Vita Sackville-West: Selected Writings

by Vita Sackville-West

  Sentimentally, we may linger over some of the lovely place-names: Sutton Valence, Appledore, Stone-cum-Ebony, Capel-leFerne, Damian in the Blean, and the three Boughtons, Aluph, Malherbe, and Monchelsea. Historically our associations need fear competition with no other county: four of the Cinque Ports are ours, the Pilgrims’ Way, and majestic Canterbury. We have plenty of food for pride, either as men of Kent or Kentish men.

  But how true, in actual fact, is this idyllic picture? We all know the optimistically misleading style of the average guidebook, in which we are conducted by the enthusiastic author from one enchanted spot to another, little paradises of rural retirement, as secluded as when Cobbett passed between our meadows on his famous rides. Here is nothing, if the author is to be believed, to mar the prospect or rudely to jerk the dreaming mind. Every now and then, of course, the author gets confronted by some evidence of ugly utilitarian modernity to which he can blind neither himself nor his readers, and then in a fine indignation he lets himself go in several pages of lamentation, leaving us with the impression that these eyesores are of rare and strictly local occurrence, restricted to a few square miles or acres of victimised landscape, unlikely to impose themselves on a smaller scale on the happy wanderer who has the privilege of following his guidance down the byways. How far, I wonder, have I been guilty of giving the same misleading impression? One must be strict in these matters, even at the cost of some nasty truths.

  Let me admit, then, that I have dwelt on the favoured corners and have left unmentioned those which one would rather pass with averted eyes. There is no denying that parts of Kent are dangerously near to London, and that the progressive spirit of the Southern Railway has brought them within a point of accessibility which can only be called suburban. The railway company, the road-makers, and the building societies have worked together in a morticed harmony which, applied to international problems, would soon produce a desirable settlement of world affairs. The owners of the land, acting either under the stress of financial compulsion or allured by the temptation of a quick and certain profit, have lent their co-operation by large sales of property to enterprising speculators. On the part of all concerned there has been a general agreement to “develop” the residential possibilities of one of England’s loveliest counties. The only pity is that under this process of development the country should so rapidly be ceasing to be lovely.

  It is necessary, today to find exactly where to go in order to find the unspoilt beauty where the true country-lover may rest his soul. My only plea in defence of my own veracity is that such retreats do still exist in Kent, more generously than the frequenter of main roads could possibly imagine.

  We who care about such things view with alarm the spread of what we can only regard as damage. Daily, we see our fine trees being felled and their place taken by concrete posts slung with chains in front of shoddy buildings. Screaming red roofs and half-timber (no more solid than plywood) spring into being amongst our mellow cottages. Small wonder that we ask ourselves where it is going to stop, or, in a more practical spirit, what can possibly be done about it.

  We do not wish to be reactionary or to deny the necessity of modern demands. Accommodation must be found, both for the working-man whose legitimate business keeps him to the district and for the daily-breaders and the weekenders whose desire is for a “cottage in the country.” The natural consequences of these needs appear respectively in the form of council cottages and the small villa or bungalow. To the credit of the local councils it must be said that their productions are frequently of decent design, workmanlike construction, and aesthetically quite creditable. They could be better, of course, but they could also be a great deal worse. The same credit can scarcely be given to the large-scale contractors who supply the myriads of small “homes” so temptingly offered on easy terms, nor to those members of the public who snap them up so quickly that the advertisement board which was there yesterday will be gone by to-morrow. For this standardised trash I could wish only one fate: that it should all be miraculously transported and dumped as one large new city in the plumb Middle West of America.

  Let me not be misunderstood. I recognise fully that “development” must take place; that sellers of land and contractors must make their profits; that the new owner and occupier must be satisfied as to convenience and cheapness. But still I wonder whether the outcome of all these separate requirements need be of such unexceptionable hideousness? I have heard it said that the whole trouble arises because there is no central control, and that the present haphazard system can produce only what it does actually produce. I have even heard it suggested that an official committee of supervision for the whole country should be appointed under the auspices of the Office of Works. The men whom I privately heard making this suggestion were Lord Curzon and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, two very different types of men, the patrician and the politician, yet both inspired by the same wish to preserve the beauty of their country. There is much to be said for such a scheme, but there are also a great many obvious objections to raise against it. In its favour it may be said that the taste and experience of an expert advisory board would in the aggregate be better and more valuable than the taste of the average builder and of the public for whom he caters; against it may be said that in matters of taste few men with strong prejudices agree (and from such men the advisory board would presumably be drawn) and that one generation would almost certainly condemn the voice of the other. It is also evident that the indignation aroused by the restrictions necessarily imposed by such a board would be extreme, for our national character comprises a strong dislike of interference in our private affairs, and in a non-totalitarian state it is difficult to believe that a man would tolerate dictation in so private and personal a matter as the choice of his own home. If he likes bow-windows with stained glass, sham beams, or scarlet roofing, what authority can venture to forbid him to have it? The only appeal is to his own discretion and sense of fitness; but the sad truth is that the taste of the public is demonstrably bad. It prefers the ornate to the simple, the pretentious to the modest, and the consequence is that the small margin available in the estimate goes into something showy rather than into the honest domestic architecture whose survivals provide one of the minor beauties of our country. It seems only a foolishly Utopian dream to hope to raise the standard by even the most tactful methods of propaganda, yet the fact remains that a change of heart in the public alone would produce a change of method in the builder.

  It appears to me that something might be done by organising open competitions among the regional architects. As men familiar with the district they would have a good chance of understanding its needs, both practical and aesthetic: the treatment of brick, stone, plaster, tiles, or thatch, as the case might be, would come naturally to them as part of their daily life. The winning entries in these competitions should be displayed as a kind of bait to the public in several ways, either by photographs of the design in local papers, or exhibited in the post offices, or, best of all, as actual constructions to be let or sold. It is conceivable that with a de facto example before their eyes, some prospective purchasers might turn from the monstrosities to which at present they are offered no alternative, and where some lead the way others might follow. There is no real reason why a presentable house or cottage should not be erected conveniently and inexpensively, nor should the solution unduly tax the ingenuity of the designer. His scope would indeed be varied and extensive, for apart from private dwellings the public requirements are great, and in the creation of new streets, new suburbs, even new villages, I can imagine a lively excitement to an inventive man. There is nothing necessarily to be said against the garden-city, of which indeed one has appreciated some attractive examples; the garden-village, in the country, complete with church, school, shops, and even a central community garden as well as gardens to the individual houses, might invite the envy of strangers from miles around and cause us to forget the shudder usually aroused by the mere sight of the words “building develop
ments.” It should also be possible, by the extension of such schemes, to concentrate activities in more definite areas, instead of letting them straggle in their present happy-go-lucky fashion all over the place.

  The isolated bungaloid effort, admittedly, is difficult to cope with, since you cannot prevent a man from buying a plot of ground where he likes and putting up whatever he likes on it. It seems very strange that a man who has the taste and sensibility to wish to live among beautiful surroundings should not also have the taste to see that his own abode is probably the one thing which ruins them; but so it is. Here, again, the bait of a suitable, non-discordant sample might do more than many pages of written exhortation and entreaty. Many people, small blame to them, prefer the convenient modern dwelling to the picturesque but earwiggy old creeper-covered cottage where the alternative is either to crawl about bent double or else to bang your head on every lintel. There is no reason why they should not have it; there is also no reason why they should make it impossible to look across miles of country where nothing breaks the eye’s delight.

  Owls Brood

  I find something curiously touching in the quiet patience of a nesting bird. Day after day, at whatever hour one visits the nest, she is sitting there, close, warm, and lonely. One wonders what her thoughts may be; what fears may assail at the approach of footsteps; what deep instinct informs her of the final reward of her perseverance. The courage of some of these small creatures is indeed remarkable; I have inadvertently put my hand right on to a thrush, and had my finger sharply pecked by a blue-tit in a drainpipe. Not so a Little Owl, nesting in a hollow apple-tree I pass every morning on my way to breakfast. Long before I have reached the tree she is out and away, flying off with the peculiarly noiseless flight which suggests twilight far more than the dews of summer morning. Once or twice I have deceived her; crept up to her tree, and seen her cowering, head drawn back, ready to strike, a wicked eye looking up at me from the darkness. I was afraid she might desert her nest, a squalidly messy affair, but she shows no sign of doing so, and I look forward to the day when five recoiling babies will huddle at the bottom of the hollow trunk.

  Fog

  Leaning over the parapet of the Pont Neuf, I watched a few swirls of vapour drift above the river, so ethereal and milky that they really only added to the cleanliness and elegance of Paris. A Frenchman beside me thought otherwise. “Voilà,” he observed gloomily to his companion, “voilà ce qu’ à Londres on appelle le fog.”

  I was amused by this remark, having a sudden vision of a midnight darkness descending on London at midday, diabolical with flares, congested with crawling traffic. There is a certain beauty in this black-and-red effect, however, although it may be denied to the choking yellow variety; and considerable beauty also in the white country fog, so long as it is not too thick. It must be transparent enough for us to discern the shapes of trees, their trunks cut off, so that nothing but the finely veined heads remain, untethered, as sometimes in a desert mirage the tops of mountains appear to float suspended above the solid earth. In this thin fog, familiar objects become invested with a new unreality: it is as though we were seeing them for the first time. Dissimili non sono che nei sembianti—a most profound remark. Even houses, the homes of men, become as suggestive as the unknown lives moving inside them. A side-road, opening and vanishing as we creep past, might lead into another and more desirable world. It is only when the shroud really comes down and we know that the thickening must deepen with the failing daylight, that fog turns into the enemy, obliterating, instead of enchanting, our way.

  Since such disadvantages are likely, indeed certain, to overwhelm our island at intervals during six months of every year, upsetting the arrangements of thousands and even throwing them into actual danger, why may we not be given white kerb-stones along our country roads? The device is obvious and relatively inexpensive. There would be no need for the extravagance of a running kerb everywhere; white, painted, upright stones, like miniature milestones, placed every few yards would be of enormous value to the motorist in fog. One knows the difficulty of trying to follow a grass verge; one knows also with what relief one hails a mere white central line. Now in Italy, where the peril of fog is practically nil, many of the main roads and bridges are ornamented by black and white striped stones, running for miles, for no reason that I can see except pure bravura. If Italy can afford this luxury, why can we in England not afford a similar necessity?

  Gadgets

  I mistrust gadgets, generally speaking. They seldom work. The proved, old-fashioned tool is usually better and it is safer to stick to it. I thus make a rule of throwing all tempting catalogues of gardening gadgets straight into the wastepaper basket, not daring to examine them first, because I know that if I examine them I shall fall. It will mean only that I shall with some trouble obtain a postal order for 10s. 6d., to acquire an object which will speedily join similar objects rusting in the tool shed. It should be clear from this that my mistrust of gadgets is equalled only by my weakness for them and that no amount of experience can make me find them anything but irresistible.

  Nevertheless this attitude may be ungrateful, for there are certain gadgets which have been my companions for so long that I have ceased to think of them under that name. There is the walking-stick shaped like a golf-club with a cutting edge to slash down thistles; you can do it without pausing as you walk, and not only does it control the thistles but provides a harmless outlet for ill-temper. Then there is the long narrow trowel of stainless steel and its associate the two-pronged hand fork, both unrivalled for weeding in between small plants, though perhaps there is no tool so well adapted for this purpose as the old table knife with the stump of a broken blade. There is the little wheel on the long handle, like a child’s toy, which you push before you and which twinkles round, cutting the verge of the grass as it goes. Above all, there is the widger, the neatest, slimmest, and cheapest of all gadgets to carry in the pocket. Officially the widger is Patent No. 828793, but it owes (I believe) its more personal name to the ingenuity of Mr. Clarence Elliott, whose racy gardening style ought to be more widely appreciated. He invented the widger, its name, and the verb to widge, which, although not exactly onomatopoeic, suggests very successfully the action of prising up—you widge up a weed, or widge up a caked bit of soil for the purpose of aerating it—all very necessary operations which before the arrival of the widger were sometimes awkward to perform. This small sleek object, four inches long, slides into the pocket, no more cumbersome than a pencil, and may be put to many uses. Screwdriver, toothpick, letter-opener, widger, it fulfils all functions throughout the day. Its creator, Mr. Elliot, I observe, spells it sometimes with a y: wydger, no doubt on the analogy of Blake’s Tyger, just to make it seem more unusual. Whatever the spelling, it is the perfect gadget.

  What an odd little word “gadget” is, almost a gadget in itself, so small and useful. Its origin is obscure and it is believed not to appear in print before 1886. Yet it is not, as might be thought, an Americanism. It appears as an expression used chiefly by seamen, meaning any small tool, contrivance, or piece of mechanism not dignified by any specific name; a whatnot, in fact, a chicken-fixing, a gill-guy, a timmey-noggy, a wim-wom. I commend these agreeable synonyms to Mr. Clarence Elliott’s notice, and at the same time record my gratitude for his revival of that other sea-faring word, manavelins. I wonder how many English-speaking people are familiar with its meaning?

  Note from another country: Tuscany

  Once when I made the mistake of living in London somebody wrote to me in a charmingly old-fashioned writing, with a great many capital letters and underlinings, saying: “What a Torment it must be for you to live in a Town, seeing nothing but Houses and Advertisements.” This might seem to be a simple saying, but it sank into me and made a stain, so that I wondered about people: how many of them, who lived in towns, really saw nothing but houses and advertisements? and how many of them who led a more retired life, built up for themselves a whole inner existence out of
tiny but immensely significant occurrences—Montaigne, for instance, was obviously such a one, to whom even a new thought was an event; and in the permanent mood of an intense inward excitement he took to his essays, as the daily purgation of a mind which must find some outlet, so intoxicating were the discoveries made in solitude, and came to the conclusion that it is exceedingly difficult to say what one means. My copy of Montaigne says on the fly-leaf: “Mary Jones, her Husband’s Gift 1751, price 14s. the three Volumes.” I like to reconstruct that Mary Jones. To her, her husband, spelt with a capital letter, was a fact; and his gift, also spelt with a capital letter, was an event: Her Husband presented her with the Gift of Montaigne’s Essays, nicely bound in brown leather, but on what occasion she does not say: not an anniversary, surely, or the appended date would have been more specific than merely 1751: no, it must have been an occasional gift, an unbirthday present, on a stray day of the year; perhaps he had been cross to her in the morning, and, sensible of remorse, returned home in the evening with the gift under his arm, who knows? And the cost of the gift, he must have told her that; let it drop, as it were: fourteen shillings! else how should she have known, as know she evidently did, for the sum is entered in the same handwriting. Or was that writing his, not hers? We shall never know, nor shall we know whether the acquisition or the perusal of that Montaigne represented an adventure, a milestone in the life of Mary Jones; all that we can know is that the gift at some time, perhaps at her death, passed from her possession into that of Thomas Sedgwick Whalley, of Rendip Lodge, whose bookplate adorns the end-paper and then comes my name, with that of the friend who gave me the book: a whole little palimpsest of lives, superimposed one on another in the foxed old volume: Montaigne himself, Mary Jones, Mr. Whalley, and then finally me.