g!" Besides,
the men and women who are in the race with you are usually such dreary
company. Either they are so naturally bad that they do not possess the
attraction of contrast or variety, or else they are so bitterly repentant
that one has to sit and endure from them long stories proving that they
are more sinned against than sinning, or that they all belong to old
"county families," or are the left-handed offspring of real earls. In
any case, one must needs open yet another bottle to endure the fiction to
the end.

No, I have long since come to the conclusion that most people don't
really enjoy themselves a bit when they are _determined_ to do so. They
only have a thoroughly "good time" unexpectedly, or when they oughtn't to
have it. Of course, there is always the question whether people are most
happy when they don't _look so_, and whether they are usually most
miserable when apparently smiling their delight. At any rate, if there
be one day, or days, in the whole year when all England looks utterly
miserable, it is on a fine Bank Holiday or at a picnic. Of course, the
newspapers will tell you, for example, that Hampstead Heath was
positively pink with happy, smiling faces. But if you did find yourself
in the midst of the Bank Holiday crush, you would be struck by the hot,
irritated, bored, and weary look of this "happy crowd." Even at the
Derby, the only people you see there who, if they are not happy, at least
look so, are those who have just come out of the saloon bar.
Occasionally, someone here or there will let the exuberance of his
"spirits" overflow, but he won't get much encouragement from the rest of
his listeners squashed together in the same char-a-banc. At the most
they will look at each other and smile in a half-discouraging manner, as
if to say, "Yes, dear, he _is_ very funny. But what a common man!" It
is all rather depressing. Only a street accident or standing in a queue
will make the majority of English people really animated. No wonder that
foreigners believe that we take our pleasures sadly. They only observe
us when we are out to enjoy ourselves. But if they could see us at a
funeral, or when we're suffering from cold feet, then they'd see us
smiling and singing! No wonder the French have never really recovered
from the gaiety of the British soldier as he went into battle. But if
they really want to see the average Britisher looking every bit as
phlegmatic as his Continental re