Lack of initiative is the thing that really cripples one, and that is
where you and I and Uncle James are so hopelessly shut in. We are just
so many animals stuck down on a Mappin terrace, with this difference in
our disfavour, that the animals are there to be looked at, while nobody
wants to look at us. As a matter of fact there would be nothing to look
at. We get colds in winter and hay fever in summer, and if a wasp
happens to sting one of us, well, that is the wasp's initiative, not
ours; all we do is to wait for the swelling to go down. Whenever we do
climb into local fame and notice, it is by indirect methods; if it
happens to be a good flowering year for magnolias the neighbourhood
observes: 'Have you seen the Gurtleberry's magnolia? It is a perfect
mass of flowers,' and we go about telling people that there are fifty-
seven blossoms as against thirty-nine the previous year."
"In Coronation year there were as many as sixty," put in the aunt, "your
uncle has kept a record for the last eight years."
"Doesn't it ever strike you," continued the niece relentlessly, "that if
we moved away from here or were blotted out of existence our local claim
to fame would pass on automatically to whoever happened to take the house
and garden? People would say to one another, 'Have you seen the Smith-
Jenkins' magnolia? It is a perfect mass of flowers,' or else
'Smith-Jenkins tells me there won't be a single blossom on their magnolia
this year; the east winds have turned all the buds black.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174