Intertextual Stoicism

By an effort of rigid self-control Emily kept her upper lip from trembling.
...
'Bertie,' she said, and she wanted to add: 'be kind to me.'
...
Miss Cissie Barnes had much to answer for. The memory of joyous unrepressed evenings with her influenced Curzon profoundly. He could not dream of treating his wife in the same way as he had once treated Cissie Barnes, with the unfortunate result that he made love to Emily with a stern aloofness that could raise no response in her virginal body. As Emily never expected anything else, however, not so much harm was done as might have been the case. Emily went through that part of the business as her necessary duty, like opening Girl Guides' displays or going to church.

As we've already discussed, Curzon and his ilk stand for the old guard of the English way of life, Edwardian heroes and all that. Their values dissolve toward the end of the century, ushering in a new set. And yet, in reading Vile Bodies, the chronicle of said new set (pointedly disparate from the staunch Edwardians), I found a strikingly similar bedroom scene (text to come once I retrieve my sadly lost book). Adam Symes and fiancee Nina Blount after a lengthy soiree of attempting to omit mention of the impending fact, stumble into the bedroom and out again. Nina's feelings prior to the event are just that of Emily Willoughby-Winter, and the same lukewarm sentiments remain after.
Truly, the Stoic legacy carries on beyond countless social barriers.
As Alan Quartermain says to Captain Nemo in Alan Moore's League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen*, "Pretending everything's tickety-boo is the great English pastime."



*the comic, not the film