Leonid Asninadded a note 10 years ago

The English are so nice

by D.H. Lawrence

The English are so nice

so awfully nice

they are the nicest people in the world.

And what's more, they're very nice about being nice

about your being nice as well!

If you're not nice they soon make you feel it.

Americans and French and Germans and so on

they're all very well

but they're not really nice, you know.

They're not nice in our sense of the word, are they now?

That's why one doesn't have to take them seriously.

We must be nice to them, of course,

of course, naturally.

But it doesn't really matter what you say to them,

they don't really understand

you can just say anything to them:

be nice, you know, just nice

but you must never take them seriously, they wouldn't understand,

just be nice, you know! Oh, fairly nice,

not too nice of course, they take advantage

but nice enough, just nice enough

to let them feel they're not quite as nice as they might be.