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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
Once Wodehouse transported Mike to Sedleigh from Wrykin and Mike hated it on sight, the god appeared. And from the very first the god began to send up not only Sedleigh but public schools and the public school story:
‘Hullo’, he said
He spoke in a tired voice.
‘Hullo’, said Mike.
‘Take a seat’, said the immaculate one. ‘If you don’t mind dirtying your bags, that’s to say. Personally, I don’t see any prospect of ever sitting down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use these chairs as mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home. That sort of idea. My name’, he added pensively, ‘is Smith. What’s yours ?’
‘Jackson’, said Mike.
‘Are you the Bully, the Pride of the School, or the Boy who is Led Astray and takes to Drink in Chapter Sixteen ?’
‘The last, for choice’, said Mike, ‘but I’ve only just arrived, so I don’t know’.
‘The boy—what will he become? Are you new here, too, then?’
‘Yes! Why, are you new?’
‘Do I look as if I belonged here? I’m the latest import. Sit down on yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the way, before I start, there’s just one thing. If you ever have occasion to write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name? P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don’t care for Smythe. My father’s content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but I’ve decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty. The resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on the back of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert (though I hope you won’t), or simply Smith, the P not being sounded. Cp. the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar miss-in-baulk. See?’
1 Harrow elicits some sardonic tributes in Pigs Have Wings. Eton is practically carved up in Heavy Weather, as being the origin of Ronnie Fish at his worst. The former allegedly gives Harrow best, but see ‘The Awful Gladness of the Mater’: ‘Roland … had been educated at an inferior school—Harrow, or some such name, Dudley understood that it was called’ (World of Mulliner, 245).
2 In fact, it is Mr Downing, the hostile master, who makes elephantine efforts at Holmesian investigation (World of Psmith, 80‐99).
3 Colin Watson, Snobbery With Violence (1971) is good on tendencies of the period, but is a little inclined to argue by assertion and to use insufficient source‐material. The debate at the moment is otherwise bogged down in tedious repetition of the following views: (A) that everybody was racist; (B) that nobody was. Accordingly, I have taken some trouble about this question, not a matter for overwhelming attention in a discussion of Wodehouse. I am depressed by such signs of the times as David Daniell, The Interpreter's House (1975) which seeks to argue that (a) some of John Buchan's best friends were Jews, (b) he supported Zionism, (c) his nasty remarks about Jews are made by his characters, not him. (a) need not detain us. (b) reminds us that many anti‐Semites were delighted at the idea of getting the Jews somewhere else. (c) has a point—from Shakespeare to the present, countless good men have been unjustly tarred with the language they give characters. But Buchan's anti‐Semites are all intended to be very sympathetic figures. Mr Blenkiron's remark ‘the whitest Jew I know’, prefaced by the remark that he disliked the race, is a detail in The Three Hostages not lightly explained away by any counsel for Buchan's defence. And one could hardly expect Buchan, an effective writer, to hold up the action of his novel by announcing, irrelevantly, that he didn't like Jews and now they could get back to the plot. An excellent way of conveying anti‐Semitism is to ascribe such views to a sympathetic character; which then enables one to employ the tactics of Pontius Pilate (who didn't like Jews either). The other defence trotted out is that everybody was like that, anyway. They were not.
4 Love Among the Chickens, J, 71‐72, 87‐88, 94. Ukridge (published 1924), J, 200, and ch. 8, passim. My views are a little tendentious here, given that Ukridge is still talking about Home Rule in the 1921 edition, which gives him an additional claim to uniqueness.
5 Does anyone need to be told that 1903 was the year of rejoicing when the Reichenbach gave up its dead?‘The Empty House’ is of course the first story of the Return.
6 My Man Jeeves (published 1919), Newnes, ch. 9. Carry On, Jeeves, J, ch. 5. World of Jeeves, 113, 146‐47 (ch. 10).
7 Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin, P, 58‐59 (ch. 5), 69 (ch. 6), Bachelors Anonymous, J, 76.
8 ‘Startling Dressiness of a Lift Attendant’, The Inimitable Jeeves, P, 100. ‘Jeeves and the Chump Cyril’, World of Jeeves, 95‐96.
9 My text here is from the extract in Week‐End Wodehouse, 416, 430. Interested readers will find the passages at the commencement of ‘Sinister Behaviour of a Yacht‐Owner’ and at the conclusion of ‘Start Smearing, Jeeves’, in the original.
10 Richard Hofstadter's provocative The Age of Reform would have been better integrated had he listened to Wodehouse, here. As it is, the Populist and Progressive sections are too little related to one another.
11 See Herbert Asbury, The Gangs of New York.
12 The parent‐novel of the Progressive era, Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward 2000‐1887; or, if Socialism Comes, owes the strength of its hold on the public to such a quality. It would be very interesting to know if Wodehouse had read it. The probabilities are that at least he encountered it.
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