Outono, ano sexto

Quinta de Santo Inácio

It is admitted, one may hope, that common things are never commonplace. (...) It is best perhaps to take in illustration some daily custom we have all heard despised as vulgar and trite. Take, for the sake of argument, the custom of talking about the weather. Stevenson calls it "the very nadir and scoff of good conversationalists". Now there are very deep reasons for talking about the weather, reasons that are delicate as well as deep; they lie in layer upon layer of stratified sagacity. First of all it is a gesture of primeval worship. The sky must be invoked; and to begin everything with the weather is a sort of pagan way of begining everything with prayer. (...) Then it is an expression of that elementary idea in politeness - equality. For the very word politeness is only the Greek for citizenship. (...) All good manners must obviously begin with the sharing of something in a simple style. Two men should share an umbrella; if they have not got an umbrella, they should at least share the rain, with all its rich potentialities of wit and philosophy. (...) This is the second element in the weather; its recognition of human equality in that we all have our hats under the dark blue spangled umbrella of the universe. Arising out of this is the third wholesome strain in the custom; I mean that it begins with the body and with our inevitable bodily brotherhood. All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. (...) Each human soul has in a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every man must descend into the flesh to meet mankind.

G.K. Chesterton, What's wrong with the world (1910)