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British Ornaments
Harper’s Weekly (March 1, 1913) : 24
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      Where do the things come from that are in every British house, yet which it is so difficult to believe were ever actually bought and paid for by any normal person? They could not have been stolen, their every outline induces absolute honesty, and as one is loath to believe that any ancestor had it in him to buy them, such an idea making the blood of the charming present generation to seem so unpleasantly tainted, there is but one alternative left. They must all have been presents. It speaks very badly, of course, for the friends of the family, but that is, after all, less compromising than a closer connection would be. Besides, it speaks of such Spartan kindliness that the presents were accepted and kept year after year without any embittering effect on the character. It shows the Briton so stonily independent of his surroundings. It shows the Briton so stonily independent of his surroundings.
      Even after a partial explanation is arrived at, extreme bewilderment is felt as to what possible occasion could have called forth such presents. They are so big and so numerous as to crowd one against the other. They denote a truly lavish generosity. Neither birthdays nor Christmas could warrant bright pink cheese dishes two feet high, or large dimpled mirrors trellised with painted pansies. Nothing but a wedding brings forth such really unique efforts. Weddings are necessarily accepted as the first cause, and we have before us the overpowering fact that British homes are principally furnished with wedding presents of past generations. One is relieved to know that it is circumstances rather than taste. Yet fancy a nation that has substituted for a love of the beautiful a loyalty to wedding presents!
      With despair in its heart the younger generation cries: “Why, oh, why were our mothers never admired by old gentlemen with exquisite taste?” It does seem too unfair to have cockle-shells forever fastened to one’s mantle by the Gordian knot of a romantic interest. Who knows but that it has a very debilitating effect? If one has not the courage to throw off the bondage of a picture of the Coliseum done in worsteds , one is a hopelessly brow-beaten soul. If it is not done for one’s own self-respect, the rising generation should be thought of. It is so bad for them to grow up with dead grasses and cockle-shells. Not that the two latter items of British interior decoration could have been wedding presents. The fact that they are not makes them an added complication. The hopeful younger generation, that has regarded them as representing the perfect start for a general clearing, is always told that romantic interest attaches to them. An old gentleman who admired their mother as a child brought them from foreign parts. With despair in its heart the younger generation cries: “Why, oh, why were our mothers never admired by old gentlemen with exquisite taste?” It does seem too unfair to have cockle-shells forever fastened to one’s mantle by the Gordian knot of a romantic interest.
      The remedy of moving of course occurs at once to the mind of an impartial outsider. No one ever moves in Great Britain, and the awful results are apparent at the first glance. All should be won over to the idea and a general removal started at once. It is the method that has kept most American houses so free of depressing ornaments. The remedy of moving of course occurs at once to the mind of an impartial outsider. No one ever moves in Great Britain There is nothing else that will bring things to a head. Without the desperate resolves brought on by moving one cannot cold-bloodedly say, “This is the perfect moment for me to annihilate those marble hands holding an inkstand.”
      It is so difficult to cover up one’s traces after one has had a fatal encounter with an ornament. Ornaments are never made of anything that will burn, and to attack with a hammer a bronze figure of a Roman Senator is quite futile. One must either bury it, in which case the gardener would accidentally dig it up, or send it to a jumble sale, in which case one is covered with shame as one feels sure the unhappy ornament will in some way declare that it was you who thus betrayed it. Any such simple method as putting it in the scrap-basket means that it confronts you on the kitchen dresser. After a while an ornament acquires a genuine pathos of its own. Hunted and hounded from obscure corner to obscure corner until you, the tormentor though you are, wish that there was a place especially provided where ornaments could be sent and kindly and quietly done away with.

      A public speaker not yet hardened to his practices experiences the oddest sensations. A sense of guilt possesses him that he is not looking any one in the eye. He longs for a huge composite eye to rise like a mirage of all the eyes in the hall and, floating in the air before him, stare at him and let him stare honestly back. It would seem so much more honorable to meet it steadfastly. So many eyes turned on him while he looks at none of them make countless simultaneous instances of shifty-eyed evasion. Yet, if by accident he meets the eyes of some total stranger, he looks away with frantic haste. It is taking a mean advantage to voice one’s scorn of society, and direct even a word of it point blank at a little lady with her hands crossed on her bag and her hat slightly on one side. Such an encounter makes one feel one has had a narrow escape from having one’s harm-less generalities turn into a personal attack on an innocent stranger .
      Cured of one’s desire for an eye to meet, one scatters sentences over a sea of meaningless heads Cured of one’s desire for an eye to meet, one scatters sentences over a sea of meaningless heads and hits the desk occasionally for the comfort of being reminded that something is real. There is apt to be some one in the front row who nods acquiescence all the time until one has a nervous dread he is trying to signal something. You look down, only to see a face so relaxed in unconsciousness that you glance away, feeling the discomfort of intrusion. A listening face is more than undressed, it is unkempt and deshabille. When the sensation of unreality has lulled one to the stage where nightmare is about to become quiet sleep, and you no longer see any reason why a voice you feel must be yours should alone break the heavy silence, the end of one’s speech appears a short distance off. With a flare of protest at having got into such a distressing predicament, one speaks with warmth, so that though the final sentence sounds like oratory, it is just the vigor that comes from whole-souled protest.
      Then suddenly, all in a minute, one is no longer an unhappy creature standing in lonely isolation while every one else sits in such private coziness. One is a comfortable human being sheltered in the embrace of a chair and facing, to one’s amazement, a lot of perfectly friendly people. The surprise is so great that one would rather like to begin one’s speech all over again.
 

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