Mr. Britling Sees It Through Read Online Free

It isn’t that we are simply backward in these things, we are antagonistic. The British mind has never really tolerated electricity; at least, not that sort of electricity that runs through wires. Too slippery and glib for it. Associates it with Italians and fluency generally, with Volta, Galvani, Marconi and so on. The proper British electricity is that high-grade useless long-sparking stuff you get by turning round a glass machine; stuff we used to call frictional electricity. Keep it in Leyden jars. … At Claverings here they still refuse to have electric bells. There was a row when the Solomonsons, who were tenants here for a time, tried to put them in. …”
    Mr. Direck had followed this cascade of remarks with a patient smile and a slowly nodding head. “What you say,” he said, “forms a very marked contrast indeed with the sort of thing that goes on in America. This friend of mine I was speaking of, the one who is connected with an automobile factory in Toledo——”
    â€œOf course,” Mr. Britling burst out again, “even conservatism isn’t an ultimate thing. After all, we and your enterprising friend at Toledo are very much the same blood. The conservatism, I mean, isn’t racial. And our earlier energy shows it isn’t in the air or in the soil. England has become unenterprising and sluggish because England has been so prosperous and comfortable. …”
    â€œExactly,” said Mr. Direck. “My friend of whom I was telling you was a man named Robinson, which indicates pretty clearly that he was of genuine English stock, and, if I may say so, quite of your build and complexion; racially, I should say, he was, well—very much what you are. …”
    Â§ 7
    This rally of Mr. Direck’s mind was suddenly interrupted.
    Mr. Britling stood up, and putting both hands to the sides of his mouth, shouted “Yi-ah! Aye-ya! Thea!” at unseen hearers.
    After shouting again several times, it became manifest that he had attracted the attention of two willing but deliberate labouring men. They emerged slowly, first as attentive heads, from the landscape. With their assistance the car was restored to the road again. Mr. Direck assisted manfully, and noted the respect that was given to Mr. Britling, and the shillings that fell to the men, with an intelligent detachment. They touched their hats, they called Mr. Britling “Sir.” They examined the car distantly but kindly. “Aint ’urt ’e, not a bit ’e ain’t, not reely,” said one encouragingly. And indeed except for a slight crumpling of the mud-guard and the detachment of the wire of one of the headlights the automobile was uninjured. Mr. Britling resumed his seat; Mr. Direck gravely and in silence got up beside him. They started with the usual convulsion, as though something had pricked the vehicle unexpectedly and shamefully behind. And from this point Mr. Britling, driving with meticulous care, got home without further mishap, excepting only that he scraped off some of the metal edge of his foot-board against the gate-post of his very agreeable garden.
    His family welcomed his safe return, visitor and all, with undisguised relief and admiration. A small boy appeared at the corner of the house, and then disappeared hastily again.
    â€œDaddy’s got back all right at last,” they heard him shouting to unseen hearers.
    Â§ 8
    Mr. Direck, though he was a little incommoded by the suppression of his story about Robinson—for when he had begun a thing he liked to finish it—found Mr. Britling’s household at once thoroughly British, quite un-American and a little difficult to follow. It had a quality that at first he could not define at all. Compared with anything he had ever seen in his life before it struck him as being—he found the word at last—sketchy. For instance, he was introduced to nobody except his hostess, and she was