The stress of having to decide in a hurry
what to give to Gertrude and Milly just when I thought I'd got the whole
question nicely off my mind completely ruined my Christmas, and then the
awful monotony of the letters of thanks: 'Thank you so much for your
lovely flowers. It was so good of you to think of me.' Of course in the
majority of cases I hadn't thought about the recipients at all; their
names were down in my list of 'people who must not be left out.' If I
trusted to remembering them there would be some awful sins of omission."
"The trouble is," said Clovis to his aunt, "all these days of intrusive
remembrance harp so persistently on one aspect of human nature and
entirely ignore the other; that is why they become so perfunctory and
artificial. At Christmas and New Year you are emboldened and encouraged
by convention to send gushing messages of optimistic goodwill and servile
affection to people whom you would scarcely ask to lunch unless some one
else had failed you at the last moment; if you are supping at a
restaurant on New Year's Eve you are permitted and expected to join hands
and sing 'For Auld Lang Syne' with strangers whom you have never seen
before and never want to see again. But no licence is allowed in the
opposite direction."
"Opposite direction; what opposite direction?" queried Mrs. Thackenbury.
"There is no outlet for demonstrating your feelings towards people whom
you simply loathe. That is really the crying need of our modern
civilisation.
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