From —And the Greeks by Charles Graves (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1930)

 

INTRODUCTION

 

IT is always best for an author who writes an Introduction to another author’s book to disarm the critics by explaining his qualifications to do so. Mine, in the present case, are unexceptionable.

My relations with the Graves family date back to the beginning of the century, when “Father O’Flynn” Graves stood me lunch one afternoon at the Savoy Grill. I had a healthy appetite in those days, and this must have cost him quite a bit. Then, last year during the ’Varsity match, Charles Graves, the writer of this book, gave me an expensive tea at Lord’s. What can I set against this hospitality? Robert Graves, in his Good-bye to all that, says that I once tipped him a penny with which to buy marshmallows, but I cannot remember the incident, and in any case I must still be heavily in the family’s debt. The least I can do, therefore, is to try to square things by saying a few words about this volume.

Inasmuch as Charles Graves, in his column “Looking at Life,” once informed two million readers of the Daily Mail that I had a face like a rubicund archbishop, I should prefer to devote my space to saying what I think Charles Graves looks like. I feel, however, that this is perhaps a personal matter, a thing to be threshed out between two strong men, and not of general interest to the public. So I will confine my remarks to the subject of what he has written.

As one who has visited many of the places mentioned by Mr. Graves, I must compliment him on his choice of a title. It is taken from the song made famous by the Duncan Sisters, and many of us can still recall the thrill with which we first heard “Greeks” rhymed with “seats” and, though here a faulty memory may be leading me to wrong the author, with “Heaven’s gates.” It is too long to repeat in full, and you cannot get the real effect of the thing unless you hear it sung by me in my bath, but a couple of specimen verses will give the underlying thought:

 

“I’m in love with the sweetest girl,
And the sweetest girl loves me;
But though she’s sweet and hard to beat
Our ideas don’t agree.
I like a good old English meal
With beer instead of wine,
My girl has quite different tastes
And she just loves to dine—

“With the Argentines, and the Portuguese, the Armenians, and the Greeks,
The Ritz and the Carlton, the Berkeley and Savoy, and other inexpensive spots she seeks;
She won’t come with me to the ABC,
She’d sooner go with the Argentines, and the Portuguese, and the Greeks.

“There’s the Taxi-cab, and the Omnibus, and the Cycle-car, and the Ford;
They are the motors you and I can own, the kind most anybody can afford;
But the Daimler car, and the Lancia, and the Rolls Royce racing freaks,
Ah! they all belong to the Argentines, and the Portuguese, and the Greeks.”

 

There is no doubt that Europe’s pleasure-resorts to-day are firmly in the grip of the Greeks, and their fellow-revellers, the Portuguese and the Argentines. It was, no doubt, to get away from them that Mr. Graves spent those sunny days at Margate, Blackpool, Southend, and at the circus. So far, these places seem to have exercised no appeal for them. After visiting the Continent, one notices their absence immediately at Southend. Nor have I ever met one at either Blackpool or Margate. What your Greek needs is a casino where he can sit at the big table and snort scornfully at people like myself who lack the nerve to say “Banco” if there is more than 10 louis on the board.

I cannot say whether they penetrate to places like St. Moritz. Probably not, I should imagine. I cannot see them ski-ing. But then ski-ing is a thing I cannot see any rational person doing. It seems to me that there is enough sadness in life without going out of your way to fasten long planks to your feet and jump off the side of mountains. And where does it get you? What does it prove? Mr. Graves evades these questions, and I cannot blame him.

And there is another point. From ski-ing to yodelling is but a short step. Do we want our children to become yodellers, to go about the place singing “Ti-ra-la-li-i-tu,” or something amounting to very much the same thing? Faugh! if I may use the expression. Keep away from Switzerland is my advice.

But you may safely visit any of the other places described by Mr. Graves, and you will find them, I think, very much as he has described them. The great merit of this book, in my opinion, is that it enables the public to study the Portuguese, the Argentines, and the Greeks, without the unpleasant necessity of having to go to Cannes or Deauville. An even better title for it would have been—

Greeking without Tears.

P. G. Wodehouse.

 

 

The 1931 American edition of —And the Greeks can be viewed online at the Internet Archive. Nearly all of the book is printed from the British plates, but the song lyrics quoted by Wodehouse are replaced (in a slightly different typeface) to more closely match the American sheet music.

The sheet music for the 1920 song from which the title comes is at Wikimedia.

A performance of the song from 1922, sung by Ed Meeker, is at YouTube; there are slightly different words and additional verses.

Eddie Cantor’s recording is also on YouTube; he has additional verses as well. His diction is excellent (including a word or two not considered polite today); his pitch accuracy varies, but his singing style is endearing.

A performance circa 1920 by Nora Bayes is at YouTube; she doesn’t sing all verses, but screenshots of the sheet music show a verse beginning “I’m in love with the sweetest girl” as Wodehouse quotes it above.

In case the song seems to be uncomfortably denigrating immigrants, it’s worth noting the fourth chorus in the sheet music: “And a funny thing When we start to sing “My Country, ’tis of thee” None of us know the words but the Argentines, and the Portuguese and the Greeks.”