Terence Rattigan Archive

You see, my darling girl, it isn’t quite done over here to parade one’s emotions so publicly. We as a race, on the whole, prefer to—understate. Do you understand my darling?—I was guilty of bad form, especially as, I think I did, I cried a bit when I told them… Oh damn

Do you know what “le vice anglais”—the English vice—really is? Not flagellation, not pederasty—whatever the French believe it to be: it’s our refusal to admit our emotions. We think they demean us, I suppose. Terence Rattigan, In Praise of Love, (1973) Act II, p.537 Favorite0