The Fool Hath Said In His Heart That He Would Go To England And
Come Away And Write Something About His Impressions, But Never
Write A Single, Solitary Word About The Englishman's Tea-Drinking
Habit, Or The Englishman's Cricket-Playing Habit, Or The Englishman's
Lack Of A Sense Of Humor.
I was that fool.
But it cannot be done.
Lacking these things England would not be England. It would be
Hamlet without Hamlet or the Ghost or the wicked Queen or mad
Ophelia or her tiresome old pa; for most English life and the bulk
of English conversation center about sporting topics, with the
topic of cricket predominating. And at a given hour of the day
the wheels of the empire stop, and everybody in the empire - from
the king in the counting house counting up his money, to the maid
in the garden hanging out the clothes - drops what he or she may
be doing and imbibes tea until further orders. And what oceans of
tea they do imbibe!
There was an old lady who sat near us in a teashop one afternoon.
As well as might be judged by one who saw her in a sitting posture
only, she was no deeper than any other old lady of average dimensions;
but in rapid succession she tilted five large cups of piping hot
tea into herself and was starting on the sixth when we withdrew,
stunned by the spectacle. She must have been fearfully long-waisted.
I had a mental vision of her interior decorations - all fumed-oak
wainscotings and buff-leather hangings.
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