude la selezione. E' collocata nella sezione chiamata "Future" e porta la data del 12 dicembre del 1968. Ve la traduco: "Signore, la situazione, ovviamente, è seria. Ma non dobbiamo disperare. Lei dice che "siamo facendo un picnic sul Vesuvio" e che "abbiamo messo le tende su una sottile lastra di ghaiccio". Qualsiasi nazione che è capace di fare cose del genere è una nazione in gamba. Cordiali saluti." La lettera è scritta da un signore che si firma "George E. Christ". (!!!)… (altro)