I had got as far as this in thinking the thing out when that “Types of Ethical Theory” caught my eye. I opened it, and I give you my honest word this was what hit me:
Of the two antithetic terms in the Greek philosophy one only was real and self-subsisting; and that one was Ideal Thought as opposed to that which it has to penetrate and mould. The other, corresponding to our Nature, was in itself phenomenal, unreal, without any permanent footing, having no predicates that held true for two moments together, in short, redeemed from negation only by including indwelling realities appearing through.
Well – I mean to say – what? And Nietzsche, from all accounts, a lot worse than that!
Rodney Spelvin was in for another attack of poetry…He had once been a poet, and a very virulent one, too; the sort of man who would produce a slim volume of verse bound in squash mauve leather at the drop of a hat, mostly on the subject of sunsets and pixies.
“I think you would also have found her educational methods a little trying, sir. I have glanced at the book her ladyship gave you–it has been lying on your table since our arrival–and it is, in my opinion, quite unsuitable. You would not have enjoyed it. And I have it from her ladyship’s own maid, who happened to overhear a conversation between her ladyship and one of the gentlemen staying here–Mr. Maxwell, who is employed in an editorial capacity by one of the reviews–that it was her intention to start you almost immediately upon Nietzsche. You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.”
It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.
A certain critic — for such men, I regret to say, do exist — made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained ‘all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.’ He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.
Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy’s Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day’s work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city’s reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.
I once got engaged to his daughter Honoria, a ghastly dynamic exhibit who read Nietzsche and had a laugh like waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast.
“I hold that the rank is but the penny stamp–”
“Guinea stamp, sir.”
“All right, guinea stamp. Though I don’t believe there is such a thing. I shouldn’t have thought they came higher than five bob. Well, as I was saying, I maintain that the rank is but the guinea stamp and a girl’s a girl for all that.”
“For a’ that, sir. The poet Burns wrote in the North British dialect.”
“Well, a’ that, then, if you prefer it.”
“I have no preference in the matter, sir. It is simply that the poet Burns–”
“Never mind about the poet Burns.”
“No, sir.”
“Forget the poet Burns.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Expunge the poet Burns from your mind.”
“I will do so immediately, sir.”
The root of the trouble was that she was one of those intellectual girls, steeped to the gills in serious purpose, who are unable to see a male soul without wanting to get behind it and shove.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am. Not just because it’s mine, but because I can see that all the trouble I took training your mind was not wasted. You have grown to love good literature.”
It was at this point, as if he had entered on cue, that the motheaten bird returned and said they had not got old Pop Spinoza, but could get him for me. He seemed rather depressed about it all, but Florence’s eyes lit up as if somebody had pressed a switch.
“Bertie! This is amazing! Do you really read Spinoza?”
It’s extraordinary how one yields to that fatal temptation to swank. It undoes the best of us. Nothing, I mean, would have been simpler than to reply that she had got the data twisted and that the authoritatively annotated edition was a present for Jeeves. But, instead of doing the simple, manly, straightforward thing, I had to go and put on dog.
“Oh, rather,” I said, with an intellectual flick of the umbrella. “When I have a leisure moment, you will generally find me curled up with Spinoza’s latest.”
I don’t know if you happen to be familiar with a poem called ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by the bird Tennyson whom Jeeves had mentioned when speaking of the fellow whose strength was as the strength of ten…the thing goes, as you probably know,
Tum tiddle umpty-pum
Tum tiddle umpty-pum
Tum tiddle umpty-pum
and this brought you to the snapperoo or pay-off which was ‘someone had blundered.’
I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare — or, if not, it’s some equally brainy lad — who says that it’s always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping.
Vers libre is within the reach of all. A sleeping nation has wakened to the realization that there is money to be made out of chopping its prose into bits. Something must be done shortly if the nation is to be saved from this menace. But what? It is no good shooting Edgar Lee Masters, for the mischief has been done, and even making an example of him could not undo it. Probably the only hope lies in the fact that poets never buy other poets’ stuff. When once we have all become poets, the sale of verse will cease or be limited to the few copies which individual poets will buy to give to their friends.
Lord. I’ve just realized that I can probably be described in many of the same terms as Honoria. Laugh like waves breaking on stern coast, etc.
Oh well. Could be worse.
Could be Madeline Bassett.
*shudder* That is the darkest of all timelines.
I like Honoria Glossop so much, she’s the namesake for my intensedebate handle. Girl ain’t got nothing to apologize for (and probably would never, anyway).
I know that they might not be suited for Bertie, but all of the brainy girls he gets entangled with seem to be quite dateable. If you weren’t Bertie.
NO ONE WHO DEMANDS THEIR FIANCE READ “TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY” CAN BE DATEABLE
Come on now, Florence Craye was at the very edge of the Bertie spectrum, where only fools and Bertie dared to tread.
Dating Bobbie Wickham would inevitably end in a month in jail, though…
THIS.
Brainy girls from Wooster stories reincarnate in reality as either:
Philosophy majors who think “thought experiments” involving trains and levers and death are fun party games;
Guys who will tell you the optimum move to make in every board game, and complain endlessly when you don’t, and take five hours to figure out their own moves;
The sort of atheist who cannot so much as hear you talk about enjoying ham at Easter without demanding you prove the existence of God;
People who “play devil’s advocate”.
Also, I have now pinpointed my ex who kept bothering me for my opinion of the estate tax and then arguing about it with me and reading articles from The Economist aloud when I was trying to watch Buffy and snarked about how “stupid people talk about people, intelligent people talk about events, and really intelligent people talk about ideas.” He is Honoria Glossop with a dick.
JERKASS ETHICS PROFESSOR IS (NOT SO) SECRETLY AN INSUFFERABLE WODEHOUSE INTELLECTUAL.
My god. It was staring me in the face all along, but I was blind. Blind. (And boy, do I have some choice bits for y’all come open thread.)
(rubs hands together expectantly)
…thought experiments are fun party games for me.
*runs away in shame*
Or: that absolute bitch from church choir who tells everybody that actually, we should be singing “wenite adoremus,” because Ecclesiastical pronunciation is a corruption of the (some wanky term for Latin, in Latin).
Jeeesus yes. OH! And while we’re on religious stuff: the person who, at every fucking Christmas party, feels compelled to mention that Christmas isn’t probably even the historical birth of Jesus because blah blah lambs Mithras blah blah WE KNOW WE HAVE ALL TAKEN BASIC MYTHOLOGY COURSES SHUUUUUT UUUUUUP.
Every single Wodehouse character is deeply manipulative and self-absorbed and incapable of seeing anyone else as a whole person.
I think Jeeves fully understands all there is to understand about Bertie.
No offense to Jeeves, but: so does my cat.
I get around this by shipping them with each other. Honoria Glossop/Madeline Bassett OTP.
P.G. Wodehouse would be in my top three people I’d go back in history to meet.
“unable to see a male soul without wanting to get behind it and shove”
Lovely bit of misandry. Thanks for that.
Lots of different ways to shove, too. Nicely open. So to speak.
“The root of the trouble was that she was one of those intellectual girls, steeped to the gills in serious purpose, who are unable to see a male soul without wanting to get behind it and shove.’
it me
Wodehouse was an incredible author, managing to make a certain specific time, place, and social class accessible and funny to others. He’s a great satirist who poked fun at the ruling class, punching up during a time of immense social change and instability and he took a lot of flak for it.
I’m a vulgarian who has no idea who P. G. Wodehouse is, though I can hear my mother saying his name in my head for some reason, and this was still thoroughly enjoyable.
Then dear heavens stop what you are doing and read a Jeeves story. And/or watch Jeeves and Wooster – so much silliness brought to you by Toast favorites Fry and Laurie!
I am crying in front of my laptop. The Russian peasant one in particular. I wanted to share my favorite Wooster “joke” but can’t find the version from the book online, only the TV script which is much less funny.
Does anyone remember the one where he is telling a joke to several aunts about 3 deaf chaps on a train?
I don’t have the exact quote at hand, but it’s something like–
(chap at the railroad station) “Can you tell me, is this Wembley?”
(second chap) “No, it’s Thursday”.
(third chap) “So am I– let’s have a drink!”
Yes!! And the best part is when one of the aunts is deaf and the joke has to be explained to her to complete stone cold silence- gold.
That whole sequence is indeed wonderful. I need to go back and read it again.
The first time I read that passage, it was the middle of the night and I shriek/yelp/laugh-cried myself to sleep reading it again and again. I think I was delirious by the end of that experience.
In “The Mating Season,” chapter 5, Bertie is pretending to be Gussie Fink-Nottle while visiting Esmond Haddock and his five aunts at Deverill Hall.
“Pray go on, Augustus.”
“It’s about these two deaf men in the train.”
“My sister Charlotte has the misfortune to be deaf. It is a great affliction.”
…Well, of course, this had damped the fire a bit…but it was too late now to take a bow and get off so I had at it.
“Well, there were these two deaf chaps in the train, don’t you know, and it stopped at Wembley and one of them looked out of the window and said ‘This is Wembley,’ and the other said ‘I thought it was Thursday’ and the first chap said ‘Yes, so am I.’ ”
I hadn’t much hope. Right from the start something had seemed to whisper in my ear that I was about to lay an egg.
‘I wonder if I might draw your attention to an observation of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius? He said: “Does anything befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny of the Universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great web.”‘
I breathed a bit stertorously. ‘He said that, did he?’
‘Yes, sir.
‘Well, you can tell him from me he’s an ass.”
BERTIE. I love Aurelius but I love Bertie more.
“You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.”
Jeeves, keeping Bertie from becoming That Bro (because while there’s value in Nietzche, it’s not for Bertie).
THERE IS VALUE IN NOT READING NIETZSCHE ALSO
This is valid.
Forever scarred from being caught at the age of 8 reading Nietzsche in my most imperious tone to the neighborhood kids. My father was overjoyed! Look at me! I was a genius! He told everyone about it!
I didn’t dare tell him we were playing “school” and the book was just laying there at the top of a pile.
The other day I told my cousin that I wouldn’t recommend Radiolab to our OTHER cousin who has just discovered podcasts. I had a convoluted explanation why but it turns out, the reason why was ‘it is fundamentally unsound’ and I don’t want her to become That Bro (there’s value in it, but it’s not for her)
The dangers of literature? If you’re a Bertie Wooster type perhaps, but what about Jeeves? He who always fixes everything, because he’s so wise, is portrayed as extremely well read.
no, reading is bad, official toast stance
Bertie trying to remember poems is best Bertie. From Jeeves Takes Charge:
“I remember, as a kid, having to learn by heart a poem about a bird by the name of Eugene Aram, who had the deuce of a job in this respect. All I can recall of the actual poetry is the bit that goes:
Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tumty-tum, I slew him, tum-tum-tum!”
That and his Scripture prize.
“If that man’s pockets, as he entered the examination-room, were not stuffed to bursting-point with lists of the kings of Judah—-“
SPINK-BOTTLE
Anyone who has not read Gussy’s drunken speech (shame on you) may read it here: http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/P_G_Wodehouse/Righ…
“We Scripture-knowledge sharks stick together.”
Thank you, I am having a lovely morning due to this.
Any mention of Wodehouse leaves me completely gruntled.
it’s from the mating season: http://www.2kuaihuo.com/a/xuexi/201406-66226_16.h…
Not related to literature, sadly, but my favorite bit of Wodehouse:
“Bridmouth-on-Sea is noted for its invigorating air. Corpses at Bridmouth-on-Sea leap from their biers and dance around the maypole”.
The dangers of literature, is it?
“My Aunt Dahlia, who runs a woman’s paper called Milady’s Boudoir, had recently backed me into a corner and made me promise to write her a few words for her “Husbands and Brothers” page on “What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing”. I believe in encouraging aunts, when deserving; and, as there are many worse eggs than her knocking about the metrop, I had consented blithely. But I give you my honest word that if I had had the foggiest notion of what I was letting myself in for, not even a nephew’s devotion would have kept me from giving her the raspberry. A deuce of a job it had been, taxing the physique to the utmost. I don’t wonder now that all these author blokes have bald heads and faces like birds who have suffered.”
I used to have a cat named after Aunt Dahlia. She wasn’t the editor of a ladies’ journal, but you could hear her in five adjoining counties.
Lovely collection of quotations! The second one (from “Rodney Has a Relapse” in “Nothing Serious”) should say “squashy mauve leather”; I’ve checked both the British and American first editions to verify this.
yeah, well
“Expunge the poet Burns from your mind.”
The greatest sentence ever written. Overjoyed to see it again.
That bit on the tedium of “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is pure gold and is also now tattooed on my soul’s body forever.
and this brought you to the snapperoo or pay-off which was ‘someone had blundered.’
This is why I love Bertie Wooster. (In a completely platonic way, as neither he nor I are the marrying kind.)
it occurs to me that toast readers, who tend to like wodehouse and also be interested in The Eldritch, would appreciate this collection of stories: a pretty mouth, the first story of which is written in a wodehousian style. usually i am highly skeptical of this sort of imitation but in this case i think she gets it absolutely correct.
Well, it may be that he didn’t know everything in the world, but he sure had Tennyson’s number, there’s no question about that.
the sequence of telegrams between Aunt Dahlia & Bertie (later including Gussie as well) at the beginning of “Right Ho, Jeeves” is the most sublime sequence of literature ever written, imo. An excerpt:
“On consulting engagement book find impossible come Brinkley Court. Deeply regret. Toodle-oo. Bertie.
Hers in reply stuck a sinister note:
Oh, so it’s like that, is it? You and your engagement book, indeed. Deeply regret my foot. Let me tell you, my lad, that you will regret it a jolly sight more deeply if you don’t come down. If you imagine for one moment that you are going to get out of distributing those prizes, you are very much mistaken. Deeply regret Brinkley Court hundred miles from London, as unable hit you with a brick. Love. Travers.”
Aunt Dahlia is my hero and life-coach.
Tinkety-tonk, Bertie!
It makes me laugh every time.
Do I have to read Wooster, now?
I read Sayers before I tried any Wodehouse and I now realise I found it confusing because they are backwards to each other. But I DO love Freddy Arbuthnot so why wouldn’t I read a book about him – they do appear to be the same character. Does anyone know if that’s a reference or just because the nobility was lousy with that kind of dude?
I feel the need to point out that my username is from Sayers, not Wodehouse, because I specifically chose it because I feel that the Dowager Duchess has a similar attitude to reading to me. From ‘Busman’s Honeymoon’:
“Was reading The Stars Look Down (Mem. very depressing, and not what I expected from the title—think I must have had a Christmas carol in mind, but remember now it has something to do with the Holy Sepulchre—must ask Peter and make sure)
…. Tried The Stars Look Down again, and found it full of most unpleasant people….
Hope all is really well with them—must stop now and try to get some sleep or shall be a rag in the morning. Find The Stars Look Down not quite soothing enough for a bed-book—will fall back on Through the Looking-Glass.”
Yes, Woodhouse is filthy with Freddy Arbuthnot types, only much, much funnier.
Also, I have read (listened to) Busman’s Honeymoon so many times as to have practically memorized the first epistolary/diary portion. Love it so, so much.
I will never stop finding it weird that books from the first few decades of the 20th century insist on calling Scotland “North Britain”.
I laugh out loud just thinking about some Woodhouse gems, such as “Uncle Fred Flits By,” in which a reluctant Drones Club member and his uncle simply walk into a total stranger’s home to take shelter from the rain. The uncle, letting in all manner of visitors because this is “Liberty Hall,” invites his “guests” to tea and to “stick around and mop it up until their eyes bubble.” In first place though, is the Bertie/Jeeves short story (Jeeves and the Impending Doom) in which Bertie is stranded on a rooftop along with some government under-secretary his aunt wanted him to work for, unable to get down because a belligerent swan is nesting nearby. Jeeves to the rescue! Bertie: “Don’t say ‘very good.’ Come and help us. Mr. Filmer and I are treed, Jeeves.” “Very good, sir.” “Don’t keep saying ‘Very good.’ It’s nothing of the kind. The place is alive with swans.” Have to be read to be appreciated.
Oh Toasties, now I know I’ve found my people. I was pretty sure when I first saw the art stuff. Then when the links were all high-quality and included pictures of dogs. But now, OH NOW, we are talking about Jeeves and Wooster and people are quoting lines from the books and the movies and we are all laughing and oh yay.
My mister’s full name includes “Herbert” in the middle, and our son will be the 5th, so we’re constantly debating what to call this kiddo. I’m opting full on for “Bertie” but he’ll have none of it. He even said, “Is that from one of your silly books? Isn’t that guy sort of an idiot?” Ahhhh.
I desperately tried to get my friend to give her daughter the name of a Wodehouse character.
I even compiled a list!!!
ANGST. WOE. Why was I in a car all day yesterday and not elbows-deep in this delight??? This is my jaaaaaam
So this druid walks into a pub, (which thus becomes a woadhouse), the publican says ah Jeeves was just in for the a packet of PG Tips
Apparently there’s a gem of a passage in each package.
and therein lies a tale, …
Yes, Woodhouse is filthy with Freddy Arbuthnot types, only much, much funnier.
Also, I have read (listened to) Busman's Honeymoon so many times as to have practically memorized the first epistolary/diary portion. Love it so, so much.