English Eccentrics
Edith Sitwell
Penguin 1973
I am not sure that eccentricity is such a peculiar preserve of the English. I seem to remember a king of somewhere on the Continent who thought he was made of glass and acted accordingly. Then, too, the descriptions of the home life of Brigham Young, the much-married founder of the Mormon church, show how the rich vein of vanity and illusion, which lies at the heart of eccentricity, is alive wherever human life is to be found.
It is just that here in England eccentricity does seem to flourish. Perhaps it is just that we notice it more – as those in California are particularly attuned to allergies.* It certainly seems to me that the schoolmasters who tried to teach me many years ago were, at best, idiosyncratic. In the end, perhaps, it is an English trait to like a touch of the eccentric.
Edith Sitwell was not perhaps the first to notice this, but she certainly was one of the first to record and cherish so many examples of those who over many years have worshipped at vanity’s altar. (She was, after all, the only daughter of renowned eccentric and aristo, Sir George Sitwell.) English Eccentrics, first published in 1933, is perhaps the first of the coffee-table books, compilations of the kind which populate the shelves in the smallest room in the house and from whose close confines we occasionally hear the disconcerting laughter of a weekend guest for whom we have been waiting some time.
All kinds of eccentricity are noted by this witty, urbane and often unexplored writer. Hermits are present in great number (they were the de rigueur ornament of almost every stately home at one particular time, it would seem). Healers, men of learning, followers of fashion, travellers in exotic lands all are closely chaperoned within the 250 or so pages of the book, lest they escape and resume their firework-like careers.
To detail just one of the many amusing and wittily observed examples is to pluck a -single -blossom from an orchard of blooms, but I think a word must be said about Squire Mytton, the Regency rake and sporting obsessive who exhausted his fortune and his life by a reckless -disregard for almost everything except gentility.
To say that Jack Mytton (1796–1834) was keen on country pursuits is akin to describing Edmund Hillary as a man who liked a view. Mytton lived for sport, and didn’t understand anyone who did not share his passion. Generous (while ploughing through his fortune at a prodigious rate) to his friends, his animals and his tenants, he was loved by all whose lives he touched, except perhaps the poor unfortunate who, when riding with him in a gig, confessed to never having had an accident in one: ‘Were you ever much hurt then, by being upset in a gig?’ Mytton asked, and when his passenger admitted his lack of experience in the matter, was quickly enlightened as Mytton promptly directed the vehicle toward a closed gate, with predictable effect.
Mytton, who habitually dressed for the height of summer, was known to seek shelter for himself, and his horse as well, before the fire in any nearby cottage after a long day’s hunting in rough weather. Surely, he must have his own special place now in a heavenly replica of Rutland with innumerable horses and bottomless barrels of port.
If there is any justice in heaven, many of these flamboyant oddball heroes, the sad Beau Brummell in particular, will be restored to their youthful -glories. Meanwhile Edith Sitwell’s book allows them to live a while with us.
* Don’t 90% of the world’s allergy victims live in California? Or have I got that wrong?
