Russian accent:

[William Ryan]

"You English are always so frivolous," said the Princess. "In Russia we 
have too many troubles to permit of our being lighthearted." (Saki, 
Reginald in Russia, 1910). Simples!
Will

On 13/12/2010 15:49, R. M. Cleminson wrote:
> It goes back beyond Gershwin, and certainly takes in the novel as well as the drama.  Consider this, from "Mr Standfast", by John Buchan, published in 1919 (the narrator is an army officer working undercover amongst pacifist intellectuals, and it is with his viewpoint that the reader is assumed to sympathise):
>
> Then they spoke of other things. Mostly of pictures or common friends, and a little of books. They paid no heed to me, which was fortunate, for I know nothing about these matters and didn't understand half the language. But once Miss Doria tried to bring me in. They were talking about some Russian novel - a name like Leprous Souls - and she asked me if I had read it. By a curious chance I had. It had drifted somehow into our dug-out on the Scarpe, and after we had all stuck in the second chapter it had disappeared in the mud to which it naturally belonged. The lady praised its 'poignancy' and 'grave beauty'. I assented and congratulated myself on my second escape - for if the question had been put to me I should have described it as God-forgotten twaddle.
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