TRINKETS

Evening Star, Issue 22560, 30 January 1937, Page 2

TRINKETS

[Written by Mary Scott, for the ‘ Evening Star.’]

Mr Alan Pryce-Jones, author of ‘ Private Opinion: A Commonplace Book,’ makes use of the expression “ the trinket side of humanity: the charming phrase, the little pieces of thoughtfulness, the momentary generosity.” Ho is writing of the Viennese, but Peter Stucley, in reviewing the book, cleverly turns the phrase against its user. “ The expression applies aptly to the self revealed in this book. ... In communication he has considerable dexterity, but the surface of his writing is so brilliantly polished and over-polished that at last it becomes brittle.” , What exactly is our conception of a trinket? Something small, inconsiderable, prettv, of no intrinsic value, of the same family as the Victorian antimacassar, of the same artistic merit as the tripper’s curio. We have discarded them, together with many of the other fripperies that are not beautiful in themselves and complicate life unnecessarily. There is an implied artificiality about them, a touch of .triviality, a glitter that is a trifle meretricious. They suggest the Victorian woman hung about with chains and pendants in her room that was over-filled with furniture and bespattered with small ornaments. That, at any rate, is how Mr Stucley regards them. . But does he do them entire justice? Or rather, does he not under-value certain charming, if qualities in human nature by comparing them to these trivial ornaments? The disparaging reference in Mr Pryce-Jones’s book to “ charming phrases, little pieces of thoughtfulness, momentary generosity,” has been turned against him —and he deserved it. _He had no right to dismiss these qualities with so slighting a reference; they are more than trinkets —or, if he would thus describe them, then trinkets have more value than we moderns are disposed to attribute to them. In discarding the unnecessary and superficial we have cast away some things that are precious. Simplicity and directness of character are only enhanced in value by gentleness and consideration in the small everyday contacts of life. As for ‘ Private Opinion,’ the reviewer’s quarrel with it appears to be with its occasionally elaborate finish of manner and method. Certainly Mr Pryce-Jones is a little precious at times, lacking the ruggedness of speech and expression that is expected of a postwar generation, displaying often a little too much of the irritating “ Oxford manner,” together with a self-posses-sion detracts from sincerity. On the other hand, his book lays no claim to be anything but a slight literary and autobiographical excursion, and within these limits has definite charm and undeniable wit. And what more do you expect of “a commonplace book”? We must not require everybody—not even the younger literary generation—to be serious all the time. At least he has coined an excellent expression in “ the trinket side of humanity.” There is a great deal in our ordinary social contacts that we could relegate to that class, could even dispense with without loss, _ but not necessarily the qualities indicated by this author. We could sweep away as useless ornament a mass of little insincerities that cumber our daily path, that habit of invitation and counterinvitation that is accompanied on the one hand by an impatient “ I suppose I can’t leave her out,” and on the other by a reluctant “ I’ve got to ask her, as she asked me.” We could dispense with the tiresome necessity of keeping up appearances, of dressing beyond our means_ because our friends do so, of entertaining elaborately because we have been thus entertained. We could most restfully and happily go each our own way, doing nothing because other people see fit to do it, but only because we feel it right or pleasant to do so. What a number of useless little trinkets we could thus cast upon the scrap heap! That ruthlessness seems to me to be one of the saving graces of our modern youth. As a general rule they are so much more honest than our war generation dared to be. Brought up in a disillusioned world, they lost nmefi but they kept their own souls—and the right to their own lives. They had seen too much wast—of time, money, emotion, life itself—to be spendthrifts in their turn. Courageously, relentlessly, often selfishly, they have resolved to live their own lives. The only use they have found for their parents’ sense of social obligation is to hold it before them as a dreadful example ; the only good of grandmother’s heap of trinkets is to dispose of it to the best advantage as old gold. So eager are they to do so that they are apt to overlook the point that at least it was gold. Tiresome, perhaps, artificial, not particularly beautiful, often cumbersome—but not as false as they would have us believe. It had its uses, although to-day it may prove out-worn. In discarding the unnecessary in life and manner, they have been a trifle rash; some beauty has gone with the merely ornate to the scrap heap. The very qualities to which Mr Pryce-Jones makes somewhat slighting reference in the character of the Viennese are pleasant and not without .their uses. If they have no great motive power, at least they oil the wheels of life; if they plough no courageous furrow, yet they smooth the path of everyday intercourse with our fellow-creatures. Only the sternest and youngest of us is uninfluenced by “charming phrases”; only the truly self-sufficieint can afford to scorn “ little pieces of thoughtfulness ” ; only the intensely superior look the gifthorse of “monetary generosity” disparagingly in the mouth. The average person is pleased with these little attentions, provided that, though superficial and even temporary, they are not insincere. It is a good thing for us all to see ourselves and our problems face to face, and not through a glass darkly. It is equally essential to look at the world and its troubles through no rosecoloured spectacles. We should all come down to bedrock, but we need not live there all the time. We need not ignore the small and charming trinkets of humanity because its great problems oppress us. The person who remembers to be polite, thoughtful, charming, does not necessarily forget to be serious, whole-hearted, honest. Life is real and earnest enough in all truth to-day; it will ho the happier and the easier in the living if we are faithful—and pleasant—not only in great thngs but in small ones. We hear many impatient comments on “ the little niceties,” “ the fussy pettinesses ” of manners and speech a generation ago. Wo have done with all that. We are simple, rugged, sincere, forthright to-day. All the better—but need we be rude? There seems to be an increasing casualness creeping into our manners; there is undeniably an almost alarming roughness invading our speech. I have never been able to see that, to he honest, we must be crude. Nor do [ believe that the present habit of roughness is any more

sincere than the elaborate carefulness of the despised Victorian and Edwardian. This custom of using ugly American slang, of being as abrupt as possible to our elders, of larding our speech with possibly harmless but certainly very ugly oaths is only another affectation. After all, the trinket habit has to a certain extent returned; bargain counters are crowded with shilling jewellery to-day; it is perhaps prettier but it is no more useful and certainly not so valuable as the trinkets of a generation ago. They may have been less artistic, but they were usually of more precious metal. Trinkets have their use. At least they necessitate a certain attention to detail, a care, though possibly a s uperficial one, about appearances. In the same way, the little courtesies of conduct are valuable; we are more likely to think rightly and feel rightly if we make a habit of behaving r.ghtly. Hatreds and uglinesses of the heart do not flourish so raukly if the surface of the mind and manner is kept meticulously clean and weeded. A certain amount of camouflage is necessary and inevitable in all social intercourse; let ns make it of true gold and not of base metal.