A proposal is usually something of a ceremony. A man knows that he has a part to play and must play it in style. Most will look for the occasion or the setting that will enhance their chances, and lend sparkle to the start of the new relationship. They may feel the need to offer, promise, blandish or cajole. They try to sell themselves with a bit of a flourish, or at least to appear an attractive prospect at this great moment.

But others take quite the opposite attitude. They want to cut the cackle and get down to business with the absolute minimum of flummery. No long speeches, moonlight scenes or earth-shaking exchanges for them — the briefer the better is their motto. Just look in any national newspaper on St Valentine’s Day for the annual crop of simple proposals. ‘MARRY ME’ demand the current suitors. It’s impossible to tell from this if they ask in hope or despair, but they certainly ask in the shortest way possible.

If brevity is the soul of wit, there surely are some witty proposals on record.

This offer emanated from writer Gerald Kingsland, who had found his plans to go and live on a desert island thwarted for the want of a wife. This situation is not unfamiliar to butlers, MPs, rising young executives and suchlike — nothing like a little woman (the right little woman) to add lustre to a chap whose Tinkerbell quotient is a shade dim by itself.

Such was not Mr Kingsland’s case, who had no thought of impressing selection committees and their ilk on his desert island. ‘The wife, he hoped, could supply some help and comfort on the adventure,’ according to the Sunday Telegraph. He considerately put the word ‘wife‘ in inverted commas in his advert, to indicate that applicants did not have to marry him if they didn’t want to.

Naturally he was not short of candidates for this interesting post. The successful wife-to-be was Lucy Irvine, 25, and both lovely and talented enough to dispel any suspicion that she was only doing it to get out of the Inland Revenue, where she happened to be employed at the time. And yes, reader, she married him. Their Cupid, marriage- broker or go-between turned out to be the Australian Immigration Department, who would not issue visas, even for a desert island, to those who intended to live there in sin. So Mrs Kingsland Lucy became, and writer Gerald scored i00% success with his nifty proposal.

Other people, of course, don’t have such exotic lives, or such good reasons as Sop per word for keeping their offers to the minimum. But the reasons for not coming over all unnecessary can be just as valid. One old Warwickshire

Farmer says that he won his wife in ‘a straight plain downright way o’ dealin’

Well, us ‘ud courted near on four year. We wus fourteen when I seen ‘er first, bringin”er dad’s cows ‘ome over Meriden way. I seen ‘er like one o’ them roses, straw ‘at and all pink. I never wanted no other. So 1 courted her, like, and abided me time, and ‘twarn’t easy. ‘Er dad were an old devil. But I knew me time when it come, and 1 just looked ‘er in the eye and I says, ‘Sall us, old girl?’

‘Er wus eighteen then. And ‘er says “Ar’. And that wus it!

At the other end of the scale is the true-life story of a junior ornament of the British social scene, then in his final year as an undergraduate at Oxford. He was quite legendary for his stinginess with words. His entire repartee consisted of ‘What?’, ‘Har’, and ‘Get orf!’ When ribbed about this (which he was, brutally and often) he fell back on his ancient family motto. This was an encrusted hunk of Latin which roughly translated as ‘Let the other fellows shoot their mouths off, then whip in and make the killing’. Only briefer, of course.

Our hero laid this motto to his heart, and proceeded to act upon it when the moment came to make an offer of his triple-barrelled name and rather personable person to the lady of his choice. They were well matched, as she had the effervescent wit and sparkling personality of the average clam. But the taciturn speak each other’s language. So she knew what he meant when he took her out to Oxford’s poshest restaurant, ordered champagne, and just as it was being opened said to her in all simplicity:

Pop!
It might reflect more credit on his modesty had he popped the question as a question, rather than as a statement. But he didn’t. And like all good couples, they knew what they were doing. It never even occurred to her to enter him for the Guinness Book of Records with the Shortest Proposal Ever. She just accepted him with one languid lift of an eyebrow, and they’ve lived quietly ever since.

The favourite of the economy offerings, though, must be the superb Dickensian moment, `Barkis is willin‘ It’s interesting to notice that the line as it stands is quite neutral. You can even imagine it said by some horrible villain to one of Dickens’ innocent rosebud heroines: `Barkis is willin‘, m’ dear, ha ha!’ he goes with a dastardly twirl of his tash, as she shudders, clasps her little hands, and rolls her forget-me-not eyes heavenwards.

But Barkis is a horse of another colour. He’s not a man to force himself on any woman. It takes him all his time to hint at his intentions via young David: ‘If you was writin’ to her, p’raps you’d recollect to say that Barkis was willin‘: would you?’

Thus young David becomes the messenger boy, innocently writing these funny little missives to his nurse, Peggotty, which consist largely of `Barkis is willing, P.S. BARKIS IS WILLING!’

As in all true love stories, the course of Barkis’s wooing is neither smooth nor swift. He has to keep prompting his little Mercury to repeat the message. Later he has to prod the fair Peggotty, now promoted to ‘Clara’ in his affections, with the fresh instruction that:

When a man says he’s willin‘, its as much as to say, that man’s a-waitin’ for an answer.

Peggotty is not easily won. She vigorously drats his impudence, and protests that she wouldn’t have him if he was made of gold, not she! From which we gather that she has determined to accept him, and so she does. And they, too, live happily ever after.

As this suggests, a ready wit and constant flow of speech are by no means essential to the task of proposing. Men who don’t normally say boo to a goose can make a perfect success of their proposals, and of their subsequent marriages, too. And good luck to them all!

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