Well, I have got in the 'background' now, and the dramatis personæ too, but do they 'tone' with one another and how can I make them when they are all different? Is my Aunt Amelia in the least like Devonshire? Does her fydo remind one of its sweet scents? How can I reconcile my prehistoric uncle with the twentieth century?
I went to the Manor House to-day to consult him as to the 'atmosphere' of the century. Perhaps I can at any rate get that right. He wasn't particularly illuminating. I don't think clever people ever are. The more they know the less they can impart. There was a woman at school who tried to teach me German. She had heaps of letters after her name like Uncle Jasper has. She said the verb must go at the end, but she never could make me understand which part of the verb. I got so desperate at last that I used to say, 'gehabt gehaben geworden sein' at the end of every sentence and let her take her choice. That's partly why I left school when I did. The head mistress seemed to think parental control was what I needed.
So I said to Uncle Jasper, 'What would you say was the atmosphere of this century?'
'You have raised a point of particular perspicacity, Meg,' he replied. 'The atmosphere of this century is becoming increasingly materialistic, as is manifested in its deplorable lack of spirituality and intellectual originality. The universal diminution of intelligent ratiocination, the vacuous verbosity of a vacillating press; the decadent and open opportunism of our public men, the upward movement of the proletariat, inspired by the renegade and socialistic vampires that suck the national blood—all these are symptomatic of the recrudescence of materialism.'
He stopped to breathe here, and I felt I must say gehabt gehaben geworden sein. He doesn't always talk like that. Sometimes I think he does it to aggravate me, but I know anything modern upsets him. I offered to go with him to look at the Saxon work in the church, as it usually has a calming influence on him, but he said he was better and he hoped he had made himself clear!
When I got home I asked Nannie.
'The atmosphere of this century, dearie,' she said. 'Oh, the same as it's always been, I should think—three white frosts and a wet day, or three fine days and a thunderstorm.'
I observed that she had made a remark of particular perspicacity, and she asked me if I felt feverish. It is trying when I am trying to increase my vocabulary. Still, on the whole she was helpful, for she said why didn't I do what I said I was going to and write of the things I know about. 'Tell about the Hickley woods and how you fell in the water, dearie.'
'But will the general public like that, Nannie?'
'I should think they'd prefer it to the stuff your uncle writes.'