The Arousing of Thought

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The Russian language, it cannot be denied, is very good. I even like it, but . . . only for swapping anecdotes and for use in referring to someone’s parentage.

The Russian language is like the English, which language is also very good, but only for discussing in “smoking rooms,” while sitting on an easy chair with legs outstretched on another, the topic of Australian frozen meat or, sometimes, the Indian question.

Both these languages are like the dish which is called in Moscow Soliankaand into which everything goes except you and me, in fact everything you wish, and even the “after-dinner Cheshma* of Scheherazade.

It must also be said that owing to all kinds of accidentally and perhaps not accidentally formed conditions of my youth, I have had to learn, and moreover very seriously and of course always with self-compulsion, to speak, read, and write a great many languages, and to such a degree of fluency, that if, in following this profession unexpectedly forced on me by Fate, I decided not to take advantage of the “automatism” which is acquired by practice, then I could perhaps write in any one of them.

But if I set out to use judiciously this automatically acquired automatism which has become easy from long practice, then I should have to write either in Russian or in Armenian, because the circumstances of my life during the last two or three decades have been such that I have had for intercourse with others to use, and consequently to have more practice in, just these two languages and to acquire an automatism in respect to them.

O the dickens! . . . Even in such a case, one of the aspects of my peculiar psyche, unusual for the normal man, has now already begun to torment the whole of me.

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parentage

The reference to parentage comes from the Russian tradition that the middle name of a Russian boy or girl (Vladimirovich or Vladimirovna, for example) is a patronymic, a reference to the name of the father. Gurdjieff himself had the patronymic Ivanovich.

smoking rooms

In England smoking rooms were specially designed rooms for smoking in private houses, where, after dinner, gentlemen might congregate away from the ladies to have intellectual conversations. In general they were furnished with velvet curtains and decorated in a masculine a way. Gentlemen would often change into a velvet smoking jacket and cap for the purpose (velvet absorbs smoke). This dates back to the 1850s when smoking Turkish tobacco became fashionable.

Australian frozen meat

From the late 1870s onwards, Britain shipped refrigerated meat from Australia and New Zealand. Both countries had small populations and could produce far more meat than was needed locally, while Britain's population was expanding and required a good deal of imported food. Shipping frozen meat halfway round the world seemed like an odd and imperfect solution, but it worked for many years.

The Indian question

Having conquered India, the British had the problem of administering it. It was the "jewel in the crown" of the British Empire. As well as spices, jewels and textiles, India had a huge population that could and did provide manpower for many things, including soldiering.

The Indian question was whether Britain had a right to rule India and whether it could continue to maintain the ability to exploit and administer such a large population (hundreds of millions). It was sometimes argued that Britain was "civilizing" India and had a duty to do SO "for the Indians' sake." Such an idea is now laughable.

Solianka

This is a thick spicy and sour Russian soup. It is the kind of dish to which leftovers are added. So, aside from the main ingredients (cured meats, olives, pickles, vegetables and beef broth) every leftover you can find in the kitchen can go in.

footnote: Cheshma*

The source language for this is almost certainly Persian/Farsi, since that is the language The 1001 Nights the series of tales told by Scheherzada was written in. Cheshm ha in Persian means "the eyes."
It does not mean "veil."

Gurdjieff may be making some implication, regarding Scheherazade, that her eyes veiled her "after dinner" intentions.

An alternative possibility for Cheshma is the Turkish Çesme which means "fountain." This seems less likely, because it is less close in sound to Cheshma.

dickens

The word "dickens," used by Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor ('I cannot tell what the dickens his name is"), is most probably a shortened form of "devilkins," meaning "little devils."